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Safe Remedies For Kids

 https://www.learntruehealth.com/safe-remedies-for-kids/

Her personal experience with postpartum depression led Dr. Erica Krumbeck to focus on postpartum depression (PPD) and maternal mental health. Listen on and find out true health gems about PPD, how to deal with it, her recommended supplementation, how she works (or not work) with vaccines, what to do with flu, ear infections, nutrition, sleep, and other big pieces of advice one can only get from a naturopathic pediatrician.

[00:00:03] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 351.

I am so excited about today’s guest. In fact, I announced in our Facebook group, the Learn True Heath Facebook group, that we’re having a naturopathic pediatrician on the show, and it exploded with comments. Within minutes, we got over 30 people commenting. It was just a huge explosion of questions.

I know you guys are really interested in learning from a holistic doctor when it comes to supporting the health and development of our children. Dr. Erica Krumbeck, welcome to the show.

[00:00:46] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.

[00:00:47] Ashley James: We’ve had some fun scheduling issues trying to get you on the show. I’ve been excited to have you on. Finally, the timing is right. I believe in divine intervention. I believe the universe brings forth the right interviews at the right time, so I know everyone listening, this is the information they are here to receive right now.

I’d love to start by learning a bit about you. Before we get into all the questions that the listeners have, I’d love to understand what had you want to, first of all, become a naturopath as opposed to becoming an M.D.? And then what had you wanted to specialize in pediatrics?

[00:01:24] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: That’s a great one. I’ll try to make it short. I’m sure everyone’s story is a very long story, but I started in undergrad as being a double art and biology major, and strangely enough, I wanted to do medical illustration. That was my goal in undergrad. Part way through undergrad, I realized that most medical illustrators spend their life in a cadaver lab, and that was not super exciting.

So I thought about nursing and medical school. I studied all through undergrad with all my buddies in OCAM and everything. We’re going to med school, and they were all taking their tests and everything. I took a little break. I thought that  I was going to eventually apply in med school, and I ended up doing an AmeriCorps program in the health care field in National Tennessee, and I hated it with a passion. It was painful to see the conventional medical approach. I was not happy with any aspect of it. And if we talked about divine intervention, that was probably completely divine intervention, too.

I spent two years in Nashville doing crazy, silly things like playing music and doing this AmeriCorps program and a bunch of other stuff with my soon-to-be, now husband. While I was there, my dad had a stroke back in Seattle, Washington, or Kirkland, Washington, right by Bastier. My childhood home is right behind Bastier University, where I ended up going to naturopathic school.

The long and the short of it with him is he did the whole conventional medical route for stroke treatment. At some point, he plateaued in therapy, basically physical therapy, and didn’t progress any further. At that point, you get kicked off insurance for future therapies, and my family ended up spending quite a lot of money out of pocket doing all these alternative therapies. He was doing acupuncture, [inaudible 00:03:36] therapy, anything in the alternative world, although interestingly not naturopathic medicine.

My dad wanted me to move home, so he wanted me to enroll in Bastier because his acupuncturist was a teacher there. It’s just funny the way the world works. I went and took a tour of the university before I knew anything about naturopathic medicine. I fell in love with the school. The thought process behind naturopathic medicine, before I knew what I was getting into and applied and got in, which I highly recommend not doing the approach that I did for future students because I didn’t know what I was getting into until I was multiple years through school.

I’d tell people in the future, be sure. It’s a huge investment of time and money. It’s a life-long career choice. But for me, it just happened to work out. For me, every day I was in school, I fell more and more in love with this medicine that I stumbled into, which was providential.

And then out of the same process, my husband ended up going to physical therapy school. From my dad having a stroke, it ended up with both of us being in medicine. It’s an interesting thing.

I thought I was going to work way more in mental health when I was in school than pediatrics. I had no focus on pediatrics. I just fell into it. I’m not sure how I fell into it. Somehow I fell into it and started doing a couple of well-child checks and remembering that “I love this. This is great.” You get to play when you’re with kids, and it’s super fun.

I ended up falling into peds, and then when I had my daughter, who’s now seven, I had a severe experience with postpartum depression. She had severe colic, too. That changed the whole course of my career to focus on postpartum depression and maternal mental health, which is so important. I feel like the circle came all the way around for me that I could treat mom’s postpartum and work in mental health even though it wasn’t the field that I thought was going to be in.

[00:06:07] Ashley James: Interesting. Is there a link between postpartum depression and colic?

[00:06:12] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I don’t know that that that’s been studied, but it makes sense. I mean, for her there’s obviously sleep deprivation as a pretty strong trigger for PPD. In her case, she was waking 10-12 times a night, screaming uncontrollably, could not be calmed in any circumstance. It’s stressful to have a child who’s suffering uncontrollably and to feel powerless in your ability to help your child. I don’t even know the best word—it’s a disempowering feeling and a terrifying feeling. I feel like I can relate to parents now going through something very scary because you can’t help the person that you are meant to help in your life. It sort of makes sense when you have your cortisol levels off the charts for nine months to a year. I don’t know how you could not end up having severe anxiety or depression.

[00:07:16] Ashley James: Absolutely. My son had some colic. He only woke us up six times a night, not 12 times.

[00:07:23] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: But at that point, what’s the difference between 12 and 6?

[00:07:26] Ashley James: Right. I definitely saw that sleep deprivation impacted me. I felt so grateful to have built a team of holistic practitioners around me during the pregnancy, so we had cranio. We had lots of homeopathy and pediatric acupuncture. I even had practitioners who became friends. They came to the house. All of it helped a little—diet and making these little fennel teas, rubbing his belly with essential oils—everything.

Homeopathy for me was the one that had the fastest and the best results, which I was constantly stunned by. But it wasn’t curative, so he still woke us up six times a night. But what a difference between my experience and a typical going to an M.D. experience, where the parents go to an M.D., and the child is possibly put on over-the-counter medication for gas and not guided to shift diet or other modalities that might help with the colic.

Even to this day, there’s not a very strong support structure for women who are suffering from post-partum depression. What do you do now when you work with families, and you see that there might be postpartum depression? What kind of advice do you have for those women?

[00:08:59] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I’m very vigilant about screening very quickly. I’m checking in with parents very often in that first couple of months of life and even beyond. I started using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening Questionnaire early on before that become standard of care. Now, I find most OBs, at least in Montana where I’m at, are using that regularly and having moms fill it out regularly. When I first started, no one had even thought about that.

I quickly got involved in the postpartum depression group here of providers and therapists, some of whom had their postpartum depression issues, and so they’re active in creating this group. It just exploded in terms of awareness, so now they’ve done everything.

One of my colleagues became a licensed clinical social worker and had her job at an OB’s office. She created this entire position for herself, and it’s only counseling for moms who have lost babies, who have postpartum depression, who’ve been working with infertility. It’s incredible. It’s been great.

For me, in my office, I’m often screening, but if there are any signs, I strongly recommend the women to schedule with me immediately. I always find room for them in my schedule. I tell them that. I just told a mom this morning that it’s newborns and them that take priority, and I tell women all the time that when mama goes down, the ship goes down. I’m more worried about the health and impact of the parent’s than I am the kid’s most of the time. I also strongly believe now that the purpose of the well child check is not so much to make sure that the child is healthy--I think that’s number two. It’s important, of course. That’s why we’re here. We’re going to weigh the baby, make sure they’re okay. But number one is to encourage the bond between the parents and the child, and that cannot happen without parents having good mental health. I screened quickly, and one of the first things that I’ll do with a woman who has postpartum depression is to get some basic blood work done.

Postpartum thyroiditis occurs in 5% of women. Postpartum depression occurs in about 20% of women, and there’s a really strong overlap there. I don’t think I’ve known any woman with postpartum thyroiditis that hasn’t had postpartum depression. It’s really important to find that and correct that early because it can make a world of difference.

And then we have so many tools as naturopathic doctors, anything from homeopathy to herbs, to nutrients. Basic nutrients, like a good quality prenatal and high-dose fish oil in about half of my patients—just those two alone will be enough to pull them out of postpartum depression or anxiety state. I could talk about that for a whole hour, too.

[00:12:10] Ashley James: I already told Dr. Erica that I would be having her on the show for multiple sessions because we’ve decided that we have so much that we could talk about.

[00:12:20] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah, I can’t stop. [laughs]

[00:12:22] Ashley James: Please don’t.

[00:12:23] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I stop in place, but it’s hard to.

[00:12:26] Ashley James: If someone is listening to this currently with postpartum depression, what actionable steps should she take today to help her get on the path? Should she schedule some sessions? She has a newborn, so it’s hard to leave the house and go for counseling. What are some critical things that she should do today to help herself get on the path to feeling better?

[00:12:54] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I’m going to take a step back and explain something super important first, and that’s the difference between baby blues and postpartum depression. Just as a warning, I might lose my train of thought and forget the question you asked. I want to go through this first because some women think that they have postpartum depression, and they don’t.

Eighty percent of women have what they call baby blues. I don’t like that name because it connotates something negative. What most women describe is the sensation of having every emotion simultaneously. They’re so happy they have their baby, “So why am I crying?” They’re crying, happy, joyful, exhausted, and it’s everything mixed. It feels completely overwhelming. They are just wondering, “What the world is going on?”

That classically happens shortly after birth. Usually, it peaks right around the same day that milk comes in, which is a good way to figure this out. That’s because of the hormone levels that have dramatically shifted. In pregnancy, we have high progesterone levels. We have estrogen levels.

Postpartum, those plummet quickly because the placenta holds that progesterone, and so the placenta comes out. We have less progesterone circulating. And then prolactin inhibits the production of all these hormones as well. Prolactin will peak right when milk comes in, and it’s just overwhelming. Plus we have fluid and blood pressure changes, and you’re usually sleep-deprived—it’s overwhelming.

Baby blues happen to 80% of women. It usually peaks on the day that milk comes in, and it’s typically gone by two weeks. If the symptoms are either not gone by two weeks or starting after two weeks or just continuing to go down, then we’re talking about more like a slide into postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, or something like that. Does that make sense?

[00:14:54] Ashley James: Absolutely. Someone who has postpartum depression might not have a newborn still. It might be a baby that’s three months old.

[00:15:02] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Exactly. The lowest the progesterone levels get is somewhere around three to four months postpartum. Usually, postpartum depression is at it’s worst at four months, and then slowly, slowly, slowly they start to come out of it.

Sometimes moms feel like they’re in the clear because maybe the baby is sleeping a little better, and then they can’t figure out what’s going on, and their progesterone levels are super low. It’s important to understand that progesterone act on our GABA receptors in our brain. It acts on the same receptors as Valium, so the postpartum state is like a Valium withdrawal state. Sometimes it helps women to understand that.

This isn’t the case for all women, but for a lot who tend to be anxious, they might feel better in pregnancy and then all of a sudden, the anxiety comes back, and it’s very severe postpartum, and that’s just from that progesterone state. So there are some women postpartum, the thyroid is looking good, but postpartum is pretty severe, we will do a trial of oral micronized progesterone to see if it works. It doesn’t work in all women, but the women it does work for, it’s very fast, and it’s very dramatic.

You might have seen that postpartum depression medication was recently approved by the FDA, like within the last couple of weeks. It’s 32,000 dollars, I believe, and it’s like a 72-hour infusion or something insane like that. It’s a pregnenolone or a progesterone analog. It binds on the same receptors.

It’s really silly because you have a 32,000 dollar medication, or you could give progesterone and pregnenolone, which are bio-identical and have the same effect.

[00:17:03] Ashley James: People can go to the health food store and buy topical progesterone cream. Is that the same?

[00:17:09] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: No, I would not recommend that. One, for some reason, oral micronized progesterone seems to have a better happy brain effect. I haven’t been able to figure out why exactly, but that was a trick taught to me when I was in school, and so I’ve been sticking with that. I would never recommend over-the-counter progesterone for a nursing mom. So you’d be careful about progesterone levels, and so I would want to get it either compounded by a pharmacy.

Even if for some reason you did do cream, I don’t think I’ve ever done cream for postpartum depression. I’ve always prescribed oral, and it’s covered by insurance usually, so if you can at least code creatively for it. It hasn’t been FDA-approved for postpartum depression, but if the progesterone levels are documented to be really low, you can code for that.

Most women do not have any inhibition of lactation with oral micronized progesterone. But I always recommend that it’s given under the supervision of a physician just in case that did happen. I’ve warned every woman I’ve ever put it on that it can, and I’ve never seen it happen. We know for sure that estrogen will inhibit lactation, which is why women are put on the mini pill postpartum, and not a combined oral birth control pill.

The mini pill is a progestin, and this is something that is not well known in conventional medicine. I had an argument with a woman who was teaching the postpartum course that I attended last year at St. Pat’s hospital here. She was talking about supplementing women with the mini pill. She couldn’t quite figure out why that wouldn’t help women with postpartum depression. A synthetic progestin that is in either birth control or the mini pill, so either a combined birth control pill or the mini pill inhibits our bodies’ progesterone but does not act on our happy brain receptors.

So it is actually worse, and that’s why Dr. Julian Brayton has this whole book called Beyond the Pills. Breast control pill has been around for decades now. Many women have complained about the side effects of depression. It was only up to a couple of years ago that they finally studied it and found that yes, sure enough, women who are on long-term oral contraceptives have higher rates of depression, and that could be two-fold.

One, they’re not making progesterone, so they don’t have the happy brain effect, and two, now we know of course that birth control pills deplete vitamin B6, which is a super important co-factor in making all our happy brain chemicals. It’s a double whammy. For that reason, I would ask women who are postpartum taking the mini pill that they be cautious about that. If they feel their mood is sleepy, they might want to stop the pill and do oral progesterone, but it is not good for birth control. It is not as reliable as a birth control method. You got to be a little careful.

[00:20:23] Ashley James: That’s interesting. I’ve had a few different interviews about birth control and all the nutrients it depletes from the body is pretty crazy. When you see the cons versus the pros, the cons are just way outnumbered that it affects our mental and emotional health, and of course, our physical health in the long term. Really scary.

Getting back to my question, if someone is listening to this, and they’ve heard you talk about baby blues versus postpartum, and they suspect they have some postpartum, or maybe they even have a diagnosis, what steps should they take right now? Should they go to their doctor and talk about getting on progesterone?

[00:21:09] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Number one, if you’ve got a naturopathic doctor near you, go to them first. Don’t go to your OB because half of the OBs are a loss. Five or six years ago, I didn't feel like our professionals were doing a great job with this at all. I don’t think that we were talking about it nearly enough. I don’t think we had enough options. Now, I feel like most of us who’ve done anything in women’s health feel pretty darn confident treating postpartum depression. If I have a colleague who doesn’t feel that way, you’re welcome to email me directly. But I feel like most of us feel pretty confident.

So go there first. If you don’t have a naturopathic doctor near you, you can go to your OB. I would request to have your thyroid checked, to get a complete blood count done and check on your iron levels. A lot of women do hemorrhage postpartum. Iron is yet another co-factor in making happy brain chemicals, and so if you feel exhausted, it could be anemia as well. And then I would request anti-TPO antibodies. Those are thyroid antibodies that are elevated in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and the postpartum onset of Hashimoto’s is super common, so I would definitely do that.

If you end up having elevated anti-TPO antibodies, your OB is not going to know what to do with you other than give you thyroid medications, so you need to go back to a naturopathic doctor anyway or read a lot. But I think that’s a smart place to start. I don’t know that many OBs truthfully that prescribed progesterone. The midwives in town here at least definitely do, so you might also want to contact the midwife who is much more familiar with this, and then be careful about self-prescribing supplements. It’s easy to get a good quality prenatal multi and high-dose fish oil on board, but a lot of the herbs and certain nutrients that we commonly use for depression are not necessarily safe in lactation. There are a lot of things that are not safe in pregnancy, and in lactation, we have a lot more options for treatment. But even things like St. John’s where I only use basically at the last case and usually not till babies are much bigger, so there is definitely some research that St. John’s can either cause colic in babies, or they can become sleepy, and so that’s not a great choice for a lot of women. 5HTP is a common depression supplement, and that has not been studied for safety even though I know a lot of midwives prescribe it. I’m not comfortable with that if that hasn’t been prescribed. There is just a lot that maybe is not super safe. I will often prescribe a basic B complex for a lot of women though, and one of the good professional brands. You don’t want an over-the-counter one for those, but that can help if you get a little extra – methyl B12 and metafolate. That can perk women up right away.

I would also wait until the baby is a little bit bigger, and so in those first couple of weeks, that’s not going to be appropriate. The baby is going to get stimulated and agitated by that. It’s usually at least a month but often when the baby is two or three months old.

[00:24:32] Ashley James: You mentioned fish oil. I’m such a believer in omegas. What is a good dose for an adult—6 grams a day, 9 grams a day? What are your thoughts on that?

[00:24:56] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: There has been a couple of studies. One, women who have better omega-3 levels in pregnancy have lower rates of postpartum depression. That’s awesome.

Two, women who supplement with fish oil in pregnancy, their babies have a 50% decreased risk of asthma. That’s cool, isn’t it?

[00:25:16] Ashley James: Very cool.

[00:25:18] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: That was on a really high dose of fish oil, and some of those babies ended up being much chunkier than their non-supplemented counterparts. We might not want to supplement that high. I usually recommend a gram in pregnancy. Again, you do need to talk to an OB though because this is a podcast—don’t take medical advice over the internet. That should be the motto for everybody and especially for us.

And then postpartum, yes, I dose high, high. It won’t work if you don’t dose high—at least 6 grams, and yeah, 9 is a good aim. It must be a high-quality brand because what you don’t want to do is get that cheap over-the-counter fish oil, have it contaminated with mercury, and then have mercury toxicity for you and your baby. Please don’t do that. So get a good professional brand on that, and yeah, I dose really high. Moms are losing so many fatty acids because they’re all going to the milk. So you need way more than someone who is not nursing.

[00:26:30] Ashley James: Absolutely. You brought up something—you said certain herbs are not safe in pregnancy or during lactation. Ironically, one of our listeners, just this morning, she wants to be a surrogate, and she really likes the family. She’s passionate about it, and now she has hit a wall with the surrogate family because they’re insisting that she do the flu shot during the pregnancy and the whooping cough vaccine, and she’s never had those vaccines. She isn’t someone that participates in the vaccine in her body, and she’s concerned about this, so a very lively discussion was formed in the Learn True Health Facebook group in support of her, but she wanted everyone’s opinion on it. In doing so, I googled some interesting studies that show there hasn’t been anything definite because you can’t ethically test. You can’t do a study on women that are pregnant. There is no ability to test whether flu shots are safe.

[00:27:48] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Actually, there are quite a few studies though, and they have been studying vaccinated versus unvaccinated women in pregnancy for both Tdap and influenza. Are you sure you want to start with this one?

[00:28:01] Ashley James: Yeah, I would love to hear. You’re a holistic doctor. I would love to know what are your thoughts if a woman comes to you, and she’s healthy—eats healthy, not deficient in any nutrients at all. Is it healthy to get a flu shot and other vaccines during pregnancy, or is it healthier to not?

[00:28:29] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Listeners, please don’t send me hate mail. My general approach to vaccinations is to support families wherever they’re at. This is important.

In my practice, I basically lay out the evidence for and against vaccines and allows families to choose. I’m a very strong advocate of that. I might have my own opinions, but I want to keep my opinions out as much as possible and just present what we know.

Now, that’s why I asked if you’re sure that you wanted to start there because the pregnancy topics, they’re almost harder to go over, but at least, we do have some data.

So let’s start with the flu vaccine first because they have been studying vaccinated versus unvaccinated women. They do not do double-blind placebo-controlled trials because that’s considered unethical. But they have been studying the vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations.

The other hard thing is, depending on where we’re at in the research cycle, this is my knowledge to date. If you’ve given me any warning, I will look up probably 87 studies because that’s what I do. I can’t tell you that I’ve read every study up to May 2nd of 2019.

For the influenza vaccine, the last data that I saw showed that women who get the flu vaccine in the first trimester of pregnancy have slightly increased rates of miscarriage. That’s not the case for the second trimester and beyond. There is data that women who do get the flu have significantly increased poor outcomes.

[00:30:34] Ashley James: If they’ve had the flu shots? 

[00:30:36] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: No. if you get the flu in pregnancy, the rates of the baby having autism, birth defects, or having early labor—if you get the virus while you’re pregnant, it’s bad.

There is that piece of research that shows that the flu vaccine in the early pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for the second and third trimester. I don’t know what to say about that.

The really hard part about the flu vaccine is that we never know if it’s going to match from year to year, and so it makes it hard for me to counsel my patients on it because on years that it matches well, that’s awesome. It feels like we can be like, “Hey, look. It matches,” and at least we can have some evidence of efficacy. On years that it doesn’t match, then it’s like, “What’s the point?” There’s always the risk of side effects on all vaccines.

I do want to be clear on that—to be clear and to be unclear at the same time that it’s hard to capture data on a vaccine that changes every year. We never know whether it’s going to match usually well into the flu season, at least until January of that year. Does that make sense?

[00:32:04] Ashley James: Uh-huh.

[00:32:05] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: So at least that’s like an answer/non-answer for that.

For Tdap, this is a little different. Tdap is the pertussis vaccine. It’s tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis. It does not come as a non-combo shot. Whooping cough is pertussis. Whooping in very tiny babies is extremely dangerous. I have people argue with me on that one, but it really is. It’s very dangerous.

The idea of vaccinating women in pregnancy is—and it must be vaccinated in pregnancy. It doesn’t count if you get it before becoming pregnant. The reason is if you get that Tdap in pregnancy, the woman’s body creates maternal antibodies which cross the placenta and reach the baby so that when the baby is born, they already have antibodies for the first 2 to 6 months of life. Basically, the baby has antibodies against whooping cough before they’re even eligible for their first round of vaccines at two months of age.

This could be another hour-long conversation. They have studied vaccinated versus unvaccinated mothers. They found no difference in neonatal outcomes from vaccinated versus unvaccinated babies. They have found an increase in antibodies in newborns whose moms were vaccinated, which is the point, so that part does work. I don’t know that we have enough long-term data to show differences in whooping cough rates in babies whose moms have had that versus not because there is usually not large enough outbreaks to compare the two populations. They’re trying to keep away.

There is a little bit of question about whether babies whose moms are vaccinated if they’re developing the same immunity from their primary vaccination series as babies whose moms were not vaccinated. That’s a future conversation. But right now, at least the data does support that there is no difference in outcomes. And they have studies tens of thousands of women in multiple countries at this point. They’re not small studies right now.

[00:34:32] Ashley James: What about the concern that the thimerosal crosses the—

[00:34:37] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Can we talk about the thimerosal?

[00:34:38] Ashley James: Yes. It’s mercury. It’s an adjuvant.

[00:34:45] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: No. Let’s be very clear. I’m excited to talk about this because I want to clear this up, and I get frustrated even by our colleagues who see this wrong all the time. Thimerosal is not an adjuvant. Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative that was found in a number of vaccines, primarily the hepatitis B vaccine, up until right around the late 1990s that they switched.

At this point in time, please listen to me: There is no more thimerosal in vaccines. The only vaccines that contain thimerosal in any amount are the seasonal flu vaccines in multi-use vials only and tetanus only vaccine, which I can’t even find anymore, so it’s a moot point. It’s only seasonal influenza vaccines and multi-use vials that we could possibly be exposed to thimerosal.

[00:35:48] Ashley James: So heavy metals are in vaccines then?

[00:35:51] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes. Let’s talk about that. That is aluminum, and aluminum is considered an adjuvant. It is not a preservative. I often hear people say, “They just replaced mercury with aluminum,” and that’s completely not true. It does totally different things.

Again, thimerosal was a preservative. Now, aluminum is an adjuvant, and adjuvate means something that makes the immune system reacts. Let’s say for Tdap, the whole point of the Tdap vaccine is so the body can make antibodies to tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis. The little ‘a’ stands for ‘acecullar’ in the Tdap vaccine.

If you injected Tdap without aluminum, the immune system would basically wave at it and say “hi” and just let it go because it’s not exciting to the immune system at all. Those vaccines are not live virus vaccines or bacteria because those are bacterial products.

Let’s say MMR and chicken pox vaccines are viruses. They are a live virus, which is why you usually only need one dose to become fully immune from both of those vaccines. There is no need for an adjuvant. The immune system sees the actual virus itself develops antibodies to it and then most, 90-95% of people, are functionally immune.

When we’re talking about bacterial products, let’s say [HEB 00:37:22] pneumococcal, which is a pneumococcal bacteria, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis—these are all bacteria. There’s no way to inject a live bacteria into us. That would be bad. It would cause sepsis. They take a component of the bacteria and then add aluminum as an adjuvant. When it’s injected, it creates inflammation, specifically designed to create inflammation, so that the body recognizes a vaccine component and creates antibodies to it.

It is hard to have this conversation in a short period of time. That’s why I go over all these details in my Vaccines Demystified course, which I try to set up and be as neutral as humanly possible. But it’s really important to me that everybody understands the difference between thimerosal and aluminum and which vaccines contain thimerosal and aluminum and why.

You can completely avoid mercury. You don’t have to worry about that. Aluminum is a totally different story. It’s in a ton of vaccines. That is something to talk about in addition, but I do want everybody to be clear on that.

[00:38:43] Ashley James: You’d mention your course, and I want to let listeners know the links to all of your websites are going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. They can go to NaturopathicPediatrics.com, click on ‘Shop’ and they’ll see right there that you have an online course, a webinar that they can take where you go through and explain in a neutral way the pros and cons of vaccines and inform consent fully, inform parents and parents-to-be, so that they can make fully informed choices.

This is a very polarizing topic. We’re not shaming people. I have my very passionate and firm beliefs about vaccines, but I do not impose them on others, and I’m getting the feeling that you are the same. I believe in freedom, and I believe in information, and I do not support an idea that we should ever be forced into any medical procedure. We should use and share information to make knowledgeable decisions.

Your online course, you are offering 20% off to the listeners. They can use coupon code LTH, and all that information is going to be in the show notes of the podcast. I am very interested in having listeners who are passionate about learning more about vaccines to take your course because we want as much information as possible from that neutral standpoint so we can see the pros and cons clearly.

It is when we polarize this, argue for argument’s sake and take a stand because we have a belief, that is where we lose the ability to see the science for what it is. We need to come to the science from a place of non-judgment. I’m glad that you are clearing up these misconceptions.

We’re not saying that anything from a pharmaceutical company is perfect. There’s not one pharmaceutical in the world that doesn’t have a list of side effects.

[00:40:57] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Absolutely. Let’s talk about all of them. It’s really important. I hear people say that vaccines are not regulated as pharmaceuticals. That’s true—they’re not. They’re regulated as biologics, so they’re regulated under a different type of category. But they are regulated.

What do I want people to understand? So many things. One, I am happy to support families in my office regardless of what they decide. Whether you pick all vaccines, no vaccines, some vaccines, I will support you. This is not about me; this is about you. That’s why I lay out what we know.

The other thing is that all I lay out is the evidence that has been studied. There are things that haven’t been studied. There are questions. There are thoughts. There are concerns in some places. I actually lay those out, too.

This is not about me at all, which hopefully spares me a little bit of hate mail because being neutral or somewhere in the middle means that I’ve gotten hate mail saying that I’m killing babies from both sides. Let’s stop that.

If you have very strong feelings about vaccines, it probably doesn’t help anybody to go to the other side and tell them that they’re killing babies. I want to be very clear about this. The reason we’re also passionate about this subject is that we all care about children very much. That’s why it becomes such a polarizing topic because some people have had experiences, which might not line up with what literature says, which doesn’t make sense, which is so confusing to people.

So we’re comparing, sometimes oranges to apples to bananas. It can be so confusing. I urge everybody to take a step back, take a breath. Let’s examine what we know. We can add life experience in with that. We can talk about it in a way that doesn’t shame or guilt, and talk about how to support our bodies and our kids, and come back together and not make this so heated because it’s not helping anybody.

[00:43:29] Ashley James: I knew we were going to get into the topic of vaccines, having a naturopathic pediatrician on the show. You mentioned some of the concerns that maybe haven’t been studied, but there are concerns nonetheless. I have had some doctors in the show talk about the concern that at least the current vaccine schedule where they feel that it is too aggressive. It’s causing a rise in autoimmune disease by overstimulating the immune response. Have you seen this, or seen any evidence to support that the current vaccine schedule is increasing autoimmune disease?

[00:44:12] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: There is no hard evidence of that right now. They have studied that in multiple places. There are a couple know autoimmune conditions like idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura in MMR vaccine, and that is a direct link. There are a few other things, particularly with the MMR vaccine. It’s such an old vaccine that we have decades of research now, but most of the autoimmune diseases that a lot of people talk about with MMR, either like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis—Autism isn’t an autoimmune disease, but that’s a whole another discussion topic.

A lot of the ones that parents have reported, they’ve specifically studied and have not shown to be associated. There is a lot of discussion in the literature right now, and there are some unknowns, particularly about aluminum as an adjuvant and a possible trigger for autoimmunity. It seems like, every time the researchers try to study one vaccine and break it out to see if kids have an increased risk of X, Y, and Z against that vaccine, it’s very rare that they find any direct correlation. Truthfully, it could be due to just variance in the population.

There are so many different things to think about, but for some people getting a virus is a trigger for their autoimmune condition. In that case, it makes sense that if you got a vaccine, it could be a possible trigger for an autoimmune condition. It’s also possible that if you get the disease, that the vaccine is designed to prevent, it could also trigger an autoimmune condition. So remember with autoimmunity, there is always a genetic predisposition and an environmental trigger. Vaccines could be an environmental trigger. There is also a huge number of other things that could be environmental triggers as well. How many environmental things do you think we are exposed to nowadays? It’s a lot.

That was a total non-answer. I’m sorry. We have to be through each vaccine individually, and I do in most cases and in my webinar. Again, most of the research we have is in MMR. I’m breaking my brain trying to think of all the other ones that could be potentials, but I would watch each section individually because I do talk about well-reported adverse events in each section.

[00:47:06] Ashley James: You’re saying that having a virus could trigger autoimmune disease, which could be from the vaccine, but it also could be from getting it naturally.

[00:47:22] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Right.

[00:47:24] Ashley James: Got it. Measles is quite a hot topic right now. I live just down the street from where you grew up. I’m in Snohomish, in between Woodinville and Monroe, so I know Kirkland. And here in Washington, I believe our passing a bill to take away the ability to opt out of the MMR vaccine, and there are talks of going after religious exemptions as well.

There is definitely fear and concern around an outbreak. I believe 700 cases have been reported in the United States in the last year. What would you like to say regarding measles? Before the measles vaccine, we would get the measles. They’re even showing that people who have had measles naturally and survived and went on to have natural immunity have lower rates of cancer. They see that in some ways, it stimulates and helps the immune system. You have to survive it though.

[00:48:40] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah. Measles has about a 0.01% chance of death. Again, only the people that have survived—oh, man. I don’t know how much I can do justice to this topic because I think that MMR topic in my course is 25 minutes long. But there’s a couple of things that I want to mention.

We can’t interview the people that died from it. Of all our “vaccine-preventable” diseases, measles probably has the highest permanent complication rate and permanent death rate. It can be just a fever and a rash, but it does seem to have much higher rates of encephalitis. It particularly attacks the neurological system, so permanent deafness and/or encephalitis. Obviously, not in everybody. It never happens to everybody.

The question is—yes, the weak ones—people who are genetically susceptible or have weak immune systems, historically probably would not have survived the measles outbreak. The question now is, “Are you willing for that to be your kid?” because I don’t want my kid to be the one who has the weak immune system and didn’t make it?

There are a couple of other things too. Actually getting measles significantly causes almost a year-long immunosuppression. Folks who get wild-type measles have a doubled risk of all-cause mortality the year following natural infection. That’s pretty significant.

Wow, I don’t like having the conversation this way because I don’t like to present it like, “Hey, here’s a fear tactic,” you know? That’s not what I’m about at all. This is a weird way to have this conversation and be like, “Ah, measles. We’re all going to die.”

That’s the problem with the media, too. We have not had a death this year, but there are, I’m sure, children who are going to have permanent neurological complications from measles.

[00:51:28] Ashley James: I just saw an interview with two doctors about this. I think they were citing some studies that those who have vitamin A deficiency have a much greater chance of having complications or not surviving measles.

[00:51:45] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Oh, yeah. That’s in a developing world. That has been cited amongst naturopathic doctors and the holistic medical world prominently, so a lot of people have been saying, “Just give vitamin A.” But that only seems to hold true for developing nations.

So if you give a child in a developing nation vitamin A and they get the measles, their survival rate goes way up. That has not been documented to be true in Western nations, but we also have really low rates of mortality in Western nations with measles because we have access to excellent healthcare. The rate of vitamin A deficiency, like natural vitamin A deficiency in Western nations is really low.

[00:52:31] Ashley James: So we’re not diving too deep into this. As you said, you have a 25-minute talk in your—

[00:52:37] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I kind of feel bad. Again, this is not how I like to present this information. I know we’re in the midst of a measles outbreak right now, and I was thinking about recording an extra add-on piece to my MMR lecture about a couple of these things like measles causing immunosuppression and all sorts of things. I apologized to our listeners because this is not the way that I like to present this in an unbiased format and not a fear-based format.

But I think that we should talk about the actual consequences of measles. It can either be way played up in the media or way played down in conventional and alternative medicine where people say, “It’s just measles. It’s not a big deal.” The reality is somewhere in between. It’s not like, “We’re all going to die” but some kids statistically speaking will, and some kids who get measles infection, even if they have the best treatment, probably are going to have serious neurological complications. I do know of a case of a child with measles who is now partially deaf in the US and Canada. Just be aware of that. There’s somewhere in between, and let’s talk about it. It’s not Shmeasle Measles like I’ve seen Mama Blog talked about. At the same time, it’s not like the world is ending either.

[00:54:07] Ashley James: So you’ve brought up some good points about it—somewhere in between like you said. So measles, if you contract it a year afterward, your immune system is compromised. You can, therefore, develop other complications. You have a percentage of a chance. There’s a chance that you can develop long-term permanent neurological complications and a very small percentage, there is death.

A good chunk of people though go through measles. Like you said it’s a rash, a fever, your body fights it and mounts a response, and you’re done. But even so, even the healthiest of those who survive measles with no complications, still have a year ahead of them. Like getting mono, where they have a year ahead of them being depleted.

[00:54:59] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: That’s a good way of describing it.

[00:55:00] Ashley James: People can go through any virus and end up feeling crappy for a whole year. I’ve heard of even chronic fatigue being a long-term consequence of being exposed to a virus.

[00:55:15] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: That’s specifically those human herpes viruses, and I don’t mean to herpes simplex, like the cold sore virus. It’s a strain of the virus that’s called human herpes virus. Sort of like HHB6, EBV, CMV—these are all not family, and yes, they’re going to cause long-term immune suppression. So yeah, that’s a great way of characterizing actually.

[00:55:35] Ashley James: You painted one side of the picture. Let’s paint the other side of the picture coming from a very wonderful neutral stand. I don’t feel like you’re fear-mongering. You want us to know the truth.

The truth is life is messy, and we could get exposed to anything. You can cut your finger and die of an infection. Not to be morbid, but we are surrounded by unseen bacteria and viruses all the time. The best thing we can do is build up our bodies. Make our bodies as healthy as possible. Make our bodies just as healthy as we can because we’re always going to be exposed to germs, and that’s at least in our control. We can choose to eat at McDonald’s, or we can choose to eat at the organic salad bar? One choice is going to lower our overall health, and the other choice is going to help support our overall health. We do have daily choices. We make 50 choices a day that could build our health or destroy our health.

We have the ability to make choices to build ourselves up. Let’s talk about the other side. I bring up choices because the fear-mongering make us feel helpless. These viruses are unseen, and it leads us to feel like we’re helpless. Therefore, we can’t do anything about it.

And the marketing that is used to make us want to go up and get a flu vaccine, for example, is all the fear-mongering like you said. So no—don’t give in to fear mongering. Let’s listen to Dr. Erica. Let’s listen to the reality of it that there are consequences. There are pros. Let’s look up both of them. So having outlined what would happen if you got measles, this could be someone who’s vaccinated but is a non-responder, or someone who has chosen not to vaccinate.

[00:57:30] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Right. It’s about 5%.

[00:57:32] Ashley James: So even if you’ve been vaccinated, you have a 5% chance of getting the measles anyway. Here’s the information. Now, let’s look at the other side. What are the known cons of getting the MRR vaccine?

[00:57:46] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I keep answering a different question. Can I take one step back?

[00:57:53] Ashley James: Please do.

[00:57:55] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: This goes back to our autoimmune piece. Maybe this will help put it together. One of my absolute no-no’s around the time of vaccination or illness is suppressing the fever. This point is totally opinion, so this may not be medical fact at all. This is completely Dr. Erica opinion.

I think that autoimmunity has been triggered by suppressing a normal, natural immune response to either a vaccine or an illness. This is what I’ve been telling my patients not to do. In times of fever, if we suppress the immune system, then I think the immune system gets confused and starts attacking itself. That’s why absolutely, no Tylenol—anywhere around the time of vaccines, and I also want to be clear on this—the MMR vaccine has been studied up, down, backward, sideways. They’ve done studies of 20 million children at this point and have not found an association with autism.

Now, I know you’re going to have a listener who’s going to tell me that their child had a reaction to MMR, and I’m not discounting that. There’s quite a bit of discussion of whether things have been under-reported or not reported. But I do think at least some of those cases were from Tylenol exposure and not from the MMR vaccine itself. There is more evidence now that Tylenol is triggering autism than there is the MMR vaccine, and probably particularly the combination of the two is dangerous. So talking about an event where you’re putting a live virus into the subcu tissue, the immune system is acting upon it and trying to create antibodies against what you have just injected into subcu. You suppressed the immune system. Where does it have to go? It doesn’t know what to do. And so, I think, that’s when we’re causing problems is when we’re starting to suppress fevers.

And you’re right. I hadn’t seen measles, but for sure from having high fevers from a strep infection reduces the rates of cancers. And so I think we’ve suppressed so many fevers. We’re so afraid of fevers now. It’s dangerous. I think that many more people would do better if we just let them have their fever because it runs its course on its own. Does that make sense?

[01:00:26] Ashley James: Absolutely. I love that you brought this up. I had an anesthesiologist who’s turned holistic doctor. She left anesthesiology after her son—her son is autistic, and she saw this world of holistic medicine, and he went from not being able to function in a “normal” school to completely able to function in a “normal school.” He goes to a Waldorf or something, but not having to go to very specialized autistic schools for those in the spectrum

He’s not highly functioning, and she did it with him using holistic medicine. She says that the most important thing in development is a fever. She sees a neurological leap in development after a child has had a healthy fever that wasn’t suppressed.

[01:01:26] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I’ve never heard of that before, but I completely would believe it. It’s so important to have an immune system that does something. That’s what our immune system is supposed to do. When you don’t, then you’re going to get eczema, asthma, chronic illness.

That’s what our immune system was designed for. Why are we so afraid of that? That is one of the things that I hammer into parents. I wish we would throw out our thermometers. A 105-degree fever can be normal. A fever is not intrinsically dangerous until at 108. It’s shocking to parents.

If you don’t believe me, go to Seattle Children’s hospital and type in [A Fever Mess], and they’ll back me up. For some reason, I put that all over Naturopathic Pediatrics, and again I have people telling me that I’m killing babies. It was just not true.

It’s so pervasive in parenting culture that you must treat a fever, and it’s completely not based on any evidence in any way. It drives me absolutely crazy. There is no degree of fever other than 108, which kids never get to, that is dangerous at all. Kids who do get high fevers often will get febrile seizures. They are super scary. But the studies are really clear that febrile seizures are not dangerous. They are probably dangerous to the parents’ blood pressure. They are really scary, and so I get it. I have total empathy with parents that it’s absolutely so scary, but the kids are okay. It’s just a really scary process.

The warning signs—one, fevers in newborns are not normal. So please don’t [mishear 01:03:13] me that. Any fever from newborn to 28 days is worked up incredibly aggressively in the hospital, and I mean lumbar puncture, IV antibiotics, IV antivirals. They’re aggressive. So that’s anything over 100.4 on a [inaudible 01:03:31] thermometer which is I usually recommend. It needs to be worked up immediately. Even babies who are up to three months of age, a fever is not considered normal, and they need a workup by their doctor within 24 hours, unless they’re looking sick and then they need to go to the ER right away. Anything that children at three months and above, they could get any degree of fever, and I’m not worried about it as long as, A, they’re hydrating, and B, they look okay. They’re going to be fussy. They’re going to be probably sleeping more than usual, but they should not be listless, non-responsive, lethargic—all of those would be warning signs that something is more dangerous. Don’t touch it. Just let it go.

[01:04:12] Ashley James: I love it.

[01:04:13] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: And then I can come back to MMR if you want me to.

[01:04:15] Ashley James: At this point, someone might consider you to be pro-vaccine in your sharing. You’re not pushing vaccines at all. You’re just giving the information. But the information you’ve presented makes them sound safe and a really good choice. Am I wrong? Is there anything you’d like to say to add to this conversation? Do you have any concerns about the safety of vaccines?

[01:04:48] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Of course. When I’m in a group of alternative medicine providers, I always sound like a crazy pro-vaccine, and when I am in a group of conventional medical providers, I sound like so crazy antivaccine. That’s part of the nature of good old-fashioned Jesuit education, where you’re just like our contrarian no matter what. That’s part of examining the evidence.

So again, I like to present both sides very clearly, and again it’s more because you’re interviewing me and asking these questions that are coming from listeners who, I think, in alternative medicine, tend to be biased against vaccines. It makes me seem like I'm really skewed for vaccines, and part of that also is because I’m discussing things that have become such a part of the culture, and they’re just factually untrue like the thiomersal piece. It’s just not true.

And so we need to talk about that. It’s not true that thiomersal is in vaccines. It’s not there, but aluminum is. There is no aluminum in the MMR vaccine. I do go through a section of aluminum in my webinar as well. I don’t think there’s truthfully great evidence on either side in terms of aluminum itself. There is one large safety study on aluminum exposure and why at least conventional medicine in public health considers aluminum safe in kids, and it’s based on a safety study done in two New Zealand white rabbits. I don't love that. How can anybody make inferences of safety in humans based on white rabbits? That’s just so frustrating.

And so I have a few things in MMR that are incredibly frustrating, too, in terms of immunity. I have a section in my webinar where I say—this is the actual quote from the CDC. It says, “Measles antibodies develop among approximately 95% of children vaccinated at the age of 12 months, and 98% of children vaccinated at 15 months. That’s based on unpublished data. We don’t even have—when I try to find the actual research citation for that, it’s published in a pink book, which is like cites itself in the CDC, which cites itself again. There is no data for that. It’s absolutely freaking up the wall.

So what I’m trying to do is give families evidence, and how can you give them evidence if there’s no data? It’s just like, “Ugh!” I wish I had something. There are no guarantees in life. I wish I could tell you it’s safe to give your child an MMR, and I also which I could tell you, it’s totally safe to let them have the measles. I just can’t. There are no guarantees. Statistically speaking, there is always going to be a child who reacts poorly to the MMR vaccine. We’ve reached the tipping point. At this point, we’re up until this year probably there are more kids having adverse reactions to the MMR vaccine than there were kids getting measles. And then it skews because then people don’t want to vaccinate then it skews to not having coverage to the point where then the measles can come back and spread. I will be very honest about me. I am not comfortable with my children having a wild type measles infection. I don’t love the MMR vaccine at all, but I feel like the odds are kind of in favor of actually getting MMR, so it would be great if no one had to have the MMR vaccine and there’s no measles. That would be ideal right? Wouldn’t it be great? But we don’t live in that world.

[01:08:55] Ashley James: So then it sounds like you did vaccinate your children?

[01:09:00] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Oh, boy. I usually don’t tell people what I did. [laughs]

[01:09:04] Ashley James: Well, no. My next question then is a relevant question. For those who have vaccinated, how do we support our child in being healthy in the face of all those chemicals? Read the full insert. It’s pretty bizarre—the carcinogens.

[01:09:21] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I go through all of those though. It’s great because I go through each individual ingredient in my webinar. Some of them look scarier than they are. Some of them are not great at all. Some are more kind of terrible. But some of them are like nowhere [inaudible 01:09:38] People like to publish all sorts of weird things about—I don’t know. The things that some people on the internet have gotten all hung up about on the vaccine ingredients, I’m like, “What?” That’s sodium phosphate. That’s salt. Let’s talk about the ones that we need to be talking about.

[01:09:57] Ashley James: Well, they’re scary. The scary ingredients—like we’re talking about aluminum in your brain or your bloodstream. It’s not healthy in high doses. What do you do to support a child in detoxing and being healthy after a vaccine?

[01:10:18] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I always feel like legally this is a risky place to talk about all these without having the time for it. In my office, almost all families who come to me who want to vaccinate are vaccinating on an alternate schedule because they come into my office. Why else would they be in my office if they want to get all of them at the same time? They go to a pediatrician down the road.

Almost all of my patients, if they’re vaccinating, they are vaccinating on an alternate schedule. I have an alternate vaccine schedule that only gives one aluminum-containing vaccine at a time. I also go way out of my way to find the vaccines that either has no aluminum, or low aluminum or are preservative-free. I do my absolute best. In some cases, that’s available. In some cases, it’s not available. In my office, I typically only give two vaccines at a time.

The nice part about that, with only giving two at a time, is that you can identify quickly which vaccine is causing the problem and which isn’t. So that makes it much easier. It’s very rare for families in my office to have vaccine reactions. I mean anything other than—I don’t even have any fevers truthfully. I’ve had one child ever show any signs of developmental regression, and we immediately stopped vaccinating and gave them glutathione, and he came back on track.

Interestingly enough, he was an IVF baby, and I don’t know if that was some part of it, but that’s the very first one I’ve ever seen in my office. I am extremely cautious about vaccinating babies. One, and this is probably the other thing that’s happening in conventional practices, is babies/toddlers, whatever age you’re vaccinating, whatever age you choose to start vaccinating, they must be well.

Why are we vaccinating? Not me—I’m not vaccinating when they’re sick. But in conventional physicians’ offices, they’re routinely vaccinating kids who are sick. That’s another guaranteed way to get a vaccine reaction. When your immune system is already doing something, and then you throw in all—of course, they’re throwing in six to ten antigens at once, I guess research says that that’s okay, but that—yeah. That’s why I’m a naturopathic doctor, but it’s probably not the antigens maybe that are even the problem because in some ways the antigenic load is slightly lower than it was in the 80s because DTP, now it’s DTaP and the DTP vaccine, was highly antigenic.

Just so listeners are aware, the DTP vaccine we had in the 80s is different than the DTaP. The DTaP now seems to be well tolerated. DTP then was not well tolerated. The downside of DTaP now is it's not as effective as it was as the DTP vaccine back then.

One, kids must be well. Two, if they're showing absolutely any signs of anything other than fussiness, I'm giving liposomal glutathione immediately. I probably would give it to every child across the board except its expensive, and probably most kids don't need it. Remember, only kids who are genetically susceptible to glutathione depletion are going to have glutathione depletion. But you can supplement lipo glutathione around the time of vaccination, and it works great.

Probiotics have good research for both improving the immune response to vaccines and reducing side effects, which is great. It helps our immune stimulation in our gut, and it makes a big difference there, too. Kids should be supplementing vitamin D to help immune systems, but the two biggies are kids are well, and they do not have fever-suppressing medications.

[01:14:38] Ashley James: When it comes to flu season, when there are large outbreaks, have you ever talked to other clinics and seen that your patients statistically, because they're following your instructions and choosing a healthy lifestyle as possible, that statistically your clinic has fewer cases of flu than others?

[01:15:04] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I don't know. I have had cases of flu in my office. There hasn't been anybody who was needed to be sent to the hospital. Flu spreads. You might get flu whether or not you're perfect on your supplements, and I want to reduce the guilt for moms a little bit, too. Having your child have a perfect diet and supplementing perfectly doesn't mean that they're never going to get sick. And if they get sick, it doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Sometimes they get sick, you know? They do. Whether they eat the perfect diet, they have the world's best supplements on board, whether you vaccinate or not vaccinate, whether you think you did everything right or you didn't think you did everything right, the most important thing you can do for your child is to be there for them.

It's so important. We have to lay aside the guilt. We are not going to do it perfectly with our kids, but you got to be there for them. I don't want you to go to McDonald's. I think it's terrible. If you do it and you're in their life, you did it. You made it.

[01:16:35] Ashley James: I love it. That's very well said. A lot of mothers look back and regret making some choices around medical things, and then they learn something, and they realize that it might not have been the right choice. But we can't change the past, and feeling guilty about it is not going to help us in the now. We're in our child's life. We're filling them with love, and they're going to have a good outcome in life because we're there for them and just beaming love at them and really caring. Regardless of where we stand on the vaccine—I don’t want to say issue, but—

[01:17:14] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Conversation.

[01:17:16] Ashley James: Yeah, it's a conversation. It's not a fight. I like that you advocate for an altered schedule because you're doing it in a way that's respectful of the child's immune system, and you're watching. Every time they get one vaccine, you watch to see if there are any issues.

I had Dr. Paul Thompson [Dr. Paul Thomas] on the show, and he also discussed this. That's why I asked you about the flu thing because when I interviewed him, it was last February. His practice is in Portland, and he has four or five other pediatricians in his practice—a nice-sized practice. Thousands and thousands of patients on a Friday where all the local hospitals had four- or five-hour wait times because the flu was prevalent in the community, the entire clinic closed early because they got not one phone call for the flu.

Again, you can be the healthiest person in the world but still catch the flu. It's more about how quickly you bounce back, how healthy your immune response.” I remember when I was a kid, and I had a naturopath that my mom took me to. When I was sick, it was just very quick. I get a fever, I'd go to sleep, I'd wake up, and I was better. It was just, boom, the immune system kicks in, does its job. We don't impede it, and I've seen this in my son. If he gets sick, it's just a big fever, and he sleeps and then he’s better.

It can drag on really long. If someone is diminished, depleted, if their body is toxic, like you said, the person can't produce enough glutathione. Dr. Paul Thompson [Dr. Paul Thomas] was saying he recommends the same thing you've recommended that the family supplement, eat healthily and avoid bad food, get out in the sunshine and move around and do the basic, what we think is common sense. But it's not taught by every pediatrician unfortunately or emphasized as standard.
In his clinic, he's had what seems to be fewer cases of flu because of that advice. So I was curious to know if you'd possibly seen that.

You've already talked a bit about vitamin D, vitamin E, good clean multivitamin, fish oil. Can you recommend what would you want to be in every single family’s medicine cabinet, some go-to either homeopathics or essential oils? What's great for babies and children for us to use when dealing with the common things that come up?

[01:20:24] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I've got lots, way too many. One thing quickly about that, seeing differences in flu cases—Maybe I just don't know because I'm not comparing directly to other urgent care clinics. They're probably slammed, and I get busy with cold and flu season, but I don't know how to compare the relationship between the two. I did want to say one other thing too about vaccines in my office and that's that in Montana where I am, if kids want to be in daycare or preschool, they must be not completely fully vaccinated but close and on schedule. That's another reason why families have to have their vaccines basically on time if both parents are returning to work.

And so that's different. Just to put that in context for the listeners in case they feel like, “Whoa, she gives a lot of vaccines early.” We're stuck to that based on the vaccine requirements.

So to go to your actual question, hopefully, all kids are being supplemented with vitamin D. All breastfed babies should be supplemented with vitamin D, at least 400 IU daily. I recommend up to a 1000 IU daily way up here in Missoula, Montana, because I've been testing babies’ levels and they're all low—super low.

So I was doing maybe like 3000-4000 IU a week, and I've just upped it to 1000 IU a day because they've never seen one normal. They're super low. But I mean that's up here, too. We're in a different spot than a lot of people in the country.

[01:22:02] Ashley James: What is a normal level for a child?

[01:22:05] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Still above 30 is like a bare minimum. I see them in the teens, below teens, in babies, and that's worrying.

The theory was that if you give mom a certain amount of IU, 10% pass to the babies. So we used to supplement mom with 5,000 IU and hope that the baby gets, 500 but if mom is deficient, that does not work, and so I stopped doing that. I do not recommend that as a reliable method of supplementing the baby with vitamin D because we don't know how much mom is putting in breast milk. She might be just taking all of it for herself. I do recommend supplementing babies directly with Vitamin D.

My absolute favorite thing to have in our herbal medicine cabinet is lemon balm glycerides. I love it. I have a series of well child guides on the naturopathic pediatrics.com shop. They only go from newborn to 12 months. Right now, I'm working hard on getting the 15 months to 4 years age range, and they correspond with all the well child visits for each age group.

My thought behind this was this—they call them anticipatory guidance handouts that you get at a pediatric visit. All they tell you to do is how not to kill your baby. “Don't smoke around your baby. Always buckle them up in a car seat.” And I'm like, “Really? That's the best you can do. I pretty well could figure that one out.”

What I wanted to do was give families extra information, not just about how to not kill their baby, but how to support them, what's normal sleep times, what's the normal amount of time for babies to fall asleep, what's normal development at that age, what's not normal development, and when is it concerning. I do have a little list of vaccines, and right at the top, it says what is typically recommended at each age. And right at the top, we say we want to support families regardless of how they vaccinate. I still wanted to put that there because I still think it's important for families to know what's typically given at certain ages, whether or not you choose to vaccinate your child.

At the end of each one is an herb guide, and it includes dosages based on weight. I mean babies under four months are too young really to supplement with any significant, meaningful amount. I think I have a little bit in there for fennel at the two-month visit, but at the four-month one, I have an herb guide for lemon balm, which is my favorite ever.

You can make a tea out of lemon balm. It grows like a weed here in Montana, which is great because we have an overabundant supply. But in a glycerate form, it's like a tincture, only they use glycerin instead of alcohol to make the liquid, and you can give it to babies. It's a great substitute for Tylenol. It will not artificially suppress a fever. It will help break a fever that's already ready to come down on its own. It's an anti-inflammatory if that fever is ready to come down on its own.

Another pro tip for parents, dehydrated babies have a really hard time breaking their fevers. It can be helpful to give them even spoonfuls of tea or liquid or something. Nursing them is ideal, but if you can't get something into them, camomile tea, just a spoonful at a time can help hydrate them.

Lemon balm is great for pain relief, too. The same thing—it doesn't block the pain like Tylenol does, which by the way, Tylenol works by an unknown mechanism in the brain. It's centrally acting. It works at the brain itself—a little disturbing because we don't know what's happening. We don't know whether the negative effects of Tylenol are from glutathione reduction or from actually working directly on our endocannabinoid system, which is super disturbing. We don't know what it's doing.

Lemon balm is fantastic. It would be my number one. I would always have a source of vitamin C. I use vitamin C orally for ear infections to help reduce inflammation in the eustachian tube. That's another great one. I have a course of 10 vitamin C mix, which has a little extra antimicrobial and flavonoids support and it tastes delicious, mixed in applesauce for babies six months and up.

Passionflower glycerin is another nice one for a little bit older babies and toddlers and all the way through elementary school children. It's a fantastic herb. I'm an herb lover. I love and adore herbs. Mullein tincture is one of my faves too for coughs. It's super gentle, and it helps both wet and dry coughs, kind of. It's relaxing. It's a gentle mucolytic. I also use it orally for ear infections to help drain mucus and help the eustachian tube to open up.

[01:27:34] Ashley James: What is passionflower for?

[01:27:37] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: It's an anxiolytic. It's mild happy herbs.

[01:27:43] Ashley James: When would you give it to a child—when they're going through an illness?

[01:27:48] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Teething is great. It's very gentle. It's safe. It's great for nursing moms too. Oh, gosh. I have so many more, but maybe we should stop there so that we can stop at some point.

[01:28:10] Ashley James: Do you have this information that people can purchase as your e-books on your website? Is that correct?

[01:28:17] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes. Right now, there's a couple of different options. One, each of these is available for each well-child guide, so say for two months there's information that's relevant to the two-month timeframe, and then at the end there is an herb guide that I thought is relevant for that age. So herbs that are safe for that age group is what I put and attached to each of the well-child guides.

You can also get all of them from newborn to 12 months as part of the My Infant Health Binder, and my idea behind that—this is what I do for families in my office. The first visit they have with me, they get a three-ring binder as a place to store both growth charts, but also these well-child guides that are about six pages of information, places to write down questions for the doctor, a place to track milestones and development. I have a little section on what to expect.

In the two-month well child guide it says what to expect between two months and four months, which is your next scheduled well child check, and then the herb guide that goes with each of them. My Infant Health Binder has all of them in it plus extra places to store information, particularly for families who have a child with a complex medical health issue.

That could be a full provider list, a full supplement list, and a start and stop date for all the supplements that have been tried—just a way to organize everything. I am big about this because there's so much information. There's more information than I can go over in a well child check. There's more information I want to give than I could possibly talk about in a well child check. For families who do have complex medical health issues, they need a way to organize all that information.

[01:30:11] Ashley James: Absolutely. Anything you want to add before we move on to the next question?

[01:30:16] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Oh, geez. I’ll say no.

[01:30:19] Ashley James: For those parents who have young children, they can go to NaturopathicPediatrics.com, click on “Shop” and then choose the guides that support them during that developmental stage and use the coupon code LTH to get 20% off, and you're going to be coming out with more guides in the future, which is exciting.

[01:30:38] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes.

[01:30:41] Ashley James: Clone yourself.

[01:30:42] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes, I actually am. This is what I'm working on. This is my new endeavor with NaturopathicPediatrics.com. It is literally how to clone myself because I get emails from people all the time, “Where can I find a doctor like you?”

My practice is closed to new patients. I have 40 people on my waiting list. I can't keep up with demand. There are tons of you guys who are listening who are like, “Whoa, there's so much information. This is so cool,” and I don't have time for all of you.

What I'm trying to do is put more information up on NaturopathicPediatrics.com. I seem never to have time. I'm trying to run a practice, and I have two kids that are 7 and 3, and I'm trying to be a mom at the same time. It's a little bit crazy.

The long-term goal of NaturopathicPediatrics.com is to provide providers, naturopathic doctors or functional docs with trustworthy pediatric resources and references so that I can clone myself so that we can all do this because there's no reason that we can't. Clearly, there's a huge demand for it.

[01:31:56] Ashley James: Great. So then, those who are listening who aren't in your area and you're not taking new patients right now anyway, although I know that you are expanding your practice as well. But for those around the world, they could ask their pediatrician to check out your resources on your website.

[01:32:12] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes. Just started it, but right now it's at NaturopathicPediatrics.com/resources, and there's only a very small chunk of things up on that section. But my goal—I was hoping by the end of the summer, but it's probably not going to happen—is to have a hundred hand-outs on that page. I'm working on that, and I'm also working on finishing all these well child guides up until age 10 and develop templates for all of us too, so there's one place to look for information rather than just the conventional options for everything.

[01:32:58] Ashley James: I love it. I love the work you're doing. I love your website, and I love your mission. Naturopathic medicine saved my life. I was very sick, and I'd exhausted all the resources in conventional medicine. It was like spring air. It was like a light bulb turning on to go from an MD allopathic medical system back to naturopathy.

I grew up with a naturopath, and then I kind of lost my way, and then I came back to it. I had type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections. I was on courses and courses of antibiotics. I was miserable and sick all the time. I couldn't even process human language in the morning. My brain was so shot, and I was just in so much brain fog. I felt like a prisoner trapped in my own body. I was going through yoyos of hormone issues. I also had a polycystic ovarian syndrome. I was told I'd never have kids, and I was infertile.

Naturopathic medicine—I had conceived naturally. I have a four-year-old now that I conceived naturally. I look at how big he is. I'm like, “Oh, my God, I can't believe.” He grows so fast. It was all naturopathic medicine in the last eight years that saved my life and got me to where I am now.

That's why I do this podcast because I want everyone else who is going through what they're going through to learn that there are alternatives that can support their body in coming back into balance. Of course, we want to respect science as well. That's why I love the type of work you do.

For me, it was a natural step to bring our newborn to a naturopath pediatrician, and it is much like seeing one as an adult. They spend an ample amount between 30-60 minutes every appointment. I've never seen that with an MD. There are couches, and we sit down, and it is a good long hour, sometimes 40-45 minutes, whatever our needs are, and then we've emptied out, and then the naturopath or our pediatrician is like, “Anything else? What about this?” And we're like, “Wow! We can really empty out.”

Our son had some asthma attacks, and I was concerned. I love Children's Hospital in Seattle. Just always, they've taken such good care of us. Our naturopathic pediatrician said, “We need to do some allergy testing.” It turns out he's allergic to about five different foods and dust mites. We did all the dust mite mitigation. It didn't make a difference.

That's when we turned to the food testing, and we have removed the foods that he was allergic to, the foods he ate every day like avocado, salmon, eggs. I was really surprised that these are foods that he had been eating since he was six months old. No wonder he had been having these problems. We removed the foods he was allergic to or sensitive to, and immediately overnight, the sniffles went away. The wheezing went away.

Unbelievable. I can't imagine how many children have asthma out there with inhalers, steroids, and trips to the emergency room, and it's because they're exposed to foods that are perceived as healthy, but their immune system can’t handle it. If he goes to someone's house that is not vacuumed very well, he'll get wheezy just a little bit. But no more rushing him to the emergency room. Since removing those foods, it has cut down all the problems by 70%, and then the dust mites are the other 30%. But this is the care I don't think I would ever have gotten going to an allopathic practitioner.

What you do as a naturopath, you look at the family unit as a whole. You look at mental health, emotional health. You look at food. You're looking at the whole picture, and I respect that.

A lot of my listeners had questions about ear infections. Can we get into that a little bit?

[01:37:29] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah, for sure. Remember that ear infections in babies is primarily because the eustachian tube doesn't drain. It's horizontal rather than at a semi-vertical angle like it is in adults. The main reason that kids get ear infections is that anytime they get a cold, the eustachian tube backs up, and rather than draining into the throat, it just stays there behind the ear.

Ear infections are a fluid management problem. They're not an infection problem per se. It's that the fluid persists behind the eardrum. That's what creates a breeding ground for bacteria. It doesn't matter that it's like the bacteria per se. If you can drain it, you don't have to worry about it. It's pretty rare in my office that I have a child that we can't “cure.” I don't know about cure but treat naturopathically. I think I've had two or maybe three kids over the last three years that we finally sent for ear tubes. I think in all three cases, their parents also had a history of needing to have ear tubes placed.

Now Missoula, Montana, also has terrible air quality, and so this is contributing to like a massive tonsillar enlargement all the time here. And so that's also kind of an obstacle to cure that I cannot cure because we have wildfire smoke for at least two months in the summer. There's nothing I can do about that even in the best case.

In the winter when there's not smoke, we sit in a bowl, and so we get all of this air pollution. It’s terrible. Most of the time, kids can be treated naturopathically. There's a sweet little easy eustachian tube massage you can do by putting your thumbs underneath your lobes, putting some gentle traction, and then gently dragging down the neck. It helps pop open the eustachian tube behind your thumb there. It’s hard to describe. I should video that. I might put that up on the nat ped site at some point.

And then using things like vitamin C to help reduce the swelling of the eustachian tube. I'm doing some gentle mucolytic is important. And then I do treat topically with garlic mullein ear drops as well. The eardrum must be intact. It has to be fully there. If the eardrum is ruptured, then it's dangerous to put anything actually into the ear canal. We used to say that those garlic mullein eardrops were antimicrobial. I don't know that the garlic penetrates the eardrum well enough to kill the infection, but they feel amazing. They're awesome. Have you ever tried them?

[01:40:12] Ashley James: Oh, yeah.

[01:40:13] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: People criticize naturopathic doctors like, “That onion ear muff is so pseudosciencey.” Have you ever tried it? It's awesome. The onion earmuff is the other one. You take a half an onion, you either microwave it for 20 seconds or simmer it in a little bit of water, like a half an inch of water until it's soft, wrap a towel around it, hold it against the ear. It is amazing. It feels so good. Why would you criticize us for that? It's so cheap. It's so easy. It feels amazing.

Lots of little tiny ones won't hold still long enough to put the onion over there. But the garlic mullein drops, if you warm them—they must be warmed to body temperature. Stick the whole bottle in a little cup of warm water. The reason for that is if you put anything into the ear canal that's either too hot or too cold, it'll trigger nystagmus in the kids. The eyes will beat, the eyes will go sideways, and it's dizzy. You never want to put something cold in the ear canal, warm it up to body temperature, and it feels great. It's fantastic for pain relief. Maybe there's some antimicrobial benefit. I don't care. It works fantastic.

[01:41:22] Ashley James: It has to be anti-inflammatory. The calendula at least is a very nice pain reliever. I went through a series of ear infections in the last few years, and I figured out I wear studio headphones all day long, and they were trapping all the moisture, and then I was sleeping on a latex pillow, which I think I'm allergic to.

I chucked the pillow, and the infections cut down, and so I would start to feel it coming on, and I used the garlic mullein we have for our son. Oh, my gosh. It feels so good. You're right. It feels so good.

I've done the onion ear muffs. I put them in the oven and then cut it. I just put the whole onion in the oven, warm it up, then cut it in half and stuck it right on my ear. That felt good too, but nothing feels as good if you have an earache as the garlic mullein oil. I'd wait until my son fell asleep and then put it in his ear because he will not sit around for putting something in it. A toddler does not like that.

My understanding is that when a child has ear infections, we look to the diet to make sure that cow's milk, for example, it can cause or contribute. Can you talk a bit about how we can prevent ear infections beyond the fact that it's not draining? As you said, it might be physiological. It's not draining. But beyond that, what can we do to prevent them?

[01:42:54] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah, so it's still swelling to the eustachian tube. Usually, it's triggered by some cold, so any virus, then there’s mucus from the nose, and it's draining back into the throat. [inaudible 01:43:07] elimination works a certain percentage of the time. I don't know that the kids that have severe or chronic ear infections; I have not seen it be that helpful for it. But again, that may be one because I don't have a ton of recurrent ear infection patients.

It seems like usually once we treat it for most kids, it's gone. Some kids get unlucky and have recurrent ear infections, and we will remove cow's dairy. Maybe I see that help in 30-50%. It could be a confounder though because again I think our air quality is pretty poor here in Missoula.

I think that's contributing to extra inflammation. So yes, cow's dairy products and citrus fruits can be mucus-forming. And so if kids are getting recurrent ear infections, then eliminate those foods, at least around the time that they have the ear infection. If there are kids that have more than two ear infections, then we cut out dairy for the long term.

[01:44:11] Ashley James: Would you say that they could get on lemon balm, mullein, passion fruit, these things you mentioned?

[01:44:17] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Passionflower. Passion fruit wouldn't work—totally different. Tastes delicious, but it would not work. Yeah, for pain control, if they want to.

[01:44:29] Ashley James: I've heard from my chiropractor friends that often a good adjustment will clear it up.

[01:44:37] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes, that's a great one. I have referred to pediatric chiropractors all the time, and there are different ways of doing it. Some are manipulated in the cervical bones. Some are just doing an endonasal kind of treatment. You can also reach in and gently massage. It's uncomfortable— the opening of the eustachian tube into the pharynx itself.

There are lots of different ways to do it, but yes, for a couple of the kids. I have one family who we finally did send them to the ENT to at least get the consult for ear tubes because here's the deal—for a lot of these kids, they have ended up on recurrent antibiotics. It's very rare for me to prescribe antibiotics for an ear infection. I've hardly ever done it. But when you've got kids who are having bursting eardrums, then we're at the point where we're like, “You know what, what else are we going to do?” In those cases, basically by the time naturopathic therapies have failed, almost all the time I see antibiotics fail, too.

It doesn't seem like the antibiotics are doing anything. Either the eustachian tube is so swollen, or genetically they have such a twisted eustachian tube, it's not going to make a difference. So that's when I refer to the ENT because then our only other option is drainage out of the ear into the ear canal itself because there's no other way to do it. I'm not going to keep having kids be on recurrent antibiotics forever and ever. I'd rather have them put a tube in. But this one family did go to the chiropractor and cleared it in that amount of time. I was thrilled. I was really happy.

[01:46:12] Ashley James: That’s very cool. Do you have other big pieces of advice that someone would have never gotten if they went to an MD and are very happy to get from you?

[01:46:28] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: That's really broad.

[01:46:30] Ashley James: I know it's broad, but like, “Go see a pediatric chiropractor is really effective.” Is there any other kind of effective forms of therapy? Do you have like these big, “I recommend all children only get two hours of screen time”? Do you have any one of those big powerful recommendations that help most children?

[01:46:59] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: So many. One, any child with ADHD, autism, or neurological issues, I strongly recommend turning off Wi-Fi at least at night. It makes a difference. A huge percentage of kids don’t notice the difference, but why do we have Wi-Fi on at night anyway? And then I have a certain number of kids that actually can tell their parents when Wi-Fi is on. That’s so freaky. Turn off that Wi-Fi. That's one.

For constipated kids, dairy protein intolerance is really common in constipation. Oftentimes, a dairy elimination diet will completely cure constipation. Speaking of constipation, because I have a constipation guide in the shop as well because that's a really common complaint. I can't remember how many millions of children statistically we're affected every year—tons and tons and tons.

Probiotics are super helpful for constipation, but I know families do not like laxatives. I hate Miralax. It's never been approved for use in children at all, not to mention long-term use, and it's the absolute standard of care for pediatricians.

I prefer other types of laxatives. Magnesium citrate is a great laxative. There are other ones as well, but I want to explain the point of that quickly. That's when kids are chronically constipated. Their rectum or colon expands, and it makes it so that the colon can no longer squeeze effectively. There is a vicious cycle and chronic constipation where then they become so impacted, and the muscle is stretched out, and the nerves are stretched out, so it can't even squeeze anymore.

The point of long-term laxative therapy, and I mean like 6-12 months is so the stools stay at a mashed potato consistency so that the rectum can shrink back down and kids can regain the control of their bowel. That's important.

Kids with chronic constipation can be allergic or sensitive to all sorts of other things—gluten, eggs. I could go on forever. There are so many other little tidbits. There are about a hundred of them, and there are so many different things.

[01:49:26] Ashley James: Tell us about all the guides you have created so far.

[01:49:30] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I wish I had time to make so many more.

[01:49:32] Ashley James: I know you will. I mean this podcast evergreen. I've been doing this show for just over three years, and I still get people downloading the first 20 episodes. You'll have people listen to this for years to come. I know that when we all go to your website, Naturopathic Pediatrics a few years from now, you'll have many more, and I love what you've already created. Let's talk about what you've already created. When people go to your website, NaturopathicPediatrics.com and they click on 'Shop,' you have wonderful guides. Just tell us what you're proud of and what you think all parents can benefit from.

[01:50:09] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: One is if there are questions about vaccines, that's the main one. That's my Vaccines Demystified webinar for anyone who has any questions about vaccines. My only caveat with that is if you already have very strong opinions one way or the other, please do not buy it. It's not for you. You won't be happy. But if you're somewhere in between, go for it. You're laughing at me.

[01:50:34] Ashley James: No, I'm laughing because I'm very strongly on one side, but I'm also the biggest open-minded skeptic. I love it when I can be pulled back towards neutral from my radical views because I want balance and I want the science. I would love it. I think people are like me will upload your webinar.

[01:50:58] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Good. I hope so. Just don't send me hate mail. I gave you the warning. That's the funny part about being in the middle. I said that then I literally get hate mail from both sides, and I just got tired of it after a while. I stopped promoting my vaccine webinar because I got so tired of the hate mail. It's just unbelievable, and it’s seriously from both sides. I've had entire blog posts on the internet about how terrible I am from both sides, which is like phenomenal to me because I do support all families in my office, and I'm happy to support all families in my office.

So the other stuff I've got up in the shop, I have the well child guides from aged newborn to 12 months. Again, I'll be expanding that soon. I have a constipation e-book. I have an ADHD e-book. I am working probably within the next 12-ish months or so. We're probably going to expand that constipation e-book into a whole webinar series that I'm going to do with a pediatric physical therapist who specializes in the pelvic floor for children. So that's going to be exciting, too.

Again, I am such a dreamer, and I have so many more ideas than I ever have time for, and we'll be working hard on developing practice and resource guides for providers as well. So stay tuned, there's so much more. If only I had time to implement all of my dreams.

[01:52:23] Ashley James: Absolutely. When it comes to just making sure that kids are fully nutrified, what advice do you have? For every question I've asked, we could do an entire interview, and I know I'm just not doing this topic any justice by skimming over that. We usually dive deep into one topic for an episode. But I love the tidbits you're providing. I think they're valuable.

Anything you could leave us with in terms of nutrition? Are there some things to look for that you want to let us know about? What tidbits do you have to support us in making sure that we're giving our kids the best nutritional support possible, from diet or supplements and both?

I love the idea of leaving the vegetables out while you're preparing dinner as an appetizer kids can snack on. I love that, and I read once you have to expose a child—I'm talking about like a toddler—you have to expose a child to avenge the new vegetable like eight times, and they're going to reject it like the first eight times before they're going to say yes to it. And some parents get to see the rejection once like broccoli, and they go, “Oh, no. My kid doesn't like broccoli,” and then they never offer it again.

The best psychology is just don't put any emotion on it. Don't shame them or yell at them or whatever. Just keep putting it in their field of vision. Like my son, if I give him a vegetable, he will not eat it. But as he's sitting in the grocery cart, he will eat an entire head of kale, or he'll start peeling a cabbage, or he'll grab asparagus, or bean, or peas, and he'll start munching them.

We have a kitchen garden, and he'll sit there and eat right out of the ground. But it's because it's his will. It's his choice. He's very strong-willed. So if I'm offering it to him, absolutely not. But if he's choosing, it's gangbusters. Do you have any advice like that that can help us to fill our kids with nutrition?

[01:54:27] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes. First, most babies, when they're being introduced to solid foods, are open to everything. Even at 12 months is usually pretty good, somewhere between the first year and the second and a half year of life. So somewhere between age 1 and I'd say 2-1/2, often kids start to restrict their palate and then not like veggies in particular, but sometimes other foods.

Now I got unlucky, and I have, of course, the naturopath’s kid doesn’t like veggies or fruit. He's like the [inaudible 01:55:06] syndrome kid that I talk about on the website. Thank goodness, all I serve is whole grains because that's all he ever wants to eat. This is another key one. He's three and a half, and we're just figuring out he's got sensory issues. He's terrified, shaking uncontrollably if we make him taste fruit. So that's counterproductive. We've gotten to the point for fruit where all I'm doing is having him hold the orange.

It sounds so silly. I know some of your parents, they're watching, listening to this are going to judge me for this. This is legit. But I also know, and this is what the research shows us that exposure to foods, but in my opinion it's, it's well beyond eight times for some kids.

I saw this with my daughter, who was not afraid of fruit. She'd be a fruitarian if she could. It did take her almost four years to eat lettuce, and it was repeat exposure again and again and actually eat it. There's no problem.

Strangely enough now Leopold, my little guy, he'll eat lettuce and spinach, but he's still afraid of fruit. So we're thinking there is some kind of sensory thing. It must be the smell that's too strong.

[01:56:25] Ashley James: I’m really curious. What if you put it in a smoothie, and he doesn't see that it’s fruit? Is it once it's touched his palate and then he's afraid?

[01:56:32] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: No, he will not have a smoothie.

[01:56:35] Ashley James: Is it the color of the fruit? Can he eat fruit if it's hidden, or is it the taste or the color?

[01:56:46] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I think it's the smell. I think there's a sensory processing issue going on with him, which we're going to get evaluated by OT here really soon. I'm quite positive there. I think that there's like sensory stuff in our family basically, so that's what I'm working on. That's another story.

[01:57:10] Ashley James: He could be a super smeller. There's one woman, I think she's in the UK, she can actually smell Parkinson's. People who are going to get Parkinson's smell different, and she can detect it.

[01:57:26] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I think that that that's him. The only flavor of anything that he will have is chocolate or vanilla. Anything like Halloween candy, forget it. He's scared of it. Early on, he was afraid of huckleberries, and my husband almost disowned him—Montana man. A lot of huckleberry picking.

We were like, “No, you're going to like this. Of course, you're going to. Who doesn't like huckleberries? Are you kidding me?” So we put some in his mouth, and he started crying, and we're like, “Aw, I'm so sorry.” He does not go huckleberry picking anymore.

[01:58:07] Ashley James: No kidding. Next time, he has a cold, and his nasal passage is stuffy.

[01:58:11] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: It does not work. We've tried that.

[01:58:14] Ashley James: Darn it. I was going to be like, “I fixed it.” Just plug his nose.

[01:58:19] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Tastes and textures. He will have applesauce and not apples. We've got a lot of sensory things going on with that guy. So we'll be doing some other stuff, which makes supplementing him impossible. He's the kid that I haven't figured out how to supplement because I'm not going to hide stuff in chocolate every day. I feel like that's a no go.

The long and short of it, going way back, what research has shown now is that repeated exposure is helpful. That's what we're doing with Leopold, saying, “You have to experience this vegetable.” At least, we started with the vegetables. The fruits we're still going to work on for a while. They have to try.

So now I tell all families, we talk about my plate guidelines. The food pyramid that they used to do when we were kids, they no longer do, thank goodness, because it was pretty much like all carbs and then a few other things. It was crazy. They've developed the My Plate guidelines, and it's a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grain, a quarter veggie, a quarter fruit.

The long and the short of it is, for families, I don't even care as much what's on the half of the plate that's the protein and green side. I don't really like mac and cheese, but if you are coming from that's all you eat, then okay, let's stick mac and cheese on that one side, the other half of the plate must be fruits and veggies.

What I'll often tell parents hopefully it will progress beyond mac and cheese at some point. Some parents get there; some don't. I don't even care if kids eat all of their fruit and veggie sides. I want them to know it's there because when they see it on their plate, the studies have shown that kids then at least by the time they're in late elementary school or adolescence, they know that that is what a healthy plate looks like and they will eat it eventually. It can take years of exposure.

The other thing is that kids must try, so I often tell the kids in my practice, “Dr. K says you don't have to like your veggies, but Dr. K says you have to try your veggies.” So that means every day they're trying at least two bites of everything on their plate. And then the research has also shown that kids will try veggies if they also have something on their plate that they already like to eat. Hopefully, that's not something junky.

In the case of Leo, it's an organic sweet potato cracker with flaxseeds, which thank goodness he likes. He's got lots of fiber that he has on his plate. Then it is encouraging them to try something else on their plate.

[02:01:02] Ashley James: Coming back to this idea that the universe sets us up for success, by giving you these challenges, you have become so much more knowledgeable in these areas, and thus you can help so many more people. If you had children that had absolutely no issues, you wouldn't need to be diving into learning, about learning deeper beyond helping your clients and your patients. You’re learning for your children, and you have a deeper level of compassion and connection that someone who's the pediatrician who's never had to deal with this and their family could ever have.

[02:01:44] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Oh, man. I see so many parents judging each other too, and we've got to knock that off. I have so many parents that they buoy themselves up like, “My kid eats all their veggies,” and they're so great and then their next kid doesn't. We got to stop that. I don't want to serve my kid mac and cheese. There's no nutritional value of it. I turn around, and my hubby does it anyway, and it drives me crazy.

[02:02:11] Ashley James: That's what I'm telling. My husband has a younger brother. That happened in his family. I'm an only child, but my parents still managed to do it. They compared me to one of my friends who seemed perfect, “Why aren't you more like Jane?” Every chance they got—“Jane says please and thank you. Jane eats her broccoli.” They could do vegetable shaming with other friends, and it's not productive. It does not help with self-esteem. It doesn't make the kid want to eat the vegetables. It's not helpful at all.

[02:02:45] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: But at the same time, you can't cave. Just because Leopold got fed an Oreo by Grandpa, it does not mean I’m going to feed him Oreos. I'm not going to put an Oreo on his plate. He’s going to have a protein, he's going to have a green, and those grains are going to be whole grains, and he's going to have a fruit, and he's going to have a veggie, even if he cries about having orange on his plate. But it's still going to be there. I'm not going to force him to the point where he's crying because that's counterproductive. So we're just going to work, moving step by step, and we've got to let go of the guilt, and then we’ve got to let go of the shame.

If you have a fantastic eater, that's awesome, and I'm so happy for you. If you have a friend whose kid doesn't eat that, let's get them help because some of the kids—like my guy does need to go to occupational therapy. That's what OTs do—help desensitize kids.

[02:03:38] Ashley James: Yes, I love pediatric occupational therapy. Maybe you could tell us some other reasons that would be good for going to one. I don't think that parents know enough about that resource. What other issues come up commonly that are great to go to a pediatric occupational therapist for?

[02:04:02] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Any kid who is actually on the autism spectrum should be fully evaluated and should probably go to an OT. It depends on your state. In my state, we have an organization that does all of these screenings. Often, they're called like a 0-3 program. It's different from state to state. If the child is actually on the autism spectrum, most of the time they'll qualify for services, it'll be covered by the state or federal government. If they're not. But a lot of kids do still have some sensory processing disorder, and that's when they’re dysregulated.

There's a lot of symptoms involved in that. It might be sensitivity to noise, sound, taste, texture, touch, inattention, things like that would be an appropriate referral. There are sensory processing questionnaires that you can fill out if you're kind of curious about that.

Sometimes kids are dysregulated, so they're having explosive meltdowns for no reason. They might have a sensory processing disorder. It is not just being completely dysregulated. That's a little hard to tell because toddlers are dysregulated anyways. That's sort of their job is--to be constantly dysregulated.

[02:05:19] Ashley James: When in doubt, you can get evaluated and see if that's going to be beneficial.

[02:05:26] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yes.

[02:05:29] Ashley James: We could go on and on for hours. I'm going to ask one last question. We're going to wrap it up and definitely going to have you back on the show because we've got plenty of more topics to explore.

[02:05:40] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Sure.

[02:05:40] Ashley James: Sleep.

[02:05:42] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: [laughs] You threw that one as last! Oh, boy!

[02:05:49] Ashley James: I'll share what happened with us. Our son, he's an Aries. He’s very typical Aries. He is full of energy. You can't stop this kid. He’s going places. We don't feed him sugar. We feed him fruits and vegetables. He's going to get sugar naturally. I would hate to see this kid on a standard American diet. We had a problem. He had always fought sleep. He wants to be awake. He wants to go. Ever since he was born, he wants to go, go, go.

We discovered this magnesium soak--really effective, very easy to absorb through soaking in it. I interviewed the founder of it, and you can even do blood tests, and you can see that your magnesium or red blood cell count or the magnesium goes up in the bloodstream from soaking in this. We started adding it to his bath, and he started to calm down the evenings and tell us he was ready to go to sleep, which I thought was cool. We have this routine no screen time. We avoid screen time as much as possible.

We're reading books. There's a routine, and that helps. But for those who they feel like they've done everything, and their children still fight sleep, we also noticed that we had to start sleep routine around 5 PM. People think that their kids can go to bed at nine. It's like, no, Kids should be asleep by like six or seven, so maybe talk a little bit about like how long children should sleep and what are the most beneficial sleep routines, especially for children who fight sleep?

[02:07:41] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah. I have no way of figuring out how to do this quickly. Kids usually need more sleep than we think. The rooms really should be dark, although lots of kids are scared of the dark in developing nations. We are in Western nations. We're one of the very few cultures that do not sleep in the same room or same bed as our children. If you're going to bed share with a baby, you got to do it carefully.

But a lot of other cultures consider us to be barbarians for putting our kids to sleep in a different room than us. For some kids, it can be normal for them to sleep in the same room as mom and dad up until five or six. It's biologically advantageous to be in the same room as mom and dad.

Some of those kids have this heightened awareness, and they would have been great in tribal society because they're thinking like maybe the tiger is going to come and get me, so I better be alert and be vigilant. That would be great if we're going to try, but we're not in a tribe anymore. We should go to sleep, but we don't. It's okay if you still need to sleep with their kids. That doesn't mean you're a bad person.

Magnesium is great. I think it's a great idea to do it in the bath. There are also magnesium topicals. There are tons of magnesium chewies. There are all sorts of magnesium—very safe. If you dose magnesium orally and you dose it too high, you're just going to get diarrhea. So back up the dose. We call that dosing to bowel tolerance. I do think that’s short term, or at least a low dose of melatonin is pretty safe. It's been studied and is pretty safe. There aren't long-term studies on safety in melatonin, but I do think that now we have a lot of melatonin inhibition of our body making its melatonin because we're just too exposed to light, noise, sound, Wi-Fi and everything. In some ways, we might be replacing melatonin to where it's supposed to be. That's just scratching the surface. Yeah, we could do a whole sleep episode if you want.

[02:09:48] Ashley James: I'd love that. That'd be cool. What dosage is a generally good dose for melatonin for children?

[02:09:59] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: I start low at half a milligram or less. Sometimes kids who are dosed too high of melatonin can get nightmares. Don't do that. I'm never dosing melatonin in toddlers. I don't think that there's usually a need for that. It's very rare that I am.

[02:10:24] Ashley James: So you try everything else first.

Anything else first? I love talking to you, and we're going to have so much fun. You're going to come back on this show. We're just going to keep diving into these wonderful topics. I encourage parents and grandparents to go to your website in NaturopathicPediatrics.com and explore all the free resources that are there.

And if you do choose to buy something, use the coupon code LTH, get 20% off. Only write Dr. Erica love mail and none of this hate mail. Dr. Erica is on our side. She's supporting us and getting good information out there. You’re probably going to get some love mail. My listeners are the most loving and passionate individuals. We have a great Facebook group. I'd love for you to join it. It is Learn True Health on Facebook. People can go to Facebook and search Learn True Health, or they can go to learntruehealth.com/group. They'll redirect them to the Facebook group, a very lively and active community of passionate, caring individuals who all want to learn holistic health to improve their health and their family's health.

We've got a lot of parents there, too, so I know that you'll be welcome. There's zero hate speech in our Facebook group.

[02:11:47] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yay! Thank you for supporting each other.

[02:11:50] Ashley James: I've been so thrilled that my Facebook group has never attracted bullies or negative people. It's just been grounded down to earth people who want to be healthy and support other people in being healthy. So we've got that great support system there.

I can't wait to have you back on the show. It's going to be so wonderful. Is there anything you'd like to say to wrap up today's interview? Just anything you felt has been left unsaid?

[02:12:18] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: The only thing I would tell parents is don't Dr. Google and trust yourself, but don't trust Dr. Google. It will always convince you that you have cancer.

[02:12:28] Ashley James: It's kind of scary. It’s a big bag of worms we can open. But you can go to NaturopathicPediatrics.com.

[02:12:37] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Yeah.

[02:12:39] Ashley James: Thank you so much, Dr. Erica Krumbeck. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show. Can't wait to have you back.

[02:12:46] Dr. Erica Krumbeck: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[02:12:50] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That's takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

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Book: Through Thick & Thin: How the Wildfire was a Wake Up Call to Transform my Life!  https://amzn.to/2XTHImq

 https://www.busseytony.com 

How To Lose Weight Naturally

https://www.learntruehealth.com/how-to-lose-weight-naturally

Morbidly obese at 567 pounds, Tony Bussey’s life was “a self-made prison.”  In this episode, be inspired by his experience in the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire and how it flamed the desire for self-improvement to regain a whole new life of physical freedom and more.

[00:00:03] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 350.

I am so excited about today’s interview. We have with us an inspiring man, Tony Bussey. You went viral.

I saw you on Facebook. You went viral, and your story has inspired me. I said I have to get him on my show. I can’t wait for my listeners to learn from Tony.

[00:00:35] Tony Bussey: Thank you.

[00:00:36] Ashley James: I want [inaudible 00:00:37] your show, and I want to dive right into your story because when I saw you went through the Fort McMurray wildfires—I’m originally from Canada. I live in the States now, but I have a lot of friends in Alberta, and I have a lot of friends that were displaced and lost their homes. It was quite tragic.

[00:00:56] Tony Bussey: I’m jealous of the United States right now because it looks like you guys are going to get the Stanley Cup again. You’re Canadian. That’s pretty heartbreaking, but that’s another broadcast.

[00:01:08] Ashley James: [laughs]

[00:01:11] Tony Bussey: I’m very sad right now, but that’s okay.

[00:01:14] Ashley James: I had to explain to my husband why and how hockey is the best sport.

[00:01:19] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah, by far.

[00:01:20] Ashley James: [laughs] So Tony, you had quite an experience going through the Fort McMurray wildfires. But that’s not the topic for today’s show.

The topic is that you transformed your health and your life because of them. I love for you to take us back and tell us your story. What happened to you that transformed your life?

[00:01:46] Tony Bussey: For years and years, I lived a life that was just horrible, I guess you could say. I like to tell people that I was in a self-made prison.

I’m not that tall. I’m only between 5’8” and 5’9”, but I was over and around 600 pounds. My top weight was 567 pounds, and I was that size for years. Life was horrible at that size. There’s nothing designed for people to live day to day life—to get into a restaurant, to get into a vehicle, to get on a bus, to buy clothes. Everything is a struggle.

Leading up to the fire–I was evacuated twice from that fire. During the second evacuation—because they had flown us back north of Fort McMurray. We weren’t allowed to go back into the city, but I work in a mine north of the city, and the city itself was still a dangerous area, but north of the city at that time was okay. They had the mine shut down, but they’re trying to get everything back up and running. The fire seemed to be dying down quite a bit.

But when we got up there, almost like overnight, it got really bad again. There were a couple of camps up there that was on fire. One completely burned to the ground.

It was during this evacuation, the second evacuation, that my life changed. At that time, we left the camp, and there was a line up to get on this huge coach style bus that they had coming around picking people up like those Greyhound buses. I was in the line-up, and I was in the back of the line, and a gentleman came along—a manager. He came along, and he took me from the back of the line to the very front of the line.

Anybody listening to this that is extremely overweight does understand how anybody that’s obese, you don’t like any extra attention. You’re already stared at enough. You don’t blend in, and that’s all you long for, to blend in with people.

So when he picked me out of the back and put me to the front, right away all of these eyes were on me—”Why is that guy going to the front?”

But looking back on it now, I understood why they did it because you don’t want a man that’s almost 600 pounds in well over 30 degree Celsius heat. I’m not sure what it is in Fahrenheit.

[00:04:21] Ashley James: It’s in the 90s in Fahrenheit.

[00:04:23] Tony Bussey: You don’t want anybody in over 90-degree heat, that size, up there in the middle of nowhere passing out basically. So they put me on the bus, and the bus was packed, except there is an empty seat next to me. But I was spilling over in that seat too much that they couldn’t sit anybody there.

You look out the window of that bus, you can see a long line of people—men, women, somebody’s wife, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s husband, somebody’s son waiting to get ahead of that hill basically, and now somebody has to wait even longer because I’m taking up two seats.

So they brought us up to an airport, and it was the same situation. I had to get on a plane, then all these planes land in another airport. They would land, they would fill up, and take off, and more planes would land. That’s all it was.

When I got on the plane, it was the same thing. The plane was packed. It was full except there was a seat next to me that I was taking up too much of that seat for them to put anybody there.

That was the final straw for me. Everything over the years, every struggle, every sadness, every bit of depression, every bit of hate that I had for myself because I was so huge, it all culminated into that.

And then, I couldn’t get those image of that people out of my head, and I kept thinking, “Okay, now you’re affecting other people.” I knew I always was like my family and stuff, but for some reason, that wasn’t enough. But then through that fire—I mean we didn’t know how bad it was going to get. I didn’t know how long these people were going to have to wait. But because of me, somebody has to wait there even hours, who knows at that time—maybe another day longer.

Everybody got out, thank God, but that had such an effect on me, and then when I got home, I got down to Edmonton, Alberta, that evening—that’s where they flew us to—I had enough. From that moment on, I changed everything.

I changed my eating habits. I think I started walking, [inaudible 00:06:31] the next day, but I changed everything. I haven’t looked back since.

[00:06:37] Ashley James: Now, we’re coming up on the 3rd anniversary of the Fort McMurray fire—it happened in May. Tell me, how long did it take for you to start to lose the weight after you changed your eating habits and started to walk? Tell us about that journey.

[00:06:56] Tony Bussey: It was fairly quick. Now, I was 567 pounds. I couldn’t get on any normal scale to see how big I was. I had to use a warehouse for the company that I work with, one that they would forklifts on. That’s the only thing that I could weigh myself, and when I weighed, I was 567. When they allowed us back into Fort McMurray, I went back to work, and everything was back to normal on June 10th, I believe that was.

I started this both the third week of May, so by the middle of June, I was down 30 pounds. For the first in my life, the scale had gone down and not up. I will never forget it. When I have seen it that day, it was like I won the lottery. What an overwhelming feeling of joy that finally—I keep referencing saying a prison—when you got 30 pounds gone, it’s like somebody has taken a set of keys to that prison door and they’re putting it a little bit closer to you. You’re getting closer to getting yourself free, and that’s the way I felt. I was starting to become free again.

There are two types of freedom in this world that people long for. That’s physical freedom and financial freedom. If you can tame one of those, you have a life that’s more beautiful than ever.

I had 30 pounds gone, and then I had 100 pounds gone by September. That’s when my life started to change. It’s been a beautiful ride ever since.

[00:08:48] Ashley James: Looking at you now, no one would know that you were once almost 600 pounds. You look super healthy, super fit, and you’ve done this within less than three years.

[00:09:02] Tony Bussey: Yes, I think it took me about two years. I’ve been maintaining the weight now for about a year. The thing that I did in the beginning, I do to this day. I eat the same. I go for my walk. I walk 3.5-5 kilometers a day. Now walking to me, it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. I’ll get up at 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning, and I’ll go for a walk before I go to work, and I work a 12-hour shift.

That walk in the morning, that crisp air, that alone time, the time to think, just to reflect and remember that three years ago, I couldn’t do that. So I smile, and I start my day, and it’s like a fresh cup of coffee. I miss it if I can’t get out.

[00:09:54] Ashley James: Your walks are like a meditation in motion where you’re bringing in gratitude and reflection into your life.

[00:10:02] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah. Anything that you might be dealing with it, it just has a way of clearing your head. That weight, that size, for years and years it was my biggest disadvantage because as soon as you would wake up in the morning, you knew how big you were. As soon as you took your first breath, it was a struggle.

That is so ingrained in my memory that now that has become my biggest asset because for years and years and years, I long to be out of that prison like I keep saying. And now that I’m finally out, it’s like a dream come true.

[00:10:41] Ashley James: So while you were overweight, you longed not to be overweight, but what stopped you from taking the actions to accomplish that?

[00:10:50] Tony Bussey: It was mental. I had myself convinced that I didn’t deserve anything else. I had myself convinced that that was my life. I had myself convinced that I was trapped. I would go to bed at night, and there were nights I would go to bed and just pray that I wouldn’t wake up because it was so horrible.

If anybody is listening to this right now that is struggling with their sin, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be weight, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could be anything. But you get to the point of despair where you don’t care about yourself anymore. You get to a point where you don’t care if you live or die. Basically, what I was doing was eating myself into an early grave.

For whatever reason, and I still look back, and I still struggle with the reason why I didn’t start it then. I used to try at times, but it was never successful. But for some reason, seeing those people waiting for that bus and waiting for that plane, something clicked in my brain. There was something that clicked that said, “This is enough, Tony. Now you’re affecting other people. Life is passing you by. Let’s get this changed because you’re not going to have another chance.”

I didn’t think I’d be alive right now to even talk to you if I stayed that size. But now, I wake up in the morning, and I’m not reminded of that life. I wake up in the morning and reminded of a new life, and I smile. I smile every time I put socks on.

[00:12:43] Ashley James: [laughs]

[00:12:45] Tony Bussey: I have had people sending me socks in the mail, and it’s been wonderful. That is my biggest treasure right now, a dresser drawer full of socks that I can wear.

[00:13:03] Ashley James: When you were at your heaviest, could you not put on your socks?

[00:13:06] Tony Bussey: No. I went about three years where I couldn’t put on socks, so to walk without socks on—I work in heavy industry, so I’m wearing work boots without socks on. I would take my work boots and put up on a table, and I would tie them loosely so I can slide my foot down in because I couldn’t bend over to tie up my boots. So I would slide my foot down in them, and then you got a boot on with no socks on, so your foot is sliding around in this all day—just physical pain.

When I could do that, I  think I had about a hundred pounds gone. I mean that first day when I put socks on again, it was—yeah. I’m Canadian, and I have cold winters. It’d be like in the middle of January, andyou get a blast of warm summer air coming against your face for five seconds. Just a feeling of happiness. I was like, “Ah.” It would be like if we won a Stanley Cup again.

[00:14:19] Ashley James: [laughs]

[00:14:23] Tony Bussey: That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s just a feeling of pure joy,

[00:14:29] Ashley James: Tell us about some other times during your journey towards your goal weight where you had those first moments, like the first time you could fit into a booth at a restaurant or go to a movie theater for the first time. Do you have any more of those?

[00:14:49] Tony Bussey: Yeah, like the first time I got in my car. I had a seatbelt extension in my car, and I couldn’t even wear a seatbelt then. So I still keep that seatbelt extension in my car just for a reminder. But the first time I could put a seatbelt on normally—you talk about a movie theater. I used to take my daughter, and we go to the movies. She would have to sit two seats over from me. Now she sits right next to me.

To go to a normal clothing store, nothing is more frustrating or depressing or demoralizing when you go into a Big & Tall, like a George Richards clothing store for big men, and they don’t have clothes to fit you. I used to pray and wished there was a store called Short & Obese, but there wasn’t. It didn’t exist. I would assume that I have to go out and buy a tarp. I was starting to feel horrible.

So when I could go just to a normal clothing store and buy clothes, when you go into a normal grocery store—because for big people, like really big like I was, when you go anywhere where there are crowds, you always get stared at. And when you would go now to places where there are crowds, people don’t give you a second look; you’re just one of thousands. Everybody wants to be extraordinary. Everybody wants to stand out. An obese person wants to blend in.

To finally achieve that, to go to a restaurant and to not have to worry about if they have tables or boots—I can go, and I can fit into a booth now. To get more personal, I went on my first date in years. At that size, you would never go and ask a woman out because you never had nice clothes. You didn’t feel good about yourself, everything that went with that, right?

And to finally be social again, to meet new people, or like I said, to buy socks—to wear socks again, to get up in the morning and take two seconds to put socks on. I bought my first pair of sandals. I never wore sandals before. Right now I’m sitting here wearing shorts. This would be the first summer I wore shorts in about 25 years.

[00:17:12] Ashley James: Wow.

[00:17:13] Tony Bussey: Yeah. I went on my first international trip. I went down to Mexico last November. I’ve never been to the United States before. Years and years ago, before we needed a passport, I drove through northern Michigan, but I’ve never traveled through the United States. I definitely want to see a beautiful country. I want to come down see New York, Washington, San Francisco, all across. I want to travel.

So when you get on a plane, and you can fit into a normal seat, you don’t need a seatbelt extension, you can put the tray table down. And then you see people coming into the aisle, and they’ll sit next to you, and they don’t give you that nasty look like, “Oh, look at that big guy.” They sit next to you as a normal person, and they don’t know your story. You’re filled with so much joy because you’re just normal–just to do every day normal activities.

[00:18:11] Ashley James: So many people take it for granted. But for those who are living in the larger bodies, what other people take for granted, they only wish they could have.

[00:18:24] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah. Like to call a cab. Before, if I needed to have a cab, cabs didn’t fit me. I couldn’t get into just any car. Now I can call up any cab, and get into and go anywhere. If you get to an airport, one of the things was having trouble fitting on a plane, but you could always buy two seats if you have to. Now, I hardly flew at the time, but the biggest thing was getting to an airport, and if you had to rent a vehicle, what if there are no vehicles big enough for you to rent? Things like that.

I used to worry about getting sick. How would a hospital take care of me? Could I fit in their bathroom? Could I get on a stretcher? Things like that. It’s all of these things that would give you anxiety.

I live alone, so I used to wonder, “What if I had a heart attack? Who’s gonna know?” I had a friend of mine that used to call me because we worked shifts; I wouldn’t see him for a while. But if he didn’t hear from me in two, three days, he would call me or text me and make sure I was okay.

[00:19:33] Ashley James: How many years did you spend living in a larger body?

[00:19:38] Tony Bussey: I was always kind of large. I remember I moved to Fort McMurray in 1999, and I was over and around 300 2,330 pounds, I believe, at the time. It was, I believe, in 2004. I’m originally from Newfoundland on the east coast of Canada, and I drove home then. When I came back, none of my clothes fit.

From then on, from 2004 up to about 2016 is when I put on all that weight. And I would say from 2006, 2016, I was getting big. It seems like once you hit a certain level, whether it’s 350 or 400 pounds—I didn’t like weighing myself much then—but the weight would snowball. As soon as you hit a certain amount, then you go up, and you go up even faster because what happens is you care less, and you do less and less activity because it becomes more of a strain on your body to do so. And then you get depressed more, so you’d turn more and more to junk food to feel a little bit of happiness. And then it becomes a vicious cycle.

[00:20:56] Ashley James: There’s a TV show with a doctor named Dr. Nowzaradan.

[00:21:00] Tony Bussey: Oh, yes. I watched.

[00:21:02] Ashley James: It’s “My 600-Lb Life,” and he says that at this weight, like you said around 400 pounds, you’re either gaining or losing. It’s very difficult to maintain. In his experience, he sees that you’ve gone to maintain momentum in your weight loss or else you’ll start gaining again. How did you maintain your momentum?

Did you ever have an experience where you go on the scale and you didn’t lose weight, or maybe you gained a few pounds, or the weight loss wasn’t as significant as you thought it would be? Because there are those moments where people end up giving up in a program, where they get on a scale or they measure themselves, and they’re dissatisfied with the result, and they throw in the towel. Did you ever come up against those moments?

[00:21:56] Tony Bussey: Well, there were times where—when you work night shifts like I work night shifts, that could screw up your metabolism. So if you weighed yourself after doing six- or seven-night shifts, you wouldn’t be down any weight. And then about three, four days later you would have five pounds gone type of thing.

But overall, no, because the scales are just one aspect. I didn’t even own a scale for the first two and a half years of my weight loss because people get so concentrated on a scale that if they do have a bad day or so, they would get too discouraged and they would go back to their old ways. A scale, in my opinion, in the beginning, is the worst thing that you can have.

What I would do, I would go down through the hospital and weigh, or I would sneak up into one of the floors and use a scale in the hallway. I’m sure the doctor used to wonder what I was doing every couple of weeks, but I show up and weigh myself and take off. But I didn’t want to have that scale in the house. So then if you did have a day or whatever, or maybe you never got out for a walk or something, you were feeling a little bloated, you didn’t have the scale there to discourage you. I would weigh once every two or three weeks, and that was it.

[00:23:21] Ashley James: Smart. Did you ever come up against though, like a number you weren’t happy with and then after you wrestle with that little voice in your head that said, “What’s the point? What’s the use?” Did you ever have any of those moments?

[00:23:37] Tony Bussey: I can honestly say no. The only thing I measured myself by—I didn’t own a scale—I would go by my belt. I would go for walks, and when I could wear jeans again, I started wearing jeans, and I had my belt. As long as I didn’t have to go up a notch, I knew I was okay, and I will keep going. And then when I would have to, I will get a knife and create another hole in my belt. And that’s when sometimes when I would go and weigh. I still have that belt this day.

But those memories of being 567 pounds, we’re so seared in my head that even if I stayed the same at the scale, I wasn’t back to that old weight. I still have the ability to do things, to walk, and I kept eating right and everything.

You’re not going to gain weight by eating apples and bananas. You’re not going to gain weight by eating healthy. To this day, I don’t touch junk food. It’s been now almost three years since I’ve had any junk food. I don’t have a cake on my birthday. I don’t have candy. I don’t have chocolate. I don’t have chips. I don’t have ice cream. I don’t have anything.

[00:24:53] Ashley James: That’s interesting. I’d like to expand upon that. You said you don’t have cake on your birthday, and I see some people, they’ll eat healthily, but then they’ll say, “Life is so short. We should have the cake on our birthday, and we should allow ourselves to have whatever we want at Thanksgiving as long as we eat healthy through the year.” Why do you think that that is a trap? Why do you avoid that behavior, and you choose to eat healthy 365 days a year?

[00:25:28] Tony Bussey: I would look back at those people, and I would say, ”Would a cocaine addict go and snort a line once a month to celebrate a birthday?”

[00:25:37] Ashley James: [laughs]

[00:25:38] Tony Bussey: Right? Would an alcoholic go every Saturday and say, “I’m going to have a drink today for a treat.”?

[00:25:46] Ashley James: It’s a slippery slope.

[00:25:48] Tony Bussey: Why go back to the very thing that took away your happinessfor so many years? It’s like getting punched in the face, and then finally having your black eye healed up, and then going back to that guy and saying, “Punch me again.” Why would people do that?

We got to stop treating food as an award, as a treat. There are other treats out there. Buying clothes, going for walks, going on trips, meeting new people.

Now I admit I was at the extreme side of waking, but for me, I have to treat it as an addiction. I’ve come to the realization that for the rest of my life, I will never have junk food. And right now I don’t crave it. I don’t want it. I mean if you or I was sitting here right now, and you were sitting down with a bag of chips and a chocolate bar, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. I look at that stuff, and I get angry at it.

[00:26:56] Ashley James: Interesting. Tell us about your strategy. You get angry at the foods that harm your body.

[00:27:03] Tony Bussey: Yeah, because I look at that stuff and it put me in a prison. It almost took away my life. It took away my freedom. It took away my relationships. It took away a social aspect. It took away any joy. It took away any love. It took away years and years off my life. It took away memories. It took away trips. It took away money. It took away health. It took everything from me.

Now, it was my fault. I don’t blame anybody. Nobody forced me to eat the way I did. I choose that. But I also choose now never to have it again. And now, I don’t look at, “Poor Tony can’t have cake. He can’t have chips.” I might’ve lost that, but I’ve gained freedom. I’ve gained happiness. I’ve gained friendships. I’ve gained a social life. I’ve gained the ability to be free and travel. I’ve gained so much.

I’ve lost over 330 pounds, but I’ve gained a whole new life. Like I’ll go into convenience stores, and I’ll look at all that stuff, all it does is bring back those memories to me.

[00:28:20] Ashley James: Some people would think, “I don’t want to be deprived. I don’t want to feel deprived.” Do you feel deprived when you eat apples, bananas, and vegetables when you eat? When you eat healthy food, do you feel deprived or have you discovered that eating whole real healthy food tastes amazing? Have you discovered a whole new—were you surprised? As someone who ate junk food all the time, we think junk food is delicious, right? But then we get into eating vegetables. You Go, “Oh, my God. I didn’t know how delicious vegetables were until you get into it.” Have you discovered how delicious healthy food is?

[00:29:03] Tony Bussey: It’s amazing. I love those huge big apples. You sit down with a nice crisp, cold apple, that’s not raw and all in the middle, and you open it up, and it’s just delicious. It’s refreshing. You don’t get the sugar. I used to get a sugar high, and then you would crash after. I don’t get any of that anymore.

But the natural food that comes from the earth gives you such a natural feeling. There’s no crashing. There are no bad side effects. It gives you the energy to go and have a beautiful life. I tell people when I get talking to friends and stuff, and I’ve used this example: if you’re 18 years old or 16 years old, you have your license, and your father or mother comes up to you and says, “Here you go. Here’s a vehicle. Here’s a brand new car for you. But the only drawback is that’s the only vehicle you can have for the rest of your life.”

[00:30:10] Ashley James: [laughs] You’d baby that dude. Oil changes every thousand miles.

[00:30:18] Tony Bussey: Yes, the best fuel. You would have that car detailed inside and out. You would avoid all the puddles. You would have the best tires on it. There wouldn’t be a scratch on that vehicle.

[00:30:30] Ashley James: Amazing.

[00:30:32] Tony Bussey: We should treat our bodies the same way. Life is so short. Life has gone like a warm summer breeze before you know it is over. Why live filling ourselves up with junk?

[00:30:47] Ashley James: That’s very beautifully said. I love it. You touched on that you noticed that when you did that 12 days in a row of night shifts or 5 or 12 days in a row of night shifts that you hadn’t lost any weight, but then you would get back into routine for day shifts and you’d lose weight. Is that because you had sleep deprivation? What do you think changes us when we do night shifts, or when we lose sleep that has stopped losing weight?

[00:31:21] Tony Bussey: I had a friend of mine, she was a nurse, and she used to tell me that your metabolism will slow down. People are not meant to work nighttime. Your body is meant to be sleeping and everything. It just screws everything up. I’m not sure the exact science of it, but if anybody is listening to this right now going through their weight loss journey, a bit of advice I would give you is never to weigh yourself after a night shift. The scale won’t show anything, and I wouldn’t want them to be discouraged and say, “I ate great for a week, and I haven’t lost a pound. Screw it. I’m going to go back, eating ice cream.” Your body does different things. That’s all. It could be [inaudible 00:32:07] food longer, all kinds of different things. But night shift screws you right up.

[00:32:15] Ashley James: I noticed that. I used to be diabetic, and I used food and natural medicine to reverse. Type 2 diabetes is 100% reversible. What I noticed is that when I had poor sleep, I had really bad blood sugar, and I would eat more. I’d have stronger hunger the next day. I’d want to eat more food. And if I didn’t get enough sleep, there was a direct correlation between how much sleep I got and how many calories I consumed the next day.

And so, on times where I had a wonderful sleep, I ate less food. I was less hungry. My blood sugar was more balanced. I was just wondering if you noticed that when you work the night shift, it screwed with your sleep, so you didn’t get enough rest, and your body was hungry, so you’re eating more food, and maybe you didn’t get enough exercising because you’re tired. It’s how sleep affects our ability to stay on track with our goals.

[00:33:17] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah. Like I’ll do 12-hour night shifts, so I’ll usually eat around 10:30 or 11, then I’ll snack for the rest of the night, and I’ll have a bit of fruit at five in the morning. And then that’d be it until I wake up at two or three in the afternoon. But then I’ll go for a long walk, and then I’ll come back and make an omelet, and then I’m good to go. But, oh yeah, definitely I wake up and I’m hungry, but sleep is a huge thing with health. Your body needs a certain amount of sleep, and I still struggle with that to this day. I think I drink too much coffee, but that’s Canadian in me. I’m a Tim Horton’s addict.

[00:33:58] Ashley James: Right? They don’t know Tim Horton’s where I am.

[00:34:01] Tony Bussey: That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

[00:34:04] Ashley James: Isn’t that the saddest thing ever? The closest Tim Horton’s is about three hours north of me. So yeah, I have to deal with that here. I think all Canadians are addicted to Tim Horton’s.

[00:34:15] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah. It’s the only thing that’s keeping Canada from breaking up. [laughs]

[00:34:24] Ashley James: So Tony, you’ve mentioned that you’ve done this by eating healthy and going on your walks, but what does eating healthy look like to you? There are so many diets out there that are conflicting. What did you discover that works best for you?

[00:34:42] Tony Bussey: I will tell you what I ate before first. For example, there’ll be some evenings I would get off work, and I would go and get five pieces of fried chicken, a couple of large things of rings, two large root beers. I would eat that. And then about 20 minutes later, I would get a coffee with three sugar, three cream, three or four donuts, and I would go for a little drive. And then about 20 minutes, a half hour after that, I will get a large bag of chips, three or four ice cream sandwiches, and a couple of chocolate bars.

This was within a two-hour span, and this was practically every other day. I wouldn’t come home unless I had junk food in the house. I drank a lot of pop. I was drinking 10, 11 cans of diet pop a day. A lot of chips, a lot of chocolate, a lot of ice cream. I love ice cream. It could get minus 30 up here, and I’d be sitting down with an ice cream sandwich.

But now I cut out, for example, I still drink coffee by drinking black. I go to Tim Horton’s now, for example, here in Canada, now I either get a black coffee or just half a cream, but no sugar. I stay away from all processed sugar. I eat eggs. I’ll have cheese. Usually, I’ll make it three eggs with cheese and mushroom, make an omelet. I’ll have steak. I’ll have chicken or salmon. I eat a lot of vegetables, and I eat a lot of fruits. I’ll have a couple of apples, usually a couple of apples and a banana every day.

And I don’t eat after six, so between five and six, that’s my last meal for the evening, and I walk every day, about three and a half to five kilometers a day. That’s what I’ve been doing all the time.

Cutting out the processed sugar, that was hard in the beginning. I got a lot of headaches and stuff for about a month, but diet pop, that’s the worst thing that you can have. I found that it gave me cravings for junk food.

[00:37:03] Ashley James: Wow.

[00:37:05] Tony Bussey: Yeah, I couldn’t get enough in me for whatever reason. I got no scientific basis. I’m sure having one diet pop or whatever would be okay. But as I said, I was drinking 8, 9, 10, 11 cans of this a day. And it seemed like the more I drank, the more I would crave junk food, the more I would crave, the more I would want diet pop, and it would just go hand in hand. I couldn’t get enough of either in me.

And now I, I haven’t had pop in almost three years. I don’t touch any junk food. No treats, what you would call normal treats. I don’t have any of that. I stay away from breads and pasta. And I don’t eat late at night.

[00:37:51] Ashley James: I like that you said don’t eat after six. That’s something I just started doing, and I’ve already noticed I feel better. I choose to eat healthily. I have for the last few years, and I’ve been on my health journey. But I noticed that I had gotten into this routine of eating a second dinner because we would eat supper early because we have a young kid in the house. And so we would get him fed around five, and then get him to bed. And then I’d stay up until 11 or so. And of course, a few hours later I’m hungry again, so I’d eat again. That became this slippery slope of eating out of habit, out of fun. It could be like “healthy food,” it’s still consuming more calories at night before going to bed.

What do I need to do consuming 500 calories before bed? All I’m doing is sleeping. I don’t need to eat more. And so choosing to not eat after six, like even having a piece of fruit in my hand because we just went to the Asian market, got some really cool stuff there.

[00:39:04] Tony Bussey: They got a lot of cool stuff there.

[00:39:05] Ashley James: Right? We’re going to a barbecue this weekend. My husband’s vegan and I have a day 23 of me not eating any meat, and I feel fantastic. It’s a personal journey. I don’t believe in any one diet dogma. I don’t think everyone should be vegan, or everyone should be paleo. It’s everyone’s journey to figure out what their body needs.

[00:39:30] Tony Bussey: We should never judge anybody. I dated a girl there for a few months and a wonderful lady, and she was vegetarian. So out of respect for her when we were together, I would eat vegetarian with her, and I loved it. I didn’t I was lacking or anything.

[00:39:48] Ashley James: Right. And I feel great. I can’t believe it. I’m enjoying it. We’re going to a barbecue this weekend at a friend’s house, and so we’re bringing a jackfruit with us. We’re going to cut it up and barbecue the jackfruit. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

[00:40:03] Tony Bussey: That sounds delicious.

[00:40:04] Ashley James: So, yeah, yesterday we were at the Asian market. I picked out this exotic looking fruit. I thought this is great because we had already had dinner. It was going to be dessert. I get into the car. It was 6:20. I said, “Okay, I’m going to have this fruit tomorrow.” I’m not eating after six no matter what, and I can’t believe it. I feel so good. It’s sort of like intermittent fasting where you open up your eating window.

So if you stop eating at six, then you don’t eat again till like 9 or 10 the next day. You decrease the amount of calories you consume, but also your body gets more time to rest and to heal.

[00:40:43] Tony Bussey: It’s a mental thing, too.

[00:40:45] Ashley James: It is because now I want to go to bed sooner. It was like, what do I need to do staying up, I know how important sleep is, but I’m actually noticing my body is telling me, around nine o’clock, “Hey, it’s time to wind down,” because I’m not going to the fridge. I’m not eating any more tonight. Now I’d say, “Hey, it’s time to go to sleep. What are you doing?” It goes hand in hand. Not eating after six and making sure you get to bed on time because if you plan on eating more, you’re going to stay up later.

And then when you’re sleeping, you’re still digesting, so that interrupts your sleep. I liked that you said that—no eating after six. What I want to know is, the night that you arrived in Edmonton from the fires from the second evacuation, where you had stolen someone’s seat and the impact of your weight and the weight of that on you emotionally, how did you know what to eat? You had spent your entire life eating poorly. How did you know to cut out sugar, to eat fruits and vegetables, to cut out pasta and rice? What informed you?

[00:42:07] Tony Bussey: I had a friend of mine. She lives down in Virginia. She’s Canadian, and she’s married to a US Army airborne. I think he’s special forces, but he runs triathlons and stuff also. He’s in great shape and everything. I guess she got some advice off them, and she called me one evening, and she keeps in touch sometimes, especially during the fire and stuff. She said, “Tony, eat this and this and this, and don’t eat this, this and this.” She just gave me a little bit of advice, and that was it. I just went with that.

I just started cutting out sugar. Basic common sense will tell you what’s good and what’s bad, and the little things that you would pick up, a little bit of advice from friends and stuff over the months and everything, and then what seemed to work for me, and I just kept going with it, and that was it. The big thing, like I said, like no eating late at night. For my trick, what I do, I get up early in the morning, like today, my day off, and I was up at 5:30 still. But now tonight, as you said, around nine o’clock I’ll be getting tired. So now your tired instincts are taking over your hunger instincts. I think you go to bed, and then once you’re in bed, you’re too lazy to go to a fridge because you’re too comfortable in bed.

And then I wake up—as soon as the daylight comes in the morning, and I wake up, and I was like, “Oh, I can eat again.” So I get up and make a breakfast, and I go for a walk and so on. She told me some things, and then I had some friends who would give me a little bit of advice here and there. But I just kept doing the same thing because I could feel things are getting looser. And then when I came back to Fort McMurray, and I realized I had 30 pounds gone, I was like, “Wow, this is working.” That was it then. It was the [inaudible 00:44:14].

[00:44:17] Ashley James: That is so cool. It sounds like part of what you did was listen to your body and listen to your intuition because you had a lot of advice being thrown at you. How did you know at a gut level what was working?

[00:44:35] Tony Bussey: You learn like through your own life experiences, I guess. I had one person tell me, “Be careful. I’m going [inaudible 00:44:44] what you eat.” To me, that’s the reason why people give up so easily because they get all of these things thrown at them. All these things that seem so ridiculous, and they’re like, “I can’t do it.”

Just filter out all of that stuff. Use your common sense, and then go with that and feel yourself what works. I guess my gut instinct- I’m very, very stubborn. I just went with that, I had the 30 pounds gone, a few things work, and I was fine. Then the longer I went from processed sugar, the less and less I craved it. And I was eating completely healthy.

So I guess to me, my mindset was, if you’re exercising and you’re eating healthy, and you keep doing that, you’re going to lose weight, because how can you not?

[00:45:48] Ashley James: The hardest thing we’ve seen with weight loss is maintaining it. It’s pretty ridiculous. Something like only 0.8% of people who had been significantly obese are able to, in the long run, not gained back the weight. There’s a very small chance, and I know you’re doing it.

[00:46:12] Tony Bussey: That’s the same chance that Canada gets the Stanley Cup again.

[00:46:14] Ashley James: [laughs]

[00:46:16] Tony Bussey: I had to throw that in there. I’m just a sad, sad specimen here today. But all my hopes are on Toronto tonight, but I’m just a sad, sad state. But yes, it’s a very small chance. A lot of the most major things that have happened in this world, in the beginning it seemed very impossible that it was ever going to happen, but people kept at it.

If I would tell people, “Don’t get discouraged,” I mean, you look at the moon landing. There was a small chance of that happening in the 60s, and it happened. Things that are happening every day—there are miracles happening every day that there’s a small chance of happening, but it happens. If you look at most people that are successful, what they all have in common is they’re very, very stubborn. They don’t give up.

I look back, and I see people that have lost weight but have put it back on, and the one thing that they all seem to have in common is that they go back to eating junk food.

Just get rid of it. Just convince yourself that you’re done with it. Especially with people that were my size. If you’re listening to this and you’re 400, 500, 600 pounds, get in your mindset that “No more am I ever going to have junk food.” Treat it like an alcoholic would treat booze.

[00:47:59] Ashley James: It’s ruining your life the same way as alcohol to an alcoholic.

[00:48:03] Tony Bussey: Hugely. For me, it was. This earth didn’t start by having junk food in gardens. It was fruit and vegetables and things like that. We don’t need it. You can treat yourself in other ways. So if you stay away from that, you will keep the weight off. Just keep doing what you did in the beginning.

I guess you can apply that to not only weight loss, but even relationships and everything. If you keep doing what you did in the beginning to meet a person, it will always be a success. Keep doing what you did in the beginning to lose the weight, and it will always be a success.

The problem with anything that people fail in, they always go back to the old ways. Just get in your mindset that you’re done with that. If I can do it, anybody can. I was 41 years old. I was 561 pounds. I was living alone. I was eating all kinds of crap and putting into my body. I added muscle pain. I had foot pain. I would come home from work, and I would have blood rolling down from my belly because of the chafing.

I went through all of that, and I still lost the weight without surgery just naturally and just by eating right. To this day, I still haven’t joined a gym. I tell people this so they can realize that there are no excuses. If they come to me and say, “Tony, I can’t because my back hurts. Tony, I can’t cause I’m 400 pounds.” I was 567.

“Tony, I can’t because I’m working too long days. I work 12-hour shifts.” “Tony, I can’t because I’m going and getting out of breath.” Well, so was I. There are no excuses.

But regardless of what choice you make, life is still moving on. Each day passes by. It’s up to you. How do you want to live it? Every day we get up in the morning is a day closer or that we’ll be done with this earth. Do you want to live the rest of your life trapped in addiction, or do you want to finally be done with it and go out and enjoy the world? It’s full of beauty. That’s the way I look at it.

[00:50:39] Ashley James: You live in some of the harshest climates. I live in a very moderate climate just outside of Seattle, where we get barely two inches of snow on most winters. We got rain, and I’m always using weather an excuse not to go out for a walk. We’ve got beautiful hiking; we call it hiking. It’s hardly hiking. It’s just a path in the woods. You can’t call it hiking.

So we go hiking because it makes us feel like we’re—

[00:51:12] Tony Bussey: On Mount Everest.

[00:51:13] Ashley James: Yeah, exactly right. Really adventurous. We have these beautiful trails in the woods near our house, and they’re so easy to walk. It’s so beautiful, and it’s so relaxing, and I use all the excuses in the world. “Oh, it’s too sunny today. It’s too rainy today. It’s too cold today. It’s too windy today.” It’s just so silly.

Here you are in negative 40 degrees with the windshield and the snow in the winter going for your walks no matter what.

[00:51:43:41] Tony Bussey: No matter what, I’ve walked in everything from minus 52 to plus 35.

[00:51:48] Ashley James: That is very hot and very cold.

[00:51:53] Tony Bussey: I’m not trying to make things sound simple, but I guess you just got to pick your pain. Do you stay trapped in that body that’s almost 600 pounds, and that is a full-time pain? If you don’t do anything about it, you’re going to be that way till the day you die. Or do you go out in the minus 50 or the plus 30? Do you walk with the back pain and foot pain and go through the hunger cravings. But as you do that, you’re losing the weight, so that pain becomes temporary.

Either you stay with a full time, permanent pain or you go and do something, and you go through a temporary pain to have a life that you dream of. But either way, life is moving by, so you got to pick the way that you want to live it.

[00:52:55] Ashley James: I want to know what happened in the early 2000s that led up to the weight gain that happened in 2004. Was there anything going on in your life emotionally, between the year 2000 and 2004 that had you want to go to food for so much pleasure during that road trip?

[00:53:22] Tony Bussey: I think about it a lot, and I’m a big proponent of self-responsibility. I don’t blame anybody for what happened. Nobody forced me to eat the way I did or to live the way I did. But I believe it was a lot of loneliness.

I was with this wonderful woman there for about four years. She was pregnant at the time when we started dating, and the little girl that she had, her daughter, is still in my life to this day. We stay close, she calls me dad and so on. But when we broke up, I think that had an effect. The fact that it took me a while to move on from that, and then just being away from family. All my family live on the east coast and so on. I think it was the loneliness that triggered that.

As I said, I’m not blaming her. A lot of people go through breakups and stuff and don’t eat the way I did. Nobody forced me. We have a wonderful friendship now. She’s a wonderful woman, but that might have been part of it. Like I said, just being away from family and so on, but just a lot of loneliness, so I turned to food for comfort.

The one thing about food, unlike other drugs, I guess you could say, it’s readily accessible. You don’t have to go down a back alley to find it. You don’t have to pull up to some shady looking car or whatever and get a little paper bag full of chocolate bars at midnight. You can go anywhere and get it, and for that brief moment, it gives you pleasure.

For that brief moment, while you’re eating it, whether it’s a big old box of chicken wings or five gallons of ice cream or whatever it is, you forget everything. But that temporary happiness brings your permanent pain.

So I think a lot of that. It was a lot of loneliness and just being away from everybody and so on. And then like I said earlier, as you put on more weight and you gain more weight, you become more depressed. After a while, not even anything to do with the loneliness. Now you’re just becoming depressed because you’re so big and now that’s making you more lonely because the bigger you are, the less you want to go out. The last thing an obese and extremely obese person wants to do is to be around people because you’re constantly stared. You just become a hermit.

[00:56:20] Ashley James: It exacerbates the problem.

[00:56:24] Tony Bussey: Oh, yeah. Food becomes your best friend. If something good happens in life, you get food. If something bad happens in life, you get food. If you’re bored, you get food because you have no social life anymore. That’s your social life.

[00:56:40] Ashley James: What’s that syndrome where you love your captor?

[00:56:44] Tony Bussey: Oh, yes, the Stockholm Syndrome.

[00:56:46] Ashley James: Yeah, you have Stockholm Syndrome around food.

[00:56:49] Tony Bussey: Yeah, “chip-drome” syndrome, I guess you could say—”ice cream-drome syndrome.” But yeah, I guess you could say that.

[00:56:59] Ashley James: It’s interesting that you had withdrawal symptoms for a month when you cut out sugar and all the junk food. Yes. How did you get through it? How did you make sure you stuck with it? Did you ever have any doubts while you’re going through those headaches or in all the withdrawal symptoms, or did they motivate you further? Did you say, “Wow, this is how bad the stuff was for my body. Look, my body’s having withdrawal symptoms.”

[00:57:27] Tony Bussey: Well, it’s just, you got to push through it because like I say you got to pick your pain. I knew I could not keep going on with that old life. I didn’t know how long I had left. My life was destroyed. It’s almost like something in my head was saying, “Tony, if you don’t do it now, there are no more chances.”

So you push through it because either you push through the withdrawals, you push through that pain because either way you’re going through pain—physical, mental pain. So I guess in a way that was my advantage because if you’re going to go through pain regardless, then you pick the pain that at least got a positive outcome if you go through it. So you push through that sugar withdrawal. You should push through the physical pain of walking and all that stuff because at least, at the end of that there’s a positive outcome. There’s freedom—there’s freedom of movement, there’s physical freedom, there’s mental freedom, there’s everything. You finally have the life that you’ve always dreamed of.

But if you stop then and you give up everything, and you go back to your old ways, now you’ve got physical pain of being obese, and all that leads to is death. So you pick one, and that’s what I did. I pushed through it because I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I was living.

[00:58:55] Ashley James: For those listeners who are currently battling an addiction, whether it’s with food, drugs or alcohol, what advice do you have that can help them to get to that place mentally where they can pick their life back up, where they can transform themselves as you did on that day in May of 2016 when you were flown into Edmonton, and the light switch went on in your brain? Can you help us to switch that light switch in us as well?

[00:59:40] Tony Bussey: I would say to that person that you’re worth it. You’re worth the love—just to love yourself, to look into that mirror and love yourself. What I mean by that is that anybody that’s listening to this now, if they got a loved one that needed them to get up today and walk five kilometers to give them something or do something for them, they would do it. Then why can’t you do that for yourself?

You’re valuable. You’re worth the love. You’re a wonderful creature. You’re a wonderful person. No matter what you’re going through, if it’s drugs, if it’s alcohol, you’re meant more for a lot more in this life than to be overcome with addiction all the time. No matter who you are, no matter who is listening to this, you’re a beautiful person with beautiful abilities, and you’re worth the struggle, and you’re worth the pain to overcome those addictions.

The strength is in your mind to do it. You just have to tap into it. I’m not trying to sound cliche or corny or anything, but the ability is there to change your life. Just get up in the morning and say this is the day and keep going. Because either way, if you’re going through addiction, whether it’s alcohol, drugs, whatever, that’s painful. That’s a horrible life.

So if you don’t decide to go through the pain of the withdrawal of that, then you’re going to go back to the pain of the addiction. So either way, you’re going through something. But pick the one that leads to a positive outcome. You are worth it, and you can do it. And then you have a life that you could only dream of, but you are worth it.

Just start. That’s what I would say. And don’t give up.

[01:01:44] Ashley James: That’s beautiful now. For those who are struggling and want to transform their lives, you have a beautiful book that you wrote. Tell us about your book.

[01:01:55] Tony Bussey: My book is called Through Thick and Thin: How the Wildfirewas a Wakeup Call to Transform My Life. Next book I put out, I’m going to try to get a longer title.

[01:02:04] Ashley James: [laughs] Yeah, that’s a really short title. I sat down with a friend of mine, Mark Griffin, and we wrote the book together. I wanted to write a book because I wanted people to read about my day-to-day experiences of what it was like to be obese. I want people to read this and say, “Holy cow, Tony went through everything that I’m going through now. Every time I turn the page, there’s another experience that he had that I’m going through right now.”

No matter what you’re dealing with—addictions, bad relationships, financial problems, whatever—there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re the only person in the world that’s going through it. And if somebody can read my book and realize, “Okay, I’m not the only person that’s going through it. There’s somebody else that went through everything that I did and maybe even worse so, and he lost the weight, and there was no gimmick, no fad diet, no expense…” (I actually saved money because buying junk food is horrible. It’s very expensive. I didn’t even join the gym. Just walking and eating right.)

And if they can see all of that, then that hopefully will give them hope and encourage them to start their journey. So I just wanted them to read the book and realize that there are other people out there that are struggling like they are. The book is very real. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely very real, and they can definitely get a sense of what I went through day to day and hopefully relate to it.

[01:03:51] Ashley James: Since you came out with your book, what kind of stories of success, what kind of testimonials have come from your readers?

[01:04:01] Tony Bussey: I’ve had people write to me and say they started walking. They started exercising. I have people writing to me and saying they were crying when they read it. I don’t like making people cry, but yeah, they would say that. I’ve had gentlemen come up and talk to me and say they’re starting their weight loss and shake my hand and stuff, and thanks for the encouragement.

There was one message I had in particular a couple of years ago or a year ago. This was before my book, and they wrote to me on Facebook. It was a gentleman down in the States. I forget his name, but he was dealing with cancer. He said that gave him encouragement to keep going on and stuff like that. That’s what means the most to me—getting the messages of encouragement and knowing that people are starting their weight loss journey or dealing with own things in life, and they’re getting encouragement and strength from it. That means a lot to me.

[01:05:05] Ashley James: That’s beautiful. I love it. Well, I love what you’re doing.

[01:05:10] Tony Bussey: Thank you.

[01:05:11] Ashley James: I’m a big fan of your mission and your story. Your website is a busseytony.com. We’re going to have the link to your site and the link to your book in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com so listeners can definitely check you out.

Now I have to thank you because you work 12-hour shifts at a difficult job and that on your day off, you chose to spend your precious day off with us. I feel so honored that you could come.

[01:05:51] Tony Bussey: I’m the honored one. I feel privileged that you wanted me on your show. I admire you greatly. I think you’re doing a wonderful thing. You have thousands of listeners, and if just one person out of all of this can be changed with this, it’s a success.

[01:06:12] Ashley James: Absolutely.

[01:06:14] Tony Bussey: People ask me what I consider success. If I’m 85 years old and I’m on my death bed, and somebody comes up to me and says, “Tony, I changed my life because of what you did,” then your life is a success. That’s all I want.

[01:06:27] Ashley James: Absolutely. You’ve already accomplished that today. I just know it. You’ve changed my life. All the other listeners are like—I want to say icing on the cake, but what’s the healthy version of that? Like they’re the crunch in the apple.

[01:06:44] Tony Bussey: Natural peanut butter on an apple.

[01:06:46] Ashley James: There you go. I like it. Very cool. And you want to get into public speaking. I think you’re a wonderful presenter. So for those listeners who are looking for a keynote speaker or looking for a speaker for their event, please consider Tony because I think your audience, just like I know my audience loved hearing from you today, I know that any audience would be happy to learn from you. So I encourage listeners who are looking for a speaker to reach out to Tony.

[01:07:17] Tony Bussey: I got an Instagram account, tonybussey123. They can write to me there. Write to me on my website. Add me on Facebook. I have a speaking engagement here in Fort McMurry. Later in June, I got one down in Edmonton. Next month, I’m speaking to a women’s group down there. I enjoy it. I spoke to Ashley at Bodybuilding Group last year in Calgary. I gave out some awards and stuff. It’s fun. I really enjoy it.

[01:07:46] Ashley James: That’s cool. Awesome. To wrap up today’s interview, I’d love for you to complete this interview by sharing. Do you have any final thoughts or homework for us, or is there anything that you want to say that was left unsaid?

[01:08:05] Tony Bussey: I would say if anything, realize—and I try to get it through people when I talk to them—life is really, really short. It definitely is. It goes by, and I keep saying this, just like a warm summer breeze. From a Canadian perspective, very, very, very fast.

But you don’t have to be trapped in any bad situation. You have the freedom, and you have the power in your mind to change that. I’m proof of that, and now you can’t wipe the smile off my face. I would suggest to anybody that’s listening to this episode right now, to sit down with a piece of paper and write down what it is that you want to change in your life. What is it that’s making your life unhappy, that gives you unhappy moments, and then use that and change that. Write down steps to change it and start because—it’s kind of hard to explain, but everybody has goals, and they’ll always say, “A year from now, I want to be here. Two years from now, I want to be in this stage of my life.”

The two years have come, and it’s here like a blink of an eye, and they get there, and it’s like, “Okay, I’m still in the same boat.” But when you start that goal, it seems like two years is such a long way away, it presents a big obstacle. I guess kind of what I’m trying to say is time is your advantage, that if you just start every day and start doing your thing, the two years will be here before you know it, and you will finally have the life that you want. It’s kind of hard for me to explain, but that’s what I would suggest.

[01:10:00] Ashley James: I totally get it. You imagine yourself two years from now having achieved your goal and then use the fact that time flies to your advantage to keep motivating you to keep moving towards your goal. Because if you do a baby step every day for two years—boom! Two years are here, and you’ve achieved it.

[01:10:21] Tony Bussey: Two years is gone like a blink of an eye. But when we sit down and we say two years in the beginning or five years, whatever it is—

[01:10:27] Ashley James: It’s daunting.

[01:10:28] Tony Bussey: Yeah, it seems like a huge mountain. But before you know it, you’re on top of that mountain. You’re looking down, and then you realize that happiness—I mean right now I get up in the morning and it feels like a dream come true. I can’t believe because less than three years ago, I was in a body that was 567 pounds. I was having blood from skin chafing. My feet were killing me. My back was killing me. My legs—I would get up in the morning, I have to stand by my bed for 20 minutes to get the circulation back through my legs. I would wake up in the middle of the night choking because my weight was collapsing on me and I couldn’t breathe.

Then on top of that, I was completely alone. I was just sad. I was depressed. I felt totally trapped. And just from small steps in the beginning and keeping at it—just repetition—here I am now, I weigh about 235 pounds. I walk four to five kilometers a day. I’m out meeting new people. I’m traveling. I’m eating healthy. I don’t touch any junk food. Life is a wonderful trip right now.

I sound like somebody from the 70s, like Dr. Johnny Fever of WKRP. But it’s true, though. It’s a natural high. Coming from Canada, where everything is basically legal. That something to be said.

[01:12:08] Ashley James: We want to get high off of life. We want to get so high off of healthy food and walking, love and connection, and being in love with our body and in love with life. We want to get high off of all this stuff that’s good for us.

[01:12:24] Tony Bussey: And they can’t tax that, so there.

[01:12:26] Ashley James: So there. We want to get high of all the stuff they can’t tax. I love it.

[01:12:30] Tony Bussey: Yes, perfect.

[01:12:32] Ashley James: Groovy. Tony, it’s been so awesome having you on the show. I love it.

[01:12:38] Tony Bussey: This has been one of my favorite interviews. I love this—just talking. You’ve been absolutely wonderful, and I thank you for having me. It’s been quite the honor, and it’s the highlight of my day and my week. I appreciate it.

[01:12:49] Ashley James: Thank you. Wonderful. I’m going to make sure that we post in the show notes on learntruehealth.com. We’re going to have some of your before and after photos. We’ll definitely check those out. We also have a Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. You’re welcome to join it. We’d love to have you join us.

[01:13:08] Tony Bussey: Yes, definitely will.

[01:13:09] Ashley James: After this episode airs, we can start a conversation. So all the listeners have questions for you that want to tell you what impact your story had in their life. You’ll be able to hear that in our Facebook group. That would be awesome.

So listeners, come to the Facebook group and chat with Tony. Tony, you’re welcome there. Can’t wait to see you in the Facebook group. Just search Learn True Health on Facebook or go to learntruehealth.com/group to redirect you to the Facebook group.

[01:13:35] Tony Bussey: Perfect.

[01:13:36] Ashley James: It’s been such a pleasure, Tony.

[01:13:37] Tony Bussey: Awesome. A lot of fun.

[01:13:39] Ashley James: Please stay in touch. We want to continue to hear about your success and the impact that you have on the world. It truly is inspiring to hear your story and the ripple effect that’s taking place because you’re choosing to dedicate your life to sharing your story with others.

[01:13:55] Tony Bussey: I hope it does. I hope even just one person, and it can change their life—I’m a happy man. That and if Canada ever gets the cup again, that’s another.

[01:14:03] Ashley James: [laughs] God willing.

[01:14:07] Tony Bussey: Holy cow. That’s definitely a miracle right there.

[01:14:12] Ashley James: Thank you, Tony.

[01:14:13]Tony Bussey: You’re welcome. Thank you. Have a good day. Bye Bye.

[01:14:17] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

Get Connected With Tony Bussey!

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Through Thick and Thin

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I USED TO HAVE CANCER: How I Found My Own Way Back to Health by James Templeton
https://amzn.to/2Dr7OWf

www.templetonwellness.com
www.IUsedToHaveCancer.com

I Used To Have Cancer (Part II)

https://www.learntruehealth.com/i-used-to-have-cancer-james-templeton

Cancer survivor (33+ years and counting!) James Templeton tells the story of how he beat the dreaded disease with macrobiotic diet and vitamin C. Part 2 of an inspiring and instructive interview replete with true health gems. 

[00:00:00] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 349.

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. This is Part 2 of my interview with James Templeton. Episode 348 was Part 1, and this is episode 349. So please, if you haven’t listened to the first part, you definitely will want to go back and listen to episode 348. We ended that episode right on a high note, right at the climax of his story, and he has so much more information to share. So here’s Part 2. I know you’re going to enjoy it.

One of the things he does talk about is the importance of taking vitamin C and a lot of vitamin C. He’s gone through and tried a bunch of different kinds, and we discussed some of them. After I did this interview with him, which actually was a few months ago because he wanted me to wait to publish it until his book came out. It’s just being released right now, which is exciting. A link for his book is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com, so you’ll be able to go and check that out. Definitely support him and his cause by buying his book if you’re called to do so.

I tried a few different kinds of vitamin C, and I’ve discovered that my favorite one—I tried -the Dr. Matthias Rath one, and I’ve tried a few others. My favorite one ultimately that rose above the rest was the one that Kristen Bowen sells on her website. It’s acerola cherry powder, and it’s fair trade, very clean. What I like about acerola cherry powder is it tastes good. It has co-factors, and it’s from a whole food source. So you’re getting a whole food source instead of something that’s been synthetically made in a lab, but it does taste good. I noticed my body seems to buzz with it instead of react negatively towards it, so I recommend trying that. As you’re listening to the rest of this interview and hearing about the importance of vitamin C, if you think you want to try one, give Kristen Bowen’s vitamin C a try. It’s the acerola cherry powder.

I’m going to have a link to it in the show notes, but you can go to livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. That’s her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com, and in the shop section under the Supplements, you’ll be able to find the acerola cherry powder.

Now she does give all the listeners a discount. The coupon code is LTH, as in Learn True Health, and while you’re on her website, if you haven’t already, try her magnesium soak. It is life-changing. Definitely go back and listen to a few of my episodes I’ve done with her. It’s been phenomenal. We’ve had hundreds of listeners go through and try her magnesium soak and share with me the effects that it’s had on them.

Those two things are phenomenal. Use the coupon code LTH on her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com and all these links are going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com.

Thank you so much for being a listener. I’m so thrilled that we’re on this journey together. My goal when I set out to do this podcast was to publish at least a thousand interviews, so we are more than a third of the way there. How exciting is that? And we’re just going to keep uncovering more and more amazing information like what James Templeton shares today.

 So enjoy the rest of the interview, and please join us in the Facebook group, search Learn True Health in Facebook, or learntruehealth.com/group and that’ll redirect you to the Facebook group. Join the conversation.

Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Thank you for sharing the podcast with those you love, and enjoy the rest of the interview.

[00:04:13] James Templeton: I remember sneaking down the side of the hall on one side of the wall where nobody could see me. I snuck down some stairs. I literally was crawling. I was so weak from this. I’d threw up I can’t tell you how many times, and it was awful. I snuck down those stairs, and I went out into my car, which had been sitting out there in the parking lot. I got in that car, and I drove out of that place. I never looked back, and I made up my mind at that point, I was not going to do any more of that medical stuff. I wasn’t going to do it. I was going to go all out, and I was going to do the macrobiotic diet, lifestyle, vitamin C, and I was going to keep an open mind going forward.

So I left there, went to my stepmother’s house, and stayed there for a week recovering. I stopped twice on the road, throwing up. I was so sick on the interstate highway. I remember that. I was just weak, and I was down to probably 120-130 pounds. I just had no energy. I never looked back, and I ended up going back to Dallas and dug in. I really dug in this time even more because I was weak and sick from the treatments, but I knew what to do now, and it didn’t take me very long to start getting a lot of energy. When I got back to Dallas, I decided after a while, “This is a tough life.” I’m working all day long, cooking for myself. I’m eating leftovers for lunch, which I didn’t mind doing. It was very lonely because I was by myself. The only people I talked to were the employees that worked for me. They were very, very supportive, but it was a tough go. I knew I needed to have support, and I needed to do something else.

That’s when I decided to go to the macrobiotic center, which was the Kushi Institute up in western Massachusetts at the time and take a residential seminar. I spent a week up there, and I took off from Dallas and took off a week of work to go up there because I knew there was more things I need to learn, plus I needed a really good break. I was doing really well then. This has been a while after all this hospital stuff. I was getting a lot stronger. I still couldn’t walk as well as I’d like to, and I couldn’t run very well, but I was getting stronger and stronger, so I decided that if I couldn’t walk very well still, I was going to get me a bicycle.

So I went down to a bicycle shop, and I got me a 10-speed bicycle. I would go out in the afternoons, and I’d fit it in every day. I’d ride as much as I could. I worked up to a hundred miles a week riding my bicycle because I was determined to do whatever it took because I had been a runner. I didn’t want to lose my ability, my endurance which I had, and I wanted to stay strong, so I started doing that. And then, when I did go up to Massachusetts, I had a lot of strength. I was in pretty good health. I was doing pretty well.

But when I got up there that week, that was probably the best week of my life. I ent there, and this was the place to go if you want to learn about macrobiotics. Macrobiotics was an interesting lifestyle. It’s just a lonely one when you’re by yourself, and you don’t have the support. Going up there, there were all these people for this residential seminar that had a lot of different problems, from cancer to Epstein Barr virus, to maybe their mother or father had cancer or had passed away, and they were interested in it for their own sake.

So I met a lot of very interesting people and while I was there, the general manager of the place, I had a conversation with him, and he said that if I wanted to come up there sometime and live there and do work study, that was a possibility. I had been thinking about, what was next? What could I do next?

So he offered me a position to come up there and do work study, which would basically mean I’d have room and board. I’d wash dishes, cut firewood, whatever I was able to do. At that point, I look pretty strong. He also told me there was a famous writer, a macrobiotic writer, and a teacher that lived in Dallas that I should get to know. His name was Alex Jack, and Alex Jack was one of the top writers. He wrote a lot of books along with Michio Kushi, which was the macrobiotic guru at that time.

When I got back to Dallas, I met Alex Jack and his wife, and we became really close friends, and we shared meals at night together. It was wonderful to have that relationship with him and that support with them. It wasn’t long before Alex decided to go up and live at the Kushi Institute, and he was going to take over the general managership. He suggested I might want to come up there with them.

I’d been thinking about it, going up there, after this general manager that was there offered it to me. So he went up there, then I followed a little bit after them and went up there. I just walked away from the business I was involved in. I hated to do that, but the people were very nice. They were very supportive, my friends. I owe them a lot for giving me that opportunity at that time. It was a wonderful experience, but I got to go to the Kushi Institute and work there. Eventually, I became the operations manager.

That meant that I would be in charge of getting the supplies to the facility, picking people up from the airport and the bus stations, making sure there was fuel for the heaters, just whatever needed to be done to keep the operations of the place going. I enjoyed that a lot.

I was there for several years, and I met a lot of just unbelievable people. I was lucky to be living at a place that was so renowned for the macrobiotic studies, and here I am in the thick of things. The only thing I hated about it was, when I moved in, it was a long ways from Texas and not getting to see my daughter. But I would take a trip to Texas when I could to see her. I just felt it was something I needed to do for myself. I did that, and it was wonderful.

While I was there, I met a fellow, and his name was Herb Shapiro. Herb Shapiro was a businessman from New Jersey and had a chain of health food stores. He was up there, dealing with some of his health issues, living there for a while. I met him, and he was a great friend to me also. To make a long story short, we became good friends, and he offered me a position to move to New Jersey and cook for him and also help him within his health food store so I could learn the business. I knew that it was time for me to do something else because I was doing better. My health was thriving. I’ve learned a lot about macrobiotics. I’ve learned a lot and met a lot of nice people.

So Herb was seeing a nutritionist and this nutritionist that he would see and was up in what they call the Berkshires up in western Massachusetts, which was actually where the Kushi Institute was in that area. She was living up there, and her name was Ann Louise Gittleman, and I think you’re familiar with Ann Louise.

[00:13:45] Ashley James: When you said ‘the nutritionist,’ I’m like, “Oh, this is how you guys met. That’s so cool.” Yeah, I’ve had Ann Louise on the show. I’m a big fan. I absolutely adore her. That’s so exciting. I know the Berkshires. I’ve spent a few months at Kripalu, which is a residential yoga center there. I’d love to visit the other centers in the area. It’s my kind of party—a holistic party.

[00:14:17] James Templeton: It’s great. I spend a lot of time going over there because they had these beautiful grounds around there, and I would hike in the mountains, the hills—I guess they’re hills, but I would hike around there and hang out. They had a little bookstore—you remember that? I would hang out in that bookstore. I met some nice people over there, and some of the people that lived at the Kushi Institute, they had lived there also. They were kind of free spirits, and they were interesting people. They had a lot of experience with a lot of different places like that.

I found it very interesting. I would say I would go there maybe like on a—I can’t remember what night it was. It was a Tuesday or Wednesday night. They would have these things where the public could go in, and the yogi was Yogi Desai, and he would give these seminars for the public once a week. I would go over there sometimes. It was a very interesting place, and I used to look forward to going there sometimes.

But anyway, my friend was seeing Ann Louise Gittleman as a nutritionist, and he had offered that there was—he told me about a seminar that she was giving in the Berkshires, and it was on intestinal parasites. It was a weekend-long seminar that Ann Louise was teaching on intestinal parasites. He told me he thought it was very interesting and that I would enjoy it very much. And so I took him up on it, and I went with him to one of the seminars. We drove up from New Jersey to the Berkshires and went to see Ann Louise speak. Ann Louise was there, and I’d never met her before. I’ve never done anything about or other than what he did. Sad. And she was remarkable. She was a great teacher. She had a huge crowd of people. We were there, and she was teaching about the issues with intestinal parasites that people were harboring, and it was causing a lot of different health issues.

I found it very interesting. She even mentioned that a lot of people that had cancer, she felt, had parasites. After the seminar, my friend and I went up to see her, and he wanted to introduce me to her. She says, “I’m glad you got to come to see me and all this.” I said, “Ann Louise, you’re remarkable, and I want to ask you a question if I may.” She said, “Sure, ask me.” And I said, “Do you think I might have parasites? You know, I’m a cancer survivor. I’m wondering if I have parasites.”

She kind of looks at me, and she just looked at me for a second. She says, “Yes, I think you have parasites.” And I said, “Really? How can you tell?” And she says to me, “Well, you just got that parasitic look.” I went, “Oh, my god. Here’s this nice-looking woman here, and she seemed to be very smart, and now she thinks I’m parasitic-looking.” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” I think I felt like things were crawling on me instantly or something. But she could see that I was interested and wondering a lot about what she had said and thinking about it.

And she says, “If you want to, there’s a doctor in New York City, and his name is Dr. Hermann Bueno.” Dr. Hermann Bueno is a world-renowned parasitologist, and he’s right downtown in Manhattan, in New York City. She said, “You should go see him and have him have him check you out because if anybody would know, it’ll be him.” And I said, “Maybe I should go.”

She says, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll even go with you. If you want to go, I would drive along with you or ride along with you. I haven’t met the man. I’d like to meet him. I’d be happy to do that.” So I said, “Well, I’ll take you up on it.” Within a week or two, I got an appointment, and she went with me. We drove to New York and went in.

Dr. Bueno was there. He was a very nice man. He was from Colombia, and he had this Colombian accent. He was just very like, “Hello, my friend.” Just this really nice man, and he was an older man. I told him what I had been through, and he took a tissue swab sample to where they basically go up in your rectum, and they take a swab, a sample. He put it under the microscope. He had one of these teaching microscopes. He had two-sided lenses where I could see it, and he could see it at the same time.

So we sat there, and we looked at this. I didn’t know what I was seeing. He says, “Oh, my lord. You have Entamoeba histolytica,” and I said, “Oh.” He said, “That’s a one-celled organism. It’s a parasite.”

And he says, “Oh, you have Giardia. Giardia is another parasite.” And then he says, “You’re loaded, my friend. You also have something called Ascaris.” And I said, “What is that?” And he says, “You probably know of it as roundworm.” And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” All of a sudden, I’m thinking, “Oh, I have all this stuff.” He said I had a lot of it. I thought, “More stuff to do here, but I was going to listen.” He said to me, “I’ll tell you something, I’ve never seen a case of cancer or AIDS that didn’t have some parasitic involvement. I think that it’s a good thing that you came here today.”

I started to think instantly about all my friends that had cancer that I had met at the Kushi Institute and thought about all the people that had suffered from the same kind of things that I had gone through. And I thought to myself maybe they have parasites, too. I got to get rid of this stuff, and then maybe somehow know that I can help them. That’s the kind of thing that went through my mind.

And so he gave me some herbs to take and told me to go on back and come back and see him in about three months. So I went back to the Berkshires, and at that time, I had moved up there, and we were living up there. I went there, and I was taking these parasite herbs and doing all this cleansing, and I’m telling you, it was unbelievable, the stuff I started to see. I was detoxing like crazy. When you start to see stuff, you start to believe, and when you believe, it makes a big difference in sticking with something.

But I didn’t feel good taking these herbs. I felt like somebody had a ball peen hammer and was hitting me about every two seconds. I had a terrible headache with taking these herbs, and I told Ann Louise, and Ann Louise told me that I might want to consider taking something that she had formulated for a company a year or two back, and it seemed to work pretty well for people and didn’t have these side effects.

So I took her up on it. I started to take those herbs, and that seemed to do the trick, and it was a lot better. After another three months, I went back to see him, and everything was clear. He said, “Everything is clear.” So I know that I did the right thing and I felt a lot better. I actually started to gain weight again.

So I knew that whatever I was doing was making a huge, huge difference. After that, I got very interested in the parasite thing, and I got thinking about what I was going to do next with my life. I met Ann Louise, and we got to spend time. I was actually cooking for my friend. He had rented a house in the Berkshires, and he was there. He was seeing Ann Louise—it was Herb—the same fellow, and he said that to me that she was thinking of moving in the house and that she would be living across the hall from me because she was leaving the apartment that she was living in and needed a place to live, and they were doing some trade. So she would be living in this house that we live. It was a big house. I don’t know how many bedrooms it had. It was a big house that he had rented, and we all shared this house, and I did all the cooking.

So Ann Louise was there, I got to know her and got to spend time with her, and I was doing so much better after the parasite thing. I found her so interesting that little by little, we became very close and eventually became a couple. It’s funny how that happened, living across the hall from each other, sharing meals, and spending time, talking about interesting things.

After we got together, I came up with this idea of starting my own company. I knew I needed to do something. I’d been in the convenience store business, and I wanted to do something else myself. I started thinking about it, and I woke up during the night with an idea about starting a company, and the company would be called Uni Key health. Uni Key would be a company that stood for a universal key to health, and that would get to the root of health problems such as parasites, other toxic substances that needed to come out, and then we would detoxify, and we would rebuild and maintain health after that.

So I got very excited about that. And my first thing would be that I would get into the parasite cleansing herbal side of things. I decided though that I would do that in New Mexico because I love New Mexico. As a younger person, I had spent time in New Mexico around Taos and Santa Fe, and I love that area. So I decided that maybe I should move back out there, and then I asked Ann Louise if she would go with me, and she decided she would.

We went to New Mexico. There was a teacher of Ann Louise’s there, and her name was Dr. Hazel Parcells, and Hazel Parcells was a very well-known doctor in certain circles, especially in the alternative health field at that time. She was over100 years old, and it was Ann Louise’s original teacher that got her interested in nutrition in the first place. She was telling me I would love her, and I needed to meet her. I guess I thought she’d be in a wheelchair or barely get around, but boy, was I wrong because when I got there, and I met Dr. Parcells—That was the first thing we did. We went to see her–She came in to greet us, and she was unbelievable. She was walking around. She was over a hundred. She was a maybe 102 or 103 then, and I couldn’t believe it. She was so vital and had so much energy.

[00:27:17] Ashley James: Wow. When you first saw her, if you didn’t know her age, what age would you thought she was?

[00:27:24] James Templeton: She probably looked like she was maybe 80—someone like that, maybe an 80-year-old lady. She was just so jolly and so full of energy, so bright and so smart. She had her own story. She had been written off at the age of 40 or 42—I think it was 40 when she got sick, somewhere around there. She had tuberculosis. She had owned a beauty shop, and she had gotten sick, I guess from all the toxic chemicals, and eventually had tuberculosis. Her5 old system was run down, and they told her she only had two to three weeks to live. They told her that she should go to a sanitarium.

She didn’t do it. She got up, and she started eating vegetables. That’s what her body felt like eating. She ate all the vegetables she could, especially spinach, because she couldn’t get a lot of the things back then. So she ate all the spinach, and within a month, this kidney that had been three quarters gone, one of her kidneys was three quarters gone, had almost completely regenerated within a year. But within a month, she had all this energy, and everything was starting to be better. And when she went back a year later, that doctor could hardly tell anything ever had been wrong with her. It was amazing.

So she got interested in health and started to study and became a naturopathic doctor, a chiropractor, and a Ph.D. in nutrition. She was a nutritionist at a university for many years until she was in her 70s, and this was her second career. So she almost died.

So then I met her. At that time, I was getting ready to start my company Uni Key Health, and I wanted to learn everything I could from her. Anything that she could teach me, I was going to try to learn. So I got to spend a little time in her lab working with her, learning how to develop products, and learning the way that you formulate.

She was a miracle. She was unbelievable. Of all the people I’ve ever worked with, Michio Kushi was a real master, but she was something else too. I’ve never met anyone like that. She had all the answers pretty much to health. So anyway, I got to know her, and one day we were having lunch, and she says, “Come on in here, honey, and let’s have some lunch.” She always cooked in a crockpot, and she would have all these vegetables and things in the crockpot. That day she had beans and ham hocks. I’d been on this macrobiotic diet. I would never get off the macrobiotic diet. There’s no way back then. There’s no way I was going to stop that.

She told me, she says, “Look, I’ll tell you something now. You got to start eating meat again, honey. If you don’t, you’re going to get sick. I can tell you I’ve worked with many people over the years. You don’t look healthy. Your color is not good. You got to start eating more protein to feed your glands. Your glands are getting weak. I’m telling you, you need to consider this.”

I looked at her, and she is so vibrant and so much the picture of health that I said—at that point, she’s probably a 104-year-old woman—who’s going to argue with her? So I took some of it, and that’s when I started eating meat again.

I wouldn’t eat meat for quite a few years. She got my attention. Without her, who knows what would have happened. But she was into the parasites big time. She was into detoxifying the body, taking a load off, rebuilding the glands. It helped a tremendous amount of people.

She taught me so much, just from her. Ann Louise taught me a lot, and then I started the company, Uni Key. I started to develop my products. I’ve been in this business, Uni Key, for 28 years. It’s thrived over the years, and it’s been a wonderful business. The main thing that we started was the parasite cleansing. We’ve done so much over the years, but the whole thing is that I’ve done very well over the years, and I still keep myself on the path of health. I’m proud to say that I keep learning all the time. There are always new things. Not only was it the macrobiotic diet, it was vitamin C, the parasite cleansing.

I also learned about another thing that I did through another one of my friends and teachers that I looked up to. It was called Iscador, which is a mistletoe, which stimulated my immune system. I did that for a year where you inject yourself with mistletoe from Europe.

So I’ve always been open to what’s next until I kind of figure out all the pieces of the puzzle. Today, I do a lot more things. Over the years I’ve done so much more than that, but just eating this macrobiotic diet, which was so detoxifying and so healthy—it had all these vegetables—your cruciferous vegetables, your cancer-killing vegetables with the phytonutrients. And I stopped eating sugar, which feeds cancer.

That’s the big thing. You got to get off sugar and starve the sugar out of your system, and the vitamin C will do the rest. It does a lot—the vitamin C. So I’ve, I’ve done a whole lot more now than I’ve ever done and things I’ve done now, but we can get into that if we have time.

[00:34:37] Ashley James: Absolutely. As long as you have time, I’d love to get into that. I’m just so inspired by your journey. Thank you for laying it all out and haring what it took to get here. They should make a movie out of your life. I love how there’s divine intervention.

I know some people don’t believe in the wisdom of the universe or a creator, but when you sit back and examine your life, you see that there are these miracles that occur, that it’s not chaos in random. But even if it’s just our intentions, even if we can just believe that when you set out to pray that day in the hospital right after your surgery, you said out an intention to seek information. You were asking for the universe or asking for people to help that you’re also opening yourself up. That hope, that perspective was allowing when information came to you, you were receptive enough to receive it. That’s the part of the brain called the reticular activating system.

We can look at neuroscience and get that on a scientific level for those who don’t believe in God, or a creator, or divine intervention by setting an intention and something like prayer. With an intention, you are telling your brain to be a heat-seeking missile for what you’re looking for.

I believe that there’s this wonderful part of our unconscious mind that we can tap into and ask to help us to seek information by using things like prayer to align our conscious and unconscious mind to be open enough to receive the information. But then you look and see that there’s so much divine intervention that occurred in your life. It wasn’t like a pinball machine where it’s just random bouncing here and there you were. People were put directly in your path, literally in your hospital room to bring you the information that you needed, but you were also ready to receive it.

Those who are listening today are hearing this information, not by accident. They hear it because they’re ready to receive the information. They’re ready to learn. They’re receptive because they’ve chosen to open their mind.

I love the saying, “Open your mind so much; your brain will follow.” Just open your mind to the possibilities, especially that the body has this innate ability and innate wisdom to heal itself, and we need to stop putting obstacles in our body’s way towards health. Sometimes healing is getting out of our way. Stop putting toxins in, help get the parasites out, give the body the nutrition it needs, the diet it needs. And that means sometimes adjusting the diet as you go along, depending on where you are at different stages in your health, and then just let the body do its work.

So you are this shining example of the fact that we can heal and that there are resources out there that, there’s so much wisdom in holistic medicine and looking to the wisdom of the body’s ability to heal versus wait to get sick and then get a new drug. I love your story. Thank you so much for laying it all out.

Of course, we’re all curious now to hear about your new book that’s coming out; learn a bit more about the macrobiotic diet; of course, learn about your protocols for detoxing parasites. We’d love to hear it all.

[00:38:25] James Templeton: There’s a lot to it. The thing that I think that helps anybody the most, myself included, is to believe in what you’re doing. When you’re doing something, you start to see results, and you will see positive results. Once you start to get all the toxins out and you start to get the immune system back in order to where it should be, and you start to take nutrients and things that you’re deficient in, and you start to exercise on a regular basis—I’m not talking about going out there and running marathons.

We could talk for three or four hours about this story, but you can’t say every little thing or tell every little detail. But the exercise, just walking every day and doing deep breathing as you sometimes walk, get plenty of oxygen and keep the lymphatic system moving and get your system where it detoxifies on a regular basis and eliminating the way it’s supposed to. We all have 75 million cancer cells, they say. A lot of times, people will say that we all are walking around—the average was 75 million cancer cells in our body. People think, “Really?”

But it’s true. We all have cancer cells. We all have cancer, but it hasn’t gathered into a tumor, I guess you could say. After about a billion cells or more, it becomes up to a thousand-milligram tumor for every billion cells. The thing is that if you don’t take care of yourself as you get older, and some of us younger like I was—I was exposed to a lot of things. When I look back at the things I was exposed to, I’d lived several places next to one of these high power lines. These big, double, huge strand, major power lines. Sometimes one place was right out my back door. The other place I lived for almost ten years around one—well, it wasn’t ten years. It was probably maybe seven or eight years around one that was no further than 50 yards away. You’re getting this energy all the time.

And then I was in the gasoline business, and when I was in college, I pumped gasoline. You’re around all these petrol chemicals. You’re breathing all this stuff. Before that, I worked construction—this was before I got sick—at one point for seven years on and off, and I was exposed to PVC glues every day. You’re breathing all this stuff in, and when you’re young, you think you’re invincible. And so I’m breathing this stuff, and I’m not taking care of myself—I’m probably drinking too much, eating fast food, or whatever we had back then. The last thing I was going to do is focus on my diet.

Here I am exercising myself and running up to 60 miles a week. When I was running all this time, I wasn’t supporting myself properly, so no wonder I ended up with cancer. It’s not just, “I got too much sun out there.”It’s because maybe I had a weakness from too much sun here or there or chemicals, but like the melanoma, a lot of people say it’s from chemical exposure, toxicity, and lack of immunity.

When I started to feel sick all the time like I’m getting the colds, flus, and allergies like I’d never had in my life–Why is that? I had polyps in my sinuses. I had everything. My whole system was breaking down as a young man. No one ever thinks anything about it, but it’s not normal. You shouldn’t ever get sick very often. You shouldn’t get sick, but occasional. I mean, everybody’s going to get sick sometime, but I can honestly say after I discovered all this stuff and after I started changing my ways, I probably hadn’t been really sick with anything. Maybe three or four times in 30 years and that was like maybe a head cold and maybe flu one time.

That’s unusually the usual because most people get the flu a time or two every year, and it’s because they’re just not taking care of themselves. They’re not thinking about it. They’re probably not until something bad happens to them, and they start to feel really lousy. But with all this cancer in everybody, you would think it would get their attention, but most people don’t even know this. It’s just out of control, no wonder, so much of this stuff.

One thing I found out through all this through the vitamin C, which I took 20,000 milligrams of vitamin C from the beginning, and to this day, I probably take 16,000 a day still, I never had any side effects, never had any problems. Maybe if I take too much, you’ll get a little bit of loose bowels because that’s what happens with vitamin C. I never did IV vitamin C which you can get nowadays, which is a lot more powerful. But I did all this vitamin C, and to this day, I still do a lot of vitamin C. You’ll probably have a hard time getting me not to take it because it’s helped me.

But cancer—Linus Pauling did a lot of research, and he did some studies later on in his life not long before he died. He did a cancer study, and it was vitamin C and cancer again, but he added another matrix to it. He added lipase and proline, which are amino acids, and he added a green tea extract. He used that in this combination, and he treated people of all these different kinds of cancers. At that time, I didn’t know why the vitamin C works so well other than I was afraid to stop it because, in his first book that I read, he says people did well on it as long as they were on it. There was no way you’re going to get me to stop. But this study showed that cancer is a collagen disease, and it spreads through the collagen, which is the connective tissue. It metastasizes, and when it spreads through the collagen, it starts causing damage and inflammation in different areas of the body, in organs and tissues.

The thing about vitamin C is it helps to stop it from spreading. That’s why when someone is first diagnosed with cancer, they got to get on something fast. You can’t mess around with it. Cancer is not something you can fool around with and think, “I’ll see if this works. If this doesn’t work, I’ll do something in two or three months,” or because it can double in 90 days. The average, I believe they say, cancer cells can double in 90 days. If you have a tumor going on, it can double in size in three months, and some fast, aggressive types can grow faster.

All that causes inflammation, and then you start to have a big problem when it gets in an area. Vitamin C is, is remarkable. The other thing about vitamin C is that vitamin C, along with iron and copper in the cell, create hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidant that destroys cancer cells. We naturally have catalase in our body. Catalase is an antioxidant normally found in the body, which in cancer cells have it, too. It’s very little compared to the human so they can handle a lot of hydrogen peroxide. We can’t handle it, and our body deals with it through the catalase antioxidant process.

So that’s the big deal with that. Also, when cancer gets in contact with vitamin C, I think it is probably from the hydrogen peroxide, but in general, it commits suicide, which is called apoptosis. There’s no way in the world, and anybody that has cancer shouldn’t be taking high amounts of vitamin C. I can tell you that because if you do that, your chances of survival went way up in my book.

[00:48:22] Ashley James: I have questions about the vitamin C. There’s so much controversy around the quality of vitamin C, whether it’s synthetic or naturally derived, whether made from GMO corn or rose hips. I’d love to know what your thoughts are because what I understand from Linus Pauling Institute, what I’ve read on their website is, vitamin C is vitamin C. It doesn’t matter where it’s sourced for one. It’s a little bit of a sticky wicket. And then two, how do you take that much? Do you work your way up to being tolerant, or do you need to take high-quality vitamin C to absorb that much?

[00:49:06] James Templeton: Well, here’s what you do: you take the vitamin C—and I’m not sure that the vitamin C matters or not. I’ve heard that, too. I would think that you don’t want to take GMO because why add more glyphosate? It’s in the GMO foods, the corn. A lot of vitamin C is made from corn. Why add more toxicity, more cancer-causing things to your body? You want to take away as much as you can of the cancer-causing toxicity in your body, and you also want to take on as much food as you can that are cancer-fighting foods like the cruciferous vegetables. You can look a list up that is anticancer, and you want to stay away from a lot of fruit.

A lot of people eat way too much fruit. Vitamin C is in fruit, but you have to eat an awful lot of fruit to get the kind of vitamin C. You want to stay away from that to get the vitamin C because I know a lot of people that live on fruit, and they wonder what happened to these people. They fed the cancer—all this glucose, the sugar that they produced.

The vitamin C—you want to make sure that it is buffered. If you can find one that’s buffered, meaning that it’s easy on the stomach—I like it if it’s buffered with magnesium, maybe lysine and magnesium. There are certain powdered vitamin C’s out that is well absorbed. There’s one I know of that is 80% absorbed. It’s almost like an IV form. It’s so efficient with the absorption. That one is very gentle also. I could give you that. I don’t sell it or anything. American Nutritionals is a company that has Vitality C—I believe is the name of it. That is an excellent one to get started on. They have an excellent product. Then there’s Dr. Rath, the doctor that worked with Linus Pauling. He’s a doctor that they’ve pretty much about run out of the country because he’s helping people is what I feel.

[00:51:42] Ashley James: I love Dr. Roth’s work. I got into his work in 2005 back when the Internet was still so young compared to what it is now. You could download all of his books for free. He gave away all of his books for free on his website, and I think he still may do that. But I read all of his books that were available at that time, one of them being “Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks and People Do.” That completely blew my mind open to the ideas about nutrition. It was one of the mind-opening experiences that kept me going on this path of seeking holistic health.

What vitamin C do you take?

[00:52:29] James Templeton: Well, the vitamin C that I take is the Dr. Rath formula, and he’s got two different ones. If you call up Dr. Rath or drrath.com, they’ll tell you they’ve got people that you can talk to there. They might even have a medical doctor you can talk to and get advice from on the type of vitamin C and how much they recommend. But I use the Dr. Rath vitamin C and A. I also use the Vitality C, the one I’m talking about to mix it up. If I had cancer again, and I had to deal with this, I would probably find someone that could do an IV drip and probably get 50,000 milligrams up to 100,000 milligrams of vitamin C. You can hit much in a week sometimes.

So it depends. You might start with 25 and work up to 50, and into a hundred. But if you go to someone that does this is very knowledgeable, which they should be and get the drip form, it’ll saturate your body faster. That’s the key thing. You want to take vitamin C as quickly as possible so that the cancer has less ability to spread. You want that, and you want to get on a lot of other things also.

But that’s what I take. I take the Rath, and I take the Vitality C. I’m sure there’s a lot of great products out there, but these are the ones that I found. I think L ascorbate is the one that a lot of people recommend for absorption. It’s a little higher priced, but they say that that absorbs better. 

But again, I don’t know. For years I probably took things with glyphosates and everything else. I don’t know—you get what you get, and you take what you take, but I’ve always taken something that was buffered with magnesium or lysine. I’ve enjoyed that one a lot, and the one I’ve taken. Now I’m using Dr. Rath and the Vitality C. I don’t have problems. You don’t have any problems going into the bathroom. I’ll tell you.

And the other thing, I’ve gone to get my arteries checked out several times. This is a quick story. It has nothing to do with cancer, but it has to do with my heart, which I come from genetically a background of heart disease. A few years ago, I went and got checked out and had a calcium score scan done when I was in New York. I went to this place, and they did back then. There’s probably more of it now out there, but it was a scan where they could see in your arteries to see the calcium buildup in your arteries. I decided that I needed to have my heart checked out. I went and had this test done. It was almost like you’re doing a CAT scan. They run you through this tube and back through it. And then the guy says, “Go have a seat, and we’ll give you the results here in a few minutes.” The guy comes over and says, “Can I talk to you?” And I said, “Sure, you can talk to me.” I’m scratching my head here. I thought I was going to tell me, “Oh, man, you’re a clogged up, and we better get you straight to the hospital or something.”

The guy says to me, “I haven’t seen this kind of thing very much at all. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it like this.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” It scared me. I think I was 52 or 54 then—I can’t remember, but he says, “Your arteries look like a baby’s arteries.” I said, “Is that good or bad?” He goes, “That’s good. They’re clean.” He said, “At your age, usually people have some plaque buildup, but you don’t have any. That’s unusual. What are you doing?”

And I said, “It must be from all the vitamin C and all the antioxidants that I take.” And he says, “Well, I don’t know, but you better keep doing it. This is like a little kid’s arteries.”

So I know that it works, and the year before last, I went and did the same thing—the same thing. I know it has to be that vitamin C. I take a lot of vitamin C for many, many, many years along with a lot of supplements. People look at me and think I’m nuts. You probably haven’t seen anybody take as many things as I do and people will say, “That can’t be good. Your liver got to detoxify all that.” But I can tell you one thing, and it’s probably overkill, but I have more energy, as much energy as most people in their 30s. As I said, I don’t get sick very much or anything. I can’t remember when I got sick last time. I feel good. I only mainly do it cause I’m in the business and I want to see how well things work, and I’ve just become the guinea pig—I guess my guinea pig over the years.

But the vitamin C is, I think, is starting to get its due. It’s just so important for people whether they have cancer or not to take vitamin C. I would probably take at least five or six grams a day of vitamin C at least. It wouldn’t hurt if I spread it out through the day for absorption. I take more than that, but I think that people will get the benefits, and they’re going to see that it’s going to make a big difference along with a lot of other things which we can talk about if you want to.

[00:59:23] Ashley James: Absolutely. I thought it was really interesting. These are numbers I heard back in 2005 when I was really diving into Linus Pauling’s work and Matthias Rath’s work. Most animals produce their own. A goat will regularly have something like 16 grams of vitamin C coursing through their veins where a wolf will have something like 32 grams. So if you think about it, you’re probably what—two and a half wolves? How many goats do you think you are? That amount of vitamin C, if that’s what a goat produces to stay healthy—you don’t hear of flu epidemics in animals. You don’t hear like, “Take your cat to get the flu shot,” or something like that.

But these animals produce their own vitamin C, and they have grams all the time. Their body is circulating grams of vitamin C. We’re not getting enough vitamins from our food. First of all, we’re not eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables to sustain ourselves optimally. That’s why over 70% of the adult population is on at least one prescription medication because they are experiencing symptoms of nutrient deficiency and toxicity, so they go and get a drug to manage symptoms instead of looking to the root cause, which is we’re not giving the cells enough nutrition.

The farming practices in the last hundred years have robbed the soil of so many nutrients that the plants aren’t able to even make enough vitamins and definitely aren’t absorbing enough minerals for us. I absolutely believe in responsible supplementation. Sometimes when I take my supplements, I feel like I’m having a snack. I have a huge thing of water, and I’ve got a big handful of all my supplements. By the time I’m done taking them, I’m full. So I know exactly what you mean. 

[01:01:22] James Templeton: I don’t know. It takes me about four big glasses of water to get all my supplements down.

[01:01:27] Ashley James: When you say megadosing vitamin C, for example, we got to do it responsibly. We have to look at the co-factors that the body needs. What I’ve learned is that if someone were to only high dose vitamin C, it would throw copper out of balance in the body. I like that you’d mentioned that copper was a co-factor that was needed. How do you address that? You megadose certain nutrients. How do you make sure that the co-factors are always in balance?

[01:01:58] James Templeton: One of the things is—I mean, I take a lot of things. Everyone should take a multiple no matter what—a really good multiple, not just some little cheap multiple. They should take multiple vitamins, no matter what. That’s just the key thing so that they don’t get deficient.

They need to do a hair analysis or a blood test regularly. A hair analysis will tell you if there’s a low mineral ratio going on in your body to other minerals. I take so much vitamin C, I’ve dropped it down a little bit, but I haven’t had any deficiencies or anything like that because we probably do a blood test at least twice a year. Just the basic blood test will tell you that. If you’re going to get a blood test, if you have to see a doctor, I think you can get a blood test through Request A Test, I believe it’s called. You don’t have to see a doctor to get that, but you need to understand how to read it. You can find out how to do that online.

That’s just if you don’t have a doctor that will let you do preventative blood testing on a regular basis. But you can go to a Quest Lab. I believe it’s called Request A Test, but Ann Louise talks about it all the time, and I’m not sure exactly the email for it, but if anybody has a question, they can email Ann Louise on her website, look up annlouise.com and ask that question, or go on the Facebook. She could answer that because I know that that’s her specialty, one of her specialties.

[01:04:15] Ashley James: Sure. We’ll make sure we have the links to everything you do, and we’ll make sure that the links to Ann Louise’s website and social media also, like you said the Facebook, just so people can contact you and check out your book and all of your websites and also check out her resources as well. I know you guys are a wonderful team so we’ll make sure all those links are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com.

This is quite fascinating. I feel like you’ve opened a can of worms, but it’s wonderful. It’s so wonderful, especially for those who have a cancer diagnosis or have had a family member have a cancer diagnosis, or they are worried it’s going to come back. To give someone hope—the idea that people on a regular basis, by nutrifying the body, are able to prevent cancer, reverse cancer, go into remission, live long and healthy lives without cancer. That gives so much hope and gives us a direction to look in, the direction of what is working.

But there are so many things—I have a friend who’s, I’m battling cancer, and she has spent probably $100,000 towards natural medicine, and her fight is not over. She’s winning, but her fight is not over. It’s hard because one person will say do this. The other person says to do that. You just don’t know. What should you do? What shouldn’t you do? What direction should you go? What kind of advice do you have for someone when there is all this information out there? We could spend a fortune on going in these different directions, but how do we know what the right direction is for us?

[01:06:07] James Templeton: Thing about it is if you have a diagnosis of cancer, you know, there are two ways you can go. One is conventional, and most people will find out through conventional methods that they have cancer just like I did. Sometimes people select to go the conventional route. It’s up to them. It’s something they have to pray about or meditate on, or whatever they feel inside that they need to do. Some people feel comfortable with going the medical route. But for me to sit here and say, “Don’t do that,” or “Do this or that,” I can’t say that what they did for me—the surgery and the chemo that I did do—that it didn’t help. I don’t know that.

But what I do know is they didn’t give me much hope or give me much to look forward to. My body wasn’t responding, and I was getting sicker and sicker. I’ve decided that instead of being there, doing their thing, I was going to get up and do something. So I did.

But if I were someone, the first thing I would do is I would read as much as I could, and I would get my book, I Used to Have Cancer because I’m going to tell you what I did and what I would do if I had to do it over again. There’s a lot of things you need to know, and it’s really easy to read, but it’ll give you the information. It’ll also give you some other books to read and other things that would be very helpful.

But if you look at the newer research, there’s a lot of things out there that help slows down or kill cancer. A lot of it is natural, herbal. There’s a lot of things they could do, and I feel that their chances are very, very high of getting well when you take control of yourself and when you really get down and knock heads with it.

We use a natural method. But again, it’s just up to the person. I’ve had really good friends lately pass away from cancer. It just made me sick, but it was their choice. They went the conventional route, and they didn’t do very well. I wanted them to do other things, but it’s just everybody has a different way of looking at things. I understand it, but that’s why I started my foundation because I got sick and tired of seeing people die left and right. I wanted to give back. I felt like all these years, I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve made a good living, and now it’s time to give back.

With this nonprofit thing and not do it for any other reason other than to give people hope, and my intention as we’ve already started this is to interview on video as many people as I can who have survived serious, advanced stage, Stage 4 cancer. That’s through my foundation, Templeton Wellness Foundation. They’re going to see people just like them that have survived for ten years or more, that have had cancer. Basically, these people were given up on.want people to know that cancer is not a death sentence. Cancer doesn’t have to be and you shouldn’t even think like that anymore. There are so many things you can do—vitamin C, enzyme therapy. Enzymes are huge. That’s the next thing that I want to get into. Enzymes are a big deal, your immunity and your gut flora, which is 70-80% of your immune system. You’ve got to detoxify. You’ve got to build your system up with cancer-fighting nutrients, and you got to get the immune system up at the same time.

When you do that, you’re going to start to believe, and the emotional side is going to kick in. You’re going to start to believe you’re going to feel better. You’re going to start to trust in the survival word and believe in it. Because if you start to feel negative, that’s going to take your immune system down and you want to surround yourself with like-minded people.

Don’t be around day negative thinking people that are going to keep you negative because that’s going to take you down more. Cancer, to me, is just about all about the body being out of balance. The more advanced it is, the more out of balance it is, the longer it’s been out of balance, if you want to get well, then you’ve got to make changes. You’ve got to be willing to roll your sleeves up, get to work, go to battle, go to war—whatever you want to think.

To me, I feel that anybody can survive. I understand sometimes people wait too long or they’ve been through the mill. They’ve been through all the treatments, and their immune system has nothing left in it, and it’s tough sometimes. It doesn’t work for everyone, but you’ve got to do it. Once you believe and start to see, and you have to have the attitude like I’ve had, “If it doesn’t work for me, it’s not going to work for anyone else.”

Now if I’m going to do something, I’m going all out 150%, and it’s not an easy route. But like this psychotherapist told me in the hospital, and I always can go back to that and think about it, he says, “There’s a right way to do it and a wrong way. If you do it the right way, I believe you could get well. If you don’t then, then it’s not going to be as easy. You have to do it and do it the right way.”

There’s so much out there now that you can do. I believe that with every cell in my body, that everyone listening to this, everyone’s friends that’s listening to this, everyone’s family—everyone out there can benefit and get well because if I can do it, they can do it and stay well. Because when you’re getting not much hope, five years seems like a long time, and there’s five years survival rate, and as you said earlier, six years, it still counts. That’s usually lower stages of cancer, but that’s okay.

You also have to think about the quality of life you’re going to have. Maybe you’ll survive 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, depends on your age. But I just feel very strongly that with the right supplements, the right nutrition—get off of sugar, you’ve got to stay off of sugar. Sugar is your enemy. Sugar is terrible. You got to stay off of anything that’s processed. You got to eat less meat.

If you have cancer, in most cases, some cancers you can eat a little more protein, but at the beginning, you have to be pretty strict, and you can widen out a little bit. I eat meat some; I don’t eat meat every night. You got to be careful with fish nowadays because of all the toxicity and all the heavy metals and all the PCBs and all the parasites. You definitely don’t want to eat sushi because if people eat that, that’s the end thing. They started to eat sushi. Meanwhile, they’re getting parasites. Parasites are one of the most immunosuppressive things, according to Dr. Bueno and Dr. Parcells, known to man.

You have animals, and they get parasites, the first thing the vet looks far is parasites. If you have parasites there, that’s the thing that they’re concerned about more, and our doctors don’t even look at it. They don’t even think about it. That’s a problem right there.

But you want to have vitamin C enzymes. You got to stimulate and keep your immune system strong by supplementing for something that helps support the thymus and the spleen. In some cases, red bone marrow is very good, but you want to make sure it’s GMO-free, organic, and grown without hormones. You don’t want to keep adding more toxins. You got to get smart, read labels, and ask questions. You’ve got to really study this, and you’ll see that the knowledge and the truth will set you free from all this fear. You too will survive, and you too will be able to say, “I too beat cancer” down the road. You’ll be able to say that, “I used to have cancer,” like the title of my book. That, I think, is the key to all of this.

[01:16:09] Ashley James: Tell us a little bit about the Uni Key Health Systems. You’ve mentioned you’ve created some supplements. It’s been around for over 20 years.

[01:16:20] James Templeton: Uni Key stands for universal key to health is what I talked about it earlier, and that’s getting to the root of health problems. That’s getting down to the nitty-gritty, like detoxifying the parasites, detoxifying yeast and fungus out of your system, which is a big problem that’s caused from fungus, mold and too much sugar in the diet, too many carbohydrates in the diet.

I’m not a believer in getting totally off of carbohydrates. I believe that whole grains are important. I probably wouldn’t have as many as I did and on the macrobiotic diet, but you need that fiber. Fiber is prebiotic. Fiber will help that promotes your immune system. But Uni Key stands for getting to the root, and that’s the key to health. That’s the universal key to health—getting down, getting to the root, and cleaning up from the ground up. Because if you don’t go clean house, if you don’t go clean the system out, you won’t absorb anyway. What’s the point of eating all these vitamins and eating all this food if you’re full of toxins?

You got to eat the right foods, the foods that help detoxify, the foods that are high in nutrients and minerals that will help chelate these heavy metals out of your body, the chemicals, and pesticides. That’s what Uni Key is all about. It’s about having product and testing modalities that we have to help people determine the underlying causes of toxicity so that they can detoxify and rebuild. Uni Key is more of a supplement business and health supply.

We sell water filters because water is probably the most important thing that you can put in your body. People can live a lot longer time on just water, but they can’t live very long without water. They can live quite a while away from food, but we want to make sure that this water—that is such a big part of our system and our blood. That’s pure water. So many people are drinking water out of plastic bottles nowadays. They are drinking water in restaurants. They are drinking water in their own home that is full of heavy metals. It’s full of chlorine, full of aluminum—all this stuff that’s causing toxicity and full of parasites.

[01:19:11] Ashley James: I love it. I’m so fascinated, and I’m thrilled that you created this company, Uni Key Health Systems. What is the website that people can go to see your supplements, your testing, and your water filters?

[01:19:27] James Templeton: It’s unikeyhealth.com.

[01:19:34] Ashley James: You mentioned you have the Templeton Wellness Foundation. I’m inspired by that. What website do they go to? Is that templetonwellness.com?

[01:19:46] James Templeton: Yes, templetonwellness.com.

[01:19:49] Ashley James: Anyone can access the videos of your interviews with the cancer survivors.

[01:19:55] James Templeton: Yes. It’s all free to the public, and my goal is to interview as many people. If anybody out there knows someone that has gone through a stage 4 or 3 probably type of cancer and has survived for ten years or more using the combination of conventional and natural healing modalities are all natural. I would love to speak with them, and they can contact us at a Templeton Wellness Foundation. If you want to contact stuart@templetonwellness.com that would be great. We would love to interview these people, so the more we can help people. That’s all we’re about.

We’re not selling anything. We don’t have any affiliates. I’m not promoting my business. This is about helping to sell hope and giving people knowledge based on real-life stories—living proof stories, I guess you could say. That’s my goal.

It’s pretty simple, but I was inspired by the people that I read about. They got well, and many others that we didn’t even mention that I felt like if they could get well, then I could too. What did they do? We’ve interviewed several people now, and we’re trying to get started here, but the people that I interviewed have similar common threads they’ve used in healing modalities.

I find that very interesting. The things that are working are very similar, and vitamin C is one of them. There’s a number of things that I’m finding, but it doesn’t shock me at all that people with pancreatic cancer, 10, 11 years down the road, they’re still doing well. They were written off that many years ago, and they’re still doing fine. Yes, they changed their diet. Yes, they changed their lifestyle a little bit. But, my gosh, you know, they’re living and thriving. They have their businesses. A lot of them are giving back to help others. They get to see their grandchildren grow up and, and that’s what life’s all about. It’s not like you get a diagnosis and you’re a goner. There’s hope, whether it’s cancer or heart disease, whatever. You just got to be willing to make changes and roll up your sleeves and get after it. It’s there for the taking, but it’s up to the individual. Some people want to do it, and some don’t. You can’t make anybody do anything they wouldn’t want to.

When people know—just like me, when they know, they know. It’s like you don’t have to have someone try to talk you into it. It’s like you just know. It’s like when I do something, I know I need to do it for myself. I know deep inside of me, I got to do that. I’m supposed to do that, and I got to do that. I don’t need someone to be beating at my door to try to convince me.

[01:23:35] Ashley James: I liked that you said to roll up your sleeves and get to work, do the hard work because when it comes to healing and transformation, it does start with mindset. People who are morbidly obese, people who have diabetes, people who have Lyme disease—the first step is the decision to roll up your sleeves and change because you can’t change disease state with the same lifestyle, diet, and habits that created that disease state. And so it does take overhauling your whole life, and yeah, that’s hard.

[01:24:12] James Templeton: Well, it’s like the water’s rising. Do you want to swim, or do you want to drown?

[01:24:17] Ashley James: Exactly. It is very hard to stop eating sugar. But you know what’s harder? Living with the disease. So I liked that you said roll up your sleeves and get to work and we can all do that. We don’t have to have a diagnosis of anything. We can all roll up our sleeves and go, “You know what, it’s time to cut out the sugar or the coffee,” or whatever advice that you know down in your gut has been moving you in the direction of ill health.

So I love that you pointed that out and I think that your videos are going to be a tremendous help to so many people, spreading hope and wellness information. Thank you so much for doing that. I’ll make sure the links to everything you do is in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com.

One last thing, can you please tell us about your book that’s coming out? Of course, we’re going to have a link to your book, I Used to Have Cancer. Tell us about it.

[01:25:09] James Templeton: I’m very excited, and the book is going to tell my story. It’s about my memoirs. It talks about my life. A lot of it talks about where I come from. It tells you about what I went through, my feelings on a deep level. It talks about the three knocks on the door, and it tells you all that kind of puts the pieces of the puzzle altogether. It tells you the things that I did and how I felt and why I felt like I got well, and then it tells you about the things I would do if I had to do it all over again knowing what I know today. This would be very helpful for those going through it today, and it will inspire you—I know it. It’s a very good story, and it’s an easy read.

It’s I Used to Have Cancer. It’s on Square One Books, and you can preorder it at amazon.com, of course. I think it’s going to do well. It was selected as one of the best new up and coming books for the spring, Publisher’s Weekly, which they say as a big deal, I don’t know. I mean, cancer is a big deal—one out of two people. Everybody knows somebody. It’s not rocket science. It’s actually easy. The hard work again, is rolling up your sleeves and doing the work.

But once you do it, you start to feel better and better, whether it’s getting off of the sugar or whatever. After a couple of weeks or a little bit more, you start not to miss the sugar because it’s amazing how the body starts to transform and starts to bring itself back to that balance that we talked about.

That’s the real key—once the body becomes balanced again. It doesn’t take more than three, four, or five months to get things going in the right direction. Once you see that, you’re going to start to see the numbers come down into where it needs to be, and you’re going to start to believe. Seeing is believing as we always say, and the sky is the limit.

Sometimes a cancer diagnosis could be considered one of the best things that ever happened to us because it makes us sometimes get into the things that we’re here to really do. Our true calling sometimes is based on something that just gets our attention. A lot of people don’t like to hear that, and they think that’s terrible, but I feel that way. I feel that that’s a blessing sometimes. Some of these problems we have in life because they’re obstacles are the key factors that create change.

[01:28:26] Ashley James: Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing this information, especially the hope that you give people to take back control of their life, and the knowledge that they can do that even when they have a late stage diagnosis of cancer. I love your work. I am such a big fan of you now just like I’m a fan of your partner Ann Louise.

Listeners can go to episode 284 to hear her interview, and please listeners, share this information. Share these two episodes to spread this information and help as many people as possible to know that they can heal their body and that cancer is not a death sentence.

James, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the show today. Is there anything that you’d like to say to the listener to wrap up today’s interview?

[01:29:20] James Templeton: Ashley, it’s been wonderful to be with you this time to let me share my story and to help as many people as I can out there. I wish everyone that’s going through a cancer battle or know someone or are as close to someone in any way understands that getting well is available, and cancer is not a death sentence. And the last thing I like to always think is whether you believe in God or believe in a higher power or believe in just something good happening on a larger level.

But I like to always say that God helps those who help themselves. You just have to ask, and when you get that message and it’s not easy, but it will come to you when you needed it at the worst time.

[01:30:20] Ashley James: Brilliant. Thank you so much, James. Thank you for coming on the show. It’s been such a pleasure. You’re welcome back anytime.

[01:30:27] James Templeton: Thank you so much.

[01:30:28] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

Get Connected With James Templeton!

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I USED TO HAVE CANCER: How I Found My Own Way Back to Health by James Templeton
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I Used To Have Cancer

https://www.learntruehealth.com/i-used-to-have-cancer

Cancer survivor (33+ years and counting!) James Templeton tells the story of how he beat the dreaded disease with macrobiotic diet and vitamin C. Part 1 of an inspiring and instructive 2-part interview replete with true health gems.

[00:00:03] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 348.

I am so excited for today’s guest. We have with us an amazing man. James Templeton has beaten the odds. Not only did he survive cancer; he beat it. He thrives, and he has gone on to dedicate his life to teaching people how they can live a cancer-free and healthy life using natural medicine and supporting the body’s ability to heal itself. He has a wonderful book coming out. I’m really excited. James, welcome to the show.

[00:00:45] James Templeton: Ashley, it’s such a pleasure to be with you today. It’s great to talk to you and share my story with you.

[00:00:52] Ashley James: Absolutely. I know all of our listeners want to hear how you were able to beat cancer. Not only that, in the mainstream terminology, you beat cancer when you don’t have it for five years, but if you get cancer again in six years, they still consider that a success. So you are a success time and time again because you have beat it for 30 years now. Is that correct?

[00:01:21] James Templeton: That’s correct. It’s been about 33 years and a little change. It’s been since 1985. It’s something that you deal with. It’s a little harder at the beginning, and then as you get older and things are going good, you can’t ever let up. You just keep one foot on the path all the time. You widen out, you do different things, and you learn along the way, but in my case, it’s been quite a journey. Now, I’m able to help others, so it’s very exciting to share my story, and I’m looking forward for people to read my book.

[00:02:06] Ashley James: Absolutely. You have statistics on your website, Iusedtohavecancer.com. One out of two people will get cancer in their lifetime. This is a statistic we’ve talked about on the show before. I believe it’s one in two men and one in three women, or is it one in three men and one in two women? I always get the two mixed up. Either way, that’s a shocking statistic. If there are two people in a room, one is likely to get cancer. That’s kind of ridiculous.

[00:02:34] James Templeton: It really is. I think it’s one out of two men and one out of three women, but it’s getting to be to where it’s almost one out of two of us, and we’re going to get cancer. I guess it depends on what stage it is when you find it, whether it’s an early stage or later stage. Sometimes we’re not as lucky to find it in the early stage, but it is a scary thing. I see people out there, and they’re walking around. They don’t seem like they’re too concerned the way they eat and the way they live. I guess you could say a lot of people are walking time bombs. It’s scary because we all know someone that’s had cancer or died of cancer.

It scares me all the time. Cancer is a scary word because it’s nothing more than a man-made word, dripping in fear. When someone says the word ‘cancer,’ something has been made up, and probably one of their biggest fears in life, whether they admit it or not, is the ‘cancer’ word or the cancer diagnosis. I think heart disease beats cancer outmaybe just by a thread, but the thing is from age 0 to 65, cancer wins out. And then over 65, if you count everyone up over 65, then heart disease is in the lead. But we don’t worry about that as much until we drop over or we have problems, or we end up going to the doctor and getting bypass surgery or whatever.

I find it remarkable when I go out to eat, or I go somewhere, even on a flight somewhere, and if I’m lucky enough to be in first class, nobody in the first class section even cares about what’s in the food—90% of them anyway, probably 99%. They think that’s the way it is, and they don’t worry about things. Maybe that’s the best attitude, but in my case, I worry a little bit more.

[00:04:56] Ashley James: I bet. We definitely want to hear your story. I am interested, however, if you could dive in a little bit. Before we get into your story, if you could explain what you meant by ‘cancer’ is this man-made dripped in fear? My mom passed away from cancer, and my dad died of heart disease that was also brought on from obesity. I watched both my parents die in my twenties of things that now, having spent almost eight years dedicating my life to studying holistic medicine, I see they were preventable, reversible, and diseases of lifestyle.

But at that time, my mom was the healthiest person I knew, so for her to have a cancer diagnosis shocked me. And then there’s so much fear around it. I saw her wither away and die from the fear of it. And so I understand what you mean about the fear. Can you explain what you mean that it’s a manmade diagnosis? We can see the cancer on the scans, so why is it man-made?

[00:06:08] James Templeton: It’s man-made because it’s the persona of it. It’s people in a laboratory or researchers, and they have come up with this word. Everything has a word, whether it’s a bladder infection or cancer, and it’s basically put together. Instead of saying that your body is out of balance and you’ve got an extreme imbalance in your system in your body, and your immune system is not able todeal with it. They come up with the word that everyone puts death hanging around it, and then it becomes very fearful because there’s this fear that, “If I get cancer, I’ll probably die,” or “If I get cancer, I’ll have to do all of these and my life will be miserable, and if I do survive, it will  be a miracle. I’m going down to the guy in the white jacket, the doctor, and do what the doctor says because I don’t know what else to do.” And that’s my biggest fear.

But I think it’s, the way I look at it, it’s really an imbalance. If they said your body has the extreme imbalance, and you can turn it around, you got out of balance, now you can get it back to balance, and these are the things you need to do. I don’t really feel that there’s a real cure to cancer. If there is, it’s not going to be a magic bullet because even if they did find a magic bullet, which would be an herb or some drug or something that you took and all of a sudden it turned off all the cancer cells to where they couldn’t spread any longer, couldn’t multiply.  That would be great.

But then people would continue to get it constantly because of their lifestyle, because of what they eat, because they’re the toxicity levels, and because of their lowered immune system and all that goes along with it. That’s kind of what I meant by it. It’s just a word that’s created. Instead of saying, “My friend, you’re just out of balance, and we need to get you back to balance before it’s too late.” This is kind of a last warning here.

[00:08:45] Ashley James: That could be said about all the chronic illnesses out there. As you’re talking, I was thinking about everything else that is prevalent. Diabetes—I’m thinking type 2 diabetes—is 100% reversible. But if you go to an allopathic physician, they will put you on metformin, or they’ll give you insulin, and they won’t give you a way out. They’ll just say this is how it is for the rest of your life. They might give you American Diabetes Association approved diet that’s still has a fair share of carbohydrates and allows for foods that are not healing for the body and not nourishing. They look to maintain the diabetes and manage the blood sugar within the ranges that they say are healthy but for a diabetic, meaning for a healthy person, incredibly unhealthy. They say that it is fine.

And then if you go to a holistic practitioner, they’re like, “Let’s get you filled up with nutrition and balance your blood sugar with a diet that’s healing, and let’s detoxify the body. Let’s look at your lifestyle and your emotional health, your mental health.” And then all of a sudden, a few months later, you don’t have diabetes anymore.

What is diabetes? The second we get this diagnosis, people buy into “This is my life—on drugs and managing bad blood sugar” versus doing a complete overhaul of their life, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically, energetically, and healing what got them sick in the first place.

You’re saying that cancer is like, if we give into this idea that there’s a big bad thing called cancer, then it has power over us and we’re powerless. But if we get that it’s a symptom of a body out of balance–was that your message?

[00:10:47] James Templeton: It is—exactly. Good job. If the body is out of balance, and when the fear sets in from this overall knock over the head that’s dripping in fear hit you, then your immune systems are already lowered because you have cancer in the first place. Now you’re under this stress, fear, and anxiety, and now your immune system is even lowered that much more, and the cancer is already ahead of everything. Now it’s got a real big lead running out in front of you, and it’s very hard to catch it.

So you have done to understand that hey, it’ll be not normal at all to be not fearful because I’m fearful of it. I’ve conquered it and survived for 33 plus years, but I’m still fearful of it. But I know what I need to do and I know what causes most of it, and now—what’s the saying? The truth shall set you free. There’s a lot more freedom there, a deep feeling of freedom and a deep feeling of “I can do this, and I know what I have to do” than before.

[00:12:03] Ashley James: I’d love to hear your story. You’ve got me so curious. Can you take us back 33 years ago to your cancer diagnosis? How did you heal it and survive it? Did you give in to the chemo, radiation, and surgery? I would love you to take us back and share with us your journey.

[00:12:27] James Templeton: It was in 1985; I was 32 years old. You might can tell I’m from Texas. I don’t live in Texas all the time now, but I’m from there originally. I’m a fifth-generation Texan, and I’ve always been very proud of that. My grandfathers were fighters, and they were some of the first settlers in Texas. They fought for Texas’s independence, and they were a big part of that. So I was always proud of being a Texan and living here. I grew up in Texas, and I thought back in those days that I had the world by the tail because I was a young man that was successful. I had several businesses, and I had a little baby girl that was less than two years old, had a beautiful wife. Everything was going great for me. I just thought it couldn’t get much better at that time when this all broke open.

I was running a lot. I was in a tremendous shape. I worked out a lot, and people would see me running around town. And they would say, “My gosh, this guy runs all the time. Everywhere you go, you see this guy running.” I’d run out to the country. I’d run up hills. I would push myself. I worked out in the gym two or three days a week at least, and I did everything. I worked hard. I had cows and animals—I had dogs, cats, and hogs. I had a little farm I lived on. It was wonderful. It was like a wonderful setting. I had a little fish pond behind the house. What else could you want when you’re 32 years old and had very successful businesses?

And I did all this exercise and everything that I was doing because my father died at the age of 46, and he had a massive heart attack. His father died at the age of 36. They say it was heart problems or heart trouble that he had. And so I thought, I better do something so that I don’t have this thing. Besides that, my mother when I was less than two years old, and then I had a little brother that died at the age of 8, so I had all this death around me. Besides that your grandparents that you love dearly, they die, and you remember all that, and you start to think that all these people died at an awfully young age.

I better do something. So I started all this exercise. Once when I was in college, I didn’t even really care at that point. My father died when I was in high school and when I went to college, I think the only reason I went was because my stepmother that raised me said, “Your father would want you to go to college.” I was very depressed after he died. I thought I’d never make it to 30.

I decided to go out and have a good time and party. I went to college. I was there. I don’t think I went, but I was there, and I had a good time while I was there. But I wanted to have fun because I honestly thought deep inside of myself that I’m only going to live till 30. So I had this attitude, and that’s not a good attitude to have, but I think I was pretty much depressed and having this attitude.

But as I got out of school, I dropped out of school because I thought that I could do something better, and I wasn’t really into this college. After my third year, I decided to call it quits. I met a young lady, and we got serious. I got married, and now I started to think that maybe I needed to take care of myself a little bit more. She was a runner. She got me into running, and we started to run together a little bit. Then I started running a lot as I was talking about earlier. Then we had a little girl, and everything was wonderful. My whole outlook started to change, and I thought that maybe I wouldn’t have to be like my father or my grandfather, and I would have a chance at a long life. So that’s why I did this.

But there was a guy back then that was a big deal in the running movement. Some people that will hear this might remember this guy, especially if you’re my age. His name was Jim Fixx.

[00:17:42] Ashley James: Oh, yeah.

[00:17:44] James Templeton: You remember that name?

[00:17:45] Ashley James: Yes, I do because he died of a heart attack while running.

[00:17:50] James Templeton: Yes. So Jim Fixx was this guru in the health and fitness arena back then. Jim was a guy that I heard and read about. He talked about running, how his father had died of a heart attack, and running was going to save his life. He could just about eat anything he wanted and do anything he wanted. He was in tremendous shape and all this.

I thought this was the ticket for me, so I started all this running based really on my past and also the advice of Jim Fixx. One early morning I went into the office, and I had several businesses—I had these convenience store type businesses with gas and convenience store groceries—I was there one morning early. I did my early morning duties, and I went into my office, I put my feet up, and I said, “Life is great, everything’s going good. I’d had my morning run already.” I was looking back at everything, and here comes the delivery service that delivered newspapers to the store, I looked at the newspaper, and I started thumbing through there. I got into the sports page, and it said, “Jim Fixx Dies of Heart Attack.” I could not believe it. I was just like, “Wait a minute, is this for real?” Jim Fixx, of all people, die and this is the guy that I’ve been thinking as a big deal. How did he die of a heart attack?  I started reading through that, and I got nervous after this. I thought I was doing the right thing, and then maybe I’m not doing the right thing after all. I better go and get checked out. I’ve got to get my heart checked out because I’ve been enjoying life and eating pretty much what I want to eat. I figured I better go and find me a doctor that can do this stress test.

So I went to an internal medicine doctor there in town. A lot of times that’s the kind of doctor you go to get these kinds of things done—either that or a cardiologist, but I went to this internal medicine doctor. I went in there, I got an appointment, and he said to me, “Take your shirt off, and we’ll get you on the treadmill.”

They got me on this treadmill, hooked me up with all these wires and everything like they do for an electrocardiogram. What they do for the stress test—I’m not sure if they do them the same way anymore, but there was a treadmill, and you’re on that treadmill, and they get that thing going slow, then they build it up and before long, it’s going really fast, and you’re running on there. They looked at my heart and everything, and then they said, “Okay, that’s great. You can go in and put your shirt on, and I’ll be in there in a few minutes to talk with you.” So I go in, and the doctor says, “I want to tell you something, you’re in tremendous shape. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody in this kind of shape.” He said, “You set the record. We see all these people, and no one has been able to surpass you on this device.” And he said, “You are in unbelievable shape. Your heart is in excellent shape.”

So I felt really good then, like, “Oh, my god, thank God. I’m really feeling good. Maybe I’m going to keep on living, and things are going to be wonderful.” He looked at me like when you’re getting an exam and everything, and then he says, “Well, there’s only one thing I found during my examination. There’s a mole on the right side of your back. That mole looks a little suspicious to me. It looks different. It doesn’t look like a mole that is like the other moles. It’s probably nothing to it. When you get a chance, why don’t you go down to the dermatologist? He’s actually in this building, and you go down there and get it checked out. I’m sure it’s nothing, but it just looks a little different.”

I didn’t think much about it other than I remembered at that time when my stepmother had told me that sometimes these moles could have cancer in them and it can kill you. All of a sudden, I took a gulp, and I said to myself, “Well, I better get checked out because this might be probably nothing to worry about, but I’ll get an appointment and get it checked out.”

So a couple of weeks later I went into the dermatologist office and like before they said, “Go take your shirt off, and the doctor will be there in a minute. Sit up on the table.” I went in there, and I sat on a table, and here comes this doctor. He goes, “What seems to be the problem?” I said, “I went and had a stress test done over at Dr. so-and-so’s, and he said that I should come in and have this mole I have on my back checked out because it looked a little different. He didn’t think it was anything, but he said to get an appointment over here with you, and that’s what I’m doing, coming in here to have it checked out.”

He turns around, looks at me, and he goes, “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness.” The guy got all excited all of a sudden. He started acting like he had won the lottery or something. I’d never seen anything. It scared me to death when the guy was jumping around. He goes, “I think you have melanoma.” And I said, “Melanoma?” It was a scary-sounding word. I heard this word, and all of a sudden, I probably turned as white as a ghost. He just said, “You got melanoma. I’m sure of it.” He didn’t know for sure, but that’s what he was saying.

He says, “We might have to remove a large portion of your back with surgery.” He was excited. I don’t know if he had never seen one before. I can’t imagine that, but he acted like he was so excited. It scared me. He said, “Let’s schedule for surgery,” and all this kind of stuff. I said, “I’m going to have to think about this.” I got up and left that office, and I tell you, I never went back to that guy.

[00:25:14] Ashley James: You know why he was so excited?

[00:25:16] James Templeton: Why is that?

[00:25:16] Ashley James: Because he realized that you were going to be his boat payment.

[00:25:20] James Templeton: Oh, yeah, probably. I mean, this guy had zero bedside manner. It wasn’t like, “It looks suspicious. Let’s get it checked out. I think it’ll be all right. And if it is anything, there probably won’t be a lot to it.” It makes you feel like at least they could do that. How much is that to ask for a doctor to be sensitive?

We’ve all been to doctors that are nice, and we all had been to them that are semi this way. But to this day, I have never seen one like this guy. He was either money hungry or cancer happy or something, but I never went back to him. I tell you, I left that place, and I was shaking and had chills running up and down my body. I’m surprised I even made it home because it was about a 10-mile drive to where I lived.

I got home, my wife was there, and I said to her, “I went to the doctor, and he said a good chance I have melanoma, and he was jumping up and down. He scared me to death. I don’t know what to do.” She suggested that I go and get a second opinion. She said, “You remember that doctor you went to see.”

Several years ago when I had a basal cell, which is a skin cancer, on the back of my head, upon the crown of my head, which was a very young age to have something like this—when I was 24 or 25. I had skin cancer, and I went to this doctor in downtown Houston. He was a really nice man. He took it out, and he told me, “You’re going to have to be careful because this skin cancer is probably going to show up again sometime in your life. We want to keep an eye on things.”

So I remembered that, and I went down to see him. I got an appointment, I went in, and he said, “It looks very suspicious to me also. I think that if it is anything, it’s probably in early stage.” He went on to say, “My wife had melanoma, and it was stage 1. We removed that, and we’ve never seen it again. She’s never had another problem. That’s probably what it is.”

But he said, “For now, I’d like you to get an appointment with this world-renowned doctor that I know in a medical center down in Houston. We’ll get you in to see him. He’s a friend of mine, and he’s renowned. If anybody has to go to somebody, this is the guy to go to.”

So I thought, “I’m lucky.” I felt a lot luckier than this small town guy that was going to do me in. Before he even knew, he was going to take half of my back off and remove all this stuff he thought he was going to have to remove and, who knows, tens of thousands of dollars.

So I got an appointment, and I went to see this other doctor, and he was an oncologist, a big-time cancer doctor. I thought to myself that I was lucky to be there at the time. He had good bedside manners, a nice fellow, so I appreciated that. He came across as a good old boy as we’d say down in Texas.

And he said to me, “It looks a little suspicious to me, but the only way we’re going to really know is to get in there and take it out and just see what it is.” He says, “If you’d like, I can do that right here in the office.” I thought, “I might as well get it done and see what it is.”

So he took a big plug—it was probably a 2-inch square plug out of my back and real deep. He took a deep plug, and he sewed it all up and everything. He told me, “I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks, but we’ll try to do it a little sooner. I think we can get it done a little quicker because that’s a long time.”

He said, “There’s nothing you can do. Just go home. Don’t worry. Chances are you’ll be fine, and there won’t be much to it. Maybe it won’t even be anything.” So I went home, you know, and I felt a little bit better because the guy had such a good way about him and everything. I went back and, of course, I didn’t stop worrying because it’s hard for someone not to worry when they’ve told that there’s a chance they have cancer. That’s sometimes the worst part of it all is at the beginning when you’re told that there’s either a chance, or you’re getting a biopsy, or you’re getting something like this done.

But anyway, I was not fun to be around, I’ll tell you, after that. I didn’t want to do much. I was kind of depressed. I was walking on the floor pretty much. Didn’t sleep very well, either. It was probably almost two weeks before I got a phone call from this doctor. It seemed like a year. It was forever. I don’t know why it takes them so long. That’s the thing I don’t understand. I guess there’s a lot of people getting all these biopsies, and it takes a long time, but it drives a person nuts when you have to wait so long to get anything done.

But he called me up on the phone, and he says, “I got some good news, and I got some bad news.” And I’m like, “Oh, boy. That doesn’t sound good. He goes, “The good news is that it’s melanoma, and we got it all.” I’m thinking, “It’s melanoma, and it’s good news? How could this be good news? I’ve never heard anything.”

He says, “But the bad news is that it’s very deep. That concerns me. We’re going to have to watch it real close because when it’s this deep, that means it’s stage 4.” I’d heard stage 4, but I didn’t know much about cancer back in those days. It didn’t sound good to me. He says, “It’s more likely to spread. It’s more likely to metastasize. It’s more likely to end up in other organs or other parts of the body, so we’re going to have to keep a really good close eye on it.”

And he said, “There’s nothing you can really do. You shouldn’t worry. The only thing we have to do is have you come in every three months and get checked out. You come in every three months, and we’ll look at everything. For now, go live your life and don’t worry. We’ll hope for the best, and maybe we’ll get lucky, and chances are we’ll never see it again.”

I thought to myself, “Boy, how could this be happening to me?” I’m lying there, sitting there, standing or whatever I was doing, this guy tells me all this stuff on the phone while I was just in shock, and now I knew I had stage 4 cancer, and that I didn’t want to do anything now.

Before all this, I was very ambitious. I worked all the time. I ran. I couldn’t wait to try to figure out ways to do more business. I wanted to make something out of myself. I was at the point in my life to where now I was, “Maybe I’m not going to get the heart disease, but who knows after Jim Fixx,” and now get I this diagnosis. This was all in a very short time here.

I had noticed though that I was feeling tired, and when I looked back, I was feeling tired a lot. I was getting colds and flus a lot. I was starting to feel tired. Here I was barely over 30, and I’m feeling like that. I thought, “I guess I’m getting older.” I thought that was the deal on it, but when I looked back, my body was trying to tell me that my immune system was suffering and wasn’t able to do its job the way it’s supposed to.

I became very, very depressed. I didn’t want to do anything. I wasn’t fun to be around. Before that, I’d been the life of the party. I had friends. I like to go out. I like to have a good time. I was easygoing most of the time. I’m sure it was very hard on my wife for her to have to listen to this and put up with all this. Here it comes out of the blue, and I had this little girl and everything. It started to affect my relationship. I could feel the energy was changing in our relationship. Besides, who wants to be with somebody who could be dying of cancer?

I started to read, and I started to try to search for as much information as I could. Back then, there wasn’t the internet. The internet wasn’t the way it is now, so you couldn’t just go on there and Google something, and so I found out through friends of mine. My wife had a doctor friend that we met skiing one year. He said, “With stage 4, he’ll be lucky to live three years.” And I was like, “Oh, my god. You got to be kidding me. Here I am, a young guy—three years?”

That’s what you hear, so I became very difficult. Before I knew it, it was time to go back and get checked out again. I went back three months later, and the doctor says, “Everything looks okay. Everything is going okay. I think we keep doing the same thing. Don’t worry; just go home.”

Well, I was worrying all the time and, my relationship, my marriage became a little bit more and more stressed out. It just wasn’t the same. I guess I can’t blame her because I wasn’t easy to be around. I didn’t have any ambition anymore. I’d even decided that I wanted to start living out some of my bucket lists. I always loved Colorado and skiing, and we had a little ski house up in Colorado. I decided that I wanted to get out of the businesses and moved to Colorado and do something up there. I felt like I better do it now, or I’m not going to be able to do it possibly in my lifetime.

So I started to be a little selfish, I guess, and think of myself. I wanted to start to look at the possibilities of not being around much longer. Before I knew it, my marriage ended. My wife moved into town and took my daughter. After this happened, I didn’t care what happened after that. I lost my whole desire really to care anymore. It really affected me. I didn’t have that support anymore, so I started hanging out and running around with old buddies, drinking buddies, and started going out drinking and having a good time when I should have been taking care of myself.

The doctor said, “Don’t worry, there’s nothing else you can do,” so that’s what I did. I went out and did that. I wasn’t a happy camper, I’ll tell you. A friend of mine, one of my best friends, one of my old running buddies, we ran together almost every day. He was involved in the business, and he suggested that I go with him and his partners and help run a business up in the Dallas area, which was about three hours north of where I was living. I’ll go up there and run a business for them, and it would be perfect for me because I had a business background, and it would get me away from where I was living in this small town in Texas—Huntsville, Texas was the town. It would get me out of there and get me away from all the stress, and it would be good for me to get my mind off things.

I took him up on it. Right then, I thought, “Well, I’m doing okay. The cancer hasn’t raised its head again, so I’ll go up there and do this.” So I went up there, and things started happening. We had this business; it was very successful. I was running things, and we were busy. I was busy. I was inspecting houses. Back in the 1980s, around ‘85, right in there was when it was, there was a lot of foreclosed homes on the market because there was an oil boom, and when the whole bottom fell out of that oil business. I went up there to Dallas and started helping these mortgage companies refurbish these homes that they were taking back as foreclosures.

So we were going in, and we were fixing these houses up and spending a few weeks on each house, getting them back into sell shape. Along with these other guys, we put together a business up there that would refurbish these foreclosed homes, and things were going well. I thought life was not so bad again, but here it came, it was time to get my checkup again.

I’d already been through about three successful checkups, and everything looked fine, and I thought, “Maybe the doctor is right, I’ll never see it again.” So I went in to see the doctor. I flew down to Houston. I went in to see the doctor, and he says, “You got a little lump on your groin here. It’s like a little, tiny marble.”

He says, “It’s probably nothing. Just don’t worry about it.” Well, I kind of worried about it, and I said, “You sure we don’t need to worry about what you found?” He goes, “No. Come back in three months.”

[00:41:45] Ashley James: Oh, my gosh. Come back when it grows big enough for me to cut it out of you.

[00:41:50] James Templeton: Yeah, right. So I go back to Dallas, and I noticed things getting bigger. It started to get bigger and bigger pretty quick. I called the doctor up, this was probably a couple of months later, and I said, “Doctor, this thing is growing.” I was not too happy about it. I was pretty nervous about it. But I said this thing is growing. He says, “Well, we better go in and see what it is. Come on down here, and let me look at it. We’ll put you in the hospital and see exactly what it is. We will take it out.” And then I went down there, and he says, “Meet me in the hospital in the morning” and all that.

So I go in, and he takes it out, and he says—well, before that he told me there’s probably nothing to it, and it’s just a little something going on. Maybe it’s a lymph node that’s swollen or infected or whatever, but we’ll find out. I went in. He did the surgery. When I woke up, I knew I was in trouble because I had this huge bandage that’s on my lower groin area. I knew I wasn’t in good shape because, of course, I was out of it from the surgery. I never had surgery before. I’ve never been in a hospital before. He came in and shortly after I come to, he says, “I got some bad news. It was the news I was hoping we wouldn’t have to deal with. You got cancer in your groin now, and the melanoma had spread to your lymph nodes. That’s not good. That means that it’s pretty advanced, and we’re going to have to really, really, keep after it now.”

He says, “I want you to do 80 chemotherapy treatments–experimental chemotherapy treatments.” This is not regular chemo. This is experimental chemotherapy where they use a hypothermia type treatment. “We’re going to elevate your temperature,” and this is all experimental back in those days.

He says, “We don’t know of anything else that works well with this at all, and this sometimes doesn’t even work that well, but it’s all we know to do. We’ll do 80. We’ll do five each time. Now you’ll have to come into the hospital for every five treatments for a week, and then two months later, we’ll do another five because it takes you two months to recover.” And I thought, “Oh, my gosh. What’s going on here?”

He said, “It’s going to take you about two to three weeks to get over the surgery, and after that, we’re going to do these treatments. So we’ll keep you in the hospital and get you to recover some from the surgery,” which I was gutted there and it was like really painful. I was lying there in the hospital, and I was miserable from the surgery. More than anything now, I knew I had this terrible cancer that had spread, and it was all over in my lymphatic system. Who knows where it was going to go? I was in terrible pain.

I remember the nurse would come in and say, “Don’t you want some painkillers?” I’d say, “No, I’m not going to take any painkillers. I’m going to tough it out.” It didn’t take me more than a day or two to realize that I needed something because of the pain. They started giving me morphine just like they do with anybody for a painkiller, like shots. That puts you at ease real quick. After that you don’t really care what happens because when you’re on morphine, you’re sort of like, “Life is not so bad after all. Turn up the music. I don’t feel anything.”

That’s kind of how you felt. But I knew that it wasn’t good, and when the stuff would wear off, I would be miserable, and I started to worry. The doctor comes in, and I said, “Doctor, what are my chances? What do you think my chances are?” He didn’t want to tell me anything. He just sat there, and he would say, “All right, I’ll tell you what I think. You’ve got a 20% chance of survival if you can get through these 80 chemotherapy treatments. That is if you can survive these treatments, I’ll give you a 20% chance of surviving three to five years. Even with these treatments, I don’t think you’ll live more than three to five years.”

So he tells me that, and I knew I was a blown up duck when he said that. I knew I was in really bad shape, and I didn’t know what to do. I was getting desperate. It’s been a week or so or after the surgery, and I was very, very upset. I just felt that was the end of my life, and it was going to happen sooner than later. Here I was 32 years old, my wife had left me, and I had nothing to live for anymore. I was just a miserable young man. I felt like nothing was going my way.

I got a phone call, and this is when things started to turn around. I got a phone call, and it was from a preacher. It was a minister of a church that I went to sometimes. I wasn’t a really overly religious guy or anything. We went to church, but I was a guy that probably didn’t have the time, who was busy all the time. But anyway, I knew the fellow, and he was a nice man. I ran with him a few times. He was older than me, and he’d been a professional baseball player, and I looked up to him. I thought he was always kind of funny and had a good side to him.

He calls me on the phone, and he says to me, “I heard you were in this hospital. I just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you. God loves you, and I know that you can beat this cancer. You’ve just got to get down and dirty and beat it.” He said to me, “You have to beat this son of a bitch of a cancer.” That’s the exact words he said to me. He says, “If anybody can do it, you can.” He told me this, and I was shocked because I’d never heard him talk like that. I felt like I was in a locker room, at a football team or some sports team, and we’re losing, and the coach is trying to get some energy going and getting down on us a little bit. He just laid it on me, and he told me that.

That was the last time I ever talked to him, but it got me to thinking—it got me to thinking, and it lit a spark under me, and it made me start to pray. And I tell you what, I never was a big prayer. I didn’t pray a lot or anything. And then I’ll tell you what I prayed that day—I prayed so hard to God, to the higher power, whatever you want to call it. I prayed, and I said, “God, I need your help. I never had this kind of thing happened to me. I’m desperate. I need help. I really, really, really need your help.”

I felt like every cell in my body was praying. I never had that kind of feeling. It just was the strangest feeling. I’ve said a prayer, the kind of prayer where you’d go to church, and someone says a prayer. It is fancy sounding, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but it just didn’t seem to have a lot of deep meaning to it.

But I’m telling you that day, between me and the higher power, I had a prayer. I felt things that I can’t imagine. I can’t even explain it to anybody, but I did. I didn’t know what else to do, and it was getting that bad. I tell you, probably about 20 minutes later that prayer—I’m always trying to figure out by how long it was, but I think it’s probably about that time. It wasn’t any longer than that. I heard a knock on the hospital door, and this friend of mine comes through the door.

I said, “Come in.” My friend comes through the door whom I hadn’t seen in seven years from college. He worked at the gas station with me when I was in college. I worked at a gas station, and he worked there, and we became friends then. You know in college you have a bunch of buddies and friends, and he was one of them. This fella comes through the door, and he’s waving this piece of paper in his hand, and he’s saying, “I hear that you were in the hospital through one of our old friends, and I felt terrible, and I wanted to figure out something I could do to help you. I was talking to a friend of mine at the office, and he had another friend that he was talking to at lunch one day.”

This guy is somebody they knew had cancer or something. This guy brought him an article about cancer and about a guy that cured himself of cancer. He said to this guy, “I have a friend who’s got a friend. I know this is going to help him. I think this is a thing he probably would appreciate. Can I give this to him or take this to him?”

The guy brought it to me, and it’s about a guy that cured himself of cancer. I didn’t know what it was when he’s walking in the door, waving his arms. I said, “What do you have in your hand?” He said, “I got an article about a guy that cured himself of cancer using the natural diet.”

Well, I never heard anything like that. Where I come from, you go to the doctor just like I’d done. You get sick, and you go to the doctor. But I said, “Hmm, let me see that thing.” And I saw it, I looked at it, and I immediately knew this was what I was going to do. I knew that this was the ticket for me to heal. Something inside of me says, “This is it. This is what you’re going to do.” I told my friend, “I’m going to do this.” He says, “You haven’t even read this yet.” I said, “I’m going to read it.” I haven’t, but I know this is what I’m going to do.

I got very excited. I started to look at it a little bit. It was about a guy, and his name was Dirk Benedict. Dirk Benedict was an actor. He had been in movies, he had been on a TV show, and he had cured himself of what he thought was prostate cancer. I think he was a renegade. He was told that he had prostate cancer by someone, and he went out and got on this diet and got well. He had terrible prostate problems—bleeding and all this stuff—and he was a young man.

I read this, and I said, “I’m going to do exactly what he did.” Dirk Benedict was a guy who was on a show, and the show was the A-Team. Back at that time, there was a show on TV, and a lot of people will know that also. His name on the show was Templeton Peck, and they called him Face in the show. He was a good-looking guy. It wasn’t because he had a nice face. That wasn’t the reason, but they called him Face, and he was the guy, and I knew who the guy was. He talked about how he was from Montana, and I being from Texas, and he grew up on a ranch, and I had had cows, and he had a farm out in Texas. I kind of related to the guy. I felt like I was kind of a cowboy almost.

He talked about being a cowboy, and I thought, “Well, I can relate to this guy.”

Anyway, I got very excited. The diet that he was on was called a macrobiotic diet. I’ve never heard of anything like that. I asked my friend, “Have you ever heard of macrobiotics?” He goes, “Nah, I’ve never heard of that.” And I said, “This guy claims this cured his cancer and saved his life. You got to go out and get this book for me because this was just a little book review article. It was just for two or three pages. It’s about this guy, and it was a book review article. I said to my friend, “I got to get this book—his book. Will you go out and get this book for me?” And he said, “Sure, I’ll go out and get it.”

So he went out, got that book, and brought it back to me. I started reading that book, and I was excited. I felt like if this guy can do it, I can do it. It just felt right inside of me, like somebody, something somewhere was trying to get me to do this. I didn’t know anything about it, but I was open to anything at this point.

So I got this book, my friend went out and got it, and I’ll tell you, I never saw my friend again. I hadn’t seen him to this day. It’s funny, but I’m sure he’s alive still. I need to get ahold of the guy, but it’s an interesting way that he brought this to me. I read this book from Dirk Benedict, and it was called Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy. It was an excellent book. He’s an interesting character. I really could relate to a lot of the things he did. So I was very excited, and now all of a sudden this depression I had was starting to leave my body, and I started to have some hope. This hope was what I needed desperately.

Anyway, I went to bed that night, to sleep that night, and I felt like I had hope now, and that my prayers were starting to be answered. I tell you, the next day I got another knock on the door, and it was my stepmother. My stepmother came up there to visit me, and she brought me a book. It was a yellow book. I remember that it was a book by Linus Pauling, and Linus Pauling, as you’re probably familiar with, was a researcher and was a brilliant researcher. He did a lot of work on vitamin C and different types of things with vitamin C from cancer to heart disease. He’s done a lot of studies on vitamin C, but this was vitamin C and Cancer—the book. I’m trying to remember the name of it offhand. It’s in my book. It’s listed in there, but I can’t think of the name. I think it’s Vitamin C and Cancer. But it was by Linus Pauling.

I read this book and it talked about people that took high amounts of vitamin C, even terminally ill people that had cancer, survive for much longer periods of time as long as they took this high amounts of vitamin C, and that when they stopped taking the vitamin C, a lot of them would die. I got very excited about this vitamin C thing, and I felt that, hey, I got the new diet, the macrobiotic diet that I was going to learn about real quick, and now I’ve got the vitamin C. I thought to myself, “I’m going to do both of them. I’ll do the vitamin C and the macrobiotic diet, and I’ll probably do the chemotherapy. Why not? If a little is good, a lot’s better.

So I got excited. I was really excited now, and I felt like I got enough ammunition now, that my prayer was answered. I was excited and—I don’t know—it just all happened all at once. The next day I got another knock on the door, and it was the strangest thing. I got a knock on the door. There was a fellow that came through the door, and he says, “I’m your psychotherapist for the hospital, the cancer ward.” He said to me, “I’ve noticed that you’ve been depressed. I hear that your outlook is not real good. I would love to talk to you. Do you have time to talk to me tomorrow?” And I said, “Sure, come on in tomorrow, and I’ll talk to you.”

The next day he comes in. By then I’d been reading up on the macrobiotic diet, and I’d had another friend go out and get me some more macrobiotic books. I was excited. I was reading drugged up and all.  The next day this the psychotherapist comes through the door, and I said to him, “I want to ask you a question before we get started here. Have you ever heard of the macrobiotic diet?” He looks at me, and he says, “Hold on a second.” He goes over to the hospital door in my room; I was in a room by myself. He shuts the door.

[01:01:14] Ashley James: [laughs] I’m liking this tale already.

[01:01:17] James Templeton: He comes in, and he says, “I’m going to tell you what I know about it, but I’m going to have to get you to promise me right now that we never had this conversation. You never talked to me.” He says, “If you tell anybody that I talked to you about this, I’ll lose my job, my bench, my retirement, everything. I don’t want to lose all that. I’ve been down here working here 25 years. I don’t want to lose that. So you have to promise me.” By then, I was about ready to drag him into the bed with me and tell me everything he knew. I knew I was on to something now if he’s acting like that. When he went in there, and he shut that door, and came back and told me all that, I said, “I’ll do anything you want, just give me the information.”

He started telling me, “Look, this is a great diet for some people. This diet has saved a lot of people’s lives. It’s very difficult though. It takes a lot of time and energy. You had to put a lot of your energy into it. You got to do a lot of cooking. You got to do certain exercises. It’s a whole way of life.” And he said to me, “I don’t know if you could do it, but you seem like your energy is not as depressed as I thought it was. What I’ve heard, you seem like you’re excited about something. You don’t seem like a sick person that I thought I was going to end up talking to.”

And he says, “You know, I tried this diet. It just didn’t work for me because I couldn’t stick with it. It takes a lot of self-discipline. I don’t have it. I just couldn’t do it. I just wanted to do it because I thought it sounded like a good idea to be healthier.” But he says, “You and your condition, I think you should do it. And I think you could do it because you seem like you have the right attitude.” And he told me, “There’s one thing—you got to do it right though. There’s a right way to do it and a wrong way. I’m just going to tell you that right now. If you’re going to do it, go all out. If you’re not going to go all out, don’t do it. I think this could help you.”

This guy got me so excited; I wanted to hug him. It was just like, “My god. This guy is telling me something here. There’s something really to this.” So I got really excited. He left, and now I had all this ammunition, and I was a different person. It was like I discovered the key to the universe or something, and I was very, very excited.

But I had to still do this chemo. I thought to myself, “I’ll do the vitamin C, the macrobiotic diet, and I’m going to do too with the idea that if it doesn’t work for me, it won’t work for anyone. I’m going to take

this guy’s advice, and I’m going to give it 150%. I’m not cutting any corners. I’m going to be the model for doing things right with this macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. I will do it, and I will do the chemo.” Because at that point I thought, “Well, I’m doing everything I can. I’m going to kill the cancer one way or the other.”

So I went through the five treatments, the chemotherapy treatments, and it was just flat terrible stuff. It made me sick. They’d raise your temperature. They throw these heavy blankets over you—weighted blankets. You know what I’m talking about, these big weighted down blankets, and that was because they elevate my temperature with the hypothermia treatment with the typhoid serum. They elevate my temperature as high as they could without it killing me basically. They’d raise it to 104-105. When it’s that high, you’re shaking in your boots. You’re freezing to death because you’re hot, but your body is fighting, and everything has kicked in, and you are just shivering all over. They put these blankets so that you can lie still enough in the bed without jumping around like a jumping bean.

I did this chemo for five days, and I was sick. It makes you throw up. It was awful. It was about eight to ten hours a day each treatment.

[01:05:49] Ashley James: Oh, my gosh.

[01:05:50] James Templeton: It was done with an ivy drip about an hour or so for the typhoid serum to drip in. And then once your temperature is up, then they hit you with the heavy duty chemo. They put this ice cap on my head to keep my hair from falling out. That was the idea anyway, but I think half of it fell out, but it was freezing. I was just like a guinea pig lying on that bed. I lied there, and I took that chemo, and I gritted my teeth, and I made it through it. You’re just sick.

I remember leaving, and I didn’t have a wife anymore, so I went to my mother’s house to recover for a few days after I got out of the hospital. I’d been in the hospital for over three weeks. After I got to my mother’s house, I was determined to start eating the macrobiotic food. You’re not going to get it in the hospital, that’s for sure.

I got to my mother’s, started to do the best we could. We’re just learning, and we did pretty well. After a week or so, I had to go back to Dallas. I have still work up there, and I had people counting on me. So I had to go back, and I started working there, and I felt really lousy. I’d put my head down on my desk a lot of days, and I just felt like I had the flu. It just makes you feel like the worst flu you’ve ever had—that chemo did. I could never imagine having any flu like that. If somebody would have given me a hammer, I would have knock myself in the head with it or anything because it was terrible.

I got back there in Dallas, and little by little though, I started getting into the macrobiotic diet really heavy duty. Little by little, I started to feel better. One of the things I had to do from the surgery that I haven’t even talked about was after the surgery, I had to do this lymphatic drainage pump on my leg where they removed all these lymph nodes.

One of the things I’d had to do in the hospital was elevate my leg and put this lymphatic sock. It’s like a sock, and it would sit there and pump. I had to do that while I was in the hospital. Now I had to do that also because the doctor told me if I didn’t do it, I could lose my leg. He said, “You don’t want that. You don’t want too much lymph fluid getting in there.” My leg was twice the size of the other leg, and it was awful. They had tried to drain it the best they could and all that, but it was awful, and I had this pump.

I was trying to work too because I still had to make a living. I would sleep with that thing on at night. I realized if I slept with that sock on my leg, this electrical pump on it, that would pump and release, and anybody that’s had lymphatic surgery, they know what I’m talking about. I did that every night, and then I would make it through the day, instead of doing it throughout the day. It just took too much of my time, but I would do that, and then I would go to work.

Some days I’d have to drive 300 miles during the work inspecting houses, and it was a lot of work. We were very busy. But I was determined, and little by little life is getting better and better with my macrobiotic diet. I didn’t want to cut any corners, so I was reading everything I could get a hold of when I wasn’t working and in between. I’d get up at 4:30 in the morning and cook my breakfast. I would cook a macrobiotic breakfast, and I’ll get into macrobiotics later if you want to.

[01:09:51] Ashley James: Absolutely.

[01:09:52] James Templeton: I’d cook that breakfast, my miso soup and my soft brown rice porridge in the morning. I would have greens and a little bit of vegetable usually with it. I’d get up in the morning, and I couldn’t walk very well, but I was trying to walk. I was limping around because my leg, after surgery and all that stuff, I was barely able to walk without crutches.

So I started to try to hobble down the street. I’d hobble as far as I could and turn around and come back. And then I got to where I could walk a little further every day because, in the mornings, I was determined to keep moving, keep the exercise. And then little by little I started to do stretching as much as I could because after the surgery is set me back so much. I started feeling better and better, and two months later, after all this and all the work I had been putting into everything, I had to go back and do more chemo. After two months, I had to go back to Houston, check in the hospital, and do another week of chemotherapy treatments.

I go down to Houston. I go into the hospital. I remember checking in, and the day I checked there were two or three people who are checking in, and they were all excited about getting checked in and getting their chemotherapy treatments. They were really looking forward to getting it done, so they can go out and live their life again. I remember talking to this one really nice lady, and she says, “Well, I’ve had my chemo treatment, so I can go home and get back to normal.” They weren’t doing what I was doing. It was a different type.

By this time, I felt a lot better from the surgery. I still had issues. I still had to use the leg pump and all that stuff, but I was doing better. After two months, I was doing better. I got there, and I started these treatments. They must have doubled the treatment because I never felt so bad in my life. This stuff was terrible. It was worse than the first time. When I told, “If a little is good, a lot’s better,” they must have decided to grant my wish.

So they did, and I’m telling you what, I was sick. I was really sick. I couldn’t eat hardly anything that whole week. I was throwing up. I couldn’t keep anything inside of my stomach. I felt like I had the worst case of flu I never ever had and then some many times over. That’s how bad I felt. My whole body was just dying inside. I had gotten really thin after the surgery and after everything. I guess the cancer probably was going to town on me, and I was getting thin and weak.

I remember every night I’d been in that hospital bed, and I’d hear people moaning and groaning down the hall. It sounded like a torture chamber or something. People were just like making all kinds of noises. And then there was always this commotion in the hallways at night. I asked one of the nuns—it was a Catholic supported hospital. They had nuns that would come around at night and visit some of the patients, most probably all the patients.

I remember these nuns would come in. There was one that came in, and she always had this white habit on. She almost looked like an angel or something. She would come in, and she was very peaceful. I said to her, “What’s all this commotion out in the hallway?” And she’d say, “Well, so and so passed away tonight.” And I went, “They passed away?” She said, “Yeah, they had cancer, and they passed away.” I’m like, “Oh, my god. They died?” And then she told me this woman that I thought was so nice, she died, and I could not believe it. The woman a few days earlier seemed to be fine. I found out that she had died of pneumonia. So they got pneumonia in there with their body and their immune system so depleted and so down, that it doesn’t take much to trigger pneumonia. That’s what gets a lot of these people. It’s not the cancer. It’s the treatments or pneumonia.

Anyway, I just said, “I got to get out of this place. They’re going to kill me in this place. I’m going to be the next one they’ll roll down the hall at night.” I remember one day I was getting the chemo, and here was this nurse coming in, and I was just totally almost unconscious. I remember that I couldn’t even open my eyes, and I was lying there, and I had no life. It felt like I had no life in my body.

I remember this sound, this voice saying to another nurse, “What in the world is going on in here? Who’s taking care of this patient? His temperature is way over the limit. He could die in here. You’ve got to get his temperature down now.” So I remember them coming in and mopping me with all these freezing ice cold towels and everything to try to get my temperature down after that. I was just like lying there. I had no energy at all. I just felt terrible.

So anyway, I couldn’t eat or anything. The doctor comes in, I don’t remember if it was that day or the next day, and I said to the doctor, “Doctor, they’re going to kill me in this place.” I told him what had happened and he didn’t say anything. I said, “They’re going to kill me in this place. Ain’t there something else I can do?” And he says, “Well, there’s nothing else we know to do.” And I said, “Well, what would you do if it was your son or your daughter?” Because I could have been almost his son or daughter, age wise. I said, “What would you do if it was them? Would you do the same thing?” And he said, “Yep, I’d do the same thing.”

I said, “Even though it’s not working.” He goes, “Yep, that’s all we know to do.” And I said, ”What about a diet? What about nutrition? What about vitamin C?” He goes, “Oh, that stuff doesn’t work. That’s a waste of time.” And I said, “Well, I’m going to die and here. This stuff is going to kill me.” He goes, “Well, we’re all gonna die someday.” That’s what he told me.

[01:17:02] Ashley James: Oh, my gosh.

[01:17:03] James Templeton: Well, you know what I did? I was weak, and I had no energy, and I was sick as a puppy dog. And I raised in that bed, that hospital bed, and I looked at that guy, he was standing there next to my bed. I looked at him, and he was the top doctor. And I said to him, “You listen here, you son of a bitch. If I could get out of this bad, I’d tear you apart. That guy turned, he looked at me, turned as white as a ghost, and he turned around and ran out the door.

I never saw that guy again because two nights later, I decided to sneak out of the hospital at two in the morning. I had made my plan for escape. I said, “They’re going to kill me, and I don’t want nothing to do with this anymore. They have nothing else to offer me. What am I doing in here?”

And so I had made a plan, and at two in the morning, I was so weak that I barely get my clothes on. I remember sneaking down the side of the hall on one side of the wall where nobody could see me, and I snuck down some stairs. I was crawling, and I was so weak from this. I threw up like I can’t tell you how many times and it was awful. I snuck down those stairs, and I went out into my car, which had been sitting out there in the parking lot. I got in that car, and I drove out of that place. I never looked back, and I’d made up my mind at that point, I was not going to do anymore that medical stuff like that anymore. I was going to go all out, and I was going to do the macrobiotic diet lifestyle, vitamin C, and I was going to keep an open mind going forward.

[01:18:51] Ashley James: That wraps up Part 1 of our interview with James Templeton. I hope you’re enjoying his awesome story. It gets even better in Part 2. Join us next episode, will be released very soon. And it will be the completion of our interview with James Templeton.

He gets into some really awesome stuff, and one thing I love is that he talks about this website of resources that he’s created 100% for free. It’s him giving back to the world, and it’s a website filled with testimonials and stories and interviews with other cancer survivors. So if you want to be inspired and learn from dozens and dozens of people who have used more than just the conventional way to heal their body and to support their body’s ability to thrive after cancer and live a long and healthy life, then you will love learning more from James Templeton in the next interview in the next episode.

I’m glad you enjoyed today’s interview. Please visit my website, learntruehealth.com, because I have some great resources for you, one of which we’ve started to transcribe all of our interviews, and so the latest interviews are transcribed. We make it so easy for you to gain access to all the notes and all the resources that the guests will share with us.

Also, I have a free doctor course that I created with my favorite naturopaths. So you can go to the website and right at the top of the menu, click the “Free Doctor Course” and sign up. It’s for seven days. You’re given a video each day that we filmed with our favorite naturopaths, and they teach us how to create the foundations of health—very strong holistic foundations of health.

There are some wonderful resources on learntruehealth.com, including the search box. If you are faced with a sore throat, or a fever, or some skin rash, infection, maybe a chronic illness, or you’re looking to optimize your emotional health, your mental health, you can type different things into your different search terms into the search box.

And all of the episodes where we’ve discussed those things will come up. I have, as you know now, over 348 interviews that you can take advantage of and learn from these wonderful guests.

Also, I do holistic health coaching. I love working with my clients. If you would love to work with me as your coach, let’s have a free conversation. Let’s sit down together over Skype or over the phone and see how I can help you. Go to learntruehealth.com/chat to sign up for your free discussion to see if working with me is right for you. I’d love to chat with you.

Excellent. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Please. Let’s help as many of our friends as possible to learn true health with us.

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The Mood Book: Crystals, Oils, and Rituals to Elevate Your Spirit
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http://amyleighmercree.com/meet-amy

The Mood Book

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Medical intuitive Amy Leigh demonstrates how your mood can get the maximum benefit from crystals, how to banish loneliness through a heart-based bath ritual, and more. Tune in to Episode 347 and learn about her recommended tools to take ownership of our health and be the architect of our life.

[00:00:13] Ashley James: Hello, true health seeker. Welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. You’re in for such a treat. This is a very interesting episode. Before we get to it though, I want to tell you some exciting news. Recently, Learn True Health hired a transcriptionist, so now the episodes published on learntruehealth.com, instead of having show notes as we had in the past, you will have the entire transcript.

When you go to share the podcast with your friends and family, you can find the episode once it’s up and published at learntruehealth.com. You can take that episode and share it with your friends and family, and even the friends that you have that don’t listen to podcasts, they can read the transcript of the entire interview. How exciting is that?

It’ll also make it easier for you to use the search function on the website. This is episode 347, so we have 347 episodes available and counting at the Learn True Health website. You can use the search function to type in everything you’re interested in—thyroid, autoimmune, weight loss, vaccines, herbs, essential oils, parasitic cleanses—the list goes on and on.

As things come up in your life and you’re interested in learning more about them, you can type in the search box at learntruehealth.com, and since we’re now transcribing all the interviews, you will have the ability to search through the website to find exactly what you’re looking for. Also, it will be easier for you to share it with those you love.

Some of the listeners have told me, “I definitely share these episodes, and I want the information to come across to those I love, but some of my friends or family don’t listen. They’re not listeners. They don’t like to listen to podcasts.” This will solve that problem because those who don’t listen can always read.

Also, I’ve had listeners tell me that they will often listen to an episode two or three times because they’re taking notes about what the doctor said, what the health expert did, the different recipes or tools, the different steps that the guest has shared with us. This is going to save you a lot of time because when a guest says something very interesting that is meaningful to you and your health journey, you can make a note of the time-stamp in the episode. Once we have published the entire episode with the transcript on our site, learntruehealth.com, you’ll be able to go there and read it. It will have the time-stamp when each guest said what they said along with what they said.

I’m so thrilled that we could bring you this powerful resource to help you transform your health along your holistic health journey as you’re learning how to achieve true health.

Another powerful resource you may not know I already offer is a free doctor course. I got together with some of my favorite naturopaths, and we filmed a course together. It’s 100% free, and it gives you some powerful tools to build a strong foundation of health. You can go to learntruehealth.com and see in the menu where it says “Free Doctor Course,” and click there, or you can go to freedoctorcourse.com. That is the website I created so it would be easy for people to remember.

Freedoctorcourse.com—type in your email address, and every day for seven days, I send you a video by a different doctor, a naturopathic physician, giving you wonderful information to build a strong foundation for your health. These are fun, actionable steps. It’s like a week-long workshop that you get.

Go to learntruehealth.com and explore the wonderful resources that we’ve created for you. My mission is to help over a million people to achieve their true potential to transform their lives and have the absolute best experience in their body possible. Please join our Facebook group. If you’re on Facebook, just search Learn True Health or you can go to learntruehealth.com/group which will direct you to the Facebook group. It’s a wonderfully active community of listeners that support each other along our health journey, so I’d love to see you there.

Awesome. Thank you so much for being a listener and, hey, you know what? As you’re reading the show notes of the new episodes with the full transcript of each interview, please make sure you visit down to the very bottom of the page because we turned on comments in our blog, and you can let me know what you thought of the episode. I think it will be cool to hear from you.

Awesome. Have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today’s interview.

[00:05:40] Ashley James: We are in for such a treat today. We have with us Amy Leigh Mercree. She has some very interesting things to teach us. We cover all forms of holistic health on the show, and I love it when we get a little bit woo-woo. For me, when I bring in things like essential oils, rituals, prayer, and meditation, these things help us to know ourselves, give us a sense of purpose, and allow us to gain clarity in our life. Amy has some wonderful tools that she’s going to share with us today. Welcome to the show.

[00:06:28] Amy Leigh Mercree: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be here.

[00:06:31] Ashley James: Absolutely. Your website is amyleighmercree.com, and of course, the link to everything you do is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com

Amy, I’d love to start by learning more about you. What set you on this path to wanting to learn and then teach meditation, essential oils, rituals, using healing crystals? What happened that made you get excited about not only applying them in your life but also helping others?

[00:07:08] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. I was a different kind of a kid, to begin with, so I was always a little bit in tune with the natural world and able to perhaps see energy that probably lots of children see, but that stayed with me. I had some intuitive guests, to begin with, and then when I was 18, while I was in college, I began to take yoga, learn about meditation, and also study shamanism, and eventually connect with the woman who became my medicine teacher.

While I was in college, I was also apprenticing with a medicine woman. So then when I was 23, after college, I began my career as what I now call a medical intuitive. I’ve been doing that for 18 years, and it’s all an out-picturing of what I come to with my clients in the many years of self-study after my medicine apprenticeship and all the things I’ve learned from my clients and my work with nature and intuition.

All of that out picturing and all the books I write are love notes for my clients, whether they’re my first book, Spiritual Girl’s Guide to Dating, all the way through to all my books about mindfulness and meditation, essential oils, compassion, all of that. That’s what started me on my path. I still work as a medical intuitive, and then I also teach classes in lots of different modalities, including how to meet your guides, work with your guides, different forms of shamanism, different medical intuitive practices, and protocols that are proprietary that I’ve created over the years. I’m kind of an idea factory, so I’m just always creating new ideas, new books, and moving everything forward and kind of a student of life.

[00:09:15] Ashley James: What happened in your early life? Was there an aha moment? Can you take us back to that pivotal moment that had you want to pursue this as a career?

[00:09:28] Amy Leigh Mercree: Sure. I don’t think it was a specific aha moment as far as childhood side of things. Intuition, seeing energy, and things like that were just normal to me, and there was a point when I realized maybe everybody else perhaps didn’t see the way I did. And so the shifting point moment for me was—I think I was 18. I might’ve still been 17 because I was 17 when I graduated high school.

I took a Reiki class because my mom’s friend was interested in it, so we all took it. I ended up becoming a Reiki master teacher and all of that afterward. Reiki is the transfer of universal life force, and so that was the pivotal moment that did start me down that path.

Soon after, I took a beginning workshop on shamanism with the foundation for shamanic studies. In that workshop, it was kind of interesting because there were a lot of aha moments. We partnered with somebody, and the woman I partnered with said you need to explore past lives and gave me the name of someone she knew in her town, which was a few hours away—not too far—that she thought did that. That person ended up becoming my medicine teacher and did a lot more than past lives and trained me in native American medicine practices.

That shifting point was the Reiki class. Soon after, as I did start down that medicine path, it was clear to me that just like some people could be born  and at age three just pick up a guitar and start playing, whereas other people play the guitar just as well, but perhaps they would need lessons, that in the intuitive realms, that was one of my talents. It was a natural out-picturing to begin working with clients, and it flowed easily for me.

[00:11:52]  Ashley James: What happened with crystals? Can you describe your first experience working with them and what benefits did you see from using them?

[00:12:01] Amy Leigh Mercree: Crystals to me are the equivalent of a plant or an animal. They’re alive and, I think, absolutely useful to have around. They do hold emotional and mental energy in a way. It’s not that for them, but they hold frequencies. For example, I think our best bet for crystals is to use rose quartz because it holds that vibration of unconditional love. That was how I always looked at crystals, and I always keep my crystals and stones outdoors as much as possible because that’s where they want to be.

Just like I wouldn’t bring up a wild animal into the house and expect it to live in a drawer, I don’t expect a crystal to live inside all the time. It’s a being that was forged in the earth, and it would probably rather be outside. That’s how I think of crystals. I do use them. In The Mood Book, we talked about different crystals we can use for rituals and things like that to help influence our emotional state, but in my world, the crystal goes back outside. Crystals are great. I think plants, herbs, things like that can have a massive effect on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Crystals can have some effect as well, but I think they work a lot more on the emotional and somewhat on the mental level. That’s my personal opinion.

[00:13:42] Ashley James: You think all people can feel the effects of crystals, or does someone need to be more spiritual and more in tune or in touch to feel it?

[00:13:54] Amy Leigh Mercree: Perhaps people need to be a little bit more sensitive to feel it palpably, but I also think our reality is created by what we believe. So if we believe a pharmaceutical pill is going to help us, the possibility will increase. If we believe a crystal is going to help us, the possibility will increase. If we believe an herb is going to help us, that possibility will increase. It’s called the placebo effect.

I’m not saying they don’t work. Any of those three things do or don’t work, but I think a lot of it has to do with our belief in the way we’re viewing our lives. So if somebody is open to the idea of crystals helping them, then they might be more sensitive as well and feel those effects.

[00:14:40] Ashley James: Have you ever seen crystals used in healing where there are noticeable results? The example I can think of is when I lived at Kripalu, one of my classmates twisted his ankle, and it was so inflamed. You could see the inflammation on the joint, and he had a big crystal, and he was using it to decrease inflammation. He felt as though it helped him to walk.  He got off his crutches much sooner than expected, and he felt that that crystal, along with the energy work he was doing, aided him greatly and magnified his healing. Have you seen specific examples of work crystals have noticeably increased healing?

[00:15:36] Amy Leigh Mercree: I haven’t specifically, no. That’s why I gear them more towards emotional work. But I think that’s wonderful, and like I said when we’re in deep communion with a plant, or crystal, or animal, there is an exchange of energy, and perhaps it did help. Maybe he was massaging the area with it, moving the fluid. Maybe it was a cold temperature. There could be so many reasons.

I haven’t seen those marked physical effects, but I work a lot more with plants than I do with crystals, so I’m not an expert on crystals. I like them. I included them in The Mood Book because I think they were valuable for the emotional side of things as well. But I wouldn’t take my crystal knowledge as the end all, be all because I love that story, too, that that did happen for that person in college. I’ve heard of things like that. I’ve never witnessed it and been specifically privy to it.

[00:16:44] Ashley James: Got It. So more around emotional healing or emotional health, what have you noticed? Are there stories of success you can share around implementing crystals that noticeably help people’s moods shift?

[00:17:03] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes, I think keeping rose quartz in the indoor environment with the caveat that each stone spends at least 50% of its time outdoors in sun, in moon, in rain, on the earth—a clear, clean, happy piece of crystal or clean, clear, happy  mineral. I think rose quartz is a beautiful stone to keep in the home. I’ve definitely seen, for example, if we keep two pieces of rose quartz, preferably larger untumbled pieces if you’re able to find some. Crystals in their more natural state generally have a little bit more charge and effect.

If we can keep two pieces of rose quartz, for example, in the bedroom, then we have that vibration of unconditional love, and we’re also having two things there which are synonymous with perhaps the couple or romantic love. If that’s something you’re trying to bring into your life or if you are a couple, two pieces of really happy rose quartz, which as a compromise you can keep on a sunlit window sill, so they spend some time in the sun when you don’t have them outside as well. I have seen that have a marked effect.

There are lots of stones that people do report feeling their intuition is enhanced by as well. Amethyst is a really common stone; blue sodalite; many of the stones that we hear about do sound like they enhance intuitive abilities as well. That’s another effect that I think it’s potentially helpful as far as crystals.

We also have grounding stones that are helpful—garnet, ruby, smoky quartz, tiger’s eye, the deeper, more rooted stones that bring the essence of being in the earth inside to us and help us reconnect with that. To me, one of the really important things about crystals is it’s bringing something from the natural world inside. It’s letting us connect with the natural world in different ways. Also, the sight of crystals being beautiful and pretty, just like a pretty piece of jewelry, will bring us joy and also elevate our spirit and our emotions a little bit.

[00:19:48] Ashley James: What crystal would you recommend for people who want to increase their motivation? Maybe they’re working on losing weight, shifting their diet, or healing their gut, but they’d like something to help them keep going towards their goal?

[00:20:04] Amy Leigh Mercree: Citrine is a fabulous crystal for that—a nice stone for that. Golden yellow and sunstone are also helpful for that. Both of those stones amplify our will, which is a big part of keeping our resolve—keeping our will up is keeping our motivation up. Additionally, to help with focus, lots of different crystals can help us focus. Amethyst is an easy to obtain crystal for focus. Tourmalines are helpful for focus as well. So any of those can be used to help keep the focus. If you combine a citrine with a tourmaline of your choosing, even better if it’s kind of a golden color or something like that, then you can take the will and the focus to keep going and stay motivated.

[00:21:11] Ashley James: I like to tell my listeners that I am the biggest open-minded skeptic. Here’s my experience around crystals. I was 15 years old. My family spent every winter in Mexico. We spent about three weeks every year in the same place. So by the time I was 15, I really knew this part just south of Puerto Vallarta called Conchas Chinas. I know all the streets. I’ve walked them many times. My parents let me be free range growing up.

So I’m 15 years old. I know every street, I have a basic understanding of Spanish, and I’m just on my own. I’m having fun talking to street vendors, and I bought a crystal. It was like a white quartz little necklace.  Not thinking anything of it, I immediately put it on, and I keep walking. All of a sudden, I’m lost. I have no idea where I am. I’m incredibly confused. I’m a little dizzy and lightheaded. I turned down a street. I get assaulted by a man. I started running. I’m confused. I’m stressed out. I have no idea where I am. I feel out of my body. I think to myself, the only thing I’ve changed in the last five minutes is I put on this necklace. I take the necklace off, I immediately know where I am, and I’m safe.

I put it in my pocket, and I go, “Okay, I need to learn more about this stuff.” I learned that you need to cleanse. When you buy crystals, they pick up energy. They’re like a battery. They hold vibration. They hold energy. Fast forward, I’m 26, and my friend buys me a necklace made by a healer who was my Reiki master, and this was her Reiki master, so he created it. I put it on, and I’m immediately drunk, and I can’t stand anymore. I just lost all control of my body. And so I had to work my way up to wearing it because it was so powerful, I can only hold it in my hand and then place it back down. I couldn’t wear it.

It took me a while to be able to wear it, and then I could only wear it an hour a day or else I’d have detox symptoms. It was very overpowering—the energy. I have a deep respect for crystals, but I’m also kind of afraid of them because— I don’t know—I’m sensitive.

[00:23:45] Amy Leigh Mercree: I can see why.

[00:23:47] Ashley James: But I’ve also seen people just being surrounded by them and have no sensation at all. It’s like some people pick up on it, and some people don’t have any effect. I know people who douse themselves in essential oils, and then I know other people who could only stand one drop diluted.

So we have to know ourselves when we’re working with plants, when we’re working with crystals, when we’re working with all these different modalities. We need to know who we are, what we resonate with, and also be open-minded enough and willing to try things on.

But start slow, right? So for those who’ve never worked with crystals, you’re saying get one, put it in the outdoors half the time, leave it in your room. You’re not necessarily saying wear it.

Can you give any other advice for those who’ve never worked with crystals that want to dabble and explore, open their experience, or give themselves a new experience of crystals?

[00:25:05] Amy Leigh Mercree: I think your story is speaking to that sensitivity. I’m the same as you. Sometimes I have certain crystal bracelets. I have a nice moonstone bracelet I like to wear. I have an aquamarine rose quartz bracelet I’ll wear, but I don’t wear a lot of crystals myself either. I think in the environment it’s close enough, and if they aren’t super clear because they haven’t been outside quite a bit, then I do feel it. So I understand where you’re coming from and your story.

What I’ll say to somebody who is exploring crystals for the first time is to work with a gentle type of crystal—work with rose quartz or a moonstone. Larimar is a beautiful, gentle stone to work with. Citrine is okay too—not overpowering, but still strong. Topaz is a nice stone to work with as well. Any of those.

And then before you put it in your pocket before it’s even in your house, it needs to spend some time outside. Let’s say you live in the city, and perhaps you have an outdoor planter—better than nothing. Out on a table in the sunlight and the moonlight—great. Even better if it could go in your garden or something.

I have a tray sometimes I put mine on out on the patio because I don’t always want to put it out in the lawn and then lose it. You want to make sure you really clear the crystal and have it outside for a few days and nights.

Now let’s say you have no patio. You live in an upper floor apartment. You don’t have a patio or a yard. What’s your next option? The window sill in the house that gets the most sunlight, the most moonlight, and then you can place the crystal on a bowl of spring water. You can change that out, dry it off, and place it in a bowl of salt at some point sticking out—all different things like that. You want to clear any crystal for several days before you bring it in the environment. If it’s on that window sill, that’s fine. It’s not too close. Don’t use the one next to your bed right away and make sure you clear it first.

And then the environment—I think it’s a good place to start. Just have them in the house and see how they feel and start to tune into them. Then you can hold one and meditate with it a little bit and see if you notice anything.

[00:27:39] Ashley James: What crystals are good for sleep? Are there ones that improve sleep or improve dreams or protection that you would want by the bed after you’ve cleared them?

[00:27:53] Amy Leigh Mercree: Smoky quartz is nice for protection, so I always like to advise that. Larimar is great for dreams. Rose quartz is my top favorite for dreams. Moonstone is lovely for dreams. Aquamarine is lovely for dreams.

I tend to gravitate toward the gentler crystals. I think that’s a good way to start, especially if you’re just starting. Things like sandstone citrine—those are a little bit too amped up for sleep, I think.

Beautiful jade or emerald is okay for sleep as well. They’re very heart-centered. Sometimes you find pieces of jade at stores. If you happen to have a raw emerald, interestingly enough, emerald is a derivative of beryl. It’s a beryllium-based crystal, the same substance, different color as sapphire. They have a very similar atomic makeup based on a beryllium atom with a bunch of other atoms making up these beryl molecules.

Emerald and sapphire, although they have different countenance, emerald is a little bit more about the heart. Sapphire is a little bit more about speaking your truth. Both of those are fine as well for sleeping because they’re refined, high vibrational. Even if they’re a rough crystal, not a polished stone, as long as it’s been cleared, those are nice for sleep as well.

[00:29:41] Ashley James: Very interesting. Are there any crystals that have been known to mitigate the effects of EMF frequencies or Wi-Fi, Bluetooth? Are there crystals that when in the environment help to protect us from that?

[00:29:58] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. Not to my knowledge. I know there are a lot of products on the market that claim to do that. Some of them contain different crystal compounds and things like that. I can’t endorse any of that. My advice is to turn off the phone. I know some people who unplugged their Wi-Fi every night, which is kind of a project, you have to log back in. I’ve considered it. I haven’t done it yet.

I always tell people to keep all phones out of the bedroom, unplugging the chargers that might be in the bedroom, try to limit some of that. Some people use a gauss meter. It’s an introductory way to measure EMF and magnetic frequencies in your home. It’s great to check that, especially where you sleep. If there’s a fuse box in the bedroom or the place where the electric company reads the meters right outside the bedroom on that wall, that can give you a high reading, and better to sleep in another room. I like to take a practical approach. I don’t know if crystals have the power to deal with the strong waves that we’ve generated here as a society.

[00:31:19] Ashley James: Yes, I agree—take the practical approach. Just so you know, there are um, routers out there that have an on-off switch for Wi-Fi. That’s what we use. I notice a difference. I actually can feel it. I’ll be in the bedroom, and my husband will be in the office. He’ll turn off the Wi-Fi, and I’ll immediately feel it. He’ll come in the bedroom; I’ll be like, “You turned off the Wi-Fi, didn’t you?” and he goes, “Yup.”

So I can feel it, and when we started this practice, we only turn on the Wi-Fi We have hardwired desktop computers—it means the wires are coming straight out of the router, the modem plugs to the router, then the router is what turns Wi-Fi on. But you can also have cables—basically ethernet cables—from the desktop right into the router.

We have hardwired computers, so we don’t need Wi-Fi unless we’re going to turn on the TV, or the iPad, or the laptop, which we don’t do very often. We limit it. We do not have it on at night.

In the sauna—we have a little iPad thingy in the sauna. We only turn it on when we need it, and then we turn it off, and I can feel the difference. We also noticed that we sleep better and that our son who’s just turned four, his mood changes greatly. He becomes more rested. He becomes aggressive and less prone to tantrums. He gets agitated if he’s surrounded with Wi-Fi for days on end—we’d notice that. We’re very in tune to him and his behaviors. We just saw that just that one thing—significantly reducing his exposure to Wi-Fi— improved his mood.

I was hoping that there’d be like, “Yeah, there is a crystal and just have it in every room.”

[00:33:26] Amy Leigh Mercree: I wish.

[00:33:28] Ashley James: I like that you’re taking the practical approach. We need to understand that these are tools, and every tool has its limitations, but every tool also has its purpose. And so I want us to understand that crystals are a valuable tool, and they have limitations and a purpose. When we use them the right way, we can benefit our lives.

Especially for those who are like me an open-minded skeptic, I’d like everyone who’s listening to think about the possibility of where they could enhance their life using a crystal and the other modalities that you teach in your books. If we can take these small steps every day to improve every aspect of our life, that’s what holistic medicine is all about.

You mentioned a few times clearing crystals. Can you walk us through that? I know we’ve got some listeners who have used crystals for years, but then we’ve got listeners who maybe haven’t used crystals and haven’t been clearing them or just had them up on a shelf and never had the mountain and sunlight, or maybe we have listeners who’ve never used crystals. We’re dealing with a lot of different experience levels. If you could walk us through as though we don’t know anything about clearing crystal, why do we need to clear crystal and how do we do that?

[00:34:57] Amy Leigh Mercree: A crystal is just like a wild animal or a plant. It was forged outside. It lived on the earth, and that is its natural environment. Just like us, we, in theory, are used to being inside, but if we stayed inside all day and all night and never went outside, we’d get agitated too. A crystal will do the same thing. To some degree, we’re anthropomorphizing it, but it is a living being.

To clear a crystal and to treat a crystal with respect and kindness, this crystal needs to be outside in the sun, in the moon, in the rain, even in the snow, if that’s what’s going on outside. That’s ideally what it needs to experience. It needs to be out on the earth, and these things will clear the crystal. It lets the crystal gain maximum vitality and charge if we want to talk about it as a container for energy. But it also helps the crystal itself feel what we would probably qualify as happy or content. If we’re going to bring that into our environment and perhaps even into our energy field, we want that.

And so to clear, the best way to do it is put it outside for 72 hours plus. If you leave a crystal outside for weeks at a time, it’s not going to be offended; it’s going to be thrilled because that’s where it came from. At least three days is the best bet. Like I said earlier, if you don’t have a patio or a yard, you don’t have access to any of that, then your next option to clear your crystals is a sunlit and then moonlit window sill. That might mean keeping the shades up a bit to make sure the sun and the moonlight is going to hit the crystal or crystals as much as possible, so one that’s facing in a direction where it’s going to get a lot of sunlight and moonlight.

A lot of crystals respond well to salt. If you want to place a crystal in a bowl of salt, it needs to be untreated salt: rock salt, Celtic Sea salt, Himalayan salt, Hawaiian salt—all those unprocessed, untreated, natural salt and certain sea salts. You place the crystal in the bowl, and usually, you leave some of it peeking out unless you want to bury it; unless you feel like perhaps that crystal would enjoy that, if you’re connected to it. Otherwise, leave a little bit of it peeking out.  Still, keep it on that sunlit window sill. For that matter, don’t keep it next to the Wi-Fi. Don’t keep it next to your cell phone. Don’t keep it next to the TV. Keep it away from electronics as much as possible.

Another way to clear a crystal, all the same things that I just said apply except utilizing sand or dirt. If you’re able to get some natural, untreated dirt, it means you don’t want to go and get dirt out of a park that’s sprayed with pesticides. But if you’re able to go out into nature, perhaps in the woods or somewhere in wild nature and bring some dirt in, that’s a fine way to do it, too. You can place the crystal in dirt, little bit sticking up and out, on a window sill is better. Another thing would be to place the crystal in a bowl of cold water, preferably spring water.

If you’re stuck inside, you could rinse your crystal under the tap water, not necessarily shockingly cold but cold water. You can also take the crystals on outings. A crystal loves to be immersed in lakes, rivers, and in the ocean. I use a pendulum sometimes, and I have some couple different pendulums.

One of the pendulums came with me on a trip to Costa Rica, and that was like the happiest pendulum I’ve ever seen. I would take it in this hot spring at night, a natural hot spring. I went to this idyllic place and soaked in these volcanic hot springs. I’d put the pendulum in the hot spring and kind of swing it around, and it would just be kind of in there. And then I’d take it out and hold it up, and it would circle, orbiting like those swings you would see on carnival rides when they’re going out high.

This thing would be like as far out as it can swing, circling. It was so happy. Same one and lots of other stones over the years, I would take them to the ocean with me. They seem to enjoy the sea foam, where the waves are crashing, and that’s where maximum ionization is happening. The wave action, the water and the sodium, and all the different mineral molecules are ionizing. In my experience, crystals enjoy that.

Those are the ways you can clear crystals, but you can also take your crystals with you on field trips into nature because they love it. When a crystal is clear, if it feels like if you’re in tune with the crystal, and you feel like the crystal would be open to it, it’s okay to put it in your pocket, carry it in your hand to take it on these little field trips.

If you’re going to put it in your purse, try to keep it away from your cell phone because just like EMS harms us or they do not enhance us, neither are crystals. That’s my take on it.

[00:40:55] Ashley James: I love it. It’s like having a pet rock that kills us.

[00:41:01] Amy Leigh Mercree: And it’s alive. I always say if you get a pet, that pet is a member of your family. It’s not just some insignificant life form that you don’t pay attention to. If you commit to getting a pet, that pet is a member of your family.

The same thing—if you have a house plant, that’s a living thing. It is a member of your family. You’ve taken it out of its natural environment, and it’s your job to care for it and make sure it’s happy and nourished—well fed, well watered— and that goes for crystal as well. If you’re going to take a crystal out of its natural environment, then it’s your job to care for it with respect, with kindness, and make sure it has what it needs.

[00:41:43] Ashley James: Very cool. Your book, “The Mood Book: Turn Worry to Peace, Sadness to Joy, Heartbreak to Love, Fear to Freedom and Lethargy To Vitality.” You launched it recently on March 4th. How is it doing? How’s the feedback that you’re getting from your readers?

[00:42:03] Amy Leigh Mercree: The feedback has been great. It came out on March 4th, and it’s doing well. #AuthorLife, as they say. I think a lot of us check our Amazon rankings periodically. The Mood Book is doing well. One of its categories is crystals. That’s one of the categories it’s under. It’s consistently been in the top 100 in its category, which makes it an Amazon bestseller almost every day since it’s come out. It wasn’t yesterday, but it’s back up today. Yes, I checked.

[00:42:42] Ashley James: Awesome. What kind of feedback have you received? Are there stories of success that you can share as the readers have been utilizing your rituals to improve their mood?

[00:42:52] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes, actually I just got a note. I’m on Instagram a lot, so I talked to my readers on there a lot. I just got a note from someone who said that she’s been using the bath rituals every night, and she thinks the meditations and the rituals are enhancing her life so much. She’s sleeping so much better. It’s really fun to hear those tales from people for all my books when they talk about how some idea that I’ve gotten to share has made a positive difference. It’s why I do what I do actually.

[00:43:30] Ashley James: Can you teach us a ritual, maybe the bath ritual or something that you think will benefit the listeners to practice?

[00:43:39] Amy Leigh Mercree: In the book, every single chapter, all of those six chapters, they all have a bath ritual. We will do our heart-based bath. This is a bath to banish feelings of loneliness, and it also is an aphrodisiac bath. It’s good if you want to focus on self-love or you want to focus on romantic love. It’s an all-purpose love bath. It doesn’t take you through what you would do if you were engaging in this bath with your partner on a romantic level, but it would prime you for that.

Your materials for this ritual include paper and pen or pencil. You can use one or more pieces of the following crystals, pre-cleared, pre-charged from outside if possible: rose quartz, jade, green aventurine, pink tourmaline, and I will add an emerald. That’s fine for this too if you have some raw emerald.

You will use rose essential oil. Rose oil is either called rose otto or rose absolute essential oil. They are both derived from roses. It’s a difference in the process that the rose petals are subjected to pull the oil from them. The rose absolute is a little bit more potent, but rose otto is very potent. I list rose otto in the book because it’s usually easier to come by; either one is fine.

Jasmine essential oil, and then you would use four pink candles, and some rose scented soap if you have it. Your local health food store might have handmade goat’s milk soap or something like that, and that would be the rose one if you see one of those. If not, it’s optional.

Decaffeinated jasmine green tea and dried hawthorn berry–those are all your ingredients. If you don’t have all of them, it’s okay. You can omit it. Jasmine is a flowery and delicious variant of green tea. When you get a jasmine green tea, it’s green tea with jasmine blossoms mixed in with the tea. I have the decaf because I’m assuming that most people are going to go to bed after their bath. If you’re doing this in the morning, you can do it with caffeine if you want.

Hawthorn berry is an aphrodisiac. It’s great in infusions and teas. You would brew your decaffeinated jasmine green tea, and you’d put the hawthorn berry with it. You can do that in a French press or a pot of boiling water. You can use tea bags. You can throw it in a cup of boiling water, and then strain it, however you’d like. You want it to be a medium brew. You don’t need to make it incredibly strong unless you like that.

I think the taste is nice. If for some reason it doesn’t appeal to you, you could add a little bit of raw honey or maple syrup to that. So you would make your tea, and you’ll be sipping your tea. As you make the tea, you’ll be thinking about mindfully making that, and you’ll really want to be present to the process and then being present to the entirety of this process. You don’t bring your phone in for this. Ideally, you turn it silent or turn it off. You set the scene with your candles and dim lights ideally, and you run a bath. As a rule, you want your bath to be pretty warm but not so hot that it’s going to make you sweat. You have to think about what’s the best temperature for you. I like a super duper hot bath, but I tend to get cold, so it depends upon a person.

So you run your bath, and then you can use your pen and paper and think a little bit about some affirmations or a statement that you’re going to use as a bit of a mantra for this bath, which is focused on unconditional love for self and others. It can have an aphrodisiac quality if you choose, so love and romance in all of its forms. It might be something like, “I am beautiful,” or “My heart is open, and I enjoy pleasure daily,” “I open my heart and allow myself to receive love in all of its forms.”

Then you think about that intention, and at that point, your bath is filling up and then you’ll put a few drops of rose and jasmine in your bath. If you have an essential oil diffuser, you can also do that. You’ll arrange your four pink candles in a safe place—you don’t want to have them fall over or anything—depending upon your bathroom layout. If you don’t have a diffuser, a way to use essential oils is to place drops of the oil in the melted wax. You don’t want to place it directly in the flame, but just next to the flame. That will disperse the smell a little bit as well.

You can also place some of the rose oil on the center of your chest and rub that in before and after the bath. The jasmine is great to place on your back over your kidneys. Jasmine essential oil promotes kidney yang, which is libido. It also helps move the meridian energy in the kidney, and thereby move that channel into the lung channel, so that helps us move grief that’s stagnant in the lungs. That’s why we use jasmine in this bath ritual.

Then you will think about your mantra‑”My heart is open, and I enjoy pleasure daily,” “I am a pillar of unconditional love,” whatever your mantra and intention for the bath are, as you light the candles, and then you can place the gemstones alongside the candles. You can also place the gemstones in the bathtub. This is where I also invite you to connect with the stone to hold each stone and feel yourself. Ask the stone’s permission—Would you like to be placed in the top? Would you like to be placed next to the candles? Would you like to participate in this bath ritual?

Rose quartz is great to put in the bath with you. If you have those, those are nice. Then you can hop in the tub and think about your mantra and just rest and relax. If you have the rose scented soap, you can use that, or you can continue to smell the rose oil, sit with the crystals, enjoy your bath, sit in your bath, and allow the unconditional love from the rose quartz to flow through you. Green aventurine is nice if you are dealing with heartbreak, so you can even place that crystal on your chest if you’re in the throes of that. If you’re in a relationship, then that green aventurine will harmonize the relationship, and it is a heart protector, so it’ll help you move into compassion instead of fighting.

So then you can sit, visualize yourself in a pink glow, and look at the candles–the pink color of the candles, the flickering light of the candles, the intentions from your mantra that you might be just not repeating in any ritualistic manner, but just as your thoughts wander, maybe bringing it back to that “I am unconditional love” or whatever mantra you’d like to use. You can gaze at the flames of the candle to allow them to shift your consciousness a little bit as you’re focusing on this idea of love and romantic love, self-love, unconditional love.

When you’re ready, bring your awareness back in. If you have your journal handy, you can journal any thoughts or feelings, and even any messages you feel from the spirit or the minerals and stones. As you bring yourself back, when it’s time, you can remove the rocks from the tub and drain it.

Another thing that’s beautiful to add to a bath like this that you would add at the beginning would be rose petals. If they’re organic and untreated of any color, pink and red would be a little bit more on the love vibration, but any rose holds that vibration of love. So if you had placed rose petals in the bath, you can take the stones out, drain the water as long as your drain isn’t too large, and then take the petals out after.

If you do that, it’s nice to dispose of the petals outside. Sometimes it’s nice to dry the petals off and potentially even sleep with them in the bed overnight if you’re going straight to bed, and then place the petals outside as opposed to in the trash. That’s a long ritual.

[00:54:04] Ashley James: Yeah, but it’s a fun evening ritual—maybe a Friday night, getting wild, and getting our rituals on. How long is this bath typically? Is it just up to the person? It can be 20 minutes. It could be an hour.

[00:54:19] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yeah, open-ended. If you’re hot, after 15 you’re ready to get out—‑awesome. If you love it and you want to add hot water over and over for two hours, go for it.

[00:54:31] Ashley James: Yes, I stay till I’m wrinkly, till all my fingers are pruney.

[00:54:37] Amy Leigh Mercree: Me too. It’s nice before bed. That’s a great time to get in bed and journal. I don’t know if you practice automatic writing. Some people call it spirit writing. I teach automatic writing in my Meet Your Guides class. That’s a great time, when you are in the bath or getting out of the bath, to do your automatic writing with your spirit guides, too.

[00:54:59] Ashley James: Because you’re calm, your cortisol is down, and we’re out of that fight or flight mode so we can connect with our heart and listen to our gut. The negative chatter in our brain that comes with being in fight or flight is diminished, so we can stop listening to the self-doubt and the worries and start listening to our heart, right?

[00:55:26] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. The warm water, the stones, the scents, and the flickering candlelight, all have the opportunity to not only deepen the relaxation response but also potentially put you in an altered state where your brain waves are more conducive to receiving spiritual guidance.

[00:55:45] Ashley James: We have people that come from all walks of life, all religions. This doesn’t challenge anyone’s belief system. A Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist—they can all use a ritual to strengthen their belief system and their faith, right?

[00:56:06] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. It can have the flavor of what you believe, or it can be absolutely neutral.

[00:56:15] Ashley James: And so they could take your rituals and incorporate their prayers for protection and healing. You’re just giving them practice in order to implement, take their spirituality and put it into action.

[00:56:32] Amy Leigh Mercree: Perfectly said. Yes.

[00:56:35] Ashley James: Very nice. Tell us more about your Mood Book. You’ve covered crystals. You talked about some of the rituals, that every chapter has a bath ritual, which should be fun to go through and try all the different baths. Can you tell us more about your Mood Book and what we’d learn in it?

[00:56:51] Amy Leigh Mercree: Sure. Every chapter has a quiz that helps you look at what essential oils would work best for your mood. From that standpoint of turning worry to peace, heartbreak to love, sadness to joy, all of that—then we have that crystals chapter, which we talked about. Then we talked about plants and flowers from an herbal and flower essence perspective that will help with each mood. And then we go into the bath ritual for each mood, which is really nice.

And then we go into another ritual around meditation, mindfulness that usually contains a yoga pose and things that we can do to turn heartbreak to love, to turn lethargy to vitality, to turn fear to freedom. So then there’s a whole non-bath-based ritual for each one as well.

[00:57:51] Ashley James: Do you have any advice around turning off anxiety or the worry? I know a lot of our listeners wish that there were 30 hours in a day. They have so many things they’re doing, and they want to do everything. So there’s that pile up of stress and possibly either worry or anxiety. Do you have any information in your Mood Book on the tools that you best recommend for helping to decrease that stress?

[00:58:30] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. We have lots of plant-based and herbal tools in there and also rituals. We have a restful sleep ritual for that specifically when we talk about the effects of sleep deprivation, which I just read a statistic the other day about—70-80% of 18-22-year-olds get less than seven hours of sleep per night, and how damaging that is to our health. Some people say six, but there are studies that prove that there are health detriments even at six. Seven to eight is our minimum.

We talked about different linen sprays you can make with essential oils, and then you have a guided sleep ritual with the yoga pose to help you relax and let go. But the other piece to that, with the idea of worry and anxiety, is unfortunately we’re all tethered to our devices pretty much during our entire waking hours.

Some people keep phones in the bedroom at night. There’s plenty of articles online trending now about sleep texting. People who receive a text, don’t have their phone on silent, they have the phone on the nightstand and then sleep text, sometimes regretting what they’ve said because they don’t remember. It seems pretty obvious that one is to remove the devices, keep them out of the room. I think turning them off is helpful just as far as decreasing some of the fields and what-not.

Then we talk about the oils that will help and also some of the herbal infusions that will help. Basil is actually very calming, and it’s an antidepressant, but it also has a stress-relieving effect. You can use basil to make steam for inhalation. It also will help you overcome uneasiness and ease congestion. It’s an interesting and different herb to use. Valerian is an incredibly sedative herb, wonderfully used in a tea better, only used at night before bed because it’s so sedative. Chamomile is great all day as an essential oil, as a tea, as an herbal infusion—any of these things help. Skullcap is also a sedative, great for nighttime. Rose petals have calming and sedative effects.ou can  Ydo a rose petal tea, a rose petal bath as we stated, roses in your environment. Any of these flower essences are wonderful.

A really wonderful remedy for anxiety is passion flower. It’s great in a tea any time of day. It’s spectacular as a flower essence, and it’s heart opening while also being anti-anxiety. So lots of ways to use passion flower. There have been some studies that also state that it reduces anxiety like we’re seeing and reduces high blood pressure because it has an effect on the central nervous system. So just lots of options for those types of things—many options.

[01:01:56] Ashley James: You’re reminding me that when I drink rose tea, I get drunk. I get like giggly and happy, basically all the effects of being drunk except for the fact that I can drive. I don’t drink alcohol, but back when I did, you drink like two glasses of wine, and you feel so happy and giggly. All I need to do is drink a few cups of rose tea. I go to the Asian market in downtown Seattle, and they have these places that the only thing they do is sell loose tea. It’s little tiny rosebuds, like the size of an almond. There are little tiny pink and white rosebuds, and they’re all dry.

You simmer water and then turn off the stove and then put the rosebuds in there and let it steep for a few minutes. I like it strong, so I let it steep for a good 15 minutes and just let it sit there. My first time trying it, I was at a dim sum place off of Young and Eglinton in Toronto. Oh my gosh, I was worried. I was like, “Did they put saki in this or something?” I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to drive. I felt that drunk. It’s just amazing how some herbal teas are so strong at shifting our mood.

[01:03:42] Amy Leigh Mercree: Euphoria and relaxation with the rose. You could take those same rose buds and sprinkle them in the bath, too.

[01:03:52] Ashley James: I can imagine. Basically soaking in the tea.

[01:03:59] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. The tea that does that to me the most, I almost can’t even drink it, I don’t usually buy it—it’s kava kava. That is so deeply sedative. It almost makes me hallucinate. It’s just the regular kava kava tea you would buy. It’s nothing too outlandish. That’s the thing about getting to know ourselves individually around whether it’s herbs, flowers, crystals—

everything. Everybody is so different. You might drink the kava kava and say, “Yeah, that’s relaxing, but it’s fine.” And I’m like, “Wow, that was like a deeply relaxing and visionary experience to drink that almost too much.”

[01:04:46] Ashley James: I discovered kava kava as a supplement in high school. I didn’t know about the tea at the time, but I was experimenting with all kinds of herbs and teas, and I read about kava kava, so I went and got it. It helped me get through high school, like the antidepressant.

[01:05:05] Amy Leigh Mercree: That’s nice. You needed it.

[01:05:07] Ashley James: Yeah. To talk about something as simple as an herb, of course, I could have taken it as a tea, now that I think about it. I was doing cat’s claw tea at the time. I forget why, but I was experimenting with different herbs for shifting my mood, to keep me surviving through high school. So they do. You can use herbs in their different forms, whether it’s tincture or tea or essential oil.

What about live though? You talked about having crystals in your environment to shift the energy of your environment to improve your mood. What about having plants that are living, not necessarily for ingesting, but just for shifting the energy of your space and holding a space that helps to improve your mood. Do you have any advice around that?

[01:05:55] Amy Leigh Mercree: I think that’s amazing. Just like with crystals, the same thing—speaking to the plants, making sure the plants are in a place with lots of sound, lots of moon, spring water. My philosophy would be to ask the plants if they would like to go outside for periods of time. I don’t have houseplants because I always feel badly bringing plants inside because I feel like they would prefer to be outside.

But I did in one of the places I used to live. I’m an avid gardener, and I had a greenhouse, so that was inside. Those plants were just spectacularly happy—a trellised wall of nasturtium, lots of lettuces. Some carrots that never really were ready to be eaten, but we’re very happy to be growing. Just lots of really pretty edible flowers anyways. Those plants were just gloriously happy because they did get sun and moonlight through the greenhouse.

But they’re inside because there are a lot of woodland creatures that ate my garden, so I tried to do greenhouse. But I think indoor plants that you bring inside are spectacular. Obviously, they oxygenate the air. They’re good for your health. You want to treat them with respect and kindness. Again, if you bring a plant into your home, it’s a member of your family.

So with the roses, I always buy organic roses or flowers and have the place where I can do that easily accessible. I know I’m probably going to use them in a bath at some point too. So when I do choose the bouquet, which is still alive, but it’s not in the soil, so it’s going to have a finite experience. It’s already been cut. I don’t know if I necessarily ask it with words, but I ask it if it wants to come home, and I  quickly show it a picture of “I’m going to put you in a vase in my house and then put you in the bath. Would you like to participate in this? Would you like to co-create this with me?”

If I feel that that’s a yes, then I buy the flowers. I would go with that rule of thumb also with plants that we bring in the house. We’re co-creating their lives with them, and so we need to treat them with lots of kindness and respect.

[01:08:48] Ashley James: How do you listen for the response? Is it the first answer you hear? Is it more of a gut yes or no? For those who’ve never asked items around them, whether they want to be part of their life or help create their space, how do we go about listening on that level, increasing that level of intuition to be able to hear it?

[01:09:19] Amy Leigh Mercree: Great question. I think everybody hears differently. I think that gut yes or no and also the feeling you get from the planet can be really helpful. If you know you’re somebody whose intuition comes in color, then there might be elements of that. I’ve done things different ways where I would ask to see a red X or a green check mark if I’m asking a yes or no question. I might state internally, and you’d have to have a little space to do this, but state internally while holding the bouquet, “Here’s what I’d like to do. Why do you like to do this? Please show me. This is what the no answer would look like—a red X. And this is what the Yes answer would look like—a green check mark.”

That’s another way you could possibly do it. I don’t usually do that now, but in other situations, I have in the past. For me, it’s more of a feeling and then knowing a yes or no, and it’s usually pretty immediate.

[01:10:35] Ashley James: Interesting. I’d love for you to tap into your intuition. What message do you have for our listeners?

[01:10:49] Amy Leigh Mercree: Good question too. I think the message is, what I share in all of my books is that you are empowered to create your life and that includes to create and co-create your health. And so my message is to take ownership of that authority and that autonomy. Don’t give it away to whether it’s a doctor or practitioner, whomever. Don’t give it away to the system, to society, to cultural bias, cultural beliefs, your family’s beliefs, or whatever. Don’t give that autonomy away because you are your guru.

From that standpoint, you can be absolutely a student of life and learn from infinite myriad sources. But let that inner authority within you, that knowing, come forward and understand that not only do you matter but that you are the architect of your life. You can design it as you choose. All of these tools that we talk about in my books, whether it’s the things we discussed today, or mindfulness, or meditation, or self-compassion, or joyful living—all of these other tools, everything they listened to on your show, can be used to create the life of your choosing and to optimize your life because you have that power.

[01:12:39] Ashley James: Beautifully said. I know that you have a way of teaching us how to figure out what health advice we can trust, or at least what health advice would be beneficial for us to implement. There are so many celebrity wellness trends, for example. How can we know what detox protocol, parasitic cleanse, diet, all these different things that every time we listened to a show or read an article, there might be some opposing information? There might even be opposing scientific studies that don’t make sense. Like all of a sudden, how is fat good for us, and at the same time, how fat is bad for us? So we have all this information, we’re on information overload, and there are some people out there that would benefit from eating more of avocados, and some would benefit from eating no avocados.

We have to, as individuals, sift through this information and figure out what’s best for us especially like you said, we’re the CEO of our health. We are the guru of our own body. We’re the one who knows ourselves the best, but we need to start trusting and listening to our intuition. What advice do you have for us when it comes to figuring out what are the best steps that we should take and how to trust what we hear is choosing either the right or maybe they’re not the right move for us?

[01:14:24] Amy Leigh Mercree: Good question. In my medical intuitive practice, I encounter a lot of people who are at that point where they’re coming to those questions. They’ve had different medical advice that hasn’t worked or treatments that haven’t worked, and that’s why they end up coming to me. I consider myself as a guide to open the door to help them find those answers.

One of the ways I like to teach that is through the externalization of meeting your spirit guides, teaching people how to communicate with their spirit guides, which lets you develop the skills in a standardized, repeatable manner to bring some expanded and unbiased views from the non-physical world into your life. From that standpoint, as you do open those intuitive abilities more, it also becomes easier to hear your intuition.

That’s really what we’re asking about—how can we hear our intuition and use that to cut through the noise. It’s different for everybody. Spending time in nature, disconnecting from screens and technology and things like that all go a long way. Meditation is helpful too to help people clear their mind. Not that your mind has to be completely clear to hear your intuition, but to help people clear their mind and be able to hear that inner voice from within that does know that your body is a self-regulating and self-correcting wonder. That’s what I see as a medical intuitive every day. I think those tools can be used to increase intuition.

Sometimes it can be helpful to find trusted people, trusted practitioners, whether it’s an acupuncturist—maybe it’s not the first one you try. Maybe it’s the tenth one you try. But listening to your intuition also to find the resources you need to lead you to whatever wellness you’re looking for or whatever outcome you’re looking for. It may also be following those gut feelings and reading certain books, connecting with certain people, asking certain questions and tuning in.

When people are experiencing health challenges, it can be incredibly overwhelming. If you are a researcher or a reader, that’s a great place to start to look at those alternative healing options and learn about all of those different things.

In my medical intuitive practice, if I had to pick one herb, or one oil, or one substance that can help the most people with current health ailments or prevent future health ailments, it would probably be turmeric in the form of turmeric juice in its raw, enzymatic form.

That’s my general answer to a super specific question because it’s going to be a different answer for every person—how to find that inner knowing and that confidence. But I think the intention to own your life and be sovereign of your life is part of that process as well, drawing to you the resources that you need for your health and well-being, [faking] it till you make it to have the confidence and the intuition to choose the ones that will work best for you. It’s practice for all of us.

[01:18:39] Ashley James: Do you have a technique or a tool that you could teach us to improve our intuition or to improve our ability to hear our intuition?

[01:18:53] Amy Leigh Mercree: It’s so individual for everybody. I would say your absolute best bet is meditation in whatever form you like. A meditation that would work would be to lie down. A lot of people get distracted by sitting up in meditation. Especially with this one, it would be one where you want to go deep. Lie down in a comfortable place, perhaps place your hands on your heart and use a mantra like, “I allow my inner wisdom to come forward now.” Repeat that mantra, not necessarily in a stressful or ritualistic manner, but as your thoughts come up, let them float away as if they’re on a cloud, or they’re floating on a log down a river or something like that, and then repeat your meditation mantra again—”I allow my inner wisdom to come forward with ease.”

Practicing a mantra like that where you’re programming your mind or your being to that idea, to that mantra, to that frequency; letting that happen; relaxing your mind, your heart; feeling your heart with your hands in your chest; and then letting yourself fall behind that into an inner witness standpoint and using the mantra, even better if you were to do this out in nature–those kinds of techniques help us sink deeper into ourselves, and let us connect with that intuitive part of us that’s already there.

What disconnects us from it? Technology. Essentially our phones, our screens—all of it. Put away the phone, put away the laptop, turn off the TV, go outside, lie down in bed, meditate at night before bed, use these techniques, and that’s how you let your inner wisdom emerge. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a lifelong process to open and unfold that intuition, whether you’re just starting or even for me—here I am 25 years later of conscious intuitive practice, and there’s always more.

[01:21:28] Ashley James: There is—there is always more. That’s why I love exploring holistic health because we will forever be perpetual students learning, growing, and exploring. I feel like we’re in Star Trek exploring strange new worlds.

[01:21:47] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yes. We’re the Galactic Federation. I love Star Trek Next Generation. I like the old one—the Jean-Luc Picard one. He’s such a diplomat. He’s so diplomatic and respectful of all species and everything. I think it was very visionary of Gene Roddenberry to create that show.

[01:22:14] Ashley James: Absolutely. Even him as a person, Patrick Stewart’s heart is so big. Follow him on Twitter. He’s hilarious. He has such a big heart. I have cousins who are in Hollywood who are actors, and you hear what people are really like after the cameras turn off. You get disappointed when you hear your favorite actor is a real a-hole, and then you get excited when you hear that they’re just a genuine, loving being; they didn’t let their ego get to them, and they’re nice to everyone, doesn’t matter who they are. That’s Patrick Stewart.

[01:23:02] Amy Leigh Mercree: I’ve also heard. I love him. He’s such a neat guy.

[01:23:08] Ashley James: It’s funny. Because I’m such a geek, I can definitely take Star Trek in that like “Look for the lessons.”

[01:23:15] Amy Leigh Mercree: Oh, my gosh, me too. I’m a total science fiction nerd, so I love, love Star Trek Next Generation.

[01:23:24] Ashley James: Even just as a mind experiment to consider like, “Look up at the stars and wrap your brain around the fact that the universe goes on and on and on.” I was in my early twenties. I was looking up at the stars while lying on my bed. I lived in northern Ontario, so I could see all the stars, and it was a clear night. I almost had a panic—it felt like claustrophobia, but the opposite. I got panicked because all of a sudden my brain completely wrapped around this idea that there are no walls. The Universe is infinite, and it keeps going, and it keeps going, and it keeps going. It just freaked me out because I’m like, “Wait a second.”

We’re so used to walls. We’re so used to boundaries and borders, and understanding where one thing ends and another thing begins. But just this idea of this ever-expanding universe, and that there’s infinite potential—just like in our bodies. We have 100-trillion neuron connections in the human brain and even more possible, potential neurological connections in our body—which is the same amount as every single grain of sand on every beach. That’s how many potential neurological connections we have.

There’s this infinite potential outside of us, as above, so below. And so you can see the amazing universe of infinite possibilities outside and then see it reflected on the inside, and it got me freaked out.

[01:25:14] Amy Leigh Mercree: I get that.

[01:25:15] Ashley James: How do you play small in this world? How do you play so small that you only watch what’s on TV, and watch the news and watch sports and that’s it? How do we figure out how to put ourselves in the smallest box possible when we have this infinite world and infinite potential out there, and it just is amazing, right? I want to help people to actualize their infinite potential.

[01:25:46] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. It’s so cool to hear you describe your experience of that because since I was a small child, I felt the same feeling, but I didn’t feel boxed in. I loved it. I was like, “When can I get this rock and get out there?” That was how I felt. And then in middle school or maybe like early freshman year of high school, early, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time came out. I think it’s either the introduction or the first chapter; he takes you through a really beautiful visceral description of how the earth is a spaceship hurtling through infinite multiverses and fast infinity.

He describes the speed at which we’re moving in an unbounded manner, although the earth is revolving around the sun and all of that. The solar system is hurtling through the galaxy, but yet it’s in the spiral arm revolving around the center of the galaxy. And then the galaxy is in its galaxy cluster, which is rolling through space. It was illuminating. Because I was a very astronomy-focused teen, I had pondered these things, but the way Stephen Hawking put it all together for us let us feel that life is constant change. The universe, the multiverses that are endless, are in constant change. Nobody is stationary. We can pretend we’re in a box, but we are not. We are all hurtling through space. If we expand our view of that, as souls we are traversing dimensions at a breathtaking pace because this incarnation is just a quick blip in the span of infinity where the dimensions of time and space connect for this brief point at this time in this place. But our souls and our spirits have existed eternally before and will exist outside of this in perpetuity, and so we are infinite, and we exist in infinity.

[01:28:29] Ashley James: Beautiful.

[01:28:30] Amy Leigh Mercree: That’s the reality to me of life, and it sounds like to you too.

[01:28:36] Ashley James: Right. And what scared me is how do we stay so small when there’s so much big out there? I want everyone to tap into their infinite potential.

What I was amazed by when I started on my healing journey was that the body has an innate ability to heal itself. I’ve watched people heal things like cancer melting like a snowball on a hot stove—that kind of thing. I’ve shared this story before where I had an ankle that was badly twisted. The doctor said it would have been better if I’d broken it because I had torn all the ligaments. He said I wouldn’t be able to walk for two weeks and then might need physical therapy.

That morning and that evening, my co-worker came over who was a Reiki master, and this was my first experience with healing touch and Reiki. I was told I was going to be on crutches for two weeks. My ankle was just ballooned out. I think I was 15 years old or somewhere between age 13 or age 15. She did the work for about 30-45 minutes, and I got up off that couch and started dancing. The inflammation was gone, the pain was gone, my ankle was healed.

I was expected to be on crutches for two weeks. I didn’t have to use the crutches after that. The body has the ability to heal itself and whether we are tapping into our potential, whether it’s angels and guides, whether it’s God, whether it’s Jesus, whether it’s Allah, whatever your belief system, we can’t negate anything because who are we to judge? Whatever it is that we’re tapping into, we have to know that we have the ability to heal.

And so when a doctor, an MD, says, “You’re terminal. You’re going to die in three months.” People have such a strong belief system that they will comply.

[01:30:58] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly.

[01:30:59] Ashley James: And then there are people who it’s like the nocebo effect. They don’t believe the doctors, and they are still alive 20 years from now. Even though they were supposed to die—how dare they not believe what the doctor said?

We have the ability to heal, and I  want every listener to know that whatever struggle they’re dealing with–whatever health or emotional struggle. As Amy said, we’re traversing through this universe at a speed that is almost incomprehensible, and that we too can change that quickly. We can heal that quickly, we can shift our mindset, and we can shift our reality. We’re not stuck. We have this infinite potential inside us, so we can tap into all of these resources and use what’s around us–the plants, and the minerals, and energy work, meditation, and our mindset, and friends and community. We can use so many of these tools to help bolster our goals.

[01:32:07] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. To add to that as well, from that standpoint of seeing that infinite nature of which we are a part, including the world around us and the universes around us. We can also look at non-attachment to help us with these challenges because we can use all of our tools. We’re self-regulating, self-correcting organisms, and we can also trust our inner wisdom to understand if we do take an expanded view that is not attached. We don’t want to suffer while we’re here. So we’re going to do everything we can to mitigate our suffering, and to that end as well, to be an aid to the end of suffering for all sentient beings–absolutely.

But at the same time, to move into more non-attachment to be able to loosen our grip from the tension, anxiousness, and efforting; to step back and allow the self-regulating, the self-correcting, and the self-healing to happen. I don’t mean this to sound morbid, but in some cases does that mean exiting this incarnation and journeying to the next stop-over to have the next experience or efforting, tension, prolonging, being attached, clinging, making it challenging, and staying longer and suffering more too isolated cases.

That doesn’t always mean when we un-attach that we’re leaving this planet either. But it means when we un-attach a little bit, we allow our inner wisdom to come forward and help guide us. It’s coming back around to that question you asked about how do we open to our intuition so we can know what to do. We also let go a little bit to let that happen, whatever it brings.

[01:34:26] Ashley James: The death of the ego, the momentary experience of not having our ego running the show.

[01:34:40] Amy Leigh Mercree: Yeah, and just relaxing from all that tension and worry, and instead allowing. Moving from active to receptive sometimes can be incredibly healing as well.

[01:34:55] Ashley James: I love what you just said—moving from active to receptive. What’s that saying, “We’re human doings, not human beings.”

Turn off the human doing and be a little bit more human being in the now, receiving, listening and quieting. Otherwise, we’ll run through this body pretty quickly. We’ll wear out this body pretty fast if we’re not turning on receptive mode. I love it.

[01:35:31] Amy Leigh Mercree: Exactly. Thinking and doing are wonderfully helpful, and how we advance in our careers and get from Point A to Point B, and move our lives forward and their progress, but then feeling and being are essential to our well-being and to that balance. That’s the Yin and the Yang, the thinking and the doing as an active principle, and the feeling and the being as a receptive principle ideally balancing each other. So that’s something we can strive for as well.

[01:36:03] Ashley James: Very cool. Amy, tell us about your other books and your resources, things we should know about you. Can people work with you one on one? Do you have online courses? Just tell us all about you and how people can connect with you.

[01:36:23] Amy Leigh Mercree: Absolutely. So you can find pretty much everything on my website, amyleighmercree.com. We’re getting so close to a complete redesign of the website, so see us now and then see us in a month and our completely new design site because it’s going to be awesome. I have ten books, eleventh coming out in the fall. You can find all of those on my website. Those are ways that you can connect with me. I work with clients individually. You can find me on the Work with Amy page on the website where you can book appointments with me for medical intuition, to talk to your guides, all kinds of other things. I also do authorship consulting because I have written eleven books and counting.

You can also find lots of classes that I teach. We only have a couple of classes active on the website because like I said we’re about to launch this whole new site. When we launch the new site, we’ll start the new round of classes, which starts with meet your guides and then moves into an intermediate meet your guides class, karmic healing, soul retrieval. We have lots of goddess classes. We have Journey into Multidimensionality as an advanced class. We have Journeying with Planetary Healers, Guides, Guards, Angels. It’s an advanced class as well. We have lots of live teleclasses. Those classes can be joined anywhere you have a phone. You call into our number, use the pen, you get me live and your group, your community for your class. We usually have a private Facebook group for your class so people can chat on there and stuff like that.

And then I’m going to be launching five different online classes this year. So keep your eyes peeled for those. Those will all be going live when the site goes live in the next month or so. A bunch of different mindfulness and meditation classes focused on specific things like meditations and mudras for joint health and concentration, mantras to reduce inflammation, things like that. Lots of fun things like that.

And then in the late fall, I will be launching my Bestseller Bootcamp, which is an eight-week program that takes you through the process of creating a book proposal to sell to literary agents and publishers and all of my tools to do that because I have been doing that for a long time. I have lots of books, and I work with clients individually to do that, and I also have a boutique marketing agency for that.

Those are most of my offerings. There’s probably more. I do a lot of things. I’m kind of an idea factory, but those are my main offerings. I speak around the country as well, so I do have in-person events. Oftentimes, when you check back to the site, you’ll find them. And then if people are having conferences or different private events, and they like to book me for speaking, I do that as well.

[01:39:52] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you so much, Amy, for coming to the show. Is there anything that you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview? Are you receiving any messages for the listeners that you’d like to share?

[01:40:06] Amy Leigh Mercree: What a fun question, and thank you so much for having me, too. It was great to be here. I really would love to bring us back to that idea of peace. It’s so fun that you are a Star Trek Next Generation fan like I am because that is not something you find every day. To bring us back to that concept of what in that fictional work was called the Galactic Federation, but to kind of step back and to think about the fact that our earth is a tiny speck and one of most likely trillions of planets that could support life, many of which very likely do. We are probably in our adolescence as a species, and as we evolve and we become responsible galactic adults, perhaps we will be able to engage with other more advanced and most likely peaceful species.

How do we want to evolve as a species? How do we want to bring peace and our human capacity to love, which may be unique? We don’t know yet.

How do we want to evolve that and bring that to all of us here on the planet to everyone in our lives, and to the non-physical guidance and infinite dimensions that surround us? And then perhaps someday to physical form or life forms where, in an idyllic way, perhaps we’re bringing this idea of love and our unique human capacity to kind of United Nations of the universe. I bring this up to open our minds, to expand our minds, to open our thinking to greater possibilities, but the whole intent to be expansiveness and that, yes, you can heal yourself. Yes, you’re the architect of your reality and your integral piece that matters in an interdependent matrix of consciousness, discovering how that feels, and where you fit and how you’d like to create that experience perhaps as part of each of our journeys on earth.

[01:42:53] Ashley James: Thank you, Amy. This has been wonderful and very enlightening. I love stretching our minds and getting out of those boxes. No matter how unboxed someone is, they’ll always find that as they explore these thoughts and these realms, they can find a set of limiting decisions that maybe they’ve imposed upon themselves in order to release them. Whatever self-doubts came up or negative self-talk, as you listen to this interview, you can begin to see where the limitations that you’ve set upon yourself and your reality, and what can we begin to question in order to make sure that we haven’t imposed limitations upon ourselves that prevent us from healing and from growing and evolving.

Thank you, Amy. This has been awesome, and I can’t wait to hear back from the listeners in our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. Every time we release an episode we have a fun community chat about the interview, so I look forward to hearing what their takeaways are, what they loved about the bath. Hopefully, some listeners do the bath and then come share with us and all the other wonderful tidbits. It’s been a real pleasure.

[01:44:14] Amy Leigh Mercree: Thank you so much. It’s been wonderful. It’s been great to be here.

[01:44:18] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

Get Connected With Amy Leigh Mercree

Website

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Books by Amy Leigh Mercree

The Mood Book

A Little Bit Of Chakras

A Little Bit Of Mindfulness

Essential Oils Handbook

A Little Bit Of Meditation

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Website: https://www.mandymorris.love
Book: Love…It’s How I Manifest https://amzn.to/2ZhLGXE

Love: It's How I Manifest

https://www.learntruehealth.com/love-its-how-i-manifest

Mandy Morris, author of “Love: It’s How I Manifest” recounts her journey through her traumatic childhood and troubled teen/young adult years, and how she started making conscious choices to change herself and live an authentic and empowered life.

[00:00:00] Ashley James: Hello, true health seeker. Have you ever thought about becoming a health coach? I highly recommend checking out the Institute for Integrated Nutrition. You can Google Institute for Integrated Nutrition or IIN and give them a call, or you can go to learntruehealth.com/coach, and you can receive a free module of their training. Go check it out and see if it’s something that you’d be interested.

Be sure to mention my name, Ashley James and the Learn True Health podcast because I made a deal with them that they will give you the best price possible. I highly recommend checking it out. It changed my life to be in that program, and I’m such a big advocate that I wanted to spread this information. We need more health coaches. In fact, health coaching is the largest growing career right now in the health field.

So many health coaches are getting in and helping people because you can work in chiropractic offices, doctor’s offices. You can work in a hospital. You can work online through Skype and help people around the world. You can become an author. You can go into the school system and help your local schools shift their programs to help children be healthier. You can go into senior centers and help them to shift their diet and lifestyle to best support them in their success and their health goals.

There are so many different available options for you when you become a certified health coach. Check out IIN. Check out the Institute for Integrated Nutrition. Mention my name, get the best deal. Give them a call, and they’ll give you lots of free information and help you to see if this is the right move for you.

Classes are starting soon, so you want to call them now and check it out. And if you know anyone in your life who would be an amazing coach, please tell them about it. Being a health coach is so rewarding, and you get many people. Have a fantastic day and enjoy this amazing interview.

[00:02:07] Ashley James: We are in for such a treat today. We have with us Mandy Morris, who has a beautiful mission and story. She’s here to teach some wonderful things about how to use the special power that we’re all born with to manifest the things we want in our lives.

Mandy, welcome to the show.

[00:02:40] Mandy Morris: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:02:42] Ashley James: Absolutely. I feel like you’re about to uncover our superpower. We’re going to find out that we were born on krypton, and we’re all Superwoman and Superman, through your story and what you’re going to teach today. You’re going to help us to see that we have a superpower, so I’m very excited to dive right in and learn more about you and your story because you have a beautiful one.

Welcome to the show, and please start by sharing your story with us.

[00:03:11] Mandy Morris: Absolutely. This is a pretty good story, I would say. Let’s go to the very beginning, and that was as a child, I was considered a child genius. I do not know what my exact IQ was, but there was a university that wanted to study me. My mother was really against it because I come from that lineage of individuals on my father’s side — inventors and totally socially not there.

She’s like, “I don’t want that to happen to Mandy.” She actually wouldn’t allow for the universities to study me, but that part of me stuck with me. And so as life would have it, traumas, work experience, when I was 10, I wanted to live with my father — my parents are divorced at a very young age, and dad wasn’t always around. Mom got a job, and she taught me how to be an independent woman and how to take care of myself.

Having a divorced family and going back and forth between households, different state lines, it takes a toll on a child. Tried to live with my father, did not win that custody battle, and something about that shut me off. It made me really angry, and I made the decision — unconsciously at that point — that if I could make myself undesirable, then maybe I can have what I want.

I hacked all my hair off. I turned the light down on my intelligence. I dropped out of my gifted classes. I remember when I was 13, that was the turning point. My father had called me. He had taken — I believe it was 48 Percocets. He was on his way out. He had called to say goodbye and to tell me to tell my sister that he loves her. It was such a defining moment obviously in life. Sitting there thinking I don’t know where he is — we never really know where this man is. He’s the elusive, most interesting man in the world. He’s got so many crazy stories.

We were trying to figure out where he was. Thank goodness for my mom because she grabbed the phone, and her words were like, “If you leave the planet, you are a horrible human being. Do not do this to these girls. How dare you be so selfish?” She was screaming at him. He ended up telling her where he was, and he’s alive to this day.

[00:05:55] Ashley James: Thank God. I’m in tears right now. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh!”

[00:06:01] Mandy Morris: It was such a beautiful thing. He’s still alive to this day. It was such a defining moment where I realized he doesn’t believe he can start over. He thinks that this is it. At 13, you’re like, “How can I fix that in someone?” I didn’t believe I could obviously, and at that point, we went out of the woods, and so I thought at any moment I’m going to get the call — it’s not him calling, but it’s someone telling me that he’s gone.

It was such a catalyst in such a beautiful way if I look back at it now. It turned me into this punk of a kid. I was so angry at the world. I just had this true and true belief the world is not fair; it’s not safe; it’s not right; this is so messed up; people don’t believe that they’re worthy of life, and you can’t even do anything about it.

That caused me to hang out with some really confused people — just as confused as I was — and I involved myself in drugs. Anyone who had gone to jail, I was friends with them. Drug dealing, all kinds of crazy things, just shut my light off, and I had extreme anxiety. I would eat lunch in the hallways because I was so afraid of being around with other people.

It was such a crazy life for myself that I had created out of these traumas that I had experienced. I carried those into adulthood through different forms of anorexia, bulimia, need for control, really unhealthy and abusive relationships and friendships, and trying to put a mask on and be someone that I wasn’t over and over again.

[00:08:11] Ashley James: Wow. You paint that picture, and we can all reflect on our childhood and see those moments that were so traumatic in the moment for us a child. Hard to understand — a death in the family, a divorce, suicide, accidents, and how a child’s mind wraps their head around it.

As a child, we take everything personally. That’s just how we are as we develop. It’s everything that’s happening to us, and so it’s easy to be victimized as a child and make decisions about the world — “The world is unsafe, and I’m not lovable. I’m not good enough. I can’t have what I want.”

You decided to make yourself less desirable because your mom wouldn’t let you with your dad. We make these childish decisions as a child, but they become part of our programming that we’re now still running as adults.

[00:09:21] Mandy Morris: Right. We see that with children, and I see that in my clients now. It’s the craziest of experiences as to why their brain, for some reason, were wired that way that day in that particular experience, and they carry it forth throughout life. It completely sabotages our human experience sometimes because it snowballs into something so different than what it was just because we lacked the tools to see things from all perspectives or see things as they truly were because we’re not capable of that as children.

[00:09:54] Ashley James: Sometimes it’s something that, as a parent, we couldn’t even know. I child can internalize something, and we don’t even know it’s a trauma. They can make a decision about maybe something they observed happened to someone else.

Like my son, who shortly after birth wore a teething necklace. He came to us one day and said, “Can you take this off me because I don’t want it to be stolen by the other kids.” To him it’s a precious item; he wore it his whole life, and he had a dream that bullies took it away from him. I felt so helpless that day as a mom. I’m like, “How do we protect my son from bullies in his dreams?

Sometimes it something we don’t even see no matter how good you are as a parent. We all, as children, internalized the world through a child’s eyes. We’re all going to come up with limiting decisions, negative beliefs about the world, and now as adults, we need to go back and make sure that a child’s decision isn’t running her life.

[00:11:08] Mandy Morris: Absolutely. You used the word programming. I love that so much because that’s the core of it. It’s based on our perceptions, sometimes our traumas and experiences, and also some of our memories that aren’t really memories. We may have seen it on the TV, and it triggers such an emotional response at a young age, that we perceive it happened to us.

It’s such an intricate thing our brains are doing at young ages and also into adulthood that is shaping a false reality for ourselves, and stunting us in becoming the best version of ourselves, or at least experiencing what we want to experience as humans versus what we feel is already laid out before us.

[00:11:47] Ashley James: Tell us what happened. Here you are, you’re the grunge kid, or the emo kid, or the defiant teenager. I went through that phase, by the way. I ended up finding Landmark Education and went through all their programs. But I was dyeing everything black, listening to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. I was trying to be the greaseball, angry teenager because I was so hurt and scared inside. I put on that exterior layer of anger to protect myself because I felt so helpless and so alone as a teenager. If you’re prickly, if you look like a porcupine, people aren’t going to hurt you.

When I went through the Landmark Education program, I just got so authentic really fast. I realized how it wasn’t serving me. I walked in looking like an emo, grunge kid and walked out looking like who I truly am inside — my happy self. We have those moments where we can’t shed who isn’t us anymore or all the armor that we think is helping us.

But what happened to you? After high school, you were in such a state. How did you get to the person you are now?

[00:13:14] Mandy Morris: It’s so funny too when you say you went into that grunge phase. That was me in the seventh and eighth grades. I had a black shirt, and it had anything on it. I would turn it inside out, so it was only black. I don’t know if I ever washed my hair. My face was breaking out. You can see my complete disconnection from my spirit. I wore it on my face. I was just so over reality already.

Carrying that through in the high school, getting myself into plenty of trouble and just making poor decisions for myself, and then when I turned 18, I got myself into a relationship with a guy who is about a decade older. I loved him very much — I think he taught me amazing things, but he was also extremely unhealthy for me. It facilitated the lack of self-love I already had within me — not thinking I was good enough — and that was when the bulimia and the anorexia started taking place and abusing Adderall or crazy fat-burning supplements. I was a stick, but I hated myself so much that I was like, “I’m not lovable. I am so broken. No one can know the real me because they will reject it, and I will be whatever anyone else wants me to be. I will give parts of myself I don’t have to give and devalue myself.

I did that for years. I call it this re-wakening moment, where I saw what I was doing to my self. Not enough to change it — we have those moments, but we’re like, “This is really not working.” But I’ve built some certainty around it, and I’ve created a reality around it. I remember finding this [00:15:01] a friend mine. She became a close friend. A lot of that intelligence that I had shut off as a child sort of reawakening with her.

I still can’t explain exactly why. It attracted all of these incredible doctors and scientists. People that I had seemingly (especially with how little I thought of myself) had a new business being around, and I started seeing metaphysics, quantum physics, psychology, and I was working three jobs. I put myself through school. I worked in a junkyard, almost passed out — I did pass out a few times in the sun — got hit with tires. It was working with gang members. It was a crazy experience.

But I was bringing forth that intelligence again and learning from brilliant minds — minds of people who have machines in their basements that cure cancer and they work in the government, and now they don’t. I was in this underground world of intelligence and goodness, of people who were doing amazing things for the world that no one would ever know. It sparked this deep knowingness within myself that reawakened that child-like version of me that was loving, vivacious, intelligent, and caring.

It was those moments that I couldn’t even pull all of it together to change my own life, but I started gathering information. It was a long journey for me to get back to myself or understand what the heck was going on. Through this work with this scientist and these doctors and these amazing, brilliant minds throughout the world, studying with them and just being a fly on the wall, absorbing information, but still wasn’t creating a full shift.

I remember taking this moment — I had this horrible experience with this gal that I bought a house with. I was living in Arizona, and it was such a horrible decision, and we had a really bad living experience together that I just rode off the house. I just gave it to her, and I moved across the country to Florida. I was still working a corporate job and trying to keep my sad little life together. For thirty days I was broke. For thirty days, I sat in this little one-bedroom condo. I had no furniture. I had a phone pad on the ground and a pillow and a blanket, cupboard box turned upside down. That was my desk for about thirty to forty-five days; I was there with nothing.

If the neighbors walk by, they’ll probably be like, “What is going on there? Is someone really living there.? I just sat there with my little ten dollar Walmart lunch chair that I bring into every little nook of the apartment, and I found myself. I was completely alone. I had moved away from my family, my friends, every unhealthy or healthy thing, I was just with me. I’ve always avoided myself. I was the person you can never be alone. It was the most amazing thirty days of my life.

I got to meet myself, probably the first time that I could ever remember, and I was so euphorically happy. Even if I’d wake up and my back hurts, and I didn’t have any money, it was amazing. I, of course, let my programming kick back in, and the abusive guy that I was dating in Arizona followed me to Florida, and I let him back into my life.

For about four or five months, I lived in complete misery all over again. My entire reality that I was running away from followed me. All of the mental beliefs and all the junk came right with it. It was like it had never left. But it was so much harder because once you experienced the beauty of life, once you experienced your true essence, it’s even more painful to have to go back. Ignorance is bliss; it’s better that we don’t know. That was the biggest I’d ever have in my life because that was when I realized, it could be different. I could love myself. I felt what it felt like to know me, to accept me, and to be with just me, and I was enough.

That was not the belief I had before, and so even though I might have someone in my face telling me I’m not, I was like, “No, this isn’t true anymore.” I felt the difference, and I know it’s not true, and I dropped to my knees literally — sounds like a movie, but it was true.

I dropped to my knees, and I was sobbing, and I was praying to God, the universe, whatever. I said, “Please, I would do whatever I’m supposed to. I don’t care if I have children. I don’t care if I make money. I don’t care if I’m never going to have a beautiful life or not, but just bring me peace. Let me do what I’m here to do, and let me feel the way I felt. I don’t care about anything else.”

There was such purity at that moment that everything shifted so fast. Literally within two weeks, I had removed the relationship, I quit my job, I had moved to the state of Florida, and I met my now husband. He became a dear friend of mine very quickly. All of it just showed up immediately. It almost seemed like a manifestation to support me. It was such a juicy experience after that, and that was actually the first time where I decided to let go of the fear; instead, it will never be the same again. I will not have a fallback, and I’m not going back. I’m simply not going to feel the way I felt anymore because I was at the point where I was either going to turn my life completely off for the rest of my life, or I have to give this a go and see if I can turn it back on or get it to amp up. That was the choice I made.

[00:21:17] Ashley James: That’s brilliant and beautiful. I know we’re going to dive into some actual steps to help listeners have their transformation. How do you help people to come to that point where they too can choose to let go of the fear?

[00:21:39] Mandy Morris: A lot of times people need to see the proof that it’s possible — and this is what drives me absolutely insane, especially in the industry that I work in — you see this final product. Like when someone sees even me — I know I’m not a final product, but I’m growing every day — but they might see me and the internet has shown that they think that I maybe had a really beautiful life, that things are really simple for me. A life coach is going to teach them how to mantra their way into a better life, and we’re going to do yoga. Those are understandable fears that show up when someone is trying to change their life. They’ll look at someone and put them on a pedestal, or they’ll say, “They’re not like me,” or “They can do it, but I can’t do it,” and a sense of unworthiness.

A lot of it is being able to see that it’s even possible. And so, when I was in that part of my life and that journey, I had to look at people and go, “They had been in really bad situations. They had felt the way I feel. They have created the messes that I have created, but they were triumphant.” And then I got really curious as to why–why were they so triumphant?

It was about educating myself. There’s a trilogy to that whenever I’m talking to someone about these factors, and it’s that science and the psychology, and then that kind of magic of the universe if you will — that kind of miraculousness.

When you combine all of those, you meet every need that the brain has to move forward because most often everyone can move forward. Everyone can change their life if they so choose. There’s always a beautiful reason. Maybe it’s because they perceive that there’s a reward for it — “If I don’t do this, then I’ll be safe. It cannot be seen, or it won’t be judged, but it’s causing massive amounts of pain.”

But the reward is seemingly so big because humans will only go towards pleasure or run away from pain. But once you see that it’s not getting you where you want to go, then it’s not so juicy anymore. It’s not rewarding anymore, and so the brain starts looking for new ways to meet the need. And that’s when you swoop in and start creating a healthier form of meeting the same needs that you had prior; they are just more consciously met.

[00:23:59] Ashley James: Brilliant. You met your husband. You finally were able to shed all that you weren’t and embrace who you were. What happened next?

[00:24:13] Mandy Morris: It was a journey. It continues to be. That moment was so defining because it was the moment that I never had to go back again if that makes sense. You know how sometimes we get that roller coaster experience where we’re like, “I’m gonna change my life,” and “Oh, I’m back where I started,” or “I was really good on my diet for a month, and then I failed.” We feel like it re-solidifies our belief that we’re never going to get “there,” and “there” being like that beautiful place that we know in our hearts are somewhere within us. It’s available, but it’s so far away. Or like I say, it’s like saran wrap between my soul and me. I can see it. It’s just I can’t truly touch it.

That was those moments that I never fully turned back, but there was still so much healing that had to take place. It wasn’t like, “Life is chipper, beautiful, and perfect.” It was like, “I’m going to do the freaking work now to figure out why I’ve built the reality I built; why I believed the things that I believed,” and I finally loved myself enough and was courageous enough not to give up halfway through.

That was when I saw massive growth in a short amount of time. That was when I decided, “You know what? I’m actually on to something here.” All of this information I’ve acquired throughout the years about the psychology or the neuroscience of the brain or physics and so forth — we’ll call it manifestation because some people like that word. It sounds a lot easier than “I’ll teach you neuroscience and how to heal your traumas.” Nobody wants to do that.

Gathering all that information, I took that and started my company — Authentic Living — and started helping people. The ways that I was capable of at that moment, I’m so much more capable today than I was then.

There were certain people I could help then, and there’s so much broader array that I can help now. Every day, I got better. Every day, my relationship with myself and just my dysfunctional behaviors in relationships, in general, began to heal. I was able to work through them with my husband. And then the traumas of my past, I was able to work through those and face them versus always shoving them down, almost like planting a dirty seed, and then it festers and grows, and you’re like, I don’t even know where that came from. I got conscious of what was going on in my thoughts every day.

And so every day, I got 1% better, and before you know it, it compounded. Life is completely different.

[00:26:49] Ashley James: I’ve heard in the past that having an eating disorder of control like anorexia and bulimia, which is different than feeling out of control. So there are eating disorders, but some of them are of control.

When you’re anorexic, you have an intense amount of control over not eating or what you’re eating. I’ve heard that level of control, that person is reaching out for that because they feel out of control in their life. They don’t have control over external events, and so their anorexia is how they can feel in control and grounded in a sense and obviously in an unhealthy way.

As you were healing yourself and using neuroscience to heal the trauma, how did you shift your relationship with your eating so that it became healing for you instead of that mental-emotional issue?

[00:28:00] Mandy Morris: That was very much a gradual process because my anorexia and bulimia started when I was eighteen. That was a very unhealthy time in my life mentally. You’re absolutely right — there was no sense of control in my outer world, even in my mental thoughts.

It was like this one thing I can hyperfocus on, and then I can meet my need for certainty right here and obviously overdo it and brutalize my insights in the process. But at least I’ve got this massive form of control, and no one else can be involved in it. In a relationship, you can’t be in control, not in an unhealthy way. In your job, there are other areas of life that have more variability. But when it comes to what you consume, that’s like the juicy one where you get to control every factor of it, and so it was so rewarding.

When I started seeing that I couldn’t maintain it, the anorexia was actually easier than bulimia — just easier to not eat — but then I would get extremely impulsive behaviors, and then I would binge, and then I would throw it up.

Really seeing that for what it was and seeing that my body didn’t look the way I wanted, there was a flipping point. I actually moved out of the apartment I was in and switched schools. There was a moment of clarity that I had where I found this chick online, and I said, “I want to look like her.” She had all of her diet stuff, and she was by all means super certainty-based. She had all of her workouts and exactly what she ate and so forth, but it was actually eating, and that was the biggest step I could take at that moment. If I can look like that, maybe I’ll be loved. Maybe the guy I’m dating will stop cheating on me because he likes the way that she looks, so I’ll try to be like her. I’ll follow her regimen.

And so it got me one step above. It’s like when you’re helpless, when you can’t go into complete happiness and elation. Usually, the next step is going to be something like at least you can be angry, or at least you can be sad, or at least you can feel neutral, and you can go up the steps of the emotional leader. That’s what I was doing with my health. There’s no way that all of a sudden, I’m going to love my body completely, nourish it, intuitively know what it needs. But at least I can move towards actually consuming calories every day, exercising, and no longer bingeing.

And so, it was just that one step forward, and then I got to that point and started actually liking the way that I look, but I was still quite neurotic about it, and then took a little step further. It honestly wasn’t until I met my husband that I would go out to eat, and I was okay with not everything organic, and this amount, and weighing my food, and had to look like that. I just completely flipped the script because I found self-love.

And so I went to the other extreme which was, “I’m not going to care for a little bit. I’m just going to see how I do and see if this guy..” It was really honestly probably me testing him because every man in my life I had perceived only loves me because I look a certain way, or only loves me because of this. So it was me saying, “Do you really love me? Let’s find out.”

[00:31:26] Ashley James: How did you meet your husband?

[00:31:31] Mandy Morris: This is the Facebook story. He reached out to me on Facebook, and he said, “I love the videos that you create, but I can’t figure out what you’re selling.” I was so appalled. I had my corporate job. I was like, “I’m just spreading love and talking about my journey because I was so lonely in Florida that my only connection to people was creating these videos and just talking about whatever I was learning.” He said, “You should be.”

I was like, “What?” For some reason, as soon as his face even popped up, I was like, “I just feel like I know him.” He was so gentle. He was such a sweetheart. He was this amazing Filipino man, and I was like, “I don’t care how, but I want you in my life forever.”

I began to fall in love with him, and he didn’t fit the archetype. He wasn’t a jerk. He wasn’t someone who cheated. He wasn’t a football player or a jock or any of that. He was this amazing, beautiful, heart-centered man. I just had to keep working on every moment, but I would try to sabotage it. I would kind of wake myself back up, “Nope, we’re not doing that, Mindy. We’re going to work through this consciously. You found someone willing to do that with you,” and it turned into a beautiful relationship and then marriage, and now our first son is on the way.

[00:32:58] Ashley James: Congratulations.

[00:33:00] Mandy Morris: Thank you. I’m sitting here, and I’m nine months pregnant. I’m like, Ashley, if I say I got to go, that’s because the baby is coming.

[00:33:08] Ashley James: It’s okay. The first one is always late. Don’t worry about it. It’s probably going to be like at 42 weeks.

[00:33:12] Mandy Morris: Oh, don’t tell me that.

[00:33:16] Ashley James: [laughs] You got at least two weeks of Braxton Hicks, the false contractions, to go through. It’s all good. If you expect him to come at 42 weeks, you’ll be really happy when it’s 39. Tell yourself it’s happening at 42 weeks and you’re good. Congratulations.

Was your husband in the Philippines, or was he in the States?

[00:33:38] Mandy Morris: Yeah. He grew up in the Philippines. He is the oldest of four girls, so maybe that’s some of the reason he’s such a great communicator. But he moved to the US when he was 18 and started studying personal development. He’s an amazing sales marketer. He has a son, who is now my full-time son as well. We have an eight-year-old, just not with us — not my biological son.

[00:34:03] Ashley James: Born in your heart, not of your womb.

[00:34:05] Mandy Morris: Yes. And he’s not happy that he wasn’t in the womb, that’s for sure, right now — seeing all the pregnancy go down. My husband moved over when he was 18, and then we met.

[00:34:17] Ashley James: That is wonderful. Tell your husband I think he’s fantastic.

[00:34:22] Mandy Morris: I will. He’ll love hearing it.

[00:34:25] Ashley James: I enjoy what you said — every step of the way, as you were doing your personal growth, you got to catch yourself. Your husband was that mirror, and you got to catch yourself while you were sabotaging it.

Carl Jung said something — I’m paraphrasing him, but something along the lines that we marry our unconscious mind and project on to them all of our unresolved material. And so if we can wrap our brain around the idea that we truly will never know anyone, and no one really knows us because we are constantly processing information through our unconscious filters, and we’re always projecting our unresolved stuff at people.

Prime example, my husband and I, when we’re first together, we were driving in a truck — I still remember. That was like eleven years ago. He turns to me, and he starts arguing with me, which is so not like him because he is a very cool-headed, easygoing person. I’m like, “Where did this come from?” I did not say something that should have had him react this way. I looked at him, “Are you reacting to me, or is this something from your past?”

He sat there for a minute, and he went, “Oh, my gosh. You know what? I was just talking to my ex-wife. Something you said, the way you looked at me, the tone of your voice, something had me completely get triggered by a past argument that I had with my ex-wife, and it had nothing to do with you.” But at least we had done that break state because if we hadn’t — if I had reacted, we would be just full on at each other’s throats. Luckily, we paused long enough to realize that this argument has nothing to do with us at the moment.

And so so much of life is that — so I love that you caught yourself while you were with your husband, “Wait, this is my stuff from the past.” He was that wonderful loving mirror that allowed you to do that personal work, that allowed you to safely bring things up to process.

[00:36:34] Mandy Morris: We created that space. He needed that space too, coming from an unhealthy marriage as well. It was like we were both each other’s rock, but also each other’s constant trigger. I love what you said about your husband bringing in the past because that’s the filter. I just wrote an article about this on Conflict and Relationships, and that was the whole thing. That was what I was writing about. It’s our past coming through. We have these constant filters that we’re trying to process information through, and the ways that our brains will process based on traumas from the past, and so many different factors that are within that, when you take on that. Neuroscience, the psychology, and just the environmental factors, societal programming — everything.

Most of life, it can be our jobs, our view of money, our view of sex, our relationships — all components of if life is supposed to be easy or hard, they all come from filters from the past versus a conscious and limitless knowing of the now, of what can be created without all of that weight.

[00:37:37] Ashley James: Prayer had a profound impact on that moment that you dropped your knees. That was that turning point that you never went back. You have a background in science and understanding how we create reality — the neuroscience and the metaphysics of it. I love this idea of being able to marry spirituality and physics — being able to see that they have more in common than we think. How does prayer play a role in your transformation or your life now, given your understanding of neuroscience?

[00:38:28] Mandy Morris: I think that the reason I brought in the neuroscience and why I teach it instead of just teaching manifestation from a more woo-woo perspective is because I want to be able to reach every soul. Sometimes God is a programming for people. It doesn’t resonate for them. They have to work on that relationship of what prayer means to them because again prayer might come from a programmed belief versus connecting to yourself or connecting to the universe or God — insert whatever word you want.

I remember doing this interview with a rabbi. I remembered him calling me the night before, and he’s like, “I just want to make sure that we’re not gonna fight on this interview tomorrow on my podcast. I just need to talk to you prior,” and what we both came to a conclusion was that we were talking about the same thing; we just used different modalities to reach the same conclusion, which is to bring everyone back to a state of oneness. I call it love — love can be my religion, I suppose.

But when I look at prayer, it’s the foundation. You can’t teach a child psychology, but you can teach them how to connect to themselves, no their intuition, or learn about their version of a higher power. I grew up having a close relationship with that part of me.

I journaled since I was five years old almost every stinking day. I would write about everything, and the only reason that I can actually look back on my past and know that it doesn’t come from crazy memories that didn’t really exist is because I documented my entire life like a psycho. I don’t know why I did it, but I wrote everything down.

[00:40:19] Ashley James: That’s cool. I admire that.

[00:40:21] Mandy Morris: Oh, my gosh. It’s been the most amazing thing because now I can go, “I’ll go back, and I’ll reverse engineer something, and that’s actually how I helped myself because I can go, “Six months ago, things were not okay or were amazing. What was going on then and what preceded that? What came before or after? What really happened?”

And so it’s reverse engineering process to me obtaining this consistent elevation in my life for the past ten years that I’ve had. It’s always been on that constant positive incline. How do they do that?

I’ve always journaled through all that and find these incredible components and pieces of information, but even as a child, prayer was really how I stayed in tune with myself and how I brought love out to the world and was able to help people at such a young age.

We had kids that would come in with extreme behavioral issues in school. The principal asked my mom, “Can we pull Mandy out of class when certain children are really out of control, but she’s the only one who can calm them down?” So I remember in first, second and third grade getting pulled out of class sometimes because there would be a kid throwing chairs, biting, and stuff. I would go in, and they would calm down, and then I’d walk with them to the principal’s office. For some reason, I just kind of had that in me. I equate that to that centeredness and that connection I had as a child before I try to shut my light off.

Prayer has been the foundation, but the science, the psychology, and the way the brain works, it’s interesting. It meets that science part of me, but it’s also sometimes people need to hear that because they don’t have that connection to themselves anymore, and so you can’t serve them. They can’t connect with you if you’re only speaking from that one point of view. It’s almost like religion where someone is talking about this one religion, and you missed out on touching so many people because people are already throwing their filters or walls up. I’m always trying to bring those down by keeping it open. The conversation can go any which way, and there can be many different perceptions. We’re all talking about the same thing.

[00:42:34] Ashley James: If someone was in a tantrum now, a child or an adult, what do you do that helps to bring someone back down and have them calm down?

[00:42:47] Mandy Morris: It depends on the person. If I look at my son, if he is flipping out, and it’s cool because he used to bite himself, pull out his hair. He had some really crazy behaviors when I first met him. And so there’s this concept called mirrored neurons, and children do it a lot with their parents, but it can also happen adult to adult. If they keep receiving that information, basically the way that your neurons fire, they’ll start to match that in their brain.

Staying in a calm state is one of the most seemingly important things. It absolutely is from an actual level of physics almost because if we can impact one another energetically, then the energy that we hold, kind of me being a high-powered battery and hugging someone sad and they kind of juice up, that’s the same thing. We have the ability to electrically impact one another.

And so the state that we are in when we’re serving someone, when we’re trying to calm someone down is far more important than the words we use, or the actions we take. It’s the unsaid that impacts them the most.

[00:44:04] Ashley James: You just described rapport in neurolinguistic programming. I love that you explained it, how the brain does it. When you want to help someone shift their state, you need to be in the state that you want them to be in.

[00:44:20] Mandy Morris: Yes.

[00:44:22] Ashley James: That is so cool. That’s awesome. So here you are now. You’ve been with your husband who has helped you to hone in — because through his marketing and his personal growth, background, and you’ve honed in what you do now to help others. You’ve been working with people for years. What kind of services do you offer? I know you’ve got a wonderful book called Love: It’s How I Manifest, and your website is mandymorris.love. Do you work one on one with people still? Is it over Skype? Do you do group coaching or workshops? Tell us about how people can work with you.

[00:45:04] Mandy Morris: I don’t do any one-on-one coaching. This whole concept was birthed in the book as well. I was doing some work in Scandinavia with one of my cool scientist friends, and so my husband and I went to visit them. They’re also friends. They own clinics throughout Scandinavia and really throughout the world — a very cutting edge technology.

When I went there, I was already coaching at that time, and I had dropped out of my Ph.D. I decided I am not going to work within the confines of therapy or clinical psychology, or psychiatry. It just wasn’t something that I was interested in anymore. So I dropped out of my Ph.D. It’s kind of like scratching my head because I realized that I wanted to become a therapist for egotistical reasons — so that I could prove that I was good enough because if you’re just a coach, then anyone can be a coach. I had to push the ego aside because I didn’t want the red tape. I wanted to be able to tell my clients that I care for them and to be able to hug them if I want to and to be able to truly help them get out of the chair. That’s what I’m known for, and it was birthed in Scandinavia.

When I was living in Norway, there was a concept of getting people “out of the chair.” I have so many friends who are therapists, and I trained therapists, I love them so much. Some of the red tape they had really sucked for them.

When I was in Scandinavia, we were working on psychosomatic illnesses, so basically illnesses that are manifested in the body through the mind, through thought. Allergies, for example, are beyond psychosomatic most often. Even colds — sometimes cancer and different diseases of different sorts — so many come true. And so many times that someone would show psychosomatic problem, and it wasn’t strictly environmental, strictly physical, then they would ask for me to come in.

So I would go in, and I would sit down with the client, and we would have electrodes on them as well, so we’re receiving brain feedback at the same time, and we’re pumping biofeedback into the body to see how they’re reacting to different frequency signatures.

Basically, I had a bunch of psychiatric nurses, doctors, and scientists going, “How are you getting their brain to release so fast. I’m not one to sit there and go, ‘Why?” I didn’t learn from anyone. I didn’t take all of those courses. I have never taken NLP or any of that.

People were like, “You’re doing all of those things that those people learn.” I’m like, “It’s coming out intuitively.” “Then I stand behind whatever you’re learning because it’s great stuff.”

Working through the weirdest of things  — we had this particular individual, for example, with a heart disease. You’d think, heart disease, it’s showing that it’s psychosomatic, which means that, of course, again her thoughts, the way her brain is wired or firing right now is causing the heart to shut down.

And so about three hours into the session — and we had a translator — a lot of the folks that flew in to see me can’t speak English. So that made it all the more interesting because then I can’t really feel all of the energy when I speak which is a huge component of being able to tune in intuitively. It took us about three hours to get to the root.

She had experienced extreme trauma when she was 18. But she went to therapy after, the therapist did their job, and she was not registering any hidden trauma from that. I’m like, “That’s so interesting because you think that it’s going to be in the obvious places, especially something as serious as heart disease.” It turned out that her mother was dying of cancer, and her mother was the only form of unconditional love that she never received, so she was trying to get her body to shut down to die with her mother.

I remember sitting there thinking if this is what people can do to themselves because they lack love, we have so far to go in the world of therapy. It just woke me up to truly creating change in someone’s life. When these individuals would shadow me in these sessions, I’d be like, “What are you doing?”

It would drive them absolutely insane because they have the scientific mind, and I know the frustration of that. I would be like, “It’s because I love them. It’s because I pour love into the room.” They would be like, “What the–?” They were so irritated. But it was true. I was really speaking from my heart. I’m not kidding. Obviously, I don’t have a methodology. I can’t give credit to someone that I learned this from. I’m telling you, I go in, and I pump up my intuition. I ask to serve the highest level possible. I remove all parts of my ego, but I pump in the unconditional love.

Because what happens is that certain form of love — it’s a very specific vibratory level. But that form of love gets the subconscious to relax and release. So what it does, or has the ability, I should say, to rewire the brain to create new neurological pathways, when someone believes trust and feels that truth coming from another individual, they meld with that energy, and it can change their neurochemistry.

That created my whole methodology. I was such a control freak about it — here comes the control — that I couldn’t teach it to anyone. I wouldn’t want to put my stamp of approval on something until I know every component of how I’m doing this.

It took me about a year and a half. I ended up creating the first certification program for life coaches. We have a lot of therapists and psychiatrists and counselors that also go through it to teach us methodology. So that’s one of the cool things that we have going on now, and then events and a lot of the coaches are now running these events. I take the backseat and get to see the ripple effect of my work out in the world.

That’s been amazing and so beautiful. I’m always creating something new, and whatever the world needs, we’re at the beck and call of it, so we answer to that. I call it an answer to the highest good of all. That’s my phrasing. I try to teach people how to bring that form of love and understanding so that they can truly help people and change the world.

[00:51:56] Ashley James: That is so cool. Did you ever get to measure the frequency of that specific kind of love that you’re using? Is it measurable and hurts?

[00:52:05] Mandy Morris: I’m sure it is, but that wasn’t something that we’re doing specifically because we’ve been looking at the brain, and we’ve been looking at how it’s firing any emotions that would be coming up. There are some amazing technologies out there. I could be talking about love, and someone has a negative connotation of what love means to them.

And so then, maybe like the energetic signature or the frequency signature of anger or jealousy, and then we can be like, “What is that? What’s that jealousy thing that’s showing up? What’s that anger thing?” Obviously, it’s great, but there’s a technology that can do that because then it’s a little bit more full-proof. But humans are quite comparable to technology if they’re in that same mental state, that you can get so much done even without hooking someone up to a frequency meter basically.

[00:52:57] Ashley James: That is so cool. Can you teach us some techniques today so that the listeners can have an experience of shifting their life?

[00:53:09] Mandy Morris: Yes, I would love to. There’s a few that I wanted to talk about, if that’s okay. They seem a little more woo-woo, but I think it’s applicable.

[00:53:17] Ashley James: Let’s woo-woo it up.

[00:53:18] Mandy Morris: Let’s go woo-woo. This first concept — everyone has heard of it, but I think it’s that whole saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher arrives.” Sometimes we have to hear it from someone specific, or the frequency in which they send it out is the way we needed to receive it, and then it finally clicks. I love that all of us are saying the same things sometimes, but finally, when someone is embodying that truth, it gets in, and it solves the problem for someone.

It’s love versus fear. A lot of my clients who aren’t into the love versus fear, they’ve got a negative relationship with love at that time, will say like, “light versus heavy.” It’s this idea that’s piggybacking off of the second thing I wanted to talk about, which is living consciously.

Love versus fear is this idea of, in as many moments as possible throughout the day, how can we, in our decisions, our thoughts, and our reality choose something that feels light, or choose love.

This is based on an intuitive decision that we make. It’s great to start in the morning with it because, throughout the day, we snowball into our personas and our other personalities, and meeting everybody else’s needs. We lose ourselves, and it’s a great place to stay grounded.

In the morning, it might be something as simple as, “Does it feel lighter to me, or does it feel like more in a space of love to me to eat breakfast outside or inside? Some people literally have to start, and this is the square one for them — Do I eat outside or inside? Do I go for a walk? Do I stretch? Do I pick up that phone call or does that phone call feel heavy because it’s my dad calling and I know my dad’s going to ask for something that I don’t want to give him?

It’s just making these sometimes courageous or simplistic decisions that bring us towards a space of light. Because what that does is allow for us to keep shedding all of the weight — the energetic, emotional, or psychological weight that we carry of all the roles that we feel we need to play throughout life or the people that we need to be to get our needs met. It’s just instead, “I’m going to do what feels truly good.”

We can even look retroactively. If I look back at most of the jobs that I’ve ever worked, did I choose that job out of fear or out of love and excitement? Most often it was of fear. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to pay the bills. I was afraid because I had been homeless before. I was afraid because I couldn’t eat, and so I had that extreme scarcity. Was that wrong or right? Maybe it wasn’t so right. Not that I had the tools to change at that time, and I loved myself through it, but then you can start seeing, “Wow, my entire life revolves around making decisions from fear. No wonder I’m so unhappy.”

And so when you take that component, and you take it to the second piece, which is living consciously — living consciously is, in as many moments as possible, similarly to love versus fear, but you’re just aware.

Eventually, these become so natural. But a lot of times I see folks who will set alarms on their phone every hour. It drives you insane at first because if you put an alarm on your phone, and it says, “How do you feel right now?” or “What’s your dominant emotion?” and you realize that you’re pissed most of the day, you’re like, “Wow, I’m screwed.”

So you have to come at it with acceptance and some love towards the experience. But it’s just figuring out how do I feel most of the time. The chemistry in our brains and the particles that affect it — our energy impacts particles. Our consciousness impacts particles in the air.

When people say, “I want to change my life,” “I want to manifest this, I want my soulmate to come in,” “I want money or whatever thing they want. The first thing they need to do is start consciously living so they can understand how they are currently interacting with the particles in their environment.

This is physics, and it’s not to say that physics is always a yes and no answer.  Quantum especially — there’s a lot of room for hypotheses in there. But when you are looking at how am I impacting my environment, which means that I’m the epicenter of my environment, and I can take and assume responsibility for where my life is at, which is also a choice we have to make. Then in each moment, I become more and more conscious of what’s going on. Kind of like when you and your husband were in the car, and you were able to be conscious enough to be like, “I don’t think this is about me.” And you were able to ask him, and he was conscious enough to be like, “Oh, crap. Sorry, that wasn’t about you.”

We keep taking steps backward before inception point to where before he was even about to blow up, he’d be like, “Oh, you know what’s weird? When you send that, I got triggered, and I almost blew up on you, and I was thinking about that.” And then we’ve completely changed our reality at that moment because let’s say that you were having a bad day too, you might not have been able to consciously bring that out of him and then what would have happened to the relationship dynamic for the next hour or something?

People lose relationships over this stuff. Not because they’re not a beautiful couple, but because they’re not living consciously. They are so swarmed up with fallacies of their past, perceptions, false beliefs that they can’t live consciously enough to see things as they truly are, which is that silly saying “Live in the now.” But it’s true that each moment is a new moment, and the past doesn’t need to be brought in for protection or solidification.

[00:58:50] Ashley James: That’s so beautifully said. Right now the divorce rate is about 50-50. So many of us are unconscious, and our unconscious, unresolved material is wreaking havoc on our life. So you’re helping people to get conscious and choose love and gain a lot of clarity and a lot of healing in that way.

[00:59:14] Mandy Morris: Right, and we have that with all of our relationships. It could be an intimate relationship. It can be with our boss, or mom or dad, or siblings and so forth. I grew up with nine different divorces — throughout my step parents and parents and so forth. It was like love does not exist, and it sure as heck doesn’t last. That was a very core belief. I never thought I was going to get married. That wasn’t on my dock because, at some point, things are going to hit the fan or someone’s going to cheat enough that you’re going to leave –it’s just not going to happen.

It wasn’t until I started getting right with myself and finding my authentic self and the truth within me that I was able to bring forth someone who could consciously work through that with me as a life partner, and then I was able to let that bleed out into my relationships with friends and family.

It wasn’t until I started getting right with myself and finding my authentic self and the truth within me that I was able to bring forth someone who could consciously work through that with me as a life partner, and then I was able to let that bleed out into my relationships with friends and family.

[01:00:04] Ashley James: It all starts with us. When we’re pointing the finger at other people, that’s when we realized these three fingers are pointing back at us.

[01:00:11] Mandy Morris: That’s the biggest part too, and that’s a part of the action steps I wanted to share today — assuming responsibility. It’s such an annoying one for all of us, but we get all the power back. We’re talking about certainty and control. If we can assume responsibility for our life, and again I say this more in the Western world — things are happening in parts of the world that I would not ever tell someone that they created for themselves. But when we look at, “I don’t like my job,” or “My husband doesn’t talk to me the way I want him to,” there is typically a beautiful way for us to heal that if we assume responsibility for the role we play in it.

[01:00:51] Ashley James: Even things that are horrific. When we talk about being at cause versus being at effect, being responsible for life versus being the victim, there’s usually someone in the crowd that goes, “What about rape? What about incest? What about molestation?” — all those horrific things that could happen. It’s not that we’re saying that it’s your fault. Fault isn’t the word we ever use. It’s taking responsibility for your entire life to gain back control and or become empowered. Because if you’re responsible for your life, then you have the power to change it.

I look back on the dark things that have happened in my life; I am so grateful for them now because they’re part of the person I am now. I’ve done a lot of healing work to get to where I am; I can embrace who I am now. If I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn’t want to relive those bad experiences, but I can be so happy and take responsibility for that. All my unconscious and conscious choices in my life led me through those experiences, led me to where I am now, and I get to choose who I am in the moment. I get to choose to be who I am now, so that allows me to be at cause.

Again not the word fault because people get upset when we say “take responsibility.” It’s like forgiveness is not saying that the act is okay, like if you forgive someone for harming you or harming someone you love. It’s not saying it’s okay that they did that. That’s not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is ending their past discretions from hurting you in the present.

[01:02:57] Mandy Morris: Yeah, reliving it.

[01:02:59] Ashley James: As long as we’re still angry about something bad or negative that someone did, it’s like we’re still letting them hurt us in the present. When we take responsibility, that allows us so we can do things like forgive, that allows us to stop the past from hurting us in the now.

[01:03:16] Mandy Morris: I so love that you bring that up because I had been raped twice, and I blamed myself. If I look back to what happened in my very early adult years, if I look back on those moments, that was playing into the same environment that I’d created of “I’m not good enough,” and “I’m unworthy.” Just give people what they want; they’re going to take it anyway. It was ultimately, a deviation that led to a reality and experiences that were so painful and not something that a human really should have to experience.

But there was an inception point, which was years prior when I decided that I didn’t love myself and I wasn’t worthy of being honored. If I’m floating around in that reality, in that mentality, in that energy, then I brought forth these particular circumstances. Because I knew these people, I brought forth that energy and the reality of that. And me being able to say, “You know what, I think I did create that, and that’s okay, and I can heal from that now.”

As we just said, we don’t have to relive it every day, or hate the person, or be angry so that it never happens again, so that I feel safer.  Instead, just let it be a part of the human experience without so much emotional charge, and it was coming out of neutrality: “I can move forward in my life, and my now isn’t affected.”

[01:04:44] Ashley James: For people who’ve never done that shift.  It’s like turning a light bulb on and off, being a cause versus being an effect. So being at effect is you turn on the TV, you turn on any mainstream media, and they’re pumping out an agenda to keep us at effect. There’s very little media out there besides podcasts and interviews like this, but there’s very little media out there that want to put us mentally in a place of empowerment. Because when we’re at cause in our world, when we’re 100% responsible for our world, and when we’re empowered, we don’t have a hole of void in our life to fill with their products that they’re trying to sell.

Watching TV, even Netflix and Hulu, and all the things we like to watch, and listening to the radio, all that media and magazines that media has designed to keep this facade of this world in which we are at effect. And we are helpless as individuals, especially around the news. I’m sure we could do a little fun experiment where we hook ourselves up to meters that register our stress levels.

[01:06:09] Mandy Morris: You don’t want to see it. Trust me.

[01:06:12] Ashley James: Watch five minutes of the six o’clock news and see what happens. But yeah, there’s very little out there that has us do that shift — to get that we’re a cause. Almost like being in The Matrix, there’s a lot invested in keeping us as victims and out of our personal power. For those who’ve never really tasted being at cause, can you help us to get to that place of personal power where we’re coming out of the matrix and seeing the world through the eyes of someone who’s empowered?

[01:06:51] Mandy Morris: It’s so funny that you bring up The Matrix because the creator of the Matrix, Sophia, is a dear friend of mine. Every time we sit down, she’s filled with, obviously,  this truth. We talk about TV programming like television is visually programming you, and reading is fundamental. It’s “fun to mental,” right?

[01:07:12] Ashley James: [laughs]

[01:07:13] Mandy Morris: I know. Silly, little play on words.

[01:07:15] Ashley James: I love it.

[01:07:16] Mandy Morris: And so when we look at that, we’ve got to stop and say, “What am I absorbing? Is it really true?” The easiest way goes back to that love versus fearthing “Do I feel good?” If I don’t feel good, I’m suspect. I’ve trained my brain to feel that way, that if I feel off, I’m hyper-focused on it. I’m not trying to numb it out. I’m not trying to ignore it. I’m not shoving it to the side saying, “Just deal with it later.” I’m like, “What is it? Why is it here?” Because it doesn’t belong.

And so it’s training ourselves that “If I don’t feel good, I will figure out why. If something doesn’t feel good, I will remove it, or I will figure out why.” When I look at all of this saturation of horrible programming that we’re pumped with and we’re fed with so that we can continue our crazy consumerism, it really is a control thing.

I have way too many friends that are in and out of the government — I’ll go crazy on this topic but keeping it a little bit more light. When we look at the need to maintain a status quo in our societies, and that is every small factor in the society, it can be the relationship we have in our household. It can be culturally. It can be with media. It can be in the embodiment of our country or the entire dominant frequency of planet earth. But it’s dominantly negative.

But it’s shifting, and I want to remind anyone who listens to this that although the world is seemingly in disarray, the light always wins. Light being information, being the truth. We see this happening a lot in media where if someone’s got skeletons, or if someone’s doing something shady, it’s coming out.

That’s the beautiful component of social media — things are so viral and spread so rapidly, sometimes completely untrue information as well. So that’s where our intuitionneeds to come into play. But that saturation is starting to balance itself out because it’s happening both ways. There’s not that same control factor of it all being fear-based. So now we regained a little bit of our control, a little bit of our personal power and saying, “What do I choose to read up on? What do I choose to view?” It becomes more and more of a conscious choice versus an unconscious choice.

Generationally speaking, the newer generations are waking up to this truth of things are not as they seem. Things are not in place in the same way that people say they are, and they’re questioning it instead of blindly following. It’s like the book “Outwitting the Devil” by Napoleon Hill. He talks about this so well, where there’s like the drifter personality, and the drifter is just someone who blindly follows things versus questioning and saying, “Is this right for me? Is this true? Is this what I want to focus on?”

I even do that when I see like protests — individuals who are fighting against something versus trying to love through and bring community to something. There’s no right or wrong either way, but I have my personal take on it. So when someone says, “Mandy, can you put this on your platform? We need to stop this horrible thing from happening?” I’m like, “We do, but we’re going to do it in a way that comes through with love versus continuing to create separation.” I think that from a societal standpoint we’re

realizing that the separation that we’ve created within ourselves and within the horrible lies, or just the disgusting programming that we’ve received through some of those outlets, that we don’t have to pick it up.

We can just keep it down. We can just set it down even if we’ve already picked it up, but then it doesn’t have to be for us. It’s through that that we get to the root of creating change on a global scale versus continually perpetuating that sense of anger for being misled by different people, or media, or social outlets and so forth. Instead, we create a knowingness within, ourselves and that radiates outwardly, and that can’t be penetrated. It’s far more powerful.

[01:11:36] Ashley James: For those who are thinking there’s no example of where love has made major political shifts. I invite you to seek out the history of Gandhi because everyone just knows him for his hunger strike, which is like just one tiny thing that he did, but he rallied a nation to use love and peace to make a change, which seems like — don’t you need force and anger? Aren’t force and anger the only ways to make change?

So he used a very feminine energy and made a major shift in his country. It’s so beautiful when you dive into the details of the whole story. It’s a perfect example that we can make beautiful changes in ourselves, in our society, in our family and our relationships, and we can use the highest power, which is love.

[01:12:35] Mandy Morris: Yeah, because think about it — if someone were to sit right now and consider the embodiment of love. Maybe not love that they have with their spouse if it’s unhealthy or the perception of “My parents didn’t love me.” Those aren’t really love. Those are completely different things.

I hate it when we have to use that word incorrectly. But when you imagine that true form of love, it’s almost like a sense of peace. It’s like an expansion of energy versus a constriction. When you imagine being in that space, what happens to the body? What happens to the cortisol levels? What happens to the brain? It gets out of primal mode.

And so we literally can find better solutions. We tap into a different part of ourselves through maintaining that state or that frequency of what I call unconditional love because there are many different forms of love that are a little bit not so much love. But if you think about what that actually does to the human, to their mind, to the state in which we are in, of course, it’s the solution because we can find so much information and tools in that mental state and in that heart space that it gets us in that, of course, it’s the answer.

[01:13:44] Ashley James: What can we do every day to raise our vibrational state physically, mentally, and emotionally? What could we do every day so that we’re bringing ourselves closer to that frequency of love?

[01:13:57] Mandy Morris: I would say that the first thing is to understand how to tap into your intuition because just like programming — how programming is created in so many weird, crazy ways and it’s different for everyone, so is the intuitive dance in getting back to our sense of self. Even like the oneness that we carry with the collective universe if you will. When you can start tapping into your intuition, then you can tap into naturally that love-based vibrational state, but also even higher states than that. Enlightenment is actually, from a frequency standpoint, higher than a love vibration. They’re very close, but it is a different form of vibration.

Love is like a gold color, and enlightenment is like a silver, platinum color if you will. They hold different vibratory levels. But when you are following your intuition, when you can listen to the inner voice, and the best way to begin that process again is asking yourself questions, very simplistic ones, seeing how you feel — Do I feel like I should be going for a walk right now? Do I feel like I need to speak my truth to my partner right now? What needs to happen? How does that need to look? When you exercise that intuitive muscle, it gets so strong, and that intuitive state is your authentic self if you will. It’s that naturally love-based state, and so much more so you can tap into it on call, just sitting there tuning in.

It doesn’t have to be a meditation. I’m not great with meditating myself, but being able to say, “How do I feel right now? What does my intuition say I should do right now?” “How do I feel and what do I need to do?” — asking your intuition to get to that state of love because it might be different every day. Every day I wake up, maybe I’ll have a loop in my head, and I feel off because I’m thinking about something that I dreamt about, or I went to bed carrying the weight of. I might say, “I should go take a cold shower. That’s what I should always do every morning.” It might not get me into that state, and so instead, I have to sit for a second and say, “I’m trying to get here. I want to go to the love vibration. I want to feel good. What do I need to do?”

My intuition might say, “Go have a cup of tea, or do 20 squats, or take a cold shower,” and then I have to use my intuition to figure out which one do I need to lean into, so that one, I feel like I’m honoring myself, and two, I’m finding solutions that actually work. I’ve talked to so many people who are like, “I do affirmations every morning,” and then they’ll go through one of my programs and they’re like, “I don’t do affirmations at all anymore because I realized that I was just doing it cause I thought it was supposed to do it, and it doesn’t even do anything for me.” I’m like, “Awesome! Glad that your intuition came out and said, ‘Hey, you’re using that improperly,’ versus ‘I was just blindly following what the guru said to do.’”

[01:16:52] Ashley James: Affirmations was described to me once like putting icing on a mud pie. You’re just trying to tell your mind how it is instead of listening to your unconscious.

[01:16:52] Mandy Morris: Yeah, and if you tell your brain something that it perceives is a lie, you take five steps even further from that truth.

[01:17:09] Ashley James: Do you think affirmations are ever a positive thing to use as a tool or is it best to focus on asking questions and look into intuition?

[01:17:22] Mandy Morris: I think affirmations are awesome. I think it’s really hard for someone to write an affirmation for you unless they are literally embodying the energy. Just like when you learn from someone — they better be not just speaking of what you’re trying to obtain, but they better be embodying it. You can feel the difference.

You can feel when you’re talking to someone, and you’re like, “Man, they’re saying all the right things, but something’s missing.” And then you hear the same thing from someone else, and you’re like, “I freaking get it.” It’s because they’re embodying in which they speak.

It’s the same thing with affirmations. If I sit there every morning when I wake up and say, “I’m amazing. I’m this. I’m that.” Great. Do I really feel it? Am I bringing in the true frequency of it, or am I sending out the energy of “I am so not good enough. I’m not worthy.” My subconscious is feeding the energy outwards, but I’m verbally saying that when I’m creating a whole another mess.

That’s something that we talk about a lot with manifestation. We’re all manifesting all the time. People always say, “What are we going to manifest? Can you teach me how to manifest?” And I’m like, you are like everything. You already did it, but obviously, you don’t like it.

So what we need to figure out is what you’re unconsciously manifesting. What is your subconscious sending outward? What’s happening in the gray matter of your brain that you’re telling yourself you’re not worthy of all these things, that you’re sabotaging all the stuff you say you consciously want. That’s where the juice is. That’s where we want to find all the information. Your conscious mind processes like 0.0  1% of data or something like that and your subconscious processes so much more. So that’s where you’re getting all of your responses, your perceptions, all that crap. So you got to do all the work on the subconscious, not on the conscious affirmations. Which is why I’m like, I like affirmations, but if you’re not doing the actual work on figuring out why life is showing up as it is, and what you’re manifesting currently and why, there’s no information that’s going to save you.

[01:19:19] Ashley James: I hadn’t had a great experience with affirmations because of what you just described. And then I went through this neat little personal growth program. At that time, I found it very difficult to get to the gym. There was just a lot of resistance, a lot of unconscious resistance. It was very uncomfortable. The entire process from putting on my shoes to driving there, everything did not feel right. What I realized is that I’m right there back in junior high and everyone’s judging me. In my mind, it’s unsafe. I’m vulnerable. Everyone’s judging me. Everyone’s like, “Look at the fat girl. What the heck? She doesn’t belong here. Look, she just tripped.”

So it was very unsafe in grade seven.  Everyone’s hitting puberty, and it was a very unsafe place for me and for a lot of the girls to be. It was ridiculous because all the boys were picking on us. I decided it’s unsafe, you’re being judged, and of course, as we know, feeling socially judged in our mind is as dangerous as someone holding a spear and running at you. We perceive it as a physical threat to our survival probably because we had to live in a tribe to survive for thousands of years.

So I equated unconsciously going to the gym with like someone running at me with a spear. Of course, I was pushing. I was like Sisyphus pushing the boulder uphill consciously trying to fight — “Here I am.” Just like you said, the conscious mind is like 1-2%; the unconscious mind is the rest. It was consciously trying to push myself, but every day my unconscious mind is going, “No, it’s so unsafe.”

And then it was like, “How do I shift this conversation?” Here I am, I’m now in my 30s, I know that no one’s running at me with a spear, and even if every single person at the gym did judge me, no physical threat would happen. I was breaking it apart, dismantling this, and understanding it. And the next thing was, “Let’s just assume everyone is not judging you because everyone is actually afraid of each other anyway, and we’re all just like running around, worried about what each other thinks about each other.”

If that was the case, because we’re all just a bunch 13-year-olds really, unconsciously afraid of what everyone else thinks of us, so everyone in the gym is actually looking at you, worried about what you think of them, then what are you there to do and how can you shift it, so it’s a positive experience? I came up with this affirmation, and it hit me. I started crying because my life’s mission — I really got it at that moment — is to inspire people.

The conversation changes from, “Look at that fat girl. What is she doing here?” to “Wow, look at her. She got to the gym, and she’s doing it. Look, she’s even sweating. That’s so awesome. Now I’m going to push myself harder because I see how much she’s giving it.”

And so that was my mantra. As you said, if it’s an affirmation someone else made for you, that doesn’t help. But if you do some healing work and then create an affirmation to keep you present to your shift — and so as I’m putting my running shoes, I like to say, “I’m going there to inspire people. I’m obviously helping my body, but I’m going there to inspire people.”

Getting in the car, the resistance would still be there a little bit — a  little uneasy. Again, I’d have to tell my unconscious mind, “No, I’m going there to inspire people. There’s no one coming at me with their judgment. I’m there to inspire.” Sure enough, I’d look around the room, and obviously, there’s no one, judging me. Everyone is just head down trying to do their own thing and not worried about what everyone else thinks. I held my head higher after that. I felt more in touch with my purpose. I’m here to inspire people, and of course, help my body too.

So that mantra — repeating that affirmation became part of the healing, but I had to do the work first. I think that’s what you’re saying — do the work and then use your mantra as a way to keep yourself present to the self-love and your mission.

[01:23:57] Mandy Morris: Yeah. It has got to resonate with you. You have to use the energy in which you are striving to wrap around, just like words hold frequency. If I say the word  ‘infidelity’ or ‘cheating,’ there are certain things that some people are going to attach it to. There’s already an energy attached to it because each word holds a vibratory frequency, and so does affirmation.

We’ve got to make sure that they’re attached to the right energy. They are in resonance with what we’re talking about. I have to say this too, that sometimes we have negative affirmations that we’re unaware of to get to things. So we’ve got to address that. When you’re talking about the gym, it resonated so much with me.

In my early twenties, I would get cystic acne, like honking things, and they would hurt so bad. They were very stress-induced, and it would just perpetuate my “I hate myself-ness.” That was the time where I was like, I’d go to the gym and brutalize myself at work out as hard as I possibly could, and I was eating a certain way and all that. When my husband and I moved to Laguna Beach, I stopped doing those really hard workouts. We decided we’re going to get a personal trainer — “We’re in California. We’re going to be in shape,” right before I get pregnant. And so, uh, I had a short bit while we first moved here and, I was doing some training, and my body would hurt so bad after the workout, so it just felt different.

Maybe because it’s I’m older now or whatever, I was in the middle of a squat — a very hard squat, mind you — and as I pushed myself up, I heard my inner voice say, “I hate you.” I stopped and I put my weights down, and I said, “I’m leaving.” I actually had to leave. I stopped working out, and I sat there for about two hours that day, just trying to shake it off. For some reason, I didn’t fully go and dive into it.

The next day I had two cysts on my face, and I hadn’t had them in years. I was like, “Did I release the same neurohormones or whatever chemicals that create the cystic acne?” I released it just from me going back into that old state where I was in when I could barely push through the last of a workout. I would use that “I hate myself energy to push through to make myself ”good enough.”

[01:26:24]  Ashley James: Wow.

[01:26:26] Mandy Morris: Isn’t that crazy? So I was like, “I’m done working out. We’ll do yoga.” I’m not pushing myself like this anymore.

[01:26:37] Ashley James: Wow. It’s awesome. There you go again with “We are always manifesting.” But we have to clean up that windshield. We got to clean up the unconscious filters, the unconscious programs because that’s where we’re manifesting from.

[01:26:53] Mandy Morris: Right, always. It’s always showing up for us. If we can figure out the conversation we’re having with our environment and our mind, we are unstoppable.

[01:27:05] Ashley James: That’s why I said at the beginning we all have a superpower, and Mandy is going to teach us how to tap into it.

[01:27:12] Mandy Morris: Literally, it is in knowing yourself. It was Socrates, I think, — know thyself. If you can truly start understanding your thoughts, be willing to hear them and why they occur, you have like the power of the universe in your hands because that’s how you create your holographic reality regardless.

If you can understand how you perceive the world and what’s going on, kind of that part of assuming responsibility and not being a victim, and realizing that you don’t have to be in control, but you can be in charge, and those are two very different things. I’m not in control of every component of my life, but I am in charge of my reality and everything else. The chips fall perfectly every time, far more than I could ever control them. Understanding what triggers me, what upsets me, what causes me to shut down or tell myself that I don’t like myself — if I can start understanding those pieces, then I can start stopping them in their tracks, which means that my brain’s wiring is going to start to shift. Certain neurological pathways are going to start pruning, and new ones are going to start growing. Wouldn’t it be funny if the new ones that start growing are, “I’m amazing. I believe in myself. I deserve to be a multimillionaire. I deserve to find my soul partner. I deserve love.”  Guess what always shows up? Exactly what we expect.

We’re changing our expectation by understanding what our current expectation is. Through that, our purpose work, whatever sets your soul on fire — you call it a superpower and so much love — all of that births itself naturally. It’s a part of your authenticity. It’s a part of your truth. You don’t have to search for it. It’s just going to unfold.

[01:29:02] Ashley James: What homework can you give us so that we can allow our authenticity and our authentic self to begin to unfold in the coming days. ?

[01:29:13] Mandy Morris: This is something that probably a lot of people have done, but I want to take a twist on it. First that belief inventory. Maybe start with the areas of life that suck. Let’s say money. Everybody cares about money, right? So you could do money; you can do relationships and career. Just write down — not your beliefs because sometimes we think we have beliefs, but we don’t. Like for myself, if you ask me consciously years ago, “What are your beliefs of love?” I’d be like, “Love is so beautiful, and love is great.” But you’d look at my relationships, and it would show love doesn’t last. Love is completely unsafe. Love is unhealthy, and love is self-sacrificial.

And so we have to look at our environment. When you have those areas, write down how your environment looks in those areas, and then that will establish your true beliefs. So then you’ll know, “If I’m in an unhealthy relationship, or I’m devalued at work or whatever the thing is, then the belief is probably this, that or the other.” Now what you’ll see is that there’s usually a theme.

If I took multiple areas, actually just before we jumped on, I was talking to a couple of therapists that I’m certifying right now. And when we were on the call, we know we were talking about this concept of what is actually going on here. The underlying theme for one of them was the “not good enough-ness.” In all areas, it could be as a mother; it could be as a therapist, and also the other side gigs that they had going on, there was this constant stream of “not good enough-ness.”

So once you see, “I do not like myself,” you ask this question — it’s like a five-year-old. You know how five-year-olds are like, “Why, why, why?” You ask yourself why until you get to the root.

You can say: My job sucks.

Okay, why?    Because people don’t value me.

Why? Because I don’t value myself.

Why? Because I’m overweight.

Okay, why? Because of something that happened in seventh grade.

What was the belief it was created from that? Why?

Well, my mom didn’t love me.

Why do you think your mom didn’t love you?

Because I’m unlovable.

Okay. Now we’ve reached a pretty big root, and kind of what you were saying when you cried because you had the aha moment, it’s amazing what happens when the brain realizes it’s hit on something.

You’ll know when you’re like, “I don’t know. Is that it? It’s not it.” But there’s this incredible aha moment that happens every time someone starts hitting a root. What you’re looking for are the roots. What are the roots of your belief? Sometimes you might reach an event that you remember, but what you’re looking for is the underlying belief. You might say love isn’t safe, but there’s something deeper than that, and it always has to do with the self.

So when you write down that belief inventory, your actions, and then you find kind of that core belief — there might be a theme. It might be the not good enough-ness runs through in all areas. Now you’ve got to look for lies, basically broken parts of the reality, so that’s two-fold. One is to look at all of the rewards you receive for holding onto that belief.

So if I go back to that “I hate myself” energy in the gym, my reward was that I would look a certain way because I would make sure that I kept working out because I thought that if I worked out hard enough, eventually I’d love myself. And then I also got to keep — I thought at least — the guy that I was dating around because maybe he liked the way that my body looked. That was the only thing I had to offer. That’s a perceived reward. It’s obviously not a healthy reward that I should hold on to, but it’s a reward that’s keeping me from changing.

But once you pour awareness into it, it’s not so rewarding anymore. You’re like, “Oh, crap, it’s not even getting me where I want to go.” Once the brain knows the path I am using will never get me there, it doesn’t want to keep doing the same thing. So then you get to start breaking down that wall and build through to the new reality.

If I want to be a millionaire, or if I want to be with my soulmate, what does that version of me do in these situations? How do they perceive life? What actions do they take on a daily basis and how can I kind of push that back into me so that I can create that reality too?

[01:33:51] Ashley James: Brilliant. It’s beautiful.

[01:33:54] Mandy Morris: Thank you.

[01:33:55] Ashley James: I like that you’re coming at it from both ends, digging into the now and getting to the root, but then also doing the future pacing, looking at you after you have manifested what you want and what are you doing, what are you thinking to yourself, what are you feeling, and seeing.

The one that you haven’t mentioned is what about someone who wants better health? Let’s say running a marathon — it would be, “I’m a marathon runner.”

I don’t think I’ve ever run five miles, so I like to say that I’m a marathon runner.

[01:34:38] Mandy Morris: The brain would be like, “That’s not true.”

[01:34:40] Ashley James: Right. Me in the future as a marathon motor, what am I doing every day? I’m getting up early. I’m drinking a smoothie. I’m going for a jog.  Oh, wow, those are activities I can start to do now. What am I thinking to myself? What are my beliefs about myself?

[01:34:56] Mandy Morris: It’s calling upon our future self basically. When I do sit through my very short meditations, I’ll ring up versions of me. I’ve rung up my billionaire self, and I’m like, “I need some business advice,” or I’ll ring up the version of me that has figured out the problem with my husband or with my kiddo, and I’m like, “What’s going on here?” And really what I’m doing is I’m just opening up another part of my brain that I might be in a primal state or a triggered persona and it can only see through one lens while I’m shifting my perspectives.

When you can shift some of your perspectives, but the information still comes from within, then you’re tapping into that part of yourself that already has the answer, that knows the whole process in which your crazy brain is going to want you to go, and then it allows for it to flow. It seems intuitive, but you’re just meeting all of the brain’s rules that it has to achieve the thing.

[01:35:49] Ashley James: You reminded me that we have 10-11 possible neurological connections. That is more potential than every grain of sand on every beach in the world. That’s more potential than every known planet and star in the universe. When you get how many potential neurological connections are in our brain, and our whole body’s neurology has, you see that we have this machine inside of us for manifesting and tapping.

I love this idea of tapping in by ringing up your billionaire herself, your marathon runner self, the self that has resolved conflict with your husband, ringing up that person, and talking to that part of you that has resolved it already is tapping into this dormant part of you, your superpowers, waiting for you to use them.

[01:36:57] Mandy Morris: Yes, we already have the answers.

[01:37:00] Ashley James: That brings up the idea that there’s that level of intuition that people connect with guides and angels, they’re tapping into sometimes more than themselves by asking these questions and being open to the answers.

[01:37:16] Mandy Morris: Absolutely. You can look at it any way you want. You can say that it’s your guide. You can say that it’s your angel. You can say it’s god. You can say that it’s just your brain opening up certain parts and giving you the information. If you ask yourself a question, you are going to always get the answer. It’s just a matter of what filters or what lenses do you have on. Are you even willing to see the answer that’s right in front of you?

[01:37:39] Ashley James: It’s beautiful, Mandy. Now, your book “Love: It’s How I Manifest” — who should read that book? Is that book for therapists or is that book for lay people? Is that book for everyone? Who should read it and, and what do we get out of reading your book?

[01:37:55] Mandy Morris: If you had asked me when I first wrote it if it was for therapists, I would say no. But I’ve had a ton of therapists say that they love it because my section of methodology is the missing component in therapy is what I hear. That’s the feedback that I receive, and I’m very humbled and honored by that. But I would say that it’s the starting guide for someone who wants to start digging in on a kind of a high level, in my opinion, into 30 different concepts. It’s kind of a month-long journey. I broke it up to where you can read a chapter a day, and you’ll take a little bit of homework from it if you will. There is a little prayer to the universe for those who love those affirmations.

I sat every time I wrote the book, and I wouldn’t even let the editor touch it. I was driving them insane. I actually chose to self-publish for that reason because I was like, “I wrote the book in three months. I’m inspired one day, and my mind said, “You will only write when you’re inspired, and you will pour so much love into every word, and it can’t be changed.” And so I honored that. At the end of those three months, I was like, “I’m sorry to every poor editor who has to look through my grammatical incorrectness here, but it’s got to stay this way and stay intact because there’s something to it.”

I don’t know that everybody has read the book, but the feedback that we get is that they can feel the energy because I tried to stamp it into each word. It’s like a high-level guide of a 30-day journey of diving into yourself, understanding yourself, and figuring out all the concepts that we talked about — love versus fear, living consciously, assuming responsibility, how to know yourself, and how to find that version of you that is that piece. That’s my ultimate goal — that people can be brought back to that piece, that love, that oneness, and to remember their incredible power to create.

That was the whole reason I wrote the book because as soon as it was done, I was like, “I did it. What’s up next universe? Do I need to do anything else?“ I forgot about the book for a while until it was released to the public. It’s a beautiful book filled with love, but I would say that it is an incredible starting point to a journey.

[01:40:18] Ashley James: Brilliant. Well, I’m excited to have the link to your book in the show notes of the podcast so all the listeners can check it out. Are you going to do an audio version of your book?

[01:40:29] Mandy Morris: I keep saying that I will. I think my support told me there’s like ten emails just from today asking if they can get an audio version, so I will be doing it. I feel like it should be from me. I’m hoping that in the next maybe 90 days, we’ll have one out. But right now it’s just Kindle and hardback.

[01:40:50] Ashley James: Nice. I’m looking forward to that. It’s so great when the author herself reads her book. I love audio books as much as I love reading, but I love it when the author goes off script because they get inspired. So they’re reading their book, but then they’re like — you might feel like doing that, going a little bit off script. There are a few great authors like Janine Roth. When I listened to her audiobooks, I’m like, “She can’t be reading. This feels so real.” Her message is pouring through, and you’re like, “This can’t be a book.” I feel like she’s just sitting here talking to me, like talking to myself as an individual. It lands so powerfully. There’s something very–

[01:41:32] Mandy Morris: That will be me.

[01:41:33] Ashley James: I know it will be you, Mandy. I know it. I just know. I feel like you’re just sitting there right there with me listening to your audiobook. But until then, we’ll get your physical book or the Kindle version.

Like you, I was surprised at how many therapists enjoy your book. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many holistic health professionals are listeners of the show. Because these are people who I sometimes put on a pedestal and honor and love learning from, and then it turned around, I get fan mail from them. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, naturopaths listen to my show, and acupuncturists, nurses, and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, health coaches — so many wonderful holistic health professionals.”

Thinking about going through your program, tell us a bit about the mechanics of going through your program as a health coach or a doctor who wants to implement your tools. How long is your program? How much does it cost? What format is it? Is it just audio, or is it video calls or reading case studies? Can you unpack it a bit, so we understand a bit more about your online program?

[01:42:59] Mandy Morris: Absolutely. We have many digital programs, but if someone’s looking to get certified in some of my methodologies, it’s a four-month program. That’s as of right now. We have now three graduating classes. I finally created this program, and like all programs I create, I want a lot of feedback, and I want to make it so juicy that it’s unstoppable.

We’ve actually done three classes, and now we have three graduating classes and amazing outcomes even from the very first class. But I like to leave it open to say, “Hey, guys. I might add a lot of bonus content,” and anyone who’s gone through the program prior, they get access to all that too because I want the best versions of themselves out there.

As of right now, it’s a four-month program. The first two months are actually on them working on themselves. I don’t go into methodologies — not directly at least because my idea is, if we want to get people out of the chair as soon as possible, if I can sit there in three hours and get someone’s heart disease to reverse, then we’ve got to be able to create change within 30 days and so forth, which is not the typical model. Sometimes it’s totally appropriate to work with someone for six months or ninety days, or whatever that looks like. But I want them to at least have the tools that they can do that. A part of that is that if you are consistently growing and working on yourself, you will constantly acquire tools without having to pay to learn them from someone else.

So I kind of worked myself out of a job, if you will, because the world needs to be healed. That’s my first and foremost goal. That program is for the first half of it is them just hammering in on themselves with an accountability partner. And then we jump into methodologies, practice calls. I or one of my Academy-based coaches who’ve been through years of training with me, they will be on a call, and we provide feedback there. They learn a lot of the methodologies that are love-based, and we go into some personality styles.

We don’t touch on any mental disorders and so forth because again, I’m not a certified therapist or psychiatrist. I decided not to go that route, so we don’t touch on crazy red tape. But every therapist that has gone through the program and really just any practitioner in general — we do have a lot of Reiki healers and just different versions of holistic health as well that goes through the program — and all of them say it either totally enhanced something that they’ve learned, or it was what was missing all along.

But it’s delivered in an online format, so it’s digital. We’ve got folks from all over the world — really cool. But different times zones if they’re in Australia, the UK, or Thailand, we can all pop on live. And then we do Q&A and try to work that around schedules so that some people can jump on live, but they’re recorded regardless, and then they get access to. I would say it’s probably maybe two to three hours a week of training. When they hit their practice hours, it obviously amps up quite a bit.

[01:46:09] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now you have other programs as well. Can you touch on that? Do you have programs for people who want their personal healing?

[01:46:19] Mandy Morris: Yes. So there’s a program called authentic creation. It’s like my baby program. I built it years ago, and it’s such a wonderful –I don’t know. I rant and rave about it cause I love the concept. It’s for thirty days. It’s short, like five to ten-minute videos every day and then a PDF and homework. It’s really digestible, which is for me, my attention span — I tailored it for someone like myself where I’m not going to sit for five hours and do a class. Everything digital kind of follows that modality for the most part, and then we have a mastery program and that is instead of the thirty-day program, it’s a, uh, two-month program, and we extend it two extra weeks usually, so we do about ten weeks. That is a deep, deep, deep dive into rewiring our beliefs. It’s hard work. It’s a lot heavier work I would say. But it’s incredible.

And then I just released a Health for Higher Consciousness program, how can you impact your consciousness level through health. It’s not a diet program or a fitness program, but it’s truly impacting our cellular vitality and some of the stuff that I learned in the clinic back in the day.

And then we’re about to release a parenting program. I partnered with an amazing doctor, and she’s very much into the neuroscience, behind the child’s brain, and has the whole brain methodology. And so her and I partnered together to create a parenting program because my folks kept asking for it, and I was like, “I don’t think I’m the best parent for this, but let me bring in someone who is. She’s an expert.”

[01:47:58] Ashley James: That’s awesome. That’s so cool. I love when you were talking earlier about the mirror neurons. It reminded me of my son. My husband, who’s normally a very cool headed person, like any human, will become overwhelmed from our four-year-old. We have a wonderful four-year-old boy who is just bubbly and just the light of our lives. He will also be a wonderful boundary pusher because he’s assertive, and he’s a great negotiator. We just applaud him.

He’s definitely an Aries. He’s just out there, and he’s going to be a leader and take charge of the world. But at every turn, he will do his best to get his way, which is perfect for an assertive person. We have to learn how to navigate that without totally squashing him. Our stuff comes up, and my husband will be caught in his frustration, and that’ll be out there.

A typical example, my husband will drive home with our son, and he’ll be on the phone with me, and he’s like, “Okay, we’re in meltdown mode. You know, I don’t know what to do with the kid.” The kid in the back seat is just like freaking out, throwing his shoes, yelling, and my husband is at the same level.  You could hear it. Our son and my husband — both the frequency happening. Just a few years difference between the two of them.

I’m on the speakerphone, I start talking to him, and when you said that about mirror neurons, I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s what I do with him. I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m the calm, loving energy.’ It doesn’t matter whether he threw a stick or hit a kid or whatever, part of me wants to discipline him. The mom in me that thinks, “He did something wrong. We need to immediately correct it,” that voice has its place over here, but that’s not where I’m coming from right now. I’m coming from just love and getting him calmed down and talked to him. And within a minute, he stops crying. He stops throwing his shoes, that kind of thing. And my husband’s like, “How do you do that? I don’t understand.” I keep saying, “We have to stop reacting, and we have to act how we want him to act.” We can’t just tell him; you can’t tell someone calm down. It’s like shaking them, “Calm down. Calm down.” We’re not calm. Why do we think they’re going to be calm?

And so it’s just so funny that it works to help to bring them down and make them feel safe. And that works with adults too. It works with children. But I love that you’re partnering with a parenting expert because, of course, you can bring all your tools of bringing love to the situation and teaching the mirror neurons and helping us to catch ourselves when our stuff is coming up from our past. And cause I can see it in my husband’s. It’s easy to see it in others. I’ve got some of my blinders. It’s so easy for me to see like, “Oh yeah, I can see that how you’re treating our son right now is totally from your childhood when you were 12, and your dad did this.” I can just see it.

But of course he can’t write, but I’m sure he can see my stuff, and I can catch myself sounding just like my parents. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m bringing conflict that I hadn’t resolved from when I was six with my parents, and I’m bringing that to the current situation with our son.”

Your lessons to help us to catch it — to pause, to stop reacting and to be able to process, so that we are being authentic in the now with our children rather than projecting our past unresolved material onto them or our negative belief systems about the world onto them, and when they’re reactive, they’re coming from the energy that we’re holding at the moment. Kids don’t do what we say; they do what we do.

[01:52:14] Mandy Morris: We got to look at that. When we’re in a heightened state of anxiety, we’re in fight/flight, freeze/faint, and children go into that primal state even faster because they lack the tools to be like, “Is this a normal feeling or not?” And so if we are in a state of stress or even worse — and this one is, it’s no guilt or shame to any parents.” We’ve got to get out of the whole mom and dad guilt thing. No one can perfectly not program their child in some way. That’s not what happens. That’s okay. But when we get ourselves into that state of, “I’m calm with him right now,” but you’re raging on the inside, again they can feel it. And so then what are we teaching them? Yeah, we might not blow up on them — that’s great.

But there’s another step we can take to that, which is we have to resolve what’s going on internally within ourselves so that we don’t project the next belief on the child, which is they try to get the love and connection in an unhealthy way. They can feel something’s wrong, but they don’t trust their feelings because mom says she’s fine, but I don’t feel like she’s fine. I must be wrong in the way I feel. We create a crazy program in our children without realizing it in our attempt to love and serve them. It’s okay to be like, “I’m really frustrated buddy, and I’m going to take a minute. I need a brain break,” or “This is what I’ve got to do right now to take care of me, and that’s it.”  Just being honest and authentic in front of our children is far more important. It holds us to a higher standard than just pretending that it’s going to be okay.

[01:53:44] Ashley  James: That’s beautiful because you’re teaching them emotional intelligence.

[01:53:48] Mandy Morris: Yes. Versus shutting them off and not trusting how they feel. Where does that go in life, right?

[01:53:55] Ashley James: Now, the program you talked about right before we talked about the parenting one, that piqued my interest greatly. Can you tell us a bit about that one — the one about healing physically?

[01:54:05] Mandy  Morris: Yes, Health for Higher Consciousness. This was a program that folks have been asking me for a long time. One, because of course my personal journey into finding true health, but also the work that I did clinically, I understand the physical body at such a deep level and the cool scientists and doctors that I got to bump brains with. And so I created a 21-day program, and this was just released. So again, I’m going to be adding to it and making it much fuller as time goes on. But I released it to just a few folks, and somehow it spread, and so many people bought it. I’m like, “Wait, I wanted feedback first.”

They’re currently going through the round of it, and we’ve had amazing feedback for it. It’s this 21-day journey. It could very well in the next few months turn into a thirty-day or something different. Again, we want to tailor it to how do we create change. But as of right now it’s twenty-one different lessons on different factors — kind of hidden factors a lot of times to obtaining true health that also elevates our emotional, mental, psychological states.

And you know, I say elevating our consciousness, all of those factors that we don’t think about, we think it’s as simple as exercising and eating right. If you’re just on looking physically a certain way, and perhaps that’s the case, but there’s so much more that comes into play in our health and just like bodily self-love, and things that we don’t think about or that we don’t practice as often as we should. And so it’s kind of a deep dive into crazy different factors spread out into different realms that sometimes people are like, “I didn’t even think that this would be in a health program.”  But it’s in there because it does play a huge vital role in our brain health or just our consciousness.

[01:55:54] Ashley James: Brilliant. I’m interested in learning more from you. I love all the work you’re doing. I so believe in that. I so believe in the power of the mind to heal and the power of the mind to create disease.

[01:56:10] Mandy Morris: Thank you so much.

[01:56:11] Ashley James: Absolutely. You’ve been helping people for years and helping people to heal their body, heal their mind. He’ll heal their emotions, get to a place of manifesting what they want and then stop manifesting what they don’t want. So that’s just wonderful. Um, your superpowers, love, and now you’ve taught us how to start to use our newly found superpower. Thank you so much, Mandy Morris. Your website is mandymorris.love and listeners can go there, check out all the wonderful programs, and of course, we’ll make sure that the links to everything that Mandy does are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com.

Mandy, is there anything you’d like to say to the listeners tapping into your superpower? Is there anything that you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?

[01:56:56] Mandy Morris: I would and going off the cuff here, but whenever someone looks at their superpower or the thing that they want to create in the world or the perception of what they are, it’s always so much grander and so much bigger than the human mind can ever conceive. And that’s why living in that heart space, and that genuine authenticity, that authentic livelihood that we all have within ourselves when you tap into that, and I hope that everyone who’s listening never, ever gives up on the journey to continuing to discover those parts of yourself. It’s a constant growth and evolution. It’s not a final destination. If you’ve reached your final destination, you’re probably six feet under, so grant yourself the beauty of the journey, of the growth. Know that you’re getting 1% better or more educated or just discovering more of yourself every day, and it’s a beautiful, beautiful and incredibly rewarding thing to do, and I am rooting for you 100% of the way you deserve a beautiful life, and anything else that you experienced is suspect.

[01:58:03] Ashley James: Awesome. Mandy, thank you so much for coming on the show, and you are welcome to come back anytime you’d like a platform and an audience to convey your lessons. We’d love to have you again and continue learning from you.

[01:58:17] Mandy Morris: Thank you so much. You’re so amazing. I had so much fun. I appreciate it.

[01:58:20] Ashley James: Are you going to optimize your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

Get Connected With Mandy Morris!

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Love: It’s How I Manifest

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Million Pound Mission University: LearnTrueHealth.com/university

https://www.learntruehealth.com/university

Million Pound Mission University

https://www.learntruehealth.com/million-pound-mission-university

Adam Schaeuble, PHD (Previously Heavy Dude) is back with a very exciting project. Once again, Adam unleashes his superpower to create a community. He brings together experts online to educate us on the “right tool for the right job at the right time” in our quest for weight loss and true health. Tune in and find out more about Million Pound Mission University.

[00:00:14] Ashley James: I am so excited for today’s interview. We have back on the show, Adam Schaeuble. He earned his Ph.D. as a previously heavy dude. He originally was here with us in Episode 212, and it was so amazing to hear his story of personal transformation and of helping his entire town lose thousands of pounds and then go on his mission to help people all around the world lose a million pounds.

Man, Adam, you have such great traction going on. How’s it going?

[00:00:50] Adam Schaeuble: Ashley, first off, thank you so much for inviting me back. I have to tell you something really cool. A year and a half ago was when we did that first interview — I believe it’s September or October — that was the first big-audience interview. You’re the first person that said, “Yes, Adam, I want to share my platform with you and help you get your message out there.” It’s just been like rocket ship momentum ever since you said yes. So my friend, first off, thank you so much for helping propel this growth that I’m seeing.

[00:01:21] Ashley James: Absolutely. I love your mission. I believe in it. I’m definitely one of your fans. I love how you take a holistic approach to create a healthy body we want and help people to implement. Really, it’s all about whether rubber hits the road with you.

I definitely recommend listeners go back and check out Episode 212 where we dove into Adam’s story. But to reiterate, how many pounds did you help people lose in your town?

[00:01:57] Adam Schaeuble: I went on a journey where I went from 327 pounds down to sub 220s, so I lost over 100 pounds. People are starting to ask me to help them, and I found the boot camp in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, and we did thirty-five thousand pounds in five years and just rocked it. It’s awesome.

[00:02:15] Ashley James: There are great before-and-after pictures. But it’s more than just weight loss. You helped people to transform their lives mentally, emotionally, spiritually. This so resonates with our listeners because this podcast is about helping us to transform our whole lives so that we have physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, or energetic. We have better relationships.

If you’re trapped in a body that is unhealthy, and if you feel stuck in life with some excess weight, then the weight necessarily isn’t the root cause, but we have to get to the root cause by helping us to make these great lifestyle changes. I know that you love to focus on that.

One thing I’ve been impressed by is that you are an expert obviously in helping people to gain healthy weight. You’re a great personal trainer, motivational coach, and health coach, and you also love to bring in experts that help people in different areas.

You’re bringing in all these experts, much like this show. You’ve put together a program that I’m really impressed by, and I was so honored that you invited me to come to speak at your program. Can you tell us about the Million Pound Mission University?

[00:03:35] Adam Schaeuble: Yeah. Ashley, one of the concepts I’m working hard on is I talk to people every day, just like you do — people that are in the trenches trying to change their life. There is a lot of confusion going on around all the experts like us who go on podcasts and have podcasts.

I actually did a whole podcast about this I called “Overcoming Fitness Podcast Overwhelm.” This is a real condition. It’s going to be like texting thumb and stuff like that. This is going to be a condition moving forward in our society, where people have a goal.

Maybe they’re like, “I want to lose fifty pounds because that’s going to help me reclaim control of my health.” But they listen to one podcast on Monday. It’s more like a paleo-based podcast, and they start paleo on Monday. But then they hear the Weight Watchers podcast on Wednesday, and they switched to Weight Watchers, and then intermittent fasting on Friday, and they’re bouncing around full of confusion.

What adds to it is that a lot of these experts are arguing with each other back and forth over whose program is the best, “My program is better, and that program, if you do that thing, then you’re going to die of a heart attack for sure.” And so we’re bickering amongst each other as a lot of these experts. Right now, keto versus vegan is a big deal. People are really getting nasty about it.

It’s like we’re missing the point of the people that we’re trying to help. It’s not keto versus vegan. It’s keto, vegan, paleo, Weight Watchers, CrossFit, yoga, and whatever against being unhealthy. That’s the battle.

I know you’re of the same mindset. I am more of a, “Let’s find the right program of the right fit for this season of your transformation,” because I’m not Team Keto guy. I use the ketogenic diet when it makes sense to me, but I can also go vegan. I can also do a clean eating plan. I can do intermittent fasting. It’s the right tool for the right job at the right time, and that’s what I’m trying to promote with this educational event I put together called Million Pound Mission University.

We’re bringing in experts from all the different walks of the transformation game. We’ve got paleo experts. We’ve got Weight Watchers experts. We have anti-anxiety experts, neurolinguistic programming experts. We work on the mind. We work on the transformation protocol. We work on the different nutritional and physical options.

I just feel like I want to create a space where we can bring all these different experts to be experts and not competing against each other. It’s all towards that common good of let’s give people the tools that they can select from when it makes sense and then implement to reclaim control over their health, and that’s what it’s all about.

[00:06:24] Ashley James: I love it. Listeners can check out Adam’s Million Pound Mission University by going to learntruehealth.com/university. I’m going to make it easy for everyone to remember the URL. So learntruehealth.com/university, and of course, the links to everything that Adam does is going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com.

Since you launched the university which was about a week ago, you have had some amazing feedback. I know you just started basically. You just launched it. You have a dozen or more experts in your university so far. As you’ve been doing these interviews with these experts, what lessons have you learned? Can you walk us through and teach us some things that you were just really taken aback by and excited by?

[00:07:16] Adam Schaeuble: I get freaked out with every interview. I’m so passionate about learning just like you. That’s why we’re such good friends, Ashley. We’re both very passionate about learning and then teaching people what we learn.

Right now, I’ve got eighteen lessons loaded up, and we’re adding more every single month. But somebody Alexa Schirm from the Simple Roots Radio podcast, she did a presentation about the effect of environmental stress on our hormones, body fat gain, weight loss, how those things impact us, as simple as whether we eat standing up or sitting down, and how that can impact our fat gain or fat loss. I started telling everybody. I’m like “Do not stand up. You need to be sitting down. Do not drive while you eat.” All these things. Just picking the brains of experts like that is amazing

And then you did some great work. I already have some great compliments on your topic when you talked about how to use NLP — neurolinguistic programming, which is a phrase that I love to say and not screw up — and how to combat anxiety with that. People are already taking this for a week, and I’ getting feedback on, “Dang, Adam, this really is working. This is making a difference.” We really focus on implementation.

Ashley, when I brought you on, I said, “This isn’t a podcast interview. This isn’t us talking about your life story and background.” We’ve done that. This is you going for thirty to forty-five minutes on a topic and just teach, give homework, and challenge them to implement this. You totally delivered. You had some great downloads and all that stuff. But again, this isn’t like a video version of podcasts. This is a real teaching and learning experience of the people that signed up. That’s what the goal is, and that’s the goal that we’re achieving so far. Great feedback. Implementation has been great in its first week, and I can’t wait to see what happens a month or six months down the road.

[00:09:27] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now, to take you back to what you just mentioned that you were excited by — I have a naturopath who goes down a checklist. Every time you go to see her, she gives a checklist of things to make sure you’re doing the foundations of health. I’ve talked about some of her foundations of health before. One thing she always makes sure, especially women, young mothers, that you’re not doing the eating while standing. So many mothers will eat their dinner while standing over the sink because they fed one kid, they’re about to feed the other kids, the husband just got home, and they’re sitting there shoving food in their mouth. I’ve caught myself doing that as I’m putting the leftovers away, eating while doing that. You’re standing and eating because “I didn’t get to sit down and have dinner. I was busy cooking, cleaning, and feeding everyone else,” and thinking, “I’m probably eating less standing up.” That little voice in my mind goes, “This is probably healthier. I’m not sitting down to have a meal, so I’m probably eating less. This is probably better to stand and eat and graze as we run through the house.”

No, it isn’t. Can you tell us a bit about why driving while eating, standing while eating, or eating at our desk, or eating in front of a TV going to negatively impact our hormones and our weight gain?

[00:10:56] Adam Schaeuble: The way Alexa described it to me is that basically, we’re igniting one of our two nervous system responses — our parasympathetic or the sympathetic. It’s that fight or flight, or the rest and digest. We want to be in rest and digest when we are eating, that way we can digest the food properly. It makes sense, right?

These all start to click when she described it this way. I’m like, “This makes sense.” When we are driving a car, 90% of the time, we’re in fight or flight because that is how we travel. That’s our basic primal instinct. To get from Point A to Point B, we use that fight or flight response.

If we’re sitting there shoving even healthy food, the calories will be shuttled off more towards fat storage because when we’re in fight or flight mode, our body is like, “We’re going to need those calories later for survival.” Instead of a relaxed state, sitting down, she even recommended not watching TV. Listening to something is better. Reading something is better, or just sitting and relaxing.

What I’ve been doing, I try to get myself in as relaxed of a state as possible right before I eat. I’ve been doing these mini meditation sessions, even if it’s two or three minutes long, to bring my heart rate down, center myself, and really put myself in relaxation mode, and then I eat my meal. Sometimes I listen to a podcast like Learn True Health with Ashley James. It seems like it’s making a difference from a digestive perspective. I don’t feel bloated after I eat, which is crazy. Just sitting or standing, the difference that makes, it’s unbelievable. The science makes sense to me.

[00:12:45] Ashley James: That reminds me to come back to as we grew up. Maybe you grew up in your household praying at the dinner table. Maybe you went to a friend’s house, and their family prayed at the dinner table. I lived at Kripalu for a little bit, which, I believe, is one of the largest yoga residential centers in the United States, and it’s in Berkshire, Massachusetts. I highly recommend going. It’s a total trip.

It houses about two hundred people at a time, and it was an old Jesuit seminary in the Berkshire, so it’s really beautiful. They have this huge dining hall. It’s all vegan, organic, wonderful and super delicious food. I’d look around, and people would be sitting there in silent meditation with their food, they’d be praying with their food, and sometimes they even give their food Reiki. Their hands are not touching their food, but more like a healing touch. The hands were hovering over their food as they were meditating for a few minutes, praying, and just centering themselves. I look around, and it’s like, “Oh, my gosh. This is so cool.” People were taking this time to be with their food and center themselves before they began to eat.

I’ve seen these military movies where they’re like, “Eat your food now and taste it later. Come on, soldiers.” That’s me. I’m like, “Go, go, go,” and then it’s gone and your brain doesn’t even have a chance to catch up with you, so you still feel hungry. I heard once it takes 20 minutes for the brain to recognize that we’ve had enough food, and so if you shove food in your mouth really fast, then you could be overeating for 20 minutes basically before your brain goes, “Whoa! Give way. We’ve got enough calories now. We’re fine.”Coming back to what you said about the stress response, I believe that when we’re in the fight or flight mode, our body is creating more insulin to fuel the muscles so that we can run away from the bear. If we’re eating while in that mode, then insulin is the hormone that helps us to create fat. When insulin is present, we are more likely to store energy as fat.

That’s very interesting. We need to get into that state where we’re in rest and digest mode, where we’re in the parasympathetic nervous system response of being calm and centered, taking some deep breaths, sometimes even chewing the food, putting the fork down, and pausing. That’s almost a ritual of self-love — to take that 30 minutes to eat our food for ourselves, listening to some music and being calm. It’s an activity that we can do to love ourselves.

I’ve had some people in the Learn True Health Facebook group; we talked about the importance of chewing food and what it does physiologically because none of us chew our food enough. There was someone who said it changed her digestion. She started chewing her food again. Chew it for ten, twenty, thirty times a bite, and it completely changed her digestion. I thought that was really neat — something as simple. We all know to do it, but do we do it?

[00:16:20] Adam Schaeuble: It comes back to that word — implementation.

[00:16:23] Ashley James: What’s another difference? You mentioned implementation. We come into your Million Pound Mission University. We learn from all these experts, but what’s going to help us implement what we learn, and what’s going to help us to figure out what path is best for us?

[00:16:47] Adam Schaeuble: One of my superpowers that I’ve discovered recently is that I am good at creating community. It now makes sense when I think back. This is what I did with my hometown. When we said we’ll lose thirty-five pounds, I created community, accountability, support, and implementation. I cultivated that environment.

I’ve done that with different online platforms. This is just that next one that I’m going to infuse and make it a bit different than the normal online summit that you would attend, where you get great information, you get entertained, but the implementation is very low, and I want to correct that.

We’re doing monthly round-table discussions via Zoom chat so that we can get people on there. I’m going to connect with people and go, “Which lesson resonated with you?” We’ll go through maybe, “It’s Ashley James,” maybe “It’s Sean Mulroney” — who knows what really connects. Then I’m going to go, “What is your first action step? What are you doing in line with this inspiration? How are you making progress in this? How can we get you in action heading towards that goal that you want to achieve?.” There will be some strategy. There will be some implementation.

The other cool thing is that all my professors — that’s what I’m calling my instructors, so Professor Ashley James — are invited to attend as well. These people that are getting hundreds of thousands of downloads, I’ve got eighteen of the top health podcasters in the world right now that are hard to reach. It’s not always super easy to reach somebody. Danny Vega has fifty thousand Instagram followers. If you send him an Instagram message, he may get it, he may not.

But if we bring him in, and you can talk to him in a small group — I’m keeping this at 25 people or less with the chats, and we’ll do multiple options per month — but connecting with your professors, connecting with each other, and then me as a ringleader of implementation, making sure that we are truly coming up with action steps out of these lessons, implementing those, and just checking in on a monthly basis to create that community. I think that’s the special sauce that comes with this event.

[00:18:59] Ashley James: Wonderful. Can you share any more tidbits that you’re excited to learn as you did your interviews?

[00:19:07] Adam Schaeuble: One of my buddies that I’ve interviewed for the podcast is Dov Baron. I keep on teasing him. He’s a motivational speaker, so I’m like, “Dov, I’m going to come up with these shirts that say #InDovWeTrust.”

[00:19:26] Ashley James: That’s interesting. I have a friend; his name was Dov — we pronounced it ‘Dove.’ It means bear in Yiddish. In Dov we trust — what does he specialize in?

[00:19:40] Adam Schaeuble: He specializes in helping people find their purpose. He’s a big business public speaker guru. I brought him in, and I gave him a very specific mission with his lesson. I said, “Dov, there are millions of people out there that know that they need to get healthier, and they want to get healthier, but they just don’t have that fire to get started. I need you to help them find the fire.”

He said, “I’m on it, mate.” He’s British. He always says when I try to do my impersonation, I sound Australian.

[00:20:16] Ashley James: Yeah, that was very Australian.

[00:20:20] Adam Schaeuble: [laughs] Dang it! Epic fail. So I turned him loose, and basically, he walked us through an experience of imagining that we are at our funeral. Two scenarios: everybody was there saying the things that we hope to hear about us, and then another scenario of people saying the things that we hope no one would ever say about us. He’s like, “If we have to take those two principles, that pain and pleasure principles, and use that to ignite the fire, the pleasure principle, that’s the thing that we are striving towards. That pain, that’s the thing that keeps us from quitting because we do not want people to say that about us.”

With him, he gives the example of somebody saying he was full of BS, or that he was a quitter, or that he was a sham as that pain principle as to why he has to keep impacting people. He has a goal he set out there to make a massive impact in the public speaking space, business space, and he won’t be denied because he knows on his final day, he does not want anybody to be able to say any of those negative things about him not being legitimate or being an impactful person and somebody that people can rely on to deliver great information.

He sure as hell did that.

He had me fired up. He just gets going. I’ve already had several people comment on just what a difference that made, to just think about it in those terms. He got emotional. He brought himself to tears talking about the disappointment that he would feel if somebody said all these negative things at his funeral. That is the type of emotion that we have to elicit to get our butt up off the couch and into motion, to sign up for a 6 a.m. boot camp class, or to have the willpower to avoid eating the things that we know we shouldn’t be eating. That was a super impactful one.

We had another great NLP presentation. It’s Matt Brauning. He’s got a great podcast as well. He did an exercise specific to cravings, which is another huge thing that we all deal with. He actually ran me through the NLP process with some visualization, and it’s great because it’s a video. One of the things I love to do, and you know this, is I love to make fun of myself.

I looked like a weirdo up there. My eyes were closed. I’m doing all the things they tell me to do, like visualizing pizza, sardines, and water. He had me flip-flopping the pictures and doing all these NLP stuff, and it’s just amazing. We’re getting some great response to that as well, mainly from people making fun of me from the video though.

[00:23:19] Ashley James: No, that’s great that he did some modalities work with you. Have you tested it? Since he did this, have you tried to be around pizza?

[00:23:30] Adam Schaeuble: Not yet. But just the–

[00:23:32] Ashley James: Thought of it?

[00:23:33] Adam Schaeuble: I could think about pizza, and my mouth starts to water. Now, it doesn’t. That’s possibly progress already.

[00:23:42] Ashley James: Absolutely. So you chose sardines and water as your ‘away from.’ The more repulsion you have with the item that you chose, the better. If you’re like, “I can take it or leave it,” that’s not enough repulsion. You need something that’s going to make you want to run and hang your head over a toilet. But, yes, it’s very effective. I’m glad he teaches the like to dislike for those who are like, “I’m very motivated, but I can’t let go of chocolate,” or “I can’t give up…” whatever the food it is that they can’t give up because they feel it has too strong of a hold on them.

My friend did potato chips. It was so funny that she chose food that would make her upchuck it. I think it was liver and onions. After the like to dislike, even hearing a crinkling of a bag that sounded like potato chips made her run to the waste bin.

[00:24:49] Adam Schaeuble: Oh, my gosh. It’s incredible.

[00:24:50] Ashley James: It calms down. That won’t be the reaction you have every time. It calms down, but it still becomes a complete “away from.” She was 100% addicted to potato chips — it’s been nine years, I don’t think she has been able to touch them.

My husband, the same thing. He was addicted to ice cream, and he was so repulsed by ice cream after like to dislike. He could not walk down the aisle at Albertsons where ice cream was for an entire year. That was ten years ago that he did that like to dislike, and now he can take or leave ice cream, but it doesn’t have a hold on him. That’s why it’s such a powerful tool to do these modalities work. I’m really happy that that’s part of the Million Pound Mission University for those who want to be able to have control instead of feeling the food is controlling them.

[00:25:48] Adam Schaeuble: I got to mention one more presentation. It’s rocking people’s worlds. I have my friend Sean Mulroney come in from The Obesity Revolution. If you guys have never heard Sean tell a story, this guy is in the fight for his life literally, like every day fighting with obesity. He gave a lecture on mental obesity, which is overcoming the obese mind and him being able to flip the switch — as high as almost 800 pounds, and now he’s down in 600s. He’s inspiring other people.

He’s got this little tribe of people that he works out with in St. Louis. I visited him a few months back. It’s incredible, the battle that he’s going through, but his process hat helped him flip that switch of feeling sorry for himself, feeling like the world was all against him, a lot of projection, a lot of blame to owning a situation at almost 800 pounds, taking control and ownership over his health, and taking active steps. He’s got so much going on with fluid retention and swelling. He had 100 pounds of water in one of his legs. That’s how bad his swelling is.

Just an incredible story, extremely inspirational. That’s another one that brings a lot of people to tears. Not everybody needs to lose hundreds of pounds, but we all deal with that mindset switch that needs to be flipped to reclaim control of our health. Whatever level or whatever extreme you’re at, lectures like that are going to make a big difference.

[00:27:31] Ashley James: Absolutely. I’m excited to watch that. I can’t wait to jump into the Million Pound Mission University and check that out. That is awesome. That happened to my dad. He was morbidly obese for many years. After my mom died, he just became so depressed, losing the love of his life, and then something happened. I guess we were watching a TV show about weight loss surgery, and a little light switch clicked in his mind.

He said to me, “I can just tell my brain that I’ve had the surgery. Let’s skip the surgery part, and I’m just going to tell myself that my stomach is the size of a golf ball.” He persistently did that for over a year. He chose healthy foods. I couldn’t believe it. He went from bingeing massive amounts of foods because he was trying to fill the void inside him. He would get upset at me if I served him too much food. I cooked him an egg and asparagus, and he’s like, “That’s not the size of a golf ball. Don’t you get it? My stomach is now the size of a golf ball,” and he did it. He went all the way back down to — I’ve never seen him at that healthy of a weight. I didn’t recognize him.

That was interesting to see. When the mindset does shift, that’s where everything starts because from your mindset comes to your actions, and from your actions come your results.

I know it’s just new. You launched it just over a week ago. Tell me some of the feedback that people have been giving you — that your students have been giving you so far.

[00:29:21] Adam Schaeuble: People are super excited about two main things. You go to the website, you go to the link that Ashley talked about, and you’re going to see all these cool names, these awesome topics, but the impact of the lessons, you really feel. And, Ashley, you can testify to this, I was very specific about this isn’t a broad brush session. It’s like you’re giving a TED talk. You got somebody you need to implement, or you need to impact, and you have to give implementable action steps. People are feeling like, “I can tell that you hold their feet to the fire to give actionable homework.” I’m like, “You’re a professor. You got to give some homework.” They’re really enjoying that.

Mainly, people that are jumping in are podcast listeners. Podcasts, a lot of times they’re entertaining, and we get inspired, but those that follow through that action behind the message isn’t always there, and this is just totally different. So people are enjoying that, and everybody is super psyched. We’re doing our first round-table discussion in a couple of weeks, and they’re just pumped up. People are diving into those sign-up spots to get in there, interact with some of their heroes, but also a lot of the fellow members are starting to interact, and I think that we’re going to create some nice accountability and connection there, and people are just super excited.

It’s almost like you’re doing a study group or office hour sessions. You get to talk about the lessons that you learned, and we’re going to share a lot of stories of how things are impacting us so far. That’s why I didn’t want to do one of the round-tables the first week. I want people to be able to implement a few weeks and start to feel the impact, and we’ll be able to share those stories in a couple of weeks.

[00:31:13] Ashley James: Excellent. You have helped people lose thirty-five thousand pounds — even more than that. In your town, you have helped people single-handedly. You were working with people with individual and also in groups, but you have face-to-face time with people in person have helped that people lose that much weight. So thirty-five thousand pounds, and you said it was in five years?

[00:31:44] Adam Schaeuble: Yes.

[00:31:45] Ashley James: That is incredible. Do you bring your experience and the actionable steps that you used to help those people lose weight? Do you bring that to the Million Pound Mission University as well?

[00:32:01] Adam Schaeuble: I’m dripping my content. I want the spotlight to be on you guys, but I’m also putting my stuff in there. I put in a whole lecture about how to escape the black hole of fitness doom. That was the topic that we talked about the very first time that you interviewed on your show.

I did a big lecture on that with some actionable steps. We’re going to drip a lot of that content in each month to give people new things to take actions on.

People are asking all the time, “How did you get all these people to lose all this weight? How do you help people with Million Pound Mission and all that?” One of the things that I feel works is I’ve walked that path that a lot of people are walking, whether they’re frustrated about their health and ready to make a change. I realized that they feel like they’re out of control, and they’re willing to put in work. They’re willing to put in the effort. They just don’t know which direction to walk.

I try my best to provide clarity and saying, “Here’s the path. Here’s where you’re at now. Here’s where we want to get to, and here are the action steps that we can take.” And now, the good part is, I’ve got a whole lot of energy, and hopefully you guys can feel that coming through your earbuds right now. But I’ve got a ton of energy, and I’d tell people, “Borrow my energy until you build up your momentum.”

Eventually, you’re going to have to be able to match energy with me, so that’s something to give you a goal to shoot for, but you can borrow my energy, enthusiasm, and motivation to kickstart this whole thing when you plug into things like the university here, and we get your momentum going.

Eventually, you’re matching energy with me, and then you’re just way above and beyond excited about where you’re going, and that momentum is yours. That is the gift that I want to give everybody, that feeling that you’re in control of your health and you’ve got momentum on your side. That’s why I do everything that I do, Ashley.

[00:33:58] Ashley James: I love it. Those questions that pop in and out of my head is, all those people have lost weight following you. Were they on the same diet, the same program, they’re all doing CrossFit, they’re all eating paleo, or was everyone doing their program, and you were helping them to stay focused?

[00:34:21] Adam Schaeuble: A little bit of both. With my hometown, it’s a little bit different because I own a gym and I’d be able to control their fitness environment. But with their nutrition, we develop a lot of different modalities, from vegetarian/vegan to clean eating, to strict paleo, gluten-free, keto — all that. Again, as I talked about earlier, it’s the right tool for the right job. If we need a hammer to pound a nail, I’m not going to use a screwdriver.

That’s where there’s a lot of confusion, where all these Team Keto, Team Vegan, and Team CrossFit, they battle back and forth who is the smartest and who is the best. I feel like that’s a waste of air. It doesn’t matter if that’s not the right tool for the job. With our home base, I had people come in morbidly obese, and I had people come in that were former pro athletes, and they were in the same class working out together. We just modify up or down, whether it’s a bodyweight class, a yoga class, an equipment station, kettlebell rotation type of thing, but we had modified a little bit there.

Now that we’re transitioning more to online programming and things like Million Pound Mission University and my online communities, that has been more about me almost — I try to get you to visualize. Like when you need help with your investments, you go maybe to a financial adviser, and they manage your investment portfolio.

I’m kind of a fitness portfolio manager, like a transformation strategist basically. I’m like, “What are you struggling with? Here are my tools to address that situation. Let’s hone in on the right diet program, the right fitness regimen, and let’s hold you accountable to that on March 4.” I like to operate in 28-day cycles. We take a stair step every 28 days, and we readjust as we need to, shift around the portfolio a little bit if we need to. But it’s very broad brush, and it’s more about adding in accountability, adding in community, and always just making sure that we operate from a rock-solid battle plan, and that’s how we help people reclaim control of their health.

[00:36:41] Ashley James: I like it. How do you help people to figure out what diet is best for them?

[00:36:48] Adam Schaeuble: I’ve got a little tool. I’ll send it to you. I call it the Nutrition Plan Filter, where it’s a process in the coaching, but you can use it as a standalone tool as well. But you go through a process of thinking, “What have I done in the past?” We can’t discount something that we did. Let’s say you did Weight Watchers; you lost 30 pounds, but you gained it all back. You can’t just shove that, “I gained it all back.” It may not have been the “diet” that was the issue; it may have been something else, like you’re on vacation and then never got back to it, which is not the diet’s fault.

We look at which nutritional protocols they’ve had success with. We make a note of those. Then we list all the nutritional protocols that we have interest in. Maybe you hear a lot about keto, and you want to learn more about that, so we’ll add to the list. Then we work through a process of crossing things off, starting different things, and we work our way down to where we say, “This is probably the best fit right now.” That’s what we work with, but that’s a little pressure situation.

I truly believe that we should not put pressure on ourselves like if you decide going vegan is the best nutrition plan for the next 28 days, it’s not like ‘vegan or bust’ or “If I don’t do this, then I’m a failure because I’ve tried everything else.” This is the mindset a lot of people have, and we need to extinguish that.

I tell people, “We’re going to experiment with this for 28 days. We’re going to take great notes, and we’re going to do the best that we can to execute this nutritional protocol.” At the end of the 28 days, let’s see what happens. Maybe we lose 5 pounds; maybe we gain 5 pounds; maybe nothing happens; maybe we feel great; maybe we feel terrible. But we’ll never know until we implement strategically for 28 days and then assess the results. It’s an experiment; there’s no pass/fail. Let’s see what happens. “Let’s absorb what is useful,” as Bruce Lee says, and we move forward from there. That’s the overarching approach that I take.

[00:38:54] Ashley James: I like it. During those 28 days, at the beginning you do body measurements, go on a scale, and then you don’t touch the scale for 28 days? How do you have them know it’s working?

[00:39:10] Adam Schaeuble: It depends as far as the measurement stuff. I do have a lot of people that are kind of addicted to the scales. A lot of people weigh themselves every day, and we’ll actually make adjustments to their nutrition plan every day, depending what the scale tells them, which is like, “We don’t want to do that, people.”

If I’m dealing with that sort of person, I’ll say, “Just weigh in once a week. Just weigh in on Sundays. Here’s the protocol. Let’s do our check-in. We’ll do some pictures. We’ll do some measurements. We’ll do the scale.” I like once every two weeks. So every 14 days, we do a little checkpoint, and the speech that I give people is, “Let’s say once every two weeks, I was going to have you do a push-up test to see how many push-ups you could do in a minute. Let’s see at Day 14, you do your push-up test, and you do 20 push-ups, would you change what you’re doing with your nutrition depending on how that test went?”

No. That will be ridiculous.

Then I say, “Then we’re not going to make any shifts when you step on the scale either.” We’re not going to make any dramatic, “I’m down five pounds, but I expected to be down eight pounds because my friend lost eight pounds.” We’re not going to change anything around based off of what that scale tells us either. It’s just a data point. That’s how we have to view it.

At the end of the 28 days, we might shift something, but it’s not because the scale told me something. It’s all of the data collected together as a whole. We assess how we’re feeling, how we’re sleeping, how’s our digestion, how’s our stress levels, how’s our body fat, how’s our physical performance, what’s the weight doing, what are the measurements doing, how are the pictures doing. It’s all of that stuff instead of one, single, very hard to be consistent with data point.

If we’re going to think about that clearly also, if we are retaining water, the scale is almost irrelevant. If we’re sore, if we have sodium, our hormonal cycles — that can shift that scale five, six, seven, eight pounds in a day. That’s the data point that most people are judging themselves on. That’s crazy.

I’m big on that holistic approach of, “Let’s look at all of the data, have that experimental mindset, and we’ll just take this 28-day stair steps at a time, low pressure, but being consistent with moving forward and keeping positive momentum.”

[00:41:42] Ashley James: I love it. Is this something that you’re going to teach moving forward at Million Pound Mission University? Are you going to hands-on help these students to do these, to implement this ongoing-ly?

[00:41:54] Adam Schaeuble: Yeah. It’s a continuing month-to-month program, so my goal is to keep adding new lessons, but also, like you just said, implementing my processes in there so that people are being taught how to set up these 28-day cycles. It’s like my battle pan workbook, how to use tools like the nutrition filter, and going forward, how to implement those if it makes sense.

But again, those monthly round-tables are going to be me being the ringleader of implementation and accountability. A lot of my clients, they kind of joke, and they tell me that they’re paying me to keep them out of their head. So if I hear them beating themselves up, if they’re not proud — especially me, I’m 6’3″; I’m 225 pounds. I’m not a small person, and they see me as one of those TV drill sergeant type people, where they think like, “He’s gonna yell at me. He’s gonna all be mean.” Honestly, the only time I ever really get fired up and yell at somebody” is if they’re not being proud enough of themselves.

I’ve got people that are doing tremendous, but they’re in their head, “Ugh, I’ve only lost thirty pounds, Adam, but my goal is fifty.” I’m like, “You’ve lost freaking thirty pounds. This is incredible. You have to be proud of that and not be caught in that ‘I’m not there yet’ trap that we all do.”

I’m constantly telling people to turn around, look at where you started from, measure that distance — not the distance between where you stand and where you want to be — that will keep you moving forward. We’ve talked about that before. A big part of my job description is pulling people out of their head, or maybe even retracting their head from their butt region every once in a while.

It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. If people want to buy into those methods and if they’re willing to take a little bit of pressure off themselves, we can get some pretty amazing results, and I feel like my catalog results in my hometown, the online clients, really speaks for itself.

[00:44:10] Ashley James: Absolutely. I like that you do this 28-day increments where you increase it. You’re speaking my language. I’ll go to the gym with the end goal in mind, but that’s three years from now. I’ll go for three days in a row and then it’s like, “Ugh, nothing is working.” I’m totally in my head.

Whereas if I went to the gym for the next 28 days, that’s the only thing I’m focusing on, and then I get to reassess and then go, “Great. Now, I’m going to add more reps and maybe another kettlebell,” or whatever but just sticking with something. It’s a long enough of a time that you start to get the habit of it and start to get momentum. But it’s short enough of a time that they don’t get lost. They don’t get bored.

I’ve done this. Like you said, one day I’m on Weight Watchers; next day I’m vegan; the next day I’m paleo. I’ve totally done that. I’ve done over thirty-five diets, and that was a few years ago. I stopped counting. But obviously since doing the podcast, I get inspired by every guest, and I would like to try their diet.

I went to become a health coach. I went to the Institue of Vinegar of Nutrition. We learned a hundred different dietary theories in 365 days, so you bet, I tried every single diet. Not for more personal experience to understand, but you get to the point where it’s a little dizzying, where we stop listening to the intuition of our body because we’re hearing all these other experts. “This person lost weight with keto.” “This person lost weight with vegan.” “This person lost weight with Atkins.”

It seems like opposing diets. One scientist says, “We should eat no meat because the meat will kill us. We’ll die.” This other scientist says, “Look at all these proof that we have to eat meat or else we’re going to die.” What are we going to do?

And so I love that you bring clarity to the situation, as I do as well love to bring clarity for people to help them own their success, get out of their head, be able to focus on food is nutrition, that it’s a form of self-love. The food is our medicine, and I like that you have this “stick with something for 28 days before you judge it.” Give it enough time to do its work, and then that reassessment once a month is great too. It helps us to stay accountable. That’s wonderful.

Adam, I would join Million Pound Mission University just for your expertise. We need to do a little bit of “Come to Ashley” talk here because this is the same as the person who beats himself up for only losing thirty pounds. You need to do a little self-checking. Your info is so awesome that all these other speakers are like icing on the cake, but I would come to your Million Pound Mission University just for you.

You help people lose thirty-five thousand pounds; that is absolutely outstanding. You know what you’re talking about, and I love that you were so heart-focused, that you are so in love with every single person that is there to help. As I said, I’m a big fan of the work you do, and I’m excited to see how many lives we can help transform through the Million Pound Mission University.

I can’t wait to have you back on the show like a year from now where we can do a recap and see how many people have had transformations because of what you’ve put together.

So listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/university to check out the Million Pound Mission University. Definitely enroll, jump in. Adam made it incredibly affordable, and it’s all about results-based stuff, so it’s mindset stuff. It’s emotional/mental health; definitely a lot of physical health. But you’re also going to get Adam, which I think, you are the most important resource that Million Pound Mission University offers because of your level of experience and the amount of care that you bring to every single person.

Can you tell us what you would like us to walk away today? What lesson or idea would you like all of us to leave this episode with today?

[00:49:22] Adam Schaeuble: I’ve mentioned a few times, and first, thank you so much for what you just said. That makes my day. I borrowed some of your energy to launch my podcast career, so that means a lot coming from you, my friend.

We’ve talked about implementation. You guys have heard us say something today that you would not be listening to this interview still if you didn’t have something that was getting you going. An hour in, people aren’t still tuned in. I’m not going to listen to an hour-long podcast to hear people’s voices. So if you’re still with us, something fired you up. Something has you plugged in. Hone in on that thing, and say, “In the next 24 hours, what is one simple action step that I can take to implement?”

Visualize this stack of dominoes a mile long. The first domino is the smallest one. The next one is twice the size. The next is twice that size because that’s how dominoes work. I just learned that’s the physics of it. If you push over a domino, that domino can knock over a domino twice its size. That’s how we build momentum.

What is the tiniest domino that you need to flick over to create momentum in the right direction to achieve that thing that you’ve gotten fired up about today? Within the next 24 hours, if you guys want to ramp up the personal accountability on this, most of you are on your phone listening to this right now. Set an alarm 24 hours from now on your phone — on iPhone, you can add some text in there. I want the text to say, “I am worth it.” That alarm goes off in 24 hours. I want you to do something because you are worth it.

[00:51:12] Ashley James: I love it. For Androids, we can go into the calendar and add a little appointment — “I’m worth it.” I’m going to tell everyone around me to do so. There’s this meme that keeps circulating Facebook. I laughed till I cry every time I see this meme. It’s just text. A woman is asking a salesperson, “How many loads of laundry can this dining room table hold?” The man says, “Ma’am, this is a dining room table.” She goes, “Yes, what’s the point?” It’s because many of us use our dining room table to hold things that aren’t food.

We’ve been Marie Kondo-ing our house. If you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo, go to Netflix, watch the entire season of Tidying Up. Our house is crazy right now. We’ve done 12 or 15 loads of ‘to donate’ to the thrift store. We’re rocking it.

However, the downside is I have let everything under the sun pile up on our dining room table, so we stopped eating at the table. Now, we’re eating at random places in the house, like me standing up by the sink. This has been a recent development. I’m worth it. Today, I’m going to clear up the dining room table. We’re going to get back to eating at the table again.

It’s funny. I’ve told the listeners this made a huge difference to the health of our whole family when we started eating at the dining room table — it really did — and it got disrupted. I went unconscious there, and now I get to come back. I’m going to clear up that dining room table. We’re going to stop eating standing up or by the computer. We’re going to start eating again at the dining room table.

So thank you, Adam, for helping us to choose something that we want to transform in the next 24 hours, like that little domino that is going to make a huge impact as it starts to topple over the bigger dominoes until our life is completely transformed.

Adam, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show again. Can’t wait to have you back about a year from now for you to tell us the amazing impact that the Million Pound Mission University has had in the lives of all its students. In five years, you were able to help your town lose thirty-five thousand pounds. I can’t wait now that you’ve been unleashed on the internet. You don’t have the constraints of a geographical location now. You have the entire world. So watch out, world. Here come’s Adam and the Million Pound Mission University.

Listeners, please go to learntruehealth.com/university and check it out, and follow Adam on Instagram. He does lots of these live — almost daily. I see you all the time with blue blocking glasses. Adam is a role model for me. He’s right in the blue-blocking glasses because he’s like, “I don’t care what I look like. My melatonin production is not getting inhibited by this being on a screen at night.” Very cool — he’s got blue-blocking shades, and he does these awesome live events on Facebook and Instagram. You can ask him all kinds of questions.

How can listeners follow you, Adam? Is it Million Pound Mission? How do they follow you on Instagram and Facebook?

[00:54:45] Adam Schaeuble: The best place, especially my live stuff, number one is Instagram @millionpoundmission. That is my jam. I’m a little bit addicted to Instagram for sure, especially from a podcasting perspective. And then Facebook, I’ve got a redirect to my Facebook group. It’s a free Facebook community, but I go live in there a lot. If you go to DefeatTheCheat.com, that will opt you in to check out my Facebook community, and that’s where I hang out. The two places I love to be.

[00:55:20] Ashley James: Awesome. Adam, we’ll see you in the Million Pound Mission University, and we’ll see you live on Instagram. Thank you so much for coming here today. It was such a pleasure.

[00:55:29] Adam Schaeuble: Thanks, Ashley. I appreciate it so much, and again, everybody, if you have not done this yet, please go on iTunes, leave Ashley a glowing 5-star review and mention this episode, and I greatly appreciate that.

[00:55:43] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping and our awesome referral program.

Get Connected With Adam Schaeuble!

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Book by Adam Schaeuble

The Third Component

Recommended Readings By Adam Schaeuble

The Power Of Habit  by Charles Duhigg

The One Thing by Jay Papisan

www.mandywellness.com
Holistic health consulting and coaching, NES bioenergetic scans, trauma coaching, mold toxicity education and healing, yoga instructor.

The Vegan Stevia chocolate that I love:

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Become A Health Coach-Learn More About The Institute for Integrative Nutrition's Health Coaching Certification Program by checking out these four resources:

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1) Integrative Nutrition's Curriculum Guide:
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3) Module One of the IIN curriculum:
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4) Get three free chapters of Joshua Rosenthal's book:
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Watch my little video on how to become a Certified Health Coach!

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Susan Luschas, Ph.D., is an MIT-trained scientist and engineer. She was forced to apply her critical thinking skills to debug her own family's health problems. She has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of her life on doctors, experiments, and research. She didn't stop until her family achieved radiant health. Doctors started sending their un-healable patients to her. In January 2016 she published everything she knows for free, about Dental Infections, Autism, Diet, Lyme Disease, Parasites, Methylation, Chelation Therapy, and many other topics, on the website Debug Your Health.

Susan's Site:
http://www.debugyourhealth.com

Back to Eden Gardening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rPPUmStKQ4

Debugging Your Health

https://www.learntruehealth.com/debug-your-health/

Susan Luschas, Ph.D. recounts how their daughter’s diagnoses of failure to thrive and full-blown autism led the family to undertake a journey of healing through diet, sleep, stress relief, detox, and supplements. Desperation led to the discovery of “new science,” and they compiled the resources in their website, Debug Your Health, for anyone to use for free. 

[00:00:14] Ashley James: Hello, true health seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of Learn True Health podcast. You are in for such a treat today. This interview is mind-blowing. You are going to love it.

One of the things we talked about in the interview was the importance of using the sauna to help detox. I already let you know that my absolute favorite company is Sunlighten Sauna last February, so it’s been over a year. I finally made the purchase to get a Sunlighten Sauna. My naturopath has told me I needed to use this type of detox. It’s very gentle, but it is the most effective way to remove toxins stored in our fat cells.

I noticed an improvement in my inflammation. It went down. My liver health began to improve. I started to lose weight. I lost about twelve pounds in my first month of using it. Of course, that was inflammation. Some of that might have been fat, but that was toxins and inflammation, and I started to feel better. Now, I can’t even imagine life without using my sauna. I use it almost every day. It is so relaxing. It’s me time. It’s a wonderful experience.

I had several episodes where we talked about the benefits of sauna therapy. You can go to learntruehealth.com and search. There is a search function on our website where you can type in ‘sauna.’ I have interviewed the founder of Sunlighten, as well as one of the women who work there. I know she is listening — hello! It was a great interview with both of them because we dove into wonderful stories of how the body heals itself using this type of therapy.

Not everyone can have a wooden sauna in their house, apartment, or condo, and so Sunlighten does have a portable system. It’s wonderful for doctors, massage therapists, and acupuncturists. What it provides is the ability to get the benefits of sauna therapy in a very small space. It becomes about the size of a massage table. You can store it away in your closet when you’re not using it.

Many of my listeners have contacted me and told me that they purchased the Solo system, and they enjoy it. The reason why my husband loves it is your head is not inside. You’re not breathing in hot air. For me, I love the 3-in-1 Sunlighten wooden sauna where my whole body is in it, and I’m sitting in it. I really enjoy that. The air is not that stuffy and hot. It’s very enjoyable.

But some people get claustrophobic, or they just don’t want to breathe in hot air. With the Solo system, you’re lying down on non-toxic bamboo-based memory foam. It’s very comfortable, and then you have this cocoon around you. Everything is non-toxic, ultra-low EMF, and you begin to sweat in a gentle way, but your head is outside of it on a pillow, and so you’re comfortable. A lot of people end up falling asleep or meditating while they’re doing it. It’s so relaxing.

Afterward, you take a towel, wipe it down, and put it away. You take a shower, and that’s it. It’s something that you can do for half an hour a day, in your evening or your morning, or after a workout because it does reduce the pain and inflammation from workouts. People do notice that they bounce back or rebound after their workout, depending on what your goals are, whether it’s endurance, weight loss, or detox.

For me, my biggest thing is detox and weight loss, but some people do it for the cardiovascular benefits. There are studies that show that it significantly helps to balance blood pressure, and so there’s that cardiovascular component. But whatever your goals are, I have found that sauna therapy is incredibly supportive.

If you want more information, give them a call. You can Google Sunlighten, give them a call, and talk to them about their different systems and what works best for you. I do know that they will give us a great special. I told Sunlighten, “Hey, if I enjoy this and it works for me, I’m definitely going to tell my listeners about it.” I want to make sure that we get a group buy discount, that all of my listeners get some kind of special, and so they gave us a great deal. Just like anything else that I use and recommend, I make sure that I get some great deal because if we’re all going to buy it together, we might as well get some special, right?

If you do have a sauna and you’ve been using sauna therapy, join the Facebook group, Learn True Health on Facebook, and please share your experience. I want to know how it’s positively impacted your life. A lot of the listeners keep sharing that sauna therapy has been key to helping them to get on the other side of what they’re suffering from.

I know you’re going to love today’s show. Enjoy, and as always, continue to share this podcast with those you know it’ll help. My goal is to help over a million people to get their health back and to discover true health for themselves. I’m going to do that with your help. Together, we’re going to turn this ripple into a tidal wave and help as many people as possible to learn true health.

I am so excited about today’s interview. We have with us an amazing woman, Susan Luschas, Ph.D., who has a story that you are going to love hearing. Her website is Debug Your Health. That’s a hundred-percent free website that is a gift to the world, a resource of all the information she has collected on how to heal the body.

I love your website. I love your mission. I first heard about you through Scott Forsgren. We’ve had him on the show twice, and the listeners loved learning from him. He healed himself from Lyme disease and has gone on to help many others do the same, as well as other people who don’t have Lyme disease but want to learn how to gain better health.

Susan, he highly recommended that we have you on the show because your resources are phenomenal. I’m excited to learn more about you and how you came to build the website, Debugging Your Health. Welcome to the show.

[00:06:45] Susan Luschas: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It’s so great that you’re out there doing podcasts like this with information that you can’t always find online or with your health care provider. Thank you for doing this podcast.

[00:07:00] Ashley James: Absolutely. You’re welcome. I do it because I spent years being sick. I think similar to your story, when I started finding the answers that helped me, I knew I had a mission to spread this information. Let’s hear your story. Take us back to the beginning. What led you on this path? You are an MIT-trained scientist and engineer. What made you focus on health?

[00:07:25] Susan Luschas: Out of desperation, which is how I think many of us end up working on health issues. My desperation was not my health. It was the health of my oldest child, and I always say the only thing worse than being sick yourself is having a child who’s sick.

What I did with my oldest child was I took her around to all of her doctors and said, “What’s wrong? What can we do?” She had all kinds of diagnoses. She had failure to thrive — super skinny, not growing enough. She had mood issues. She didn’t want to eat. She was nauseous. There were behavior issues — all kinds of things, sometimes, not wanting to go to school or do things that she used to want to do. I’d take her here or there, and she got all kinds of diagnoses.

We tried everything that everybody said. Doctor A would say, “Take vitamin C,” we took vitamin C. Doctor B would say, “Go to the hospital and get these x-rays,” we went to the hospital and got the x-rays. She was hospitalized twice for various tests. We went in for upper GI, a barium test, and an ultrasound. Anything anybody told us to do, we did and went to the end of that road with Practitioner A, and then we’d go on to Practitioner B.

I was spending all these time and money driving my child around, trying to figure this out, and finally, I realized clearly after all these practitioners and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year deducted on our taxes, even though we have insurance — they don’t know. We came to that conclusion.

And so the question is, “Who does know?” Thank God, my husband and I have the resources that we could fly anywhere if we had to, pay money if we had to because we both had engineering jobs. But it was unclear that even if we did that, anyone would be able to help us. At the end of the day, we did end up flying to one practitioner. But anyway, if I continue as to what happened, we got to the end of the road, and it became, “Are we going to institutionalize her and go on with working?” because I was struggling to work between all these doctor appointments, her being sick and what-not?

The other idea would be, “Let’s give it a try ourselves. Let’s use our heads here and try and figure it out by ourselves.” Because after all these practitioner visits and all these, along the way I’m thinking — because I’m an engineer and scientist and I’m trained to think. So I would say, “What about this? What about that? What if we do this?”

I didn’t even care if it was Western. I didn’t care if it was Eastern. I didn’t care if it was energy. I didn’t really care what it was. I’d gladly stand on my head for five hours a day if that helped her. It didn’t matter what kind of modality it was.

My husband and I almost got divorced over the issue, but finally, I said, “Well, you’re going to drive her to the institution.” He’s like, “No, I can’t do that.” I said, “Well, then we’re going to try it ourselves.” If you won’t even drive her and drop her off, then we got to try it ourselves.

I took over essentially as her primary care provider and called all the shots. I started thinking of these practitioners as consultants on my team. I stopped going to them and doing what they said. I started going to them if I needed to and taking what they said and maybe thinking about it or considering it, and then either do something related to that or not. It started to change my thought about how I approach health and wellness and these practitioners.

To summarize, my husband and I started doing muscle testing. We learned how over many years of just practice, practice, practice. That ended up helping to give us a lot of the answers. Does she need an antimicrobial? Does she need detox? Does she need to go in the sauna and sweat?

Fast-forwarding, we got her back to what I would say is about 90% health with mostly diet and gut work. We started with no gluten. That didn’t do anything. No dairy — that didn’t do anything. No grains, we went to one cup of rice a week — that didn’t do anything either.

I had already gotten rid of all sugar, any sugar — not like we ever ate much of it anyway. But finally, I got rid of fruit and the last couple of rice, and boom — she went completely autistic, rocking back and forth in the closet. My husband freaked out, almost divorced me for the second time, and said “We got to stop. We got to give her some fruit and some rice.” I said, “No, this is part of her detox. We have to support her detox pathways and get her moving through this.” Sure enough, a couple of days of full autism, she came out just the best we’ve seen her in many years.

This whole process took us several years of her life. At one point, she had gotten so sick, and she could barely walk. She couldn’t go to school. She had gotten down to that point, but what ended up being the big hitter for her was the diet and gut piece. By the time we had eliminated all these stuff, and she was finally doing better, the diet was basically meat and vegetables — no sugars, no grains, no processed food. It was grass-fed meats and organic vegetables. We had always eaten organic vegetables, but we had to get rid of everything else and shift her gut.

I also fasted with her at age four and six. She is now twelve, so it’s hard for me to remember. I think it was around age four, five, or six — something like that. We fasted twice for thirty days. Who would do that with a kid that’s failing to thrive? But that’s what she needed at that time. That got her 90% on the way, and then right about that time, our family had a horrible head lice infestation. I never had head lice before. It turns out the head lice spread whatever she had to the rest of us.

[00:14:18] Ashley James: Oh, wow!

[00:14:19] Susan Luschas: Right around that time that she was finally better and we got the head lice, almost simultaneously a couple of things happened. One was we finally got a positive Lyme diagnosis. She had been tested for Lyme many times over these years, and it always came out somewhat negative, meaning negative but maybe positive on band 41, which some practitioner say band 41 could be a dental infection. It could be an infection somewhere else. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s Lyme.

Right around that time that she was better, we tested again for Lyme, and she came up positive on every single active band. Basically, what happens is the Lyme Western blot test, which is not the test, but that’s what we were using, measures antibodies. If your body is not fighting it, there are no antibodies. If your body is too overwhelmed to fight it, you won’t produce the antibodies that the test is looking for. It turns out that’s what she had.

She had Lyme and every single co-infection that comes with Lyme that we’ve tested for. She has Borrelia, Babesia, Mycoplasma, and Ehrlichia. Everything that we’ve tested for, she got with the Lyme. She had a couple of tick bites. We’re assuming the Lyme came from the first tick bite she had, but can’t prove that for sure. The head lice infestation, you can catch Lyme from head lice. There are people who say you can’t — not in our experience.

About six months after the head lice, the rest of our health started to go down the tubes — myself, my husband, and her little sister. Luckily, she had suffered for years, so we didn’t have to. I knew exactly what it must be. I knew exactly where to look. Her suffering sort of saved the rest of us from a lot of Lyme suffering because we already knew where to look for that.

Going back to her health, she was about at 90%. She still had some things that were a little funky, like the Lyme went after the hypothalamus and she stopped sweating. She lost the ability to sweat. Here in NorCal, we have a lot of sun, and she would literally get red in the face and all over, and she wouldn’t sweat. We had to solve that problem, which was a weird problem to solve in a young child. We ended up solving that with some supplements and constant sauna therapy, which she still does to this day.

She also had this horseshoe rash that kept coming on her arm. It wasn’t bothering her, but it was bothering me. It’s like, “Something is still going on there. Something is still wrong there.” Potentially, she can have even better health than she has now. I don’t know who this child is because she’s been sick for so long. I don’t know what healthy looks like for her. I assumed she was healthy because she was going to school, playing sports, and acting like a normal kid. She is eating. She’s sleeping. She’s back on the growth chart — all those things.

But the horseshoe rash bothered me. I figured it must be some parasite because it came and went usually with the full moon. That’s when our family flew to Dr. Simon Yu in St. Louis. He’s the only one, in my opinion, that we have right now who’s treating parasites. To be fair, I knew they were parasites, so obviously I tried a bunch of things at home. I tried every known parasite herb and supplement and things like that. The one thing I had not tried at that point was enemas because how do you do an enema in a five-year-old and her sister was two or three? So that was the one thing I hadn’t tried, but all the other supplements, rife machine, and light therapy — we had done all that for parasites and weren’t there.

That’s when we flew to Simon Yu. We worked with him on the parasite piece. He helped fill in some pieces there. We came home, and then I finally said, “This kid got to take some enemas.” We started doing enemas in a five-year-old, which some people say is child abuse. It turns out it was one of the best things I ever did for both the children. I made them both do it because Simon tells us that if one person in the family has parasites, probably everyone does, and they’re very easy to catch and re-catch and spread around. I was intelligent enough to treat the whole family while we were treating her.

Immediately after the enema, we had some worms come out, and the kids definitely stepped up their behavior, and their overall health and well-being after the enema started, and then we ended up doing prescription parasite medications that Simon prescribed us as well — super steps forward for us.

Along the way, once you have Lyme, one of the things you have to do is try to clear up other infections. Things like parasite infections, hidden dental infections, your gut, structural issues, chiropractic/osteopathic issues, you need to make sure your body is methylating and getting all the minerals it needs. You need to make sure your heavy metal level isn’t too high, that you’re constantly detoxing. There are all these things you need to do to solve Lyme disease in addition to the diet in the gut.

The diet and the gut process was the big piece, but to be fair, we were doing some of these other things, too. Along the way, we had done many forms of chelation, most of it natural versions, and many forms of detox, minerals, and things like that to support. Along the way, my husband and I also went through the dental infections and clearing those out, gallbladder and liver flush, parasite medications, orthodontics. The kids mostly went through that — all kinds of topics that we had to go through to regain health.

At the end of all these, I was like, “Wow, I actually feel better than I have in twenty years. I’ve never felt this good.” I think most of that for me was clearing out my dental issues and clearing out my parasite issues. It’s like, “Whoa, whole new life! Who cares if my body is fighting Lyme in the background?” I just felt so much better — so much more vitality. Some of these chronic problems I’ve had all my life like cold hands, cold feet — that’s all gone. Tight shoulders, tight back, tight neck — that’s all gone.

A lot of these little things that I just thought were normal are gone. In the end, I felt like we got to better health than we ever had, and it educated us a lot by necessity about diet, gut, how to live, and how to detox. I think those are essential tools these days. If you want to shine your light as brightly as you can in this world, you have to take care of your health and body.

At the end of all these, I realized that a lot of the things we did and a lot of things we learned were nowhere to be found. They were things we had tried or discovered, or trial and error, and maybe offbeat things. I thought if I had all this information five to seven years ago, I could have saved myself hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of my life and years of my children’s lives. That’s worth a lot. That’s huge.

My husband also said we need to disseminate this information, get it out there so it can help people like us, people who are looking for improved health. So the question then became, “What’s the best way to do it?” I’m not interested in becoming a health practitioner; neither is my husband. So we just put up a website with basically all the information organized as well as I could on all these topics.

It’s completely free. There are no pop-ups. I’m not trying to sell you anything. I don’t make any money. There is a ‘donate’ button. My husband and I committed to put this website up and fund it for five years. Beyond that, we figured if people donate in, we’ll keep it up longer or depending on how things go. If people donate enough money, I could do some little studies or little scientific research that’s more up our alley than becoming a health practitioner.

Everything on the site is completely free. One of the gifts of it is that we’re not trying to sell anything. I have no loyalties to anybody. I’m sure I have offended almost everybody who clicks at the site on one topic or another. But at the end of the day, I respect other people’s opinion, and this is the information that we went through and helped us, and so that’s what we put out there.

[00:23:39] Ashley James: Awesome. That’s so great. I know my listeners are going to go to your website and donate to support your cause as they read through your website and find that it is helping. The website is debugyourhealth.com. You’re the perfect person to put that website together, between you and your husband being MIT-trained scientists and engineers. You have that methodical, logical mindset and it shows on your website. I think that’s wonderful.

I know that everyone right now is thinking to themselves, “Where do I start?” You mentioned some symptoms that people think are genetic or normal, like “My hands are cold. My feet are cold. My shoulders are always tight,” or sleep issues, gut issues, emotional/mental issues, and the list goes on. Little things, little symptoms they’ve had for many years that they might not have a diagnosis, but they have a bunch of symptoms. They’re not truly happy with their health, and they don’t know where to start because there are a million parasite concepts out there. There are a million supplements out there. They don’t know whether their problems are dental, detoxing, methylation, or epigenetic. Where does someone start when they have a host of symptoms, and what they’re looking for is supporting the body at the root level and the body’s ability to come back in the balance?

[00:25:10] Susan Luschas: That’s a tough one because we didn’t know where to start. We were shooting in the dark. One practitioner says metals, and another practitioner says gut. We’re shooting all over the place in the dark.

I think a great starting place though, in general, without hearing specifics of what the symptoms are, is just back to basics which is lifestyle issues — sleep, diet, stress relief or whatever you do to de-stress. The other thing would be if you’re in a toxic situation. For instance, I worked for years in a lab where lead was soldered, and it was not ventilated. If you have some work hazard environment like that, if you’re in a toxic situation, detox is part of that, too.

For some of us, we got a lot of heavy metals, maybe passed down from our mom who maybe had a lot of fillings, anything like that. Today our air isn’t really clean anymore. Our water is not clean anymore — our environment. Detox is always a good one to start with.

We are so socialized at every event, it feels like, that it pretty much transcends to a sugar event. Anything at school, work, or whatever, these events turn into sugar events. The sugar addiction thing is a real issue. My personal opinion is that sugar is one of the most addictive drugs out there, and it’s legal. It’s really hard to get off it. You go through classic cocaine addiction withdrawal symptoms. People get shaky. They get sweaty. They spend a day in bed. Our family definitely went through that. My oldest child, she went through a couple of days of full-blown autism when we finally got all the sugars out of her diet.

Diet — organic, vegetables, meat. Our family is not a fan of any grains or sugar, so we tend to eat more of paleo or keto. Now we’re to the point where we can eat a little bit of rice or a little bit of whatever. If we’re at someone’s house for dinner with meat, vegetables, and rice, we’ll have a little bit. It’s a special treat, but to this day these still aren’t things that we have in our house or that we cook at home. We still cook a lot of our food. We spend a lot of time cooking. My children are now twelve and nine, and they make one meal a week, which is great for them to learn about these things. Eat a good diet. That may not be exactly our diet for everybody, but clean it up basically.

Sleep — we all need sleep. We need uninterrupted sleep, with no lights. I am personally a fan of going to bed when it’s dark and wake up when the sun comes out. I think that’s naturally what our bodies were meant to do, but you’ve got to prioritize sleep.

Stress relief — there’s so much information coming at us these days. There are a thousand text messages, a thousand emails. There are a thousand things to do somehow. Technology has done amazing things for our lifestyle, but on the other hand, somehow many of us have gotten busier and distracted with more things to do. How you manage stress is a big challenge for all of us.

I can tell you what our family does. Maybe some people have kids, and they’re interested in what the kids do as well. Personally, I like to exercise. I didn’t list it as one of the lifestyle things because for me it goes under stress. I exercise every day. I do think it’s important. Everyone should be exercising every day for twenty minutes. It may be high-intensity aerobics. It may be walking. Whatever it is, I think exercise is really important.

The other thing I do for stress is I meditate every day. Not everybody is into meditation, but I think it’s worth trying. You don’t necessarily have to sit and act like a monk. You can walk in nature and focus on your breath. That’s another way to meditate.

For stress relief, some people maybe go out with friends or plan a vacation or something like that. These are all great ideas. For my kids, we learned how to breathe deep, how to calm our emotions. My kids and I chant and sing. Sometimes singing can help. We also do yoga.

The other thing we do to relieve stress is that we go to services on Sunday. I didn’t think about religion as necessarily relieving stress, but for some people, it really can — a connection to something greater than themselves, and a reminder of their life purpose, that their life is to shine as brightly as possible. Sometimes religion can help people.

To disclose because I’m pretty straightforward, our family goes to a yoga and meditation temple — it’s Kriya Yoga. They have scriptures and sort of a normal Sunday service. At the center temple, the kids learn how to calm themselves down, how to breathe, how to see things from a different perspective, how to take a step back.

Detox –– I think that’s important in everyday life these days. The main things our family does for detox are probably sauna therapy and enemas. We still do enemas, not so much anymore for parasites but more for detox. The sauna is sweat therapy, so you can get some of that if you’re exercising. There are lots of other things for detox. Yoga can help get things moving. Lymph massage — there’s the chiropractic or osteopathic piece of it. There are all kinds of ways to detox.

Supplements — sometimes your body needs different supplements.

That’s a general place to start — start with the basics of lifestyle. Once you’ve got those dialed in, see how you’re feeling. That may clear it up for many people. I think leading a cleaner lifestyle, for some people it can allow their immune system to function better and fight whatever infections that they may have be they dental, parasites, or dealing with heavy metals or the wrong bacteria in the gut. A lot of times, if you clean up your lifestyle, your immune system can function better, and you can fight off some of those other things better.

[00:33:19] Ashley James: Yeah, that’s something that I keep hearing. Scott Forsgren shared that, and Dr. Klinghardt and many others who’ve been on the show have shared that if the body was like a fish tank and it is sick — it’s got green goop all over it, the weird algae — it’s just an unhealthy, anaerobic tank full of bad bacteria. The fish in the tank will suffer. But if you clean a tank, and now you’ve got crystal clear tank, you can even see there’s water in it because it’s so clear, and there are good, healthy bacteria in there and it’s fully oxygenated, then the fish are going to thrive.

That’s the same with our body. When the body is toxic, the parasites live. It’s like a parasite hotel. Whereas when you make the whole body so healthy through all the things you’ve just talked about, then it becomes inhospitable to these co-infections and parasites. It makes it so those who are fighting all these Lyme co-infections, parasites, or gut dysbiosis, it makes it harder for the bad stuff to live here in the body, and it makes it easier for the good stuff, the good bacteria to thrive.

It makes so much sense. You weren’t majorly sick your whole life, but you had those symptoms. And then you had that new Lyme diagnosis, so you weren’t a chronic Lyme person suffering for years luckily. Through working on the foundations of your health, you felt even better than you ever had before. I love that. I think that’s so cool. I definitely want to get into talking about hidden dental infections and detox a bit more.

But first, I have some questions about your story. After you removed that one cup of grains a week and you had completely removed fruit, so the only thing she was eating was a low-carbohydrate diet with meat, healthy fats, and vegetables, how did you know that while she was rocking there and holding herself, full-blown autism, that she needed to continue? Of course, the knee-jerk reaction, as your husband had, is the same thing I would do. I’d go, “No, this is wrong. Oh, my gosh, we’re going in the wrong direction.” How do you know it was the right direction and you need to help her through it to the other side?

[00:35:49] Susan Luschas: Good question. I had heard in all of my research and looking online, reading, following people like Klinghardt and Scott once we got the Lyme diagnosis. I read through most of their stuff at some point in time. Not that I remember all of it, but I read through so many things about the topic of Lyme, specifically autism and things like that.

I knew she had some autistic symptoms before she went fully autistic, but it’s like, “Yeah, she has some autistic symptoms.” But most kids do these days. When she went fully autistic, it’s like, “Okay, this is full autism.” But I had heard that a lot of times autistic kids have to get worse before they get better. That wasn’t a new concept. I don’t have a specific reference for it off the top of my head. I have to search around for it, but I can remember reading that and hearing that a few different places or a few different people saying that. Now, the question is, how do you find the guts to do it?

I had read that before, and I had the mommy intuition or just the gut feeling that the right thing to do was push through. Between those two, in your head, you have to lose the fear. I am generally pretty fearless. If you look at the website, you’d be like, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe she did that to her five-year-old.” But at some point, getting better was so important for my child and me.

But like I said if some practitioner had told me, “Stand on your head. Do a headstand for five hours a day,” I probably would have tried it. I just really wanted us to be better so that we could be the best people we could be in the world. My husband was against it, but I said, “Then you drive her to the institution.” He said, “No, I’m not going to drive her to the institution.” “Well, then, this is what we’re doing,” because I had kind of taken over as a primary care provider. I had taken some time off work. I had to because of my health but also to work on her health. I was the primary care provider and called the shots.

It was a combination of having heard of it before, having that gut intuition, and just being a little fearless. Her MD pediatrician told me before — not to rag on her right now, but she has a practice in the area with a year-long waiting list, like your kid will be eighteen before you get into this person’s practice. She told me that I would kill the child by taking out fruits and grains because the child won’t get enough sugar. My child was already on the failure to thrive diagnosis, below the growth chart.

She told me already we can’t do that. There’s no way. And I said to her, “Okay. But then what can I do?” because I had already everything she said years ago. She said, “You could try this homeopathic remedy,” and I’m like, “We did that three years ago or five years ago, remember?”

It’s funny because now she recommends this to a lot of people. It’s cool though. To her credit, she has learned, and she’s seen it not just with us, but with other people. She recommends this and is now writing blog posts in this direction, which is very cool. But I think, sometimes in life, life deals us crises and uncomfortable situations. Sometimes there is some nastiness, but we have to calm ourselves down, take a deep breath, live our lives, and go for our intuition and our knowledge.

I’m not saying anything anybody says on the internet you should try at home. You should think about it yourself. You should research it. Things like that are what I did. But at the end of the day, I had to go with my thinking and thoughts and think for myself, which is something a lot of people don’t do when it concerns their health. They don’t think for themselves. They want a practitioner to tell them X.

The problem is, in some topics, like chelation is a fantastic one. You can go to all these MDs who’ve been practicing chelation for ten, twenty, some of them thirty years, and ask them, “How do you chelate lead or mercury out of the body?” In my case, it was more of lead. They’ll all give you a completely different answer. Some of them will say oral DMSA. Some of them will say you need IV DMPS once a week. They’re all over the spectrum. They don’t know what’s the answer. We don’t really know how to chelate the body.

They know they’ve done some things in the past and it’s worked for some people, but you start to realize that a lot of these practitioners, they may be one small piece of the puzzle. But I have yet to find the practitioner who has all the pieces of the puzzle and understands each piece. I think that’s where we have to take over our health, find all these pieces, and figure out how they piece together.

[00:41:38] Ashley James: Yes, I love it. I love that you said, consider the doctors and experts on your team as though they’re your team. Don’t put them on a pedestal. You hired them. They’re your employees, and you’re the CEO of your health. If we have that mindset, we can fire and hire the right doctors for us that are going to inform us, and we definitely want to get second and third opinions because I don’t want to be a guinea pig. I don’t want to go to one doctor, whether it’s a naturopath or an allopathic practitioner and be told to go on one protocol to find out that they’re guessing based on someone else’s experience or based on some study where some people, for a small percentage, had results. I want to know what works, the one that works all the time, and I want to know why. We need to advocate for ourselves and be willing to step up and go to more than one practitioner to find the answers.

It’s really interesting, the experience you went through. Now, your daughter, is she on the spectrum? Is she autistic?

[00:42:53] Susan Luschas: My answer is no. I do not see any autistic symptoms in her on a daily basis. Occasionally, maybe once a year, I’ll be like, “Hmm, she’s acting a little funny or a little moody. Maybe we should hit an enema. Maybe we should test.” We do muscle testing now at home all the time like a lot. What I’ll do is I’ll pull up the enema bucket. I’ll be like, “How is she testing? Does she need an enema? How is she testing on the sauna? Does she need to go to the sauna? How is she testing on some supplements?” Activated charcoal is a go-to for her.

For example, I’ll pull out a bunch of things and start testing, but I’m not sure if that’s really moody. Now, she’s 12, so she’s going on puberty. So the answer is, no. As far as I know, there are no autistic symptoms. In the school, they have no knowledge of any of this, and I kind of keep it that way. She has no special tracking or anything. They think she’s a completely normal kid. Not to brag about that child, but she is at the top of her class academically, and she plays lots of sports and has lots of friends. To be honest, I can’t even keep up with her schedule half the time. Thank god, she has a bike and now can bike herself to practice and friend’s house and whatever.

She’s living a pretty healthy normal American life. She eats. She’s on the growth chart. I’m not a huge person myself. So I think on the growth chart, she’s been following around 25-30%. My second child is following about 50%. That’s just how she’s built; she’s built a little differently, I don’t know. But I’m happy with 25-30%. I’m still 25-30% myself because I’m not a big person, and she’s 12. So I would say no, she’s got no more autistic symptoms.

It’s interesting because her kindergarten teacher moved to a different state. Her kindergarten teacher no longer has the ability to influence anything regarding her schooling, so I told her, “She had a full autism diagnosis. According to her pediatrician, she is diagnosed with autism, and she always will be because we can’t cure autism.” If you ask her pediatrician, she’ll be like, “Yes, of course. She’s on the spectrum because she always will be.”

I told her kindergarten teacher, “You know, she had a full autism diagnosis,” and she just looked at me and she goes, “No, she didn’t.” That was pretty cool because, in kindergarten, she was still going through a lot of things. She was able to start kindergarten on time, but even at kindergarten, she was still going through parasites and still detoxing, chelation, and learning to sweat again. She was still going through all that in kindergarten, but the kindergarten teacher said, “No, I don’t think she was autistic at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

[00:46:15] Ashley James: This is the biggest paradigm shift that people could go through that is like coming out of The Matrix for help. Almost everyone has watched the movie The Matrix where Neo takes the red pill and all of a sudden he wakes up in a totally different world, and he realized his entire life he’s been living in a pod, and he’s been hooked up to a digital computer. What he thought was real was actually computer.

This experience, if we were to imagine ourselves being pulled out of the matrix or paradigm of the mainstream health care and pretend for a moment, suspend disbelief, suspend your belief system and go, “Autism doesn’t exist. There’s a world in which it doesn’t exist,” and yet the symptoms exist. Imagine no one has ever invented the word ‘autism.’ No one has ever diagnosed it as a disease. What we see is a bunch of children, more and more in the last thirty years, with symptoms, and the doctors have not created a box called disease to label it.

The symptoms are our guide to supporting the child to go towards health, and when the symptoms get worse chronically, we know that there’s something wrong — there’s something we’re doing wrong in diet, in detox, in methylation. Something is going on, and when we support the child, and ultimately they get better, the symptoms are our guide.

Back when I was in school when I was a kid, it was like one in 10,000 was diagnosed as autistic. Now, it’s one in 40 children, almost one kid for every classroom in the United States, and there’s a spectrum. Unfortunately, you get some diagnosis, and the doctors can tell you, “Your kid is going to be that way his whole life. Let’s get him on drugs now.”

And then we stopped. We shut down. We stopped searching for answers. We stopped searching to help them, and we keep bringing them to McDonald’s and Burger King. We keep going to 7/11 giving them Slurpees. We keep injecting them with things, giving them pills, and letting them eat pizza. We have a disconnect between what goes in their body is either healing them or harming them, and because we’ve been told they are ADHD, autistic or whatever label, they’re just baked into the cake, we cannot change it. You can’t change it, therefore, why would you even try to look for answers?

We’re set up in a world in which we’re told to be dumb and not search for answers. But if we can suspend our disbelief and imagine that there’s a world where diseases don’t exist — any disease — labels don’t exist, but symptoms. Symptoms are the truth. I can’t give you a barrel of diabetes. It’s a label that we’ve used so that we can medicate.

But if we look at symptoms and go, “How can I support the body to come back into balance?” Forget that there’s disease, but look at symptoms and support the body, then we can begin to take action. I want to get people so motivated and get their mindset in a place where they realize that even though their doctors told them they’re going to be sick for the rest of their lives, there are actions they can take.

Anything a doctor says that makes you not want to keep seeking answers has been the wrong thing. They’ve told you the wrong thing. You want always to seek the answers. You want always to get information. You want always to look to support the body. I love that what you’re showing us today is another powerful example that the body demonstrates illness and out of balance through symptoms, and it can be neurological, behavioral, emotional or mental. But the physical is demonstrating illness through all these different symptoms, and the more we support, the more it’s going to come back in the balance.

When I had Dr. Klinghardt on the show, he shared that there are thousands of kids he has helped in the last forty years, who were diagnosed with full-blown autism and now they do not have autism. I nearly fell off my chair. Absolutely — because now what we’re seeing is basically a misdiagnosis. There’s a bunch of sick children whose bodies are toxic. They’re unable to detox. They have heavy metals. They’re not methylating correctly. Parasites — you name it. We’re feeding them junk, and when you do that to a child, those symptoms are going to demonstrate. And then we give them a diagnosis so that we can feel like there’s no hope. But again, if we pull back this idea that there’s a diagnosis, and instead go after the symptoms, then we can help them. Then we can take action.

That’s my biggest passion is to shift us to a space feeling helpless to feeling empowered.

Why did you choose to cut out grains and fruits? What was it doing to your daughter’s body? Were the grains and fruits feeding an infection? Were they feeding the parasite? Were they causing inflammation? Were they inhibiting her ability to detox? What was it about grains and fruit that was so disruptive to her health?

[00:52:26] Susan Luschas: That answer is very easy, and it’s I don’t know. I can tell you what I think based on hindsight as a little bit 20/20, or it’s not necessarily 20/20 — I have a guess or a theory based on my experience. Again, I don’t sell anything, so I’m not biased towards any product or anything like that. One of the things we were monitoring at that time was her stool test — microbiology and yeast stool test. We also did through normal labs. You could do Doctor’s Data. There are other companies besides Doctor’s Data. There is Rocky Mountain or whatever they’re called now and some others.

We’ve been monitoring her stool test through these various companies over the years. There’s always some dysbiotic bacteria. No one in our family ever had yeast because we just never ate enough sugar to begin with. We never ate dessert anyway. We never went to McDonald’s anyway. We weren’t that kind of family. It’s amazing that we could have such serious gut problems when we never ate that badly anyway.

We’ve been monitoring stool tests over time. Of course, being a scientist, I want to plot these things versus time on an X and Y axis. She definitely always had some dysbiotic bacteria in there. Sometimes it would be the same ones coming up over and over. Sometimes a new one would come up.

Of course, on these tests, there are thousands, if not millions of other bacteria that we don’t even know how to test for, that are important in digestion and for our immune system. So after the grains and the fruit, my theory is that taking those out of her diet radically shifted the balance of the bacteria in the gut. It may not be just bacteria. It may also be yeasty things. Even though we never tested on yeast, it doesn’t mean we don’t have it. There are beneficial forms of yeast. It could be some viral things that were going on in her gut as well.

I am personally of the opinion that if you have some dysbiotic bacteria, let’s say E. coli — it’s actually a normal flora for us as humans, but it can become dysbiotic, and certain strains of it are more dysbiotic than others. You’re probably not going ever to get rid of that completely. You’ll get to the point where it won’t show up on a stool test. But if you go back to your old lifestyle habits, it will probably come back on your stool test, which has been my experience. I’m not of the opinion that we necessarily get rid of these dysbiotic bacteria or these nasty things in our gut, but we can radically shift the balance by the food we eat.

I’m not a huge fan of probiotics, while I’m on the topic. We’ve tried so many over the years. If you dig deep enough in the website, there’s an article about which probiotic is best. I actually have a table of the probiotics and what I think they’re best for, like killing your gut or stomach flu, digestion, or whatever.

I’m not a huge fan of any of them in terms of healing your gut or shifting the balance. I think most of the probiotics we take, we just come out the other end. Personally, I think you have to get doses in several billions to even try to do anything. But I think the better way to shift the balance in the gut is through diet. The one exception to that is there is a probiotic for E. coli specifically that I think can be very useful for those people out there who do have dysbiotic E. coli. Other than that, I’m not a huge fan of the probiotics.

[00:57:02] Ashley James: Are you a fan of fermented foods to help with the gut culture?

[00:57:08] Susan Luschas: Yes and no. Our family makes our ferments. We have a humungous crock-pot, so big the kids can play hide and seek in it. We don’t make sauerkraut from less than twenty head bunches. I’m just thinking, right now at the house, we have red kraut with ginger, green kraut with garlic and dill, and we have pickles. We make our ferments, and we always have, and we always had fermented foods, but we were still sick. So the answer is no, I don’t think fermented foods are going to radically change some of these very serious infections and issues.

On the other hand, if you’ve never eaten fermented foods, I think it’s something we should all be doing every day anyway, just in that general health category. We should all be eating fermented foods at every meal. I’m not even perfect about it. At least one meal per day has fermented foods in our house, usually two, sometimes I get the third.

[00:58:25] Ashley James: When someone has severe dysbiosis, obviously cutting out the sugar, potentially cutting out grains, eating fermented foods as a staple anyway for basic health, but then would you say that feeding the healthy gut bacteria through vegetables — is that your solution? In that case, are you looking more to taking supplements and herbs to restore the balance?

[00:58:58] Susan Luschas: You mean like how do I feed the good guys?

[00:59:02] Ashley James: Feed the good guys, starve the bad guys — yeah.

[00:59:06] Susan Luschas: That’s the hard part. When you’re doing something — for example, a 30-day fast like I did with the oldest child twice — naturally, everything is going to go down. But in general, the dysbiotic guys, in my opinion, tend to feed more on sugar than the good guys. The good guys are a little more able to extract sugar from vegetables than the bad guys are. The bad guys usually tend to get dysbiotic because of excessive sugar.

Back to what my pediatrician said, “You can’t take that out of her diet. She’s not going to get enough sugar.” There is sugar in vegetables, believe it or not. Broccoli today is not the broccoli that I grew up with, unfortunately. We’ve sort of engineered but not genetically, but we have selected our vegetables more and more over time based on what tastes good, and what tastes good to most people is usually the sweeter ones.

I’m of the opinion that we do get quite a bit of sugar even just from vegetables, and that is enough for the good guys, believe it or not. Our family does occasionally now eat some vegetables like sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar in them. We don’t often eat sweet potatoes, but we can eat those, and we do eat them once every couple of months or something. It’s not a staple for us. It’s kind of like someone said, or it was in some research somewhere that the fruit of today is like the candy bars our grandmas ate in terms of sugar. We just selected these things to be more and more sweet, less and less nutritious.

One thing our family does — we’re lucky we have a garden, not a huge one. We do grow quite a bit of our food. I would love to grow 100%. We’re not there, but maybe someday and we’ll keep striving for it.

[01:01:19] Ashley James: Very cool. I found a documentary just a year ago. It’s a free documentary on YouTube called Back to Eden Gardening, and it teaches people how to garden even in the desert. It’s using a type of mulch that preserves the moisture of the soil, so you do very little watering. You do very little weeding, and it remineralizes the soil through the mulch.

This man — his story is fascinating — just like you, for free, teaches people how to garden. It’s called Back to Eden Gardening. I recommend people watch it on YouTube. Even if someone just has a few square feet of a back yard or front yard, they can turn it into something that can grow them some kale, zucchini, or fresh herbs to get started.

Last year, because we have 5 acres to work with, I convinced my husband. He wanted to do 10 x 10, and I convinced him through a lot of coercion to do 25-foot-by-50-foot garden, which is a huge endeavor for our first garden ever. I was learning. I think I planted everything too deep, but what did take was the massive amount of zucchinis and squash, which took over the whole garden because I had no idea how big these things get.

Last summer, that’s all we did. We eat zucchini that we grew ourselves — giant zucchini steaks. I figured out a hundred new ways to make zucchini, and of course, everyone that came to our house walked away with an entire grocery bag full of zucchini. But it is so rewarding and so much fun to grow your own food. You know where it came from. It’s fresh. It’s so delicious that you don’t need to add any seasoning to it or cover it with anything unhealthy like cheese or whatever people put on vegetables if they don’t taste good.

We would sometimes sit out in the garden, eat it straight out of the garden. It’s amazing what happens when you gain contact back with the soil. You have that access to freshly grown food. We forget what real food tastes like until we have that first experience. I absolutely agree with you. That is something to do for decreasing stress, a great family activity, and great for health as well.

The first time you did the enemas with your children, what was in the enemas? Is it just water? Is it a coffee enema? The first enema you did that had worms come out that convinced your children this was viable.

[01:04:14] Susan Luschas: We just did a Fleet enema from the drug store because I didn’t know how it was going to go. I got a Fleet enema from the drug store and did it on myself first. With a kid, especially a young kid, the little one at that time we did it was three-ish. I think she was about three or four; it’s somewhat a bit of a blur. But I did it on myself first, and then I said, “Okay, kids, we’re going to do this.” I wrote a whole article on my website. If you’re interested in the topic, definitely read the article because I had to bribe the children.

I don’t bribe my children. But this was one of the issues where I had to bribe the children. It turns out that we don’t watch TV. We don’t have TV service or anything like that. So I bribed them with being able to watch TV.

How do you watch TV if you don’t have a TV service or TV? I got a portable DVD player, and I checked out some Little House on the Prairie episodes from the library. It was one of those mommy win-win moments, where I get to do my enema, and they get to watch this wonderful programming of Little House on the Prairie which talks about values and ethics, and they’re getting social-emotional learning. If they started crying or creating a fuss with the enema, I turn the movie off, so they stopped. Once they stopped and were ready to cooperate again, we turn it back on. We only had to turn it off about twice the first time, and then they got the feeling, “Oh, yeah, we really want to watch TV because everybody watches TV.” So I had something very easy to bribe my children with.

I just had the Fleet enema because I’m like, “Okay, let’s see how it goes.” No one recommends doing an enema on a three-year-old — “You’re gonna kill them.” But luckily, Kerri Rivera had done it on her young children as well, and she had posted some instructions and some tips and things like that. That gave me, at least, one level of confidence that someone else had done it on a young child.

It turns out, that was one of the best things I ever did for the children. The three-year-old, the enema was already over, and the movie was over. We sat in the bathroom getting her ready for bed, and we’re brushing teeth and what-not. She just said, “Mommy, that enema was great. We have to do it again.” I said, “Why?” She said, “Because the worm just came from my head and it came out of my body.” That’s what she told me at age three, and I was like, “Whoa!” She was on the toilet when we were having this conversation. She got up from the toilet, and there was a baseball-sized tapeworm out of this three-year-old. I could not believe it.

I started losing my blood pressure. I started fainting. I just had to pick myself up literally off the floor because I couldn’t believe it. I shot some pictures of that particular worm. So my experience generally with the enemas is they’re fantastic for all people that have worm-type parasites especially. Do it a week before the full moon if your symptoms flare with the full moon. If they’re flaring with the new moon, do it a week before the new moon or a few days before the moon, somewhere in there. Hopefully, you’re going to get quite a few out with the enemas. That’s just absolutely fantastic. Hopefully, that’s enough that you feel better and you just live your life and enjoy life.

For some of us who’ve had parasite infections for a long time and they become systemic, they’re not just in the digestive tract. There are other places in our body. That’s when you want to think about parasite medications, in my opinion, but enemas are actually fantastic.

[01:08:28] Ashley James: Were your daughters constipated before or did they have totally normal bowel movements? I can’t wrap my brain around just a regular pharmacy-bought Fleet enema. Why would that have caused worms to come out? Why is that different than just going poo if they don’t have any constipation?

[01:08:49] Susan Luschas: My kids never really had any constipation. They were pooping a couple of times a day usually — sometimes once a day, sometimes two or three times a day. They never had constipation issues that I was aware of. I am not a poop digger, so it’s possible that they had worms in their poop, and I never saw it. Some moms or dads fish out the poop and go through it. I have never done that, looking for worms or whatever. I don’t tend to go in after they go to the bathroom and look at their poo, and no one has ever said to me, “Mommy, what’s that in my poo?” So it’s 100% possible worms were coming out of their poo, and I just never noticed it, but who knows?

In my opinion, it’s just saline water basically and it just literally washed them right out. What they do is grip on to the walls of the digestive tract. There are all kinds of worms out there, but most worms tend to come into the digestive tract, slightly before the full moon to mate and meet each other, and then they go back to potentially being systemic in other parts of the body. If you hit them with an enema around that time, when they’re just literally sucking and holding on to the walls of the digestive tract, sometimes you can break some of them loose, and they’ll flush out. Especially when you have hundreds of them, then it’s usually easy to flush out a couple so that you can see them.

[01:10:30] Ashley James: The Fleet enema is only in the rectum and part of the colon. It’s not going into the whole colon, is it?

[01:10:38] Susan Luschas: It depends on how much water you do for the size of the person. I forget what the number is, but I think the digestive tract of kids at age five to eight or something like that is 80% of what it is in adults. They have as long of a digestive tract as we do to the first order. It’s not as physically big, but it’s almost as long, not significantly shorter. So it depends on how much water you do for the size of the person. The Fleet enema from the drug store has instructions on it. Initially, I followed that, and then I realized, that’s not enough. We need to do more volume.

As for the topic of Fleet enema versus coffee enema versus whatever other kind of enema, it depends on what you’re trying to do. I’m of the opinion that, for example, if you think you have worms, I don’t think it matters. It’s just about the volume of water to flush a couple of them out so you can see them. I think for worms — anything. It doesn’t matter what you put in it.

If you have, for example, an autistic child and you’re trying to get them to detox quickly, like my child who went fully autistic, personally I would muscle test the child first and see what would work the best. But without the ability to muscle test, I would hit him with activated charcoal and the enema. That tends to work very well for autistic children to get an immediate detox. We’ve even done minerals in the enema. We’ve done probiotics in the enema. We’ve done homeopathic remedies and drainage remedies in the enemas. It just depends on what we’re working on and what we’re doing.

[01:12:42] Ashley James: For those who don’t know, because people are thinking, “You’re just putting it up your butt and then releasing it into the toilet. Why are you putting all these things in it?” That’s because the skin is so thin there that we absorb it quickly and there’s a vein that goes right to the liver. The quickest way to deliver some nutrients to the liver is through the rectum. I have felt that. I have done coffee enemas.

Coffee enemas are not Starbucks coffee that you put up there. It’s a blond blend. You want it to be organic. You don’t make it strong. It’s not drinking coffee. It’s totally different. But when you do a proper coffee enema, it delivers that caffeine to the liver, which forces the liver to increase the amount of antioxidant that it makes.

It does a bunch of other things too, but it’s cool that it stimulates the liver to go in overdrive and do a lot more detoxing. Those who are in chronic pain sometimes feel hours of relief from doing a coffee enema because it causes the liver to ramp up its efforts to make more antioxidants. There are all kinds of good things, but you’re right — we need to think about what we’re here to solve.

If it’s something as simple as we want to see if we could flush out some worms, that’s one thing. But we can use it to deliver some nutrients to the body as well. It’s an interesting topic — the idea of doing it.

Our son is turning four this week, and if I had to, I think I could talk him into it, but it will be a very interesting conversation. But when a child is sick, they’re willing to do anything if they believe it’s going to make them feel better. Your daughter immediately started to feel better. That’s amazing. It’s so exciting.

[01:14:45] Susan Luschas: Yeah. We even went to who can get out the biggest worm contest. So you can make it fun — who can get out the biggest worm and who can get out the most worms, who can get out the fattest worms, and who can get out the worms where you can see all the organs inside.

[01:15:06] Ashley James: Kids are more fascinated than grossed out at that point, and then when they start to feel better, then it’s like, “Whoa, this is working. Let’s keep doing it.”

Now, you also mentioned that your daughter had lost the ability to sweat. Can we talk about that? I do know some adults that have lost the ability to sweat, and I think that’s quite fascinating to learn. Why do people lose the ability to sweat, and how can they get it back?

[01:15:38] Susan Luschas: I’m not an expert on any of these topics, but I can tell you our experience with losing the ability to sweat. I think the Lyme Borrelia went after her hypothalamus. I think that’s what happened in her case. I don’t know other people who’ve lost the ability to sweat. I’m not sure if that’s the case for them or not. Personally, if someone comes and says, “I’ve lost the ability to sweat,” I would say, “Just get a Lyme test.” It would be good to know.

If you’re feeling great, you don’t have to do anything about it. But you may want that information just to double check that. We didn’t know what to do to get her to start sweating again, and no practitioner had answers to get her sweating again. We tried all kinds of things over the years. What finally worked in her case were two things: forced sweating in the sauna, which was incredibly painful.

For someone who doesn’t sweat, to go in the sauna is torture in many ways, so this was another case where I got out the DVD player and the episodes of Little House on the Prairie, and I bribed her to sit in the sauna. When she was watching the TV in the sauna, she lost track of how horrible she was feeling and how she was almost passed out right in the face, which is a scary thing for a child. But we could always bring her out and put her in a nice bath if we had to, but we were trying to push the limits of what she could sweat. Slowly, over time, time being many months, she finally started to sweat. We would go into sauna until she either passed out initially or gave us one drop of sweat — literally one drop, and it’s like, “Okay, that’s enough.” And then the next time, it was like, “Can you give us two drops before you go out?”

We just worked up, and now we still go in the sauna as part of our healthy lifestyle routine. She sweats almost like a normal person now. Now, she’ll start sweating at the same time the rest of us do and sweats about the same amount, which is super. And now we stay in there for 30 minutes at 125-130.

This is also challenging with the child because you can’t just take them to the gym. What you want to do as an adult is to be cheap about it and go to the gym, go in their sauna, try it out, see how you do with it and how you like it, get used to it before you potentially buy a home one. But with children, you can’t do that. When we were at Simon Yu in Saint Louis, he has a sauna that he’ll let children try out, so we were able to try it out a little bit there, and then decide, “What do we want to get for our home use to help her start sweating?”

Number one was forced sweating in the sauna, and it was incredibly painful. But we finally got there over many months.

The other thing though that she needed with the sauna at the same time was a hypothalamus supplement. It was the one from Bio-Design, I think. It’s a hypothalamus supplement that she needed at the same time. She took two of those twice a day for a couple of years. It’s desiccated hypothalamus supplement from Bio-Design, and she took two capsules twice a day for two years.

[01:19:23] Ashley James: Is that an herbal supplement?

[01:19:25] Susan Luschas: It’s desiccated hypothalamus — I think it’s bovine. I’m not sure what it is about that supplement. If you’ll ask me, “Why that? Is it actually the nutrients in the hypothalamus?” I don’t know. It could be energetic. I don’t know why, but that’s the thing that she needed along with the sauna. The homeopathic remedy was helpful too, but the two essential things were the sauna and the desiccated hypothalamus supplement. Again, I don’t get any money from that endorsement at all.

[01:20:06] Ashley James: For sure. Why did sauna therapy work for your daughter?

[01:20:09] Susan Luschas: Good question. I don’t know is my constant answer. It’s just like anything else — it’s practice. Just kind of like baseball, you got to practice hitting the ball with the bat, and you’re going to get better. I think it’s just practice of pushing her body to the point where it should be sweating and getting her body, “I should be sweating, but my hypothalamus isn’t working right or whatever.” Just keep pushing. In a way, I almost think of it as an allergy shot. They give allergy shots so that you get used to whatever the allergen is and potentially your allergy goes away. I’m not a fan of allergy shots, but I kind of think of it as somewhat the same theory.

[01:20:58] Ashley James: It does make sense. You’re trying to force the body to sweat. With her, in her condition, you wanted to help her detox. Sweating is supposed to be one of the gentlest and effective ways to get rid of fats or toxins. That’s the body’s way of getting rid of toxins through the sweat glands. When you’re not sweating, your body is not detoxing, so something is going on.

Were there concerns that she was not methylating? Were there concerns that her liver was not going through both stages of detox? Were there other areas you’re looking to see where she wasn’t detoxing?

[01:21:43] Susan Luschas: Let me go back for a minute to the sweating. I wasn’t smart enough back then to understand what you just said about sweating being so important to detoxing. I was doing it so she could play soccer because she would get red in the face and collapse at the soccer games. That’s the major problem. You can’t play soccer if you’re passed out. I was doing it for different reasons. I didn’t fully realize that.

Yes, we went through all these other detox things like methylation. She has mutations, as do our whole family has various methylation mutations, as do most people out there have them. We had gone through methylation. She tends to be a Methyl-Guard Plus by Thorne person. There are tons of methylation supplements out there. We’ve tried almost all of them, it feels like, maybe not, but we’ve tried quite a few.

Initially, she needed that support of Methyl-Guard Plus. She needed one capsule twice a day usually. Now, she hardly ever takes the Methyl-Guard Plus. She doesn’t need it very much anymore. The question is why. I’m not sure. I think it’s just her body is functioning in a much better place with improved lifestyle, being that she sweats now, she has a better diet, things like that.

I think from her sister, the little sister, the tongue tie was a huge part of the methylation puzzle for her. The little sister also needed methylation support, but after she got her first frenectomy. She didn’t need as many methylation supplements anymore, so if someone is dependent on methylation supplements, in my experience, the two places to look would be clean up the rest of your lifestyle, meaning things we already talked about.

The second place to look would be frenectomy or frenulum. It’s this flap of skin that connects your tongue to the lower jaw too tight. Another thing you could look at related to that without having a frenectomy is some kind of an osteopathic treatment, and a lot of times the osteopath could give you an opinion on whether they think that’s too tight or not.

[01:24:14] Ashley James: I’m a little confused about the chicken or the egg. Are you saying that when someone has a frenectomy, and they had their frenulum cut so that it’s stretched out more, that after that they don’t need as much methylation support?

[01:24:29] Susan Luschas: Right. That’s been our experience.

[01:24:35] Ashley James: I’m kind of like in “mind being blown land” — my son needed to have a frenectomy. When he was seven days old, his naturopathic pediatrician did a little surgery and cut his frenulum, and then he could suckle. In doing a little bit of reading deeper into this and a little bit of research, I discovered that there’s a hypothesis that it’s a mild deficiency of folate in utero that is causing the tongue ties and the lip ties, much like a large deficiency would cause spina bifida. And so they’re thinking a mild form in the mother, and I have methylation issues on 50% of both branches for the MTHFR. It was interesting to think that.

I was saying that because of methylation issues, they needed a tongue tie. Their body, in utero, didn’t develop correctly in a minor birth defect sort of way. And you’re saying that when it’s corrected, something happens to the body that makes them able to methylate better?

[01:26:05] Susan Luschas: Yes. I don’t know if it’s true for everybody. I can say it is true for us. If you go to my website and you click on the methylation tab, there’s one reference — Ben Lynch ND. He wrote an article, “The Intersection of Tongue Tie & MTHFR.” I am so glad he wrote that because I found that article after I noticed that after the frenectomy — so we had the frenectomy not because we thought it would improve our methylation. This is all hindsight.

We had the frenectomy for other reasons, and by the way, I’ll mention, both my kids suckled just fine and breastfed for eighteen months. It was never an issue with breastfeeding. We only did this as older children. I noticed myself because, of course, I don’t do anything on my kids without doing it myself, so I got a frenectomy as well.

[01:27:15] Ashley James: Really?

[01:27:16] Susan Luschas: Yeah. I didn’t do it first. I did it at the same time as the younger child. I felt a huge improvement after that frenectomy.

[01:27:31] Ashley James: That is fascinating. I’m like mind-blown. There’s part of Kriya Yoga where you are to stretch the frenulum. Do you know about that part of Kriya Yoga?

[01:27:40] Susan Luschas: Yeah.

[01:27:44] Ashley James: I’m wondering if there’s a meridian that is at that base of the tongue that is related to the liver or methylation, detox, or something. It would be interesting to talk to an acupuncturist and see if there’s something there — an energetic channel.

If we’re coming at it logically, if we’re coming at it very Western thinking, this doesn’t make sense. It’s the methylation problem that probably caused the tongue tie, so why is it that reversing a tongue tie would then affect — like changing something physical in the body affects something biochemical? In a Western mind, it would go, “That doesn’t compute.” But of course, we’re looking at it, this world of health, from a much broader perspective.

We don’t know all the answers, but let’s dive in and see. Here you are finding that it did work. You found relief through having the frenulum stretched or cut, and so did your children. Is this part of the dental procedures? You talked about hidden dental infections and some dental procedures that you had done that made a difference? Was that around the same time?

[01:29:08] Susan Luschas: We did those within a few years of each other. These aren’t really infections. This is just the structural issue, as you mentioned, of the frenulum being too tight.

The other thing I noticed when I did do the frenectomy in myself is that my posture was straighter, so I felt like I didn’t need to go to the chiropractor as often, and I have this naturally straighter posture now. It almost felt like, afterward, I learned how to walk again because I was feeling so different.

The other part I was going to mention as you were talking about the structural connection to the biochemistry, another thing we do for detox is chiropractic treatments. My kids go to the chiropractor or the osteopath. We switch between the two different practitioners, actually switch between four different practitioners because they all have different strengths.

I think chiropractic is part of detox or osteopathic. I think this topic of the methylation and the tongue tie and the connection between the two, this is new science. I don’t think we’ve figured this out yet at all. The only reference I could find on it was a blog post that Ben Lynch wrote. I just haven’t been able to find any other real science about it. But I can say observationally, with both of my children, after the frenectomy they were less dependent on their methylation supplement. That was not true for me, but I was never dependent on the methylation supplement. I never needed to take it every day as they did.

[01:30:50] Ashley James: Fascinating. Oh, my gosh. My mind is blown. I’m so excited to dive deeper into this. That’s really interesting. Can you touch on the importance of smoking out hidden dental infections and how to treat them? This is such a hugely important topic. Hidden dental infections can cause abscesses in the brain, heart disease, just a long list of problems that you wouldn’t think would start in the mouth.

[01:31:30] Susan Luschas: Exactly as you said, these dental infections can cause symptoms anywhere in the body. You’re talking about acupuncture meridians. Each tooth is on a meridian on the meridian chart. Depending on which tooth is infected, that can affect your lungs, liver, kidneys, and all kinds of things.

Most people, the hidden dental infections would be either a socket from an extracted tooth, a root canal, or an implant. All three of those could be the source or the location of the hidden dental infection. In my case, I had wisdom tooth sockets that hadn’t been extracted when I was sixteen years old. Those were all four infected. I had no root canals. My husband had a root canal, and his root canal was infected. My husband had his root canal pulled, and immediately noticed improved chiropractic in his back. He said he felt like his back just got completely re-adjusted, and again he also said he almost felt like he had to learn to walk again because it was so different. He also had less brain fog after it was removed.

From my cavitation surgery — when you go into an extracted tooth socket, it’s called cavitation surgery — I just felt like my shoulders dropped, my neck relaxed. That was also in a different chiropractic situation.

The other big thing for me was, I got rid of the ringing in my ears. I’ve had ringing in my ears as long as I can remember, apparently since I was 16. Finally, after the surgery, my ears are quiet. So cool.

The tricky part of this is none of us like to lose our teeth if we’re losing the root canal. Going into a wisdom tooth socket, dental surgery is uncomfortable and unpleasant — period. There’s no way to sugar-coat that at all, as far as I’m concerned. It is very difficult to get to the point that you decide to make that decision to do it, but the benefits of it can be truly amazing, really life-changing.

Not for everybody — I have cases where people have the cavitation surgery or have a root canal pulled, and they’re like, “I feel the same.” It depends on the person, the symptoms, and whether that’s bothering them or not. I think a lot of us with Lyme though do have to address the dental infections again because we need the immune system not to be fighting with dental infection but rather to be fighting the Lyme, and it also gives one last place for the Lyme to hide in our bodies.

[01:34:39] Ashley James: How would someone know if they have a hidden dental infection?

[01:34:45] Susan Luschas: That’s part of the problem of it. There’s no great way. One thing you can Google or you can go on my website is the tooth/organ chart. It’s like an acupuncture meridian chart with the teeth on it. You go to the tooth/organ chart, and then you look up the teeth that you have that are either extracted, implants, or root canals. Hopefully, that’s not every tooth. Hopefully, you just got one or two teeth in those three categories. And then you look down at that meridian, and you see on the chart, “What’s bothering me?”

In my case, for example, I had the wisdom teeth. The wisdom teeth is inner ear if you click on the chart or Google tooth/organ meridian chart. Surprise, surprise, my ringing went away. Who knew? Shoulder/elbow — like I said, my shoulder has dropped. Some spinal segments here — C8, T1, T5, T6, T7 if you tend to have discomfort; S1, S2, S3, if you tend to be needing adjustments in those a lot; organs are heart, duodenum. I didn’t notice any problems with my heart or duodenum before or after, but those aren’t really organs you notice. Just go down the meridian on the chart for those teeth, that will give you one clue.

The other thing my family does is muscle testing. If you have a practitioner who muscle-tests, or if you muscle-test yourself, even better. Sometimes you can see a hidden dental infection. You can’t see if it’s infected, but you could see maybe a pocket, for example, of an extracted tooth. Mostly, I’m talking about x-rays for extracted teeth. You can sometimes see that they left in the periodontal membrane when they extracted the tooth, and sometimes you can see that membrane and a pocket where the infection could live. There’s an example of that on my website if you click on ‘Dental’ and you scroll down. There’s an example of my x-ray, and I circled the pockets so you can see on the x-ray what I’m thinking about. That tells me I have pockets.

It doesn’t necessarily tell me I’m infected there, but it’s a clue. The symptoms on the meridian on the chart are one clue; the x-ray may be another clue; muscle testing may be another clue; and then the other way is you can fly to St. Louis and Simon Yu is still practicing, bless his heart. He is diagnosing them as well. He uses acupuncture meridian assessment. He has an electronic machine that measures acupuncture meridians, and that’s how he diagnoses them.

[01:37:42] Ashley James: Oh, my gosh. That is so cool. I am a little bit in shock right now. I had my wisdom teeth taken out years ago. I wish I had kept them in hindsight. For the last few months, I’ve had like 1 in 10 discomfort. There’s a sensation in my left lower jaw, right where the socket is, where the tooth used to be.

On the same side, I’m having hearing problems. I’ve been having chronic ear infections. I’ve been using mullein oil, warmed up onion muffs, or cold/hot compresses — all kinds of stuff to help. I kept blaming it on the fact that I do sleep a lot on my left side. I was thinking maybe it was my pillow, so I replaced my pillow to one that breathes more. I wear studio headphones all day long. I’ve been taking them off of my left ear because I thought maybe it’s my ears being constrained too much. But I didn’t think that it could be a possible problem with the wisdom tooth socket to my ear. That’s pretty interesting.

[01:39:05] Susan Luschas: I want to give also one caution about this. There’s a diagnostic part figuring out, “I think I have an infection in my root canal or my wisdom tooth socket.” Then there’s the how-to-fix-it part. Unfortunately, this is not an easy topic. Again, go into my website because there’s not much other information out there. I wrote an article about cavitation surgery and also root canal surgery, and on that, there’s a PDF file.

If you do not have the surgery with the one practitioner that I recommend — I hate to be a snob like that, but I only have one practitioner that I recommend because he’s the only one consistently getting good results — then print out this PDF file and at least take it with you to your dentist, oral surgeon, or whoever you’re having do this. At least take it with you and say, “There’s a checklist. Do you do this?” because this dental surgery can kill you. It’s a very serious thing. I went septic after my first time because my practitioner made tons of mistakes. You could argue my body didn’t heal it, but he also made quite a few mistakes. Hindsight is always 20-20, so I had it redone. I have had it a second time.

I also know lots of people have had this cavitation surgery or root canal pull or whatever, and they’ve gotten worse, or the infection hasn’t gone away. It is an art to find a practitioner who can do this right. We have people flying to see the one practitioner that I recommend. We have people flying to see him, and I think if you have the money, that’s the right thing to do because he’s the only that I’m trusting and recommending at this point. I do get lots of emails, calls, and what-not from people who have gotten to other practitioners. I just am not seeing the same kind of results from other practitioners. Finding the right practitioner for this is also not trivial.

[01:41:19] Ashley James: What’s his name?

[01:41:21] Susan Luschas: His name is Robert Jarvis. He works out of Santa Rosa, California, which is not too far away from where I live, it just so happens. But he’s the only one that I am recommending at this time. He actually retired, and then some other people and I got him to come back. He still is practicing, and he has just been doing this forever, and he’s really good at it.

The other thing is, I hate to say this, but I think the energy of the practitioner also matters, having someone who cares about the patient and you feel cared for. He is professional, caring, and all of that. I’m just going to give his phone number because he does try to hide them sometimes. His phone number is 415-924-6551. He practices out of Marine Dental Wellness right now. He is semi-retired, but I think he’s still practicing three days a week last I checked.

[01:42:37] Ashley James: That’s amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. I have a friend who’s a doctor here in Washington. She went to her holistic dentist, and soon after developed an abscess in her brain that left her blind, and she had to get major brain surgery, almost died. Now, she’s not blind anymore, but when she’s under stress, she goes blind. That’s pretty scary. She went back to the dentist and talked to him about it, not in like “You did this to me,” but, “Hey, soon after you did this work, I developed a brain abscess and almost died.” He got very angry at her and very defensive. It’s scary.

[01:43:25] Susan Luschas: It is scary. That’s why I took some time to emphasize that point, that these dental procedures can be very scary. Personally, I think we have a few people doing them that don’t know what they’re doing. That’s why I published this PDF checklist, print it out, take it with you, go through the list with your dentist or your oral surgeon before you have it. Show it to them, give them a copy; I don’t care. They can send me all kinds of nasty grams or whatever — I get them all the time.

But the good news is, because of this checklist, we have had a few practitioners improve their procedures. That’s what this is intended to do. I’m putting myself out there, my family is putting ourselves out there, and we’re hoping to help people get better, and also to help some of these practitioners improve their procedures. I know the practitioner who made some mistakes on me because I’ve heard from other people that he’s definitely not doing some of those things anymore. That’s a huge win. We’re all learning. We’re all in this together. But if you want to maximize your chance of getting it right the first time, I would go with Dr. Jarvis and do it now before the man does retire.

[01:44:45] Ashley James: I wish you would start teaching more doctors.

[01:44:48] Susan Luschas: I know! I’ve been working on that with him. I’ve had numerous conversations with him about that. If anybody is still listening out there and goes to see him, please tell him the same thing. If enough of us tell him, he usually does it.

[01:45:06] Ashley James: Could this be something that someone could film him teaching and then disseminate the information to dentists, or is it really hands-on, something that they need to be there in person? Film him teaching everything and just put it up on YouTube and get it out there for enough dentists to start to learn or people to bring to their dentists. That’s one thing to think about.

I think you saw much. This has been a wealth of information. I really want to have you back on the show. You are welcome any time you want a platform to share information.

You did mention that you have a list of things that your kids do themselves now as their own routines for helping maintain their health and relieve stress. Can you share some of the things that your kids do on their own?

[01:46:10] Susan Luschas: The biggest thing that comes to mind there is social. I have a social tab on my website which is funny because now there’s social media. But back when I started doing this, that wasn’t as prevalent.

One of the big things my kids do is social acceptance or social strength. In other words, when other kids are eating junk at lunchtime, every day they sit next to kids who eat all kinds of junk at lunchtime, that’s a huge challenge for them. And birthday parties — they always get picked up after the first hour, so they don’t have to be around the food. It’s a huge challenge to build that social and emotional strength to be healthy and to still feel mentally supported and okay and accepted at school. I think that’s challenging, and that’s something that they do every day.

How do they do that? We talk about it a lot at home. We eat dinner and breakfast together every day as a family. We talk about it. We talk about how the kids are starting to notice that certain kids can’t behave or don’t do well in school and look at their lunch box. They’re starting to notice some of those connections themselves, so we’d talk about that and support it at home. Some of the other things the kids do are that I always tell them now that they’re older, they’re 9 and 12, they need to tell me when they’re not feeling well. Sometimes, they’ll come up and say, “Mama, I need an enema.” I’ll be like, “Why?” They’ll be like, “I don’t know. I just need one.”

Sometimes you have to follow that inner intuition or inner knowing that we all have, but a lot of times, it gets stifled by culture, by other people imposing views or inability to hear our voice. I’ve also had them come up to me and say, “Mom, I need some activated charcoal.” So kind of being in touch with their voice.

I think some of this go back to religion and Kriya Yoga, and some of these meditation, yoga, and self-awareness, social/emotional learning tools. A lot of schools don’t teach social-emotional learning, but our school luckily has a couple of programs. One is called Recess 101, and the other one is called Schnitzel Shop. I want to plug both those programs that are getting into schools right now that teach kids how to be different, how to think for themselves.

That’s more the main thing that comes to mind. But on the physical, practical level, my kids make one meal a week. My kids work in the garden. We still do enemas and sauna. They go to bed at a reasonable time. My 12-year-old complains about going to bed every night at 7:30, but on the other hand, I think she recognizes that that enables her to make every sports team that she wants to and be at the top of her class without studying. It’s just those basic things. I think she’s starting to make the connection between those healthy lifestyle routines. The kids will also sometimes come, and they’ll be like, “Mom, I’m tired. I need to go to bed even though it’s not 7:30.”

Those are some of the things that they do, and then there are some things we “force” them to do, like take some supplements if they need them, or if we’re working on chelation, it’s a constant topic that we work on, and then we take a break, and then we work on it.

Another thing they do is they stuff their pillboxes, and we do that as a family. When we were doing the parasite medications, we even compounded our medications at home. The kids would help, which is kind of maybe crazy, but once you get into the parasite world, it might not sound so crazy anymore.

I think, also in the topic of kids and health, chores are important in general to build self-esteem and self-confidence. That’s what you really need to have a healthy kid. You need them to have the self-esteem and the self-confidence to be different because healthy, unfortunately, especially in public schools these days, is different.

[01:50:52] Ashley James: Very well said. Sounds like they’re listening to their bodies and advocating for themselves, and you’re setting them up for success later in life. Those are lessons that we as adults are still learning. That’s brilliant. We didn’t even get to dive into chelation. I’d love to have you back on and do a whole another exploration around chelation, heavy metals, and detox. We’d love to have you back. Thank you so much. This has been ‘enlifting’ — enlightening and uplifting.

Your website is debugyourhealth.com. Of course, I’m going to create a discussion in the Learntruehealth Facebook group, so those who aren’t there yet, please go to learntruehealth.com/group or search Learn True Health in Facebook, join the group, and join us in the discussion around this episode as we continue to bring up things that we love about this episode and things that we’re still learning and uncovering from your website. I’m sure there will be lots of comments from the listeners as we learn more from resources.

Thank you for putting it together. I’m a big fan of your mission. We’re definitely kindred spirits in that regard. I am grateful for what you do. Thank you. I’ll make sure that I donate to your cause as well, and I invite the listeners, if they found value in everything you’re sharing and also website, to please donate anything that helps. It does cost money to host websites and continue to be the owner of a domain. Like you said, if you raise enough money, you will put even more effort into the website and compile data from studies and bring us more resources that are unbiased. That is beneficial for all of us, so thank you so much.

[01:52:55] Susan Luschas: Thank you for having me. It’s been fun to talk to you, and thank you for what you’re doing with this podcast.

[01:53:02] Ashley James: Absolutely. All right, let’s have you back on the show. I’d love to continue this discussion.

[01:53:06] Susan Luschas: Sounds great.

[01:53:07] Ashley James: Are you into optimizing your health? Are you looking to get the best supplements at the lowest price? For high-quality supplements and to talk to someone about what supplements are best for you, go to takeyoursupplements.com, and one of our fantastic true health coaches will help you pick out the right supplements for you that are the highest quality and the best price. That’s takeyoursupplements.com. Be sure to ask about free shipping at our awesome referral program.

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Website

Recommended Reading:

Accidental Cure

Related Links

Hidden dental infections:
http://www.debugyourhealth.com/dental-cavitation-root-canal-infection-dental-implant-infection/

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Tap Into Your Best Self - Seattle
Saturday, April 13, 2019 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM (PDT)
Lynnwood Convention Center
https://www.learntruehealth.com/seattle

Tap Into Your Best Self - Austin
Saturday, June 8, 2019, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
https://www.learntruehealth.com/austin

Tap Into Your Best Self - Las Vegas
Sunday, June 9, 2019, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
https://www.learntruehealth.com/vegas

Tap Into Your Best Self - Atlanta
Saturday, June 22, 2019, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
https://www.learntruehealth.com/atlanta

Tap Into Your Best Self - Philadelphia
https://www.learntruehealth.com/philadelphia
Sunday, June 23, 2019, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Brad's site:
www.tapwithbrad.com

Tap into Your Best Self

https://www.learntruehealth.com/eft-bradyates

[00:00:03] Ashley James: Hello, true health-seeker and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I am thrilled to have you learn from Brad Yates today. I love his technique. In today’s interview, he had me do it, and he has you follow along and experience this type of acupressure that you see instant results with.

It’s really funny because as I was following along with his instructions, I’m tapping on the different acupressure points, and I wasn’t noticing while he was doing it. But then by the time we were done, I felt drunk. I was so calm and relaxed. It was really interesting how quickly it lowers cortisol.

In fact, he talks about some studies that prove using this technique significantly lowers stress hormones. He’s going to be coming to some major cities live and teaching his daylong class. I’m attending the one that’s coming up in Seattle. That is going to be Saturday, April 13th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lynnwood Convention Center in Seattle. I would love to see you there.

As you listen to this interview today, if you think yourself, “Man, I love to join Ashley and do Brad’s live event,” it’s called “Tap into Your Best Self.” He teaches you all the techniques to take EFT into your daily life to decrease stress and stop cravings. He has a technique that completely has you stop craving, allows you to lower anxiety, increase happiness, and increase productivity. He has 800 different videos on YouTube using this technique in different ways in your life to enhance and enrich your life. You get to learn all about it in person with him.

So in Seattle, Saturday, April 13th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you want to join me, go to learntruehealth.com/seattle, and that will take you to the page to sign up. I’d love to see you there.

If you’re not in Seattle, he is coming to some other cities. He’s coming to Austin, Texas, Saturday, June 8. You can go to learntruehealth.com/austin to get tickets to June 8th’s “Tap Into Your Best Self” class.

For Las Vegas, it’s Sunday, June 9th, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can go to learntruehealth.com/vegas.

For Atlanta, Georgia, he’s going to be there Saturday, June 22nd, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Go to learntruehealth.com/atlanta to sign up there.

He’ll be in Philly on June 23rd. Go to learntruehealth/philadelphia.

I know you’re going to love today’s interview. Please share with those that you know would love a powerful technique to help them get better sleep, focus more, better energy, decreased stress, and increase the feelings of joy and happiness in their life and an overall sense of awesomeness. I think all of our friends could use that, so definitely share this episode with your friends.

Again, if you’re in the Seattle area, please come to the training. I would love to see you. I’m excited to bring a ton of my friends, and I can’t wait to take his daylong course -- learntruehealth.com/seattle to sign up for that. Have a fantastic day and enjoy today’s interview.

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="11066,11067,11068,11069,11070,11071"]

[00:03:43] Today is going to be so much fun. We have with us Brad Yates. He is an expert in emotional freedom technique. If you’ve never tapped yourself into better health or a better mood, then you are in for quite a ride.

EFT is very interesting if you’ve never experienced this. I’m looking forward to those who’ve never experienced EFT to hear what Brad has to say and to follow some of his wonderful tools. He is going to guide us through some techniques.

For those who have experienced EFT, you’re going to appreciate how Brad teaches it today.

Welcome to the show.

[ 00:04:25] Brad Yates: My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on.

[ 00:04:28] Ashley James: Absolutely. You came highly recommended. One of our avid listeners, Naomi, told me that I absolutely had to have you on the show. You were coming to Seattle to teach a class here locally, but you also teach all around the world. Online, you have teleseminars, and you teach in person as well. We’re going to discuss how people can learn from you later in the show, but first I’d love to get into your story. I am curious, how did you become an expert in emotional freedom technique?

[ 00:05:02] Brad Yates: How does a grown man find himself tapping on his face for a living?

[ 00:05:06] Ashley James: Right, exactly.

[ 00:05:08] Brad Yates: Well, I knew from a young age that that’s what I was going to do -- hardly. I was a professional actor. I got a degree in theater. I had traveled around the world doing children’s theater, and then I moved to Hollywood to become a movie star, you know, as one does.

While there, I met a woman, fell in love, and got married. When our first child was on the way, I was thinking, “Maybe I should have a back-up career, too?” Rather than finding the normal, steady kind of job, I trained to become a hypnotherapist because I’ve always been fascinated by the power of the mind.

I started doing that and fell in love with it. It was great transitioning from being an actor into being a hypnotherapist because I had a trained actor’s voice. That was really helpful. For a change, when my audience fell asleep, that was actually a good thing. So I enjoyed that, too.

I was still pursuing my career as an actor while building a practice as a hypnotherapist. After a couple of years, when our second child was on the way, it really hit me that this is the career that I was meant to have, doing personal development work. As much as I loved acting, this was much more fulfilling. It just felt like a better use of my gifts and talents.

We made the decision to leave Los Angeles and move to northern California. In that process, through some other hypnotherapists that I had gone to know online, I kept hearing about this tapping process. There was this energy psychology conference going on in Las Vegas, and I really ought to go check it out.

So I went and I took a one-day training with Gary Craig, the founder of Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT. It was fascinating. This process of tapping on your face, which admittedly looks a little strange to people when they haven’t seen it before, looks a little odd. But having come from my acting background and one of the things I’ve done as an actor was I had gone through Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, at this point, tapping was not the strangest thing I’d ever have to do. I was a little more open-minded than some people might otherwise be doing this tapping.

What sold me on the tapping process was he passed out Hershey’s Kisses to everybody and said, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how much would you like this chocolate right now.” I was an 8 or 9 because I was a bit of a chocoholic. Then we did some tapping on chocolate cravings, and after a couple of moments of tapping, I could not eat the chocolate. I had as much interest in it as I did in the foil wrapper. I didn’t eat chocolates for two years after that. Just no desire whatsoever.

I was thinking, “Hmm, this is very interesting. There’s something to this process.” When I came home from that conference, I started experimenting with hypnotherapy clients. At the end of the first session that I tried, I said, “We’ve got a few minutes left. I just want to try this simple little technique,” and did the tapping. Little by little, it became my main modality. I still use a bit of hypnosis in a lot of my sessions, but tapping became my main modality because it’s so simple to use.

It quite literally puts the power in the person’s own hands. They have the power at their fingertips so that wherever they might be, they’re able to use this technique. So I started building my career as a tapper.

Right around this time or shortly afterward, YouTube happened. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a tapping video that people could use to start their day? I’ll call it Tap of the Morning.” It was the only video I ever intended to create. I put it up, and then about six months later, I had an idea, “There really ought to be a video to end the day, and I’ll call it Tap of the Evening, and now I’m done.” And then a few months later, I had another idea, and then another idea, and now it’s been a decade and I have over 800 videos on YouTube. So here I am.

[ 00:10:01] Ashley James: Very cool. I have to ask you to teach us the chocolate tap. Can you do that?

[ 00:10:09] Brad Yates: Yeah, and it’s very much the same as any other tapping protocol. Tapping or emotional freedom technique is originally based on acupuncture. For thousands of years in Chinese medicine they’ve said there is this flow of energy through the body along these pathways called meridians. When this energy is flowing naturally, we experience our natural state of health and well-being physically and emotionally.

When this energy gets disrupted in some ways, then we don’t feel so good. We have discomfort, stress, anxiety, fear -- things like that. So by stimulating the same kind of points that would be used in acupuncture, we cultivate that healthy flow of energy. We start to feel better. When we feel better, we think better, and we make better choices.

We also have modern research. You mentioned that you’ve spoken with Dawson Church. Dawson had done a research study where they measured people’s cortisol levels. Cortisol is one of the stress hormones. They did a double-blind study. The group that did the tapping, their cortisol levels dropped by an average of 24 percent, which was so remarkable. The lab technicians throughout the first batch, saying something had to go wrong because that couldn’t be possible, ran it again and found, “Oh, wow, that really did happen.” It is that effective as a stress relief.

When we look at the fact that we make most of our choices at an emotional level, especially when we’re not feeling so good, we look for “What will make me feel better? What has traditionally made me feel better? What do I associate with happiness?” Chocolate, ice cream, cake -- all associated with parties. Besides the sweetness level, there is all these emotional stuff around sweets.

As we tap, we clear out whatever stress we might be experiencing that’s telling us to go and make a questionable choice from a health perspective and try to take care of ourselves. And then we look at it and say, “That’s not something I want to put in my body right now.”

[ 00:12:34] Ashley James: Very cool. It doesn’t just have to be chocolate, but when we have that craving, or we feel like we’re moving towards using food to comfort us, then you can use the tapping to decrease the stress, so then we’re not going to be using food to soothe us.

[ 00:12:57] Brad Yates: Right. We’re no longer using it as a drug, and we’re able to say, “What do I want that’s healthy for my body?”

[ 00:13:05] Ashley James: My concern with EFT -- and maybe this is my misconception -- is that people are not having a conscious experience of their unconscious resolution. They’re tapping and they’re feeling better, but what if there are stuff at the unconscious level that they need to process and learn from and move through? Does EFT allow for that?

[ 00:13:32] Brad Yates: Yes, I think that EFT allows for more than a lot of other processes, which is why it can be so beneficial in conjunction with talk therapy. I always look at it as a complementary therapy rather than an alternative therapy. But the reason that we so often don’t see that unconscious stuff that’s bothering us is because it doesn’t feel safe. Part of us says, “Don’t go looking at that.” We have a stress response that tells us to look away.

One of the analogies I love is, a couple of years ago, we got my wife a new car. We went all out and got the car with all the bells and whistles -- literally, like all the chimes. It has this chime that when you cross a lane on the freeway, a chime goes off unless you’ve used your turn signal. It’s letting you know you’re crossing the line that you weren’t maybe supposed to. So if you’re drowsy and you’re weaving, it’s letting you know that.

We have that internally as well. We have this line around our comfort zone, and when we start to cross that line, a chime goes off. We have a stress response. Something says, “Warning! Stop!” and tries to course-correct us and keep us back in our comfort zone. When we go looking for those things that are uncomfortable, it tries to stop us.

So many of those things that those lines are defined by are things that have happened in the past. If we have an incident where someone has mistreated us, we will make a decision about ourselves based on that -- like, “Oh, I just don’t deserve nice things,” or “People are always going to be mean to me,” or “I’m not good enough.” That memory, that belief is going to get stuck in there and create that line to keep us safe in our lane.

It’s not going to want us to know what’s there. It’s like, “No, you don’t have to worry about what’s going on here. You stay in your lane. Don’t worry about all that other stuff.” We have a stress response when we go looking for that, and so we often avoid those places where the healing could happen.

With the tapping, we’re clearing that stress response. We relax, and we’re able to say, “No, I’m okay. I can take a look at this. I can go up in the attic and start looking through the boxes to find out what might be creating the problem.”

I believe it creates more of an opening. Now there are times when we don’t have to, and when I’m working with clients, I’ll often use the wording, “I’m allowing myself to see whatever I need to see and clearing whatever I don’t need to see.” Like taking the trash out from your kitchen -- you have your trashcan in the kitchen, you put stuff in there, and at the end of the week, you tie up the bag, you take it, and you throw it in the garbage.

You don’t have to open the bag up and go back and reexamine, and it’s like, “Here’s the milk carton I finished yesterday, and there’s the egg carton from three days ago. I don’t know what that is. Maybe I should figure out what that is before I can throw it away.” We tie up the bag and throw it, and we know that it’s gone. Very often, it happens like that.

The tapping -- it’s peeling the layers of the onion, so we’re able to see what we need to see. Sometimes we’re able to clear something, and we know that we have that freedom because we’re able to cross that line without the chime going off anymore.

[ 00:17:05] Ashley James: That makes a lot of sense because it’s not the day to day or the week to week stressors like, “That person cut me off,” or “Someone didn’t put their shopping cart away.” The little things that might set us off because when we have an accumulation of many small negative events, and we haven’t figured out how to deal with stress on a day-to-day basis, then it can add up.

We don’t need to sit there and emotionally process why that person not putting their shopping cart away made us so angry because really what it is is an accumulation over time of the garbage that we’re not dealing with and the stress level was getting higher and higher. But then also, every time something little happens that makes us angry, we’re lighting up that Gestalt neurologically inside us of all the major events that we haven’t resolved yet.

We need to take out the trash. We don’t have to examine the trash, the little day-to-day things, but we want to get to a safe place where we can examine the underlying root of the major issues that we’re still holding on to -- the sadness, the anger, the fear delimiting decisions. Those major past events that are unconscious, tapping allows us to clear out so much of the junk so that we can feel safe enough to process those events to release them as well.

[ 00:18:43] Brad Yates: Right. So if there’s something at the bottom of the trashcan that is stuck in there and has been rotting, in general sometimes we’ll focus on the simple, little things in the trashcan and go, “I can look at this. It’s probably this that smells.” I believe that tapping allows us to fill more confident and feel safer to go and say, “What’s really in there? What do I need to deal with here?”

As you said, it does build up. That’s the thing. That’s why I always recommend to folks, tap on a daily basis. Make it part of your energy hygiene. We have physical hygiene, and most of us wouldn’t go more than a day or two without taking a shower or brushing our teeth because we don’t wait until the people around us are holding their noses and saying, “Hey, dude. Take care of that.” We do it as a maintenance thing to make sure that the filth and grime don’t build up.

But stress, most of us have no way of dealing with that on an effective level. We may have ways of masking it, whatever our drug of choice might be -- chocolate, alcohol, reality TV. People of all kinds have different ways of trying to mask it, “so I don’t have to look at what might be bothering me.” Tapping is a great way to re-mediate that stuff just like taking a daily shower or brushing our teeth.

[ 00:20:13] Ashley James: I love that you said energy hygiene. I’m also imagining that this is emotional hygiene as well.

[ 00:20:19] Brad Yates: Sometimes I say that as well. It’s almost interchangeable in many ways because how we experience energy is that people say, “You know what emotion is -- it’s energy in motion.”

[ 00:20:33] Ashley James: When I interviewed Dawson Church, he talked about how there are studies now showing that using EFT is incredibly effective at addressing post-traumatic stress to the point where it’s now starting to be implemented with vets.

Something that’s in my mind, I think it was today or yesterday, a teenager shot herself to death in Florida in a high school. Just thinking about the suicide rates in our teens, which is out of control -- it’s unacceptable. One death is unacceptable, but now it’s almost like a common occurrence to hear this violent acts that are happening in our teens. We don’t have anything set up in our education system to teach emotional intelligence or emotional hygiene to our youth.

Can you talk about your experience with EFT, since you’re a father, in working with children and teens?

[ 00:21:40] Brad Yates: Yeah. Dawson has done great work in speaking with the VA and getting them to see the benefits of tapping for PTSD. I have another friend of mine, Dr. Laura Laden, who went to Parkland in Florida after the school shooting to work with people and also in Sandy Hook in Connecticut to deal with the trauma. She’s also worked with genocide survivors in Rwanda and using the tapping to clear the stress from that.

The thing is that we don’t have these tools. Stress relief tools are not taught to children. There are starting to be more schools that are introducing mindfulness, and that’s great. Several years back I kept working with clients, and as we were tapping and peeling layers of the onion, so many of the issues that were troubling them were rooted in childhood events.

I thought, “I got to do something here to introduce tapping to kids so that they can learn how to deal with that day.” Something unfortunate happens, they clear that day rather than having that lane change chime, keeping them in a very narrow lane for the rest of their lives. So I started to write a book called the Wizard’s Wish about a wizard who discovers tapping, and they shot some videos with my daughter, so I have a brief series of videos for children for tapping.

I have a new book called “Garden of Emotions” that has QR codes throughout the book that take folks to tapping videos for kids on how to have a great day, how to have a positive attitude and all kinds of things like that.

There is a lot of effort right now to get tapping into more schools. I have a friend, Dr. Peta Stapleton in Australia, who is a university professor of psychology. She has a program called Tapping in the Classroom. This is a program for teaching teachers how to introduce tapping into their classrooms to deal with stuff. The cool thing is the country of Slovenia has paid for their teachers to go through this program. It’s like, “Okay, US. If Slovenia can do it…”

[00:24:14] Ashley James: Right? Oh, my gosh. What are the results? Have the children in Slovenia improved? Statistically, has there been a noticeable difference?

[00:24:28] Brad Yates: That I don’t know. I have to check in with Peta and find out if they’ve done any research in follow-up in Slovenia. Apparently, the government in Slovenia was impressed enough with the research that Peta had done in the schools in Australia working with test anxiety because there’s a place where kids get all stressed out, and nothing is teaching them how to deal with that stress.

There’s also nothing teaching them to deal with the stress they might be feeling in their lives anyway. You have a child who maybe that morning their parents had a huge fight. They come in, and they’re expected to take a test and they’re going to be graded on their knowledge based on how they do that day, which may have been the worst day they’ve ever had because there’s nothing to help them be in the right state of mind for the most beneficial learning environment.

There are numerous studies now with all kinds of benefits from it. But absolutely, being able to introduce this to kids so that, if you get to teach it young enough, then long before they get to high school, they already have coping mechanisms that can help them deal with so much of the stuff that comes up by at school. We say, “Wow, high school. Someone that young is feeling drawn to hurt himself in that way.”

Or even in lesser ways -- all kinds of different traumatic things that kids do themselves. But even at that young age, they’ve already gone through years of traumatic events maybe. And so often, without any acknowledgment of it, and parents do the best they can based on their limited programming, a kid might be going through something tough and the parent will say, “Just walk it off,” or “Don’t talk about it.”

The stories of children who have been molested. They try to tell their parent, but because it’s some other family member, it’s like, “No, you can’t talk about that.” It just has to go inside eating away at the person.

As we build these resources, we’re dealing with that stress with the tapping and not just talking about it, having that mind-body approach and dealing with the physical things that go on with trauma, which can be so effective.

[00:27:13] Ashley James: Absolutely. Stress alone can create ulcers and can epigenetically trigger dormant diseases like autoimmune conditions. There’s a big link. I believe the statistic was like 70-something percent of those with fibromyalgia have had more than three adverse childhood events. You look at those who are morbidly obese and more than not they will talk about the trauma they experience ongoingly as a child.

We’re using food, , and substances that might not be healthy to cope with the day-to-day emotional stress of growing up, and then our parents not having the resources. So this, we can stop. We can stop that vicious cycle that’s getting passed down from generation to generation because the parents can learn to tap, the children can learn to tap, and they can learn how to pause.

You can unpack it and explain there are so many reasons why EFT works. The first reason that I like is that it’s a break state. We’re stopping, and we’re just doing a little bit of an internal check. We’re breathing, and it’s just that slight pause in between the stressor and allowing it to bottle up inside and eat us alive, and that pause is so helpful.

And then, of course, you mentioned that you were tapping on meridians, these energy centers in the body. Can you go deeper and talk about maybe your favorite aspects of why EFT is so interesting?

[00:29:02] Brad Yates: So many things. So much of it is fascinating. One of the catchphrases with EFT is “Try it on everything -- whatever is bothering you.” As you said, stress is so prevalent. There are those who will say that stress is at the root of at least 95% of our issues. It’s either the cause of our issues, physical and/or emotional, or at least it worsens it. There may be things that there is an actual physical component that’s not based on emotional stress, but feeling stressed about it makes the problem even worse.

Sometimes, when I’m tapping with somebody who has some physical condition, I was like, “I’m not going to say we’re going to cure cancer or whatever issue it might be -- physical issue. But if we can lower the stress about that, lower the different emotional pains that might be coming with that guilt, sadness, anger. The body has such powerful natural healing abilities that as we free up our emotional resources from that stress, that gives us a better ability to heal.

[00:30:32] Ashley James: That’s a great point. Even if it only did one thing -- because it does a bunch of things. Even if it only decreases stress in the moment, how incredibly powerful is that. So many of us haven’t been taught because our parents didn’t know and our grandparents didn’t know. We haven’t been taught techniques for how to deal with stuff in the moment without reacting.

Think about road rage, for example. It’s just a bunch of babies with cars reacting. We’re just over-reacting to each other. It’s incredibly unhealthy. Especially with social media, we see all these bullyings, and it’s just reaction, reaction, reaction. We read something and immediately we’ll spew out hateful things. There’s no emotional intelligence, that pause between the feedback whatever the input and then how we choose to react to it. We're just like babies.

[00:31:26] Brad Yates: Yeah, we’re triggered emotionally, and we go into fight or flight, which made a lot of sense a hundred of thousands years ago when there were actual life-threatening situations. But our mind still responds the same way. Someone looks at us cross-eyed and we go, “What?” and we go into that thing. When we go into that fight or flight, our prefrontal cortex goes offline. All of our creative, clever thinking, bye-bye.

Then we do something reactive, and then someone else gets triggered, especially with social media, as you said. There’s so much of it and so many of the things that are put out there are triggering. So many of them are meant to be triggering. There are people who want you to be triggered because the more triggered you are, the less clearly you think. The less clearly you think, the easier you are to control. There’s a method to that madness.

Tapping is a great technique to use when you’re driving and someone cuts you off. We feel like there’s a personal threat. It means we attach meaning to all these things -- “Oh, that person cut me off. They think they’re better than I am. They think that I don’t deserve to be able to drive where I’m at.”

No, they didn’t think that at all. They didn’t even see you. They’re probably completely unaware of your existence, and they may be rushing to the hospital because a loved one has just been admitted. You have no idea what’s going on for them, but we create these meanings that are stressful to us. EFT works to reduce stress, that’s why it’s so effective with so many things.

I was introducing this to someone years ago, I think it was in Stanford University. I was talking about doing a workshop there, and they were put off. They said, “Yeah, it sounds like a panacea. It just cures everything.” I was like, “No, I’m not saying it cures everything. It helps deal with the stress, but since stress is involved in almost everything, that’s why it’s so beneficial with all these different things.” But it’s not looking at it as some magic bullet that we can understand.

We’re still figuring out the exact mechanism, but we do see that the stress was reduced. In fact, there are more different physiological markers they’re finding -- an improvement in gene expression, lowered cortisol, various other things that they’re seeing with groups doing the tapping. With all of those different benefit, it just makes sense to do this if you can get over the fact that it looks a little strange at first.

[00:34:41] Ashley James: How similar or different is it to acupuncture or acupressure? Acupuncture and acupressure use meridians of the body, and they create similar results in that they lower cortisol and stress levels, but you have to go to an acupuncturist. In the middle of your exam, when you’re stressed out or at night with your choco craving, you can’t get up and go to your acupuncturist. It’s utilizing meridians of the body. Is it similar or is it totally different?

[00:35:13] Brad Yates: It is a form of acupressure, the difference between, as in one of the catchphrases, “it’s emotional acupuncture without the needle.” Certainly, some acupuncturists have their own needles. They can apply to themselves on their own, but most of us wouldn’t want to. Most of us should not be applying needles to ourselves. To have this tool literally at your fingertips wherever you are is amazing.

What I also love about it is that it’s so simple. When I do the tapping, it’s a very creative and intuitive process for me. I say all kinds of things. It’s an exploratory process of looking for what might be the underlying issues here, what could be at the root of this. But the tapping on its own, even without any words, will help us relax.

It’s something you could immediately start doing. As you’ve said, if you’re feeling stressed about a test, you can’t suddenly go to the acupuncturist. But you can tap, and there are subtle ways to tap where people won’t even notice that you’re doing it. This is what makes it so profound in terms of stress relief techniques because you can go to a number of stress relief workshops and they’ll tell you about all these things you can do, like meditation and making sure you get a good night’s sleep and eating a healthy diet.

But when you’re in that moment, taking the test or about to have an interview or whatever it is and you’re feeling stressed, it’s too late to be able to go and get a good night’s sleep the night before, or you  may not have the time to take a long walk, and you may be too stressed out even to try to meditate, try to close your eyes and breathe steadily.

But tapping is something that doesn’t require anything else. It can be done almost anywhere. I look forward to the day when tapping is known by enough people, that someone can be tapping in public and nobody will look twice. Or they’ll see someone tapping and go, “You know what, that’s a reminder. I didn’t tap yet today, and I have a little bit of stress that I should clear.” It’s just a friendly reminder, folks.

Before big meetings, treaty signings and meetings over economic or whatever, people tapping beforehand to clear the stress that comes up when they get triggered, and then everyone will have their prefrontal cortex engaged and look for the best solution as opposed to that one that serves their emotional needs. Like you said, these babies looking to suit themselves and looking to “I need to get what I want right now.” That’s just a fear response -- people acting out of fear.

As we calm ourselves down, we say, “There isn’t a saber-toothed tiger here. My life isn’t really in danger right now. I can take the time to look at what’s going to suit me at this moment.”

[00:38:21] Ashley James: Imagine 20 years from now in Slovenia, we’ll visit there, and on some street corner will be just people tapping. Just look around busy streets, people coming in and out of banks, tap, tap, tap. It’ll be great. They’ll be the prime example for the rest of the world to follow in their footsteps.

[00:38:44] Brad Yates: Those lists on happiest places to live -- Slovenia right at the top. What is it about the Slovenians?

[00:38:53] Ashley James: How old are your kids now?

[00:38:54] Brad Yates: My kids are now 19 and 21.

[00:38:57] Ashley James: Oh, my gosh. So they really were raised tapping.

[00:39:01] Brad Yates: To a certain extent. I wish that I had written my children’s book when they were younger. They were both almost too old for it when I wrote my first children’s book. I would certainly do tapping at times with them, but what your parents do is always uncool especially if what your parents do is tapping on your face. So there was some push back.

[00:39:32] Ashley James: Really?

[00:39:33] Brad Yates: Yeah. Now, I would sometimes find that they would do tapping without letting me know because they certainly weren’t going to admit it, but later they might admit it and use it at times. But it was one of those things that I didn’t want to push, so it wasn’t something that they were forced to do like so many parents force their kids to do things, and there’s just resentment and resistance and things like that.

[00:40:00] Ashley James: Got it. So get them while they’re young, right?

[00:40:03] Brad Yates: Yeah. Teach them before their resistance builds. I’m always inspired when I hear from teenagers who are using the tapping. That’s so awesome because that’s a tough time when you’re caught up in the hormones and need to look cool to try something like this. So yeah, to teach it to kids who aren’t yet worried about that is really beneficial.

[00:40:34] Ashley James: Can you share some stories of success of anyone? If teenagers come to mind, can you share some stories of success that you’re really proud of?

[00:40:44] Brad Yates: I worked with a young man who loves playing baseball but got beamed. He was at bat and the pitcher hit him with a ball. Events will happen to kids, and we see the sort of thing that happens to people all the time and go, “It’s no big deal. Just walk it off,” without recognizing that for some reason, how it affected that child at that moment was not the same as how it would affect them at some other time, or how it might affect some other child.

For some other child, that moment getting beamed by the ball, it’s like, “Ouch, that hurts,” but they walk it off and they walk to the plate. But for some reason, it had an emotional impact on this kid. He couldn’t play baseball. He was afraid to go up to bat. We did some tapping and the next thing I hear from his parents, he’s loving baseball again.

Working with older folks, one of my favorites was a woman whose husband had served her with divorce papers on her birthday. Twenty years later, she was still thinking about it and had anxiety.

We were able to get to the point where she was laughing about it. It was like, “Boy, he was never good at birthday presents,” and she was then free from that to look at it and go, “Yeah, it was an unfortunate situation, but I don’t need to stress out. It was bad enough that day. I don’t need to feel bad about it anymore. Given that he was that kind of person, I’m better off without him.” So it was a gift.

To have those, to be able to change your mind about the situations, and then the freedom that we see -- I always love hearing stories from people saying, “I’m in a situation that used to cause me a lot of upset, and I don’t feel that now.”

For me, I had this occur with flying. I had a traumatic event with flying years ago, and after that every time I went to the airport, I suffered. I was flying to Houston once, and I was at the airport on my phone trying to calculate how long it would take me to drive instead of flying. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to make it to my event on time even if I drove all night. So through tapping, I can now be very relaxed in an airport and walk on the plane and not feel uptight. It definitely makes life a whole lot easier.

[00:43:42] Ashley James: Yes. I had a lot of anger that I was having problems processing from someone who had done a very large, harmful thing to my family, something that was unforgivable. I realized that forgiveness isn’t about forgiving the person. It’s about letting go for you. I’m not harming him by holding on to my anger. The person is out of my life. It doesn’t matter whether I’m happy or I’m angry. Either way, it’s not going to hurt him. But somehow, we hold on to anger like it’s going to hurt that other person. It’s just hurting ourselves.

[00:44:26] Brad Yates: Right. Taking poison and hoping the other person suffers.

[00:44:29] Ashley James: Exactly, but tell that to someone who’s angry. I was trying, but at the same time the effects of what he did were still harming my family, so I was in it in the moment. I was in it, being triggered by it.

And so I used EFT, and I like to say I’m the most open-minded skeptic. I’m open-minded enough to try everything, but the placebo effect does not work on me. I’m a mismatcher. I don’t believe anything is going to work anyway, but I’m not going to get the nocebo effect. I’m not going to talk myself out of a benefit. I’m just an open-minded skeptic.

By the end of it, I was laughing. Now, I just had neutral feelings about that person. I went from almost obsessing, thinking about that person, and how many ways I could strangle him for what he did, to just going, “Yeah, whatever. Take it or leave it, that person is not in my life, and I’m just going to move on.” That was less than 15 minutes of EFT, so that was a really interesting experience.

[00:45:44] Brad Yates: Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly it can happen. To make it clear, it doesn’t always happen. These one-minute wonders, that can occur. It doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of tapping to clear out the emotional distress because there may be all kinds of different aspects. Sometimes it happens very quickly and sometimes it very slow.

Unfortunately, because people will sometimes hear about those very quick shifts, they expect that it has to happen that way or it’s not working. I’ll say, “It’s like taking supplements. The results might not be immediate.”

[00:46:28] Ashley James: Right, take one vitamin C and then get angry that your cold isn’t gone.

[00:46:33] Brad Yates: Right. Expecting that you should suddenly all feel all this vim and vigor from taking one vitamin. Or even doing sit-ups. If you’re really out of shape and you do the three sit-ups and go, “Hey, I don’t have a six-pack yet. What’s the deal? Sit-ups don’t work.”

[00:46:51] Ashley James: Yeah, lies. [laughs]

[00:46:53] Brad Yates: It might take a few more, like a couple of hundred or thousand more. But what happens is it’s always providing some benefit even if it’s very subtle.

[00:47:07] Ashley James: Do you tap every day?

[00:47:10] Brad Yates: I do. It’s generally the first thing I do in the morning. For me, it’s not just a matter of if I’m distressed. Like taking a Tylenol -- you take a Tylenol when you have a headache. There are some people who take that on a daily basis for whatever reason, but for me tapping isn’t just a solution to a problem that I am aware of. It helps clear out stress that I’m not aware of because I just sort of take it for granted that there may be things at a subtle level that I’m not aware of.

Just like I brush my teeth even if I don’t see anything sticking out between my teeth. I take a shower even if I’m not aware that I stink because it’s a daily process for me. I just like to have my energy as clean as possible.

We’ll often block ourselves from taking positive action in the world in terms of our career, our health, so we might resist doing certain things because we have a little programming telling us it’s not safe, it’s not comfortable -- “Exercise, that’s going to be so uncomfortable.” So I’ll do tapping to clear any resistance to going out and doing what I can do today so that I can have the best day possible.

[00:48:42] Ashley James: Very cool. Can you walk us through that tapping exercise, the Awesome Day tapping exercise? Let’s do that one.

[00:48:54] Brad Yates: I have two videos called Amazing Day. One of them is a shorter version of it. For anyone new to tapping and not familiar with it, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our index and middle fingers. You can use either hand and tap on either side of the body. Many people will switch back and forth, or they’ll tap both sides at the same time with both hands. I often tap with both hands at the same time. In all of my videos, I tend to tap with the right hand just because it’s simpler that way to demonstrate it.

But right now, go ahead and take your right hand. With the fingertips of your index and middle fingers gently tap on the side of your left hand. We call it the karate chop point. So if you’re to imagine you’re going to use a karate chop to break some board, you’d use that edge of your hand right between your wrist and your pinkie. Just a light tap, tap, tap motion. Gently tap in there.

[00:49:52] Ashley James: Is it like up and down the flesh part that’s below the pinkie finger?

[00:49:58] Brad Yates: Yeah, just right in the middle between your pinkie and your wrist. While we’re tapping there, we state what the issue is. Tapping is generally used with a negative statement, and this freaks a lot of people out. It’s like, “What? I’m supposed to do positive thinking. I’m not supposed to think about negative things because that will make negative things happen, so I should only focus on the positive.” So when we do EFT and say, “Even though I’m so angry at this person…,” it’s like, “What? You can’t talk about anger.”

[00:50:32] Ashley James: Traffic, taxes, doctor bills, mortgage…

[00:50:34] Brad Yates: Yeah. You don’t mention any of those stuff. Ssh, quiet, quiet, quiet! Politics -- No, don’t say that word! [laughs]

But what we resist persists. So it’s like if you have a beautiful living room with a beautiful carpet and you also have a beautiful dog, and one day your beautiful dog leaves a not so beautiful gift on your carpet. You are not going to stand there and say, “I’m not going to focus on that. I’m just going to look at where the carpet is still clean and beautiful.” Because if you do that, you’re going to step on it and you’re going to spread it around.

Besides, you’re kidding yourself because as you’re looking at the clean carpet, part of your mind is going, “There’s poop there.” So we’re just lying to ourselves if we’re just trying to focus on the positive when something is bothering us.

[00:51:30] Ashley James: Icing on a mud pie.

 Yeah. Now, this is not a matter of just sitting there on the sofa and looking at the dog poop and going, “Oh, there’s dog poop.” We don’t just want to keep going over and over the problem and focus on it, but we do want to clean it up.

So the tapping is we’re going in, we’re acknowledging it’s there, we’re cleaning it up, and we get rid of it. And then we can go back to enjoying our living room without having to worry about walking around. So that’s why we focus on the poop.

And then we’ll rate that on a scale of 0 to 10, whatever the discomfort is. If I’m feeling angry, I would say, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how angry am I at this person? It’s about an 8. Where in my body do I feel it? It’s a tightness in my stomach.” There may be different physical symptoms of whatever is bothering us.

Just like with the chocolate craving where we asked on a scale of 0 to 10, how much do you want that chocolate. So you have a measurement of where the distress is, so then we’ll tap on the side of the hand and say, “Even though I have this anger or even though I want this chocolate, I chose to love and accept myself.”

Then we make that statement three times, and that’s just creating some room to work with. It acknowledges the issue but also that we accept ourselves because all of the issues that we have are there to protect us. Our anger is there to protect us. It’s like the smoke alarm going off and telling us. Now, it may be a false alarm, but most of us don’t deal with what the issue is, we just sit there and try to drown out the sound of the smoke alarm. We actually want to do it and find out what’s going on. We would state the issue and say, “I love and accept myself even though I have this issue.”

The next part we’re going to tap is the eyebrow point. Right at the beginning of your eyebrow, just above your nose, just about the middle of your face, and gently tap there. We’ll generally tap five to seven times depending on what wording we’re using. So I may say a phrase that is a little bit longer, and this way we may be tapping the point twenty times and that’s okay. It’s not like it has to be exactly between five or ten or the whole thing doesn’t work.

Gently tap right at the beginning of the eyebrow, and we would say, “All of this anger.” Follow the eyebrow out to the side of the eye, the corner of your eye socket and gently tap there -- “All this anger.”  Then following the edge of your eye socket to under the middle of your eye just above your cheek -- “All of this anger.” Then right below your nose, just above your upper lip, gently tap in there -- “All of this anger.” And just below your lower lip, just above your chin -- “All of this anger.”

Then we go to the collarbone. If you feel your collarbone just about come together, there’s a little U-shape at the base of your throat, and you can tap all of your fingers there or even make a fist and tap where the collarbones just about come together -- “All of this anger.” Now, about four inches below your armpit, just right about bra strap level and I’m sure even the guys can figure where that is, just tap in there with all of your fingers and say, “All of this anger.”

[00:55:09] Ashley James: So it’s below the armpit?

[00:55:11] Brad Yates: Yeah, four inches directly below your armpit. And then finally, the top of your head. So using all of your fingertips again, just tapping around in little circles around the crown of your head -- “All of this anger.” And then take a deep breath. And then we check again and say, “Now, on a scale of 0 to 10, how angry do you feel?” particularly paying attention to wherever in your body you might have been feeling that.

[00:55:39] Ashley James: Like super calm.

[00:55:41] Brad Yates: Yeah. So you’re already feeling the benefits of that stress relief. Even in the example like this where you might not have been feeling angry, hopefully after an hour talking to me, you’re not feeling angry.

But even without feeling any anger and being in a relatively relaxed state, you can also say, “Yeah, but I’m even more relaxed now just after this little bit of tapping” because we’re just calming the body down and clearing out any level of stress that you might not have been aware of ahead of time.

So that’s the basics of tapping and EFT in a nutshell. Now we’re going to have some fun with it.

[00:56:21] Ashley James: Good. Yeah, I didn’t really have any anger to begin with, but I was going with it and I tapped my hand for a while as you were talking, and I’m like, “Okay, I don’t feel anything.” And then we’re tapping the forehead, don’t feel anything, tapping the eyebrow, cheek, nose, lip -- don’t feel anything. Tapping by the throat, I’m like, “Okay, he’s cool.” I’m tapping down below the armpit, and I’m like, “Whoa! Wait a second. I’m feeling like really good right now.”

It’s interesting. Don’t judge it. Just do it because it’s--

[00:57:02] Brad Yates: And we’re peeling layers of the onion, that’s the thing. With the tapping, we create a safe place for things to come up, so even though you weren’t aware of anything bothering you, through the tapping, some things might have been coming up and getting released without you even having to know what they are. It’s like, “I’m suddenly feeling better. I just took the trash out. I don’t know what was in there, but the room feels fresher now.”

[00:57:29] Ashley James: Have you worked with addicts who want to stop using drugs or alcohol?

[00:57:35] Brad Yates: For three years I taught a course at Sacramento Drug Court, and this was a court-mandated program for people coming out of jail on drug offenses, and they have to go through a recovery program. So for three years, I taught a class once a week. That was very interesting. It was a very different audience for me.

[00:57:56] Ashley James: Did they like it? Were they receptive?

[00:57:59] Brad Yates: Not everyone was receptive to me coming in and telling them to tap on their face. But those who were willing, it was so awesome when they were open to it. Some guy would come back and say, “This blip really works.”

I was like, “That’s why they bring me in here each week to teach it to you.” This is not just, “Hey, you know what, we’re letting them out of jail, but we still need to punish them, so we’ll make them tap on their face each week. That will be further service to society, a little bit of extra punishment for their crimes.”

[00:58:42] Ashley James: [laughs] I bet.

[00:58:45] Brad Yates: So it was awesome to see that. And I have worked with folks with different addictions. Again, whether it’s chocolate, or drugs, or alcohol, there is that part of this that is looking for some relief as you’re saying earlier about. Kids looking, they’re not learning from their parents how to deal with that stress, except that they are because they’re seeing their parents drink or smoke or do whatever it is that they do, and from a young age, we’re just learning by example.

As a small child, we learn everything from watching and emulating parents that’s around us. That’s how we learn how to talk. That’s how we learn how to walk. That’s why we have the same accent that our parents we have. Wherever we come from, we speak the same language.

As a small child, it’s not that we say, “Okay, this is how people talk. All right, I’ll do it that way.” “Oh, this is how people walk. I’ll do it that way.” “Oh, this is how people deal with stress, eating a pint of ice cream. No, that didn’t sound healthy; I’m not going do that.” We don’t have that reasoning ability. “When people get upset, they yell at each other, and maybe they throw things to each other. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a good idea. I won’t do it.” No, we learn that this is how adults, this is how people are supposed to deal with a situation, and so we pick up so much of that stuff.

[01:00:12] Ashley James: Absolutely. My son is turning four this month, and I can’t believe how many times I’ve caught myself going, “Oh, my gosh. I’m just like my parents. This is crazy because it’s so unconscious.” As much as we don’t want to be like our parents, it’s just reactionary. I can definitely see EFT being a tool to help us to put that break state in there, so we can stop that vicious cycle.

[01:00:39] Brad Yates: That’s what the tough thing is about, knowing the stuff that with my children, when I’d find myself losing my temper and saying things like, “Oh, dang it, I know better than this.” Ignorance is bliss, and then I can just yell at my kids and not worry about it. But knowing this, but not yet being perfect…

[01:01:00] Ashley James: Well, there’s no such thing as perfection when it comes to parenting. It’s just love them as much as you can and you’re going to be great at it.

The tapping exercise you just taught us, if we don’t have anger but we want to do it every morning to take out the garbage, what can we say during it?

[01:01:16] Brad Yates: Now, we’ll do our Awesome Day tapping. First, I want to give you folks that demonstration of the very simplest form of tapping. Obviously, the simplest form is just tap, and you already know the points now, and of course, as I said, I’ve got over 800 videos on YouTube that you can find.

But if you’re feeling stressed, you can just tap. You can tap while saying prayers, while saying affirmations. You can sing a song, or you can just be silent. The tapping is going to be beneficial.

But if you want to use words to focus on a particular issue, what I just showed you is the way to do it and say, “Even though I have this issue, this anger, this chocolate craving -- whatever it might be…” And at each point, repeat that phrase, and that will be beneficial.

Now, the way I do it, I like to be a little more creative and explore what might be going on. But we can also do tapping with a positive statement. There’s some controversy about this. Some people say, “No, tapping is only to re-mediate negative things, and you should always just focus on the negative things.”

For me, the joy, love, and peace are our true nature, and anything else is just covering that up. So as we focus on the positive, we’re naturally going to be addressing whatever is in the way. If I say a positive affirmation, if I say I’m healthy and I don’t feel like I’m healthy,  I’m just naturally going to be bringing up the arguments. So I will be doing the tapping on anything that is not health-minded, that is not positive, that doesn’t feel good.

So I find that by tapping on the so-called positive, we naturally clear out whatever is covering up the positive. So I’d refer about the Michelangelo process. Michelangelo said that the statue is already there perfect inside the marble. All he had to do is chip away what didn’t belong to reveal the masterpiece inside. To me, that’s a perfect analogy for what we’re doing with the tapping.

Whether we’re focusing on, “Here’s a piece of marble that doesn’t belong, like this anger, this chocolate craving. This is a block of rock that doesn’t belong here, and I could chip that away.” Or I can be focusing on, “There’s this magnificent statue inside, and I’m clearing away what doesn’t belong with my focus being revealing that masterpiece.” Either way, I’m chipping what doesn’t belong.

With that in mind, go ahead and close your eyes. Take a deep breath and hold it, and let it go. Just go ahead breathing comfortably. Just follow your breath through your body. Allow yourself to check in with how you’re feeling emotionally and how you’re feeling physically. Go ahead and rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being awesome -- “I feel awesome right now.”

If it’s less than a 10, don’t judge yourself for where the number is at. It’s not a matter of you should be a 10, or you should feel awesome 24/7. It’s not a test. Just allowing yourself to get an idea of, “Where am I at right now?” Allow yourself to be aware of what might in the way of that being a 10. Just allowing yourself to be aware of whatever might be going on in there. Allow yourself to be aware of any thoughts, beliefs or memories that might be coming up, that might be lowering your feeling of awesomeness. Just allow yourself to be aware of what feels relevant and what feels important.

Take another deep breath, and open your eyes if you like. Go ahead and start tapping the side of your hand. Ashley, if you will be my echo voice and repeat back what I say, and then everyone else, just tap where I tell you to tap and repeat back what I say along with Ashley.

[01:05:44] I choose to have an awesome day, and I choose to love and accept myself. I choose to have an awesome day, and I choose to love and honor myself. I choose to have an awesome day. I mean because why not? I think I deserve that. If I have any doubts about deserving it, I choose to clear that because I choose to have an awesome day. And I choose to deeply and completely love, honor and accept myself, and maybe anyone else who might show up today because I choose to feel that awesome.

Tapping the eyebrow point -- I choose to have an awesome day

Side of the eye -- I choose to have an awesome day

Under the eye -- I choose to feel awesome

Under the nose -- I choose to do awesome things

Under the mouth -- I choose to perform in an awesome way

Collarbone -- I’m allowing myself to be awesome

Under the arm -- Because the more I allow myself to be awesome

Top of the head -- The more I’m likely to feel awesome

Eyebrow point -- And create an awesome day

Side of the eye -- Because I get to create my day

Under the eye -- What I’m thinking and feeling

Under the nose -- Is going to contribute to the kind of day I have

Under the mouth -- So if I choose to have awesome thoughts

Collarbone -- And feel awesome feelings

Under the arm -- That’s what kind of day I’m going to have

Top of the head -- Part of me might be saying

Eyebrow point -- Yeah, right

Side of the eye -- You know some of the steps you got to do today

Under the eye -- And some of it is definitely not awesome

Under the nose -- How could I possibly have an awesome day?

On the mouse -- It’s not up to me

Collarbone -- All these beliefs

Under the arm -- That it’s not up to me

Top of the head -- Who taught me that crap?

Eyebrow point -- And were they a Nobel Prize winner?

Side of the eye -- Who says they’re right?

Under the eye -- If I choose to have an awesome day

Under the nose -- I can even deal with these things

Under the mouth -- And still feel awesome

Collarbone -- And I might even have an awesome outcome

Under the arm -- I’m certainly going to have a better outcome

Top of the head -- By approaching it this way

Eyebrow point -- I’m open to the possibility

Side of the eye -- That even if some of the things I have to do today

Under the eye -- Are not exactly fun

Under the nose -- I can still choose to have an awesome day

Under the mouth -- And I’m clearing whatever might get in the way of that

Collarbone -- Whatever fears might be coming up

Under the arm -- Whatever doubts might be coming up

Top of the head -- I’m letting that stuff go

Eyebrow point -- Whatever resistance I might have to having an awesome day

Side of the eye -- And part of me might say

Under the eye -- What a silly thing to say

Under the nose -- Why on earth would I resist to having an awesome day?

Under the mouth -- I don’t know. Why do I do that on a regular basis?

Collarbone -- Because the extent to which we’re not experiencing what we want

Under the arm -- Tends to be the extent to which we’re resisting it

Top of the head -- Whether that’s health or money

Eyebrow point -- Or just having an awesome day

Side of the eye -- I don’t do it consciously

Under the eye -- But at some unconscious level

Under the nose -- I have this belief that my day shouldn’t be awesome

Under the mouth -- Once in a while I’m allowed an awesome day

Collarbone -- But certainly not on a regular basis

Under the arm -- And it’s not because I’m bad or stupid

Top of the head -- It’s just my programming

Eyebrow point -- I probably haven’t known a lot of people

Side of the eye -- Who usually have awesome days

Under the eye -- In fact, I’ve known an awful lot of people

Under the nose -- Who very rarely had awesome days

Under the mouth -- And I learned to expect that

Collarbone -- And I really love and appreciate myself

Under the arm -- For creating a life that makes sense to me

Top of the head -- And now I’m open to changing my mind

Eyebrow point -- Why not have awesome days most of the time?

Side of the eye -- I know that life can happen

Under the eye -- And sometimes it’s challenging

Under the nose -- So I’m not setting up an expectation

Under the mouth -- But every moment of my life

Collarbone -- From this moment forward

Under the arm -- Is going to be pure bliss

Top of the head -- Although I’m totally open to that happening

Eyebrow point -- I won’t set up an expectation

Side of the eye -- Such that I then have to be disappointed

Under the eye -- But I choose to make it as awesome as possible

Under the nose -- And I’m clearing any reason why I couldn’t or shouldn’t

Under the mouth -- I’m clearing any belief that I don’t deserve an awesome day

Collarbone -- Clearing all these old messages

Under the arm -- That might tell me I don’t deserve it

Top of the head -- That was just misunderstanding

Eyebrow point -- The truth is

Side of the eye -- I’m a magnificent child of the universe

Under the eye -- Worthy and deserving of the best this world has to offer

Under the nose -- Nothing is too good for me

Under the mouth -- Because I could go outside

Collarbone -- And see the same beautiful sky as anybody else

Under the arm -- And I choose to see this as a sign

Top of the head -- That as far as the universe is concerned

Eyebrow point -- I’m just as deserving as anybody else

Side of the eye -- So I choose to have an awesome day

Under the eye -- I’m worthy and deserving of an awesome day

Under the nose -- I’m clearing any old reason

Under the mouth -- Why I couldn’t or shouldn’t have an awesome day

Collarbone -- All those old arguments

Under the arm -- About how it’s supposed to be hard

Top of the head -- It’s supposed to be a struggle

Eyebrow point -- And clearing any fear

Side of the eye -- If I do have an awesome day

Under the eye -- That’s going to really upset some people

Under the nose -- I’m going to be sitting here having an awesome day

Under the mouth -- And some people that I might care about

Collarbone -- Might get really pissed off

Under the arm -- Oh, sure, you’re having an awesome day

Top of the head -- And in the past

Eyebrow point -- My programming might have told me

Side of the eye -- Oh, I’m upsetting this person

Under the eye -- In order to make them feel better

Under the nose -- I need to feel less awesome

Under the mouth -- I’m not sure how that really helps them

Collarbone -- Me feeling less awesome

Under the arm -- It’s not going to make anyone else feel more awesome

Top of the head -- That would be like standing at the beach

Eyebrow point -- Enjoying the view of the ocean

Side of the eye -- And having someone with me

Under the eye -- With their back turned to the ocean

Under the nose -- Complaining about the view that I get

Under the mouth -- So I turn my back to the ocean

Collarbone -- Now we’re both missing the view

Under the arm -- I choose to keep enjoying the awesome view

Top of the head -- And encourage this other person to turn their butt around

Eyebrow point -- As a matter of fact, I am having an awesome day

Side of the eye -- I encourage you to do the same thing

Under the eye -- And if you have to tap on your face to do it, fine!

Under the nose -- I think it’s worth it

Under the mouth -- I choose to have an awesome day

Collarbone -- I choose to feel as awesome as possible

Under the arm -- Letting go of whatever gets in the way

Top of the head -- Setting myself free to feel awesome in body, mind and spirit

And take a deep breath.

[01:16:20] Go ahead and close your eyes again, and go inside, and check in with how you’re feeling on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being awesome. See if that number has gone up. For a lot of you, the number will go up. For some, it may go dramatically up.

If you don’t feel like the number has gone up, and it is possible that for some folks the number may have gone slightly down because what we’ve done is we’ve uncovered some stuff that you may not have been consciously aware of -- that stress that you’ve been avoiding because it didn’t feel safe to look at.

So it’s like, if you’re going to clean your living room because you have company coming over, and you look at it and go, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how clean is it already? It’s probably about an 8, but I want it to be a 10, so I got to clean it up.” In the process, I lift the rug, and I find there’s dirt that was swept under there. I removed the sofa, and I find there’s dirty laundry under the sofa. It’s no longer an 8 out of 10 on how clean it is. Now, it’s like a 3 or a 4.

Would we say, “Oh, man. I never should have gotten to clean my living room. It was much cleaner before I started cleaning.” No, because now you can clean it out. When it’s clean, it really will be clean as opposed to just looking like it’s clean. So if the number feels like it’s gone down or it’s just the same, hopefully, you’re aware of, “Yes, but now I’m more aware of why I’m not feeling as awesome as possible right now, and now I can do something about that.”

[01:17:54] Ashley James: I feel like I just got off the elliptical trainer after exercising for 45 minutes. I have that endorphin high. I feel really good.

[01:18:03] Brad Yates: Cool.

[01:18:05] Ashley James: Seriously, I feel like I just walked out of the gym. Pretty awesome.

[01:18:11] Brad Yates: In a way, you did.

[01:18:13] Ashley James: My arm definitely feels it got a workout. That’s for sure.

[01:18:19] Brad Yates: As I demonstrated the first time around, some of the tappings are just really quick and you can tap just one point. I’ll even do a full round. You can tap for a few moments.

But when I’m doing around like this, I go with whatever word you’re coming up, and sometimes it will go on for 20, 30, 40 minutes as the ideas are flowing and just covering all kinds of bases. As you could hear through that, it’s like I’ll be going off on one idea, and then an idea will come up about, “Well, here’s another reason why I might not allow myself to feel awesome. Oh, it might upset other people. Okay, I want to deal with that. I want to try to explore any of the reasons that I might have at an unconscious level as to why I couldn’t or shouldn’t feel awesome.”

As I clear up those misunderstanding, it’s like, “Oh, actually it makes sense for me to have an awesome day. I’m giving myself permission to have an awesome day.”

[01:19:17] Ashley James: I can definitely see that your experience as a hypnotherapist has come in handy and your ability as an actor to improv and to use hypnotic language to help that person to bring stuff up to process while you’re tapping.

[01:19:36] Brad Yates: Everything we do leads us to where we are. For better or for worse.

[01:19:43] Ashley James: Right. So cool.

[01:19:44] Brad Yates: We could make it better.

[01:19:46] Ashley James: So we do this every day. That will be awesome. Coming back to the idea of food addiction, like someone addicted to chocolate, will they do this? Will they do the tapping those points that you’ve shown us? Is there a different set of points that they tap for that?

[01:20:06] Brad Yates: I would use the same points, and you could say, “This chocolate craving,” as I had set it up when I was talking through this. Ask how on a scale of 0 to 10, how much I wanted the chocolate, and I said it’s about an 8 or 9, and then tapping to the point, you could say, “This chocolate craving.”

I remember Gary saying some things like, “Mmm, yum. It’s going to taste so good. Oh, I’m going to enjoy it so much. It gives me such happy feelings.” Just playing with the wording like that, then stop whenever you like to stop after one round. You can go a couple of rounds, and then say, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how much is that craving there?”

As I’ve already said, I didn’t eat chocolate for two years. And then I went back, and I will go through periods where I’ll have some chocolate. Just recently, the Easter candy has come out, and those Reese’s peanut butter eggs are a soft spot for me. I have a couple of those, and I’ll be, “That’s enough. Now, I’m going to clear my system, and I want to go off sugar for a while,” and I’ll tap. Those things can be sitting out in front of me. I’m just likely to eat those as I would a rock because it doesn’t look like food to me. There is no craving there.

What will that take to get to that point? I don’t know. It will vary for some people. For some folks, they can tap a couple of points, and they’ll look at them and go, “Yeah, I won’t eat that.” That first time with the Hershey’s kisses, he had us then take a bite of it. I couldn’t eat it. It tasted too sweet and chalky. It felt like compressed chemicals, which in many ways it is. You couldn’t force me to eat it at that point.

You can get to that point, and I remember someone in the room saying, “Please don’t make me tap on this because you’ll ruin french fries for me. Please don’t ruin chocolate for me.”

[01:22:23] Ashley James: That’s so funny.

[01:22:25] Brad Yates: You might go through this, so don’t use this on something that you don’t want to give up forever because you might. But again, it might come up again because you have years of programming telling you that this is what fixes the problems for you. “When I’m upset, chocolate makes me feel better.”

That’s why you see people with drug addictions. It’s like, “I know that I’m likely to wake up tomorrow in my own vomit, but still at this moment right now, it’s worth it.”

That’s the brain. That’s allowing ourselves to recognize that the self-sabotage is just misguided self-love. When we are harming ourselves in those ways, it’s not that we’re trying to do ourselves in. Even though it may look like it, like “Wow, I’m trying to kill myself here,” whether it’s quickly or slowly with unhealthy food.

But we’re not thinking that way. What we’re thinking is, “I’m in pain at the moment, whether it’s just mild anxiety or stress, or actual, real, gut-wrenching emotional pain, and I need to fix this.” Over the years, “Hey, chocolate always made me feel better. Ice cream always made me better.” Cookies, cigarettes, alcohol -- whatever it might be. “Even though I know there are going to be unfortunate consequences, I will deal with those later. Right now, I have to deal with the pain that’s present in this moment. I can’t be bothered with possible pain that might happen in the future. “

And as one might start saying, “I’ve heard of people who lived to 120 years, even though they drank and smoke. So, hey, there’s no guarantee that drinking and smoking are going to cause me pain and hurt me. But I do know that the pain I feel right now is real.”

Allowing ourselves rather than beating ourselves up for our unhealthy behavior, really having some self-compassion and appreciating the love and intention, and then choosing to find a healthier alternative, you generally drop a habit. You have to replace a habit.

Tapping is a very simple and effective way of really dealing with the pain that’s right there and clearing it out. Because that emotional pain, as you’re saying about the person that you’re angry at, something that happened in the past is not happening in the present right now.

So often, when we look at the fact that the body is constantly regenerating itself -- old cells are dying off, new cells are growing -- virtually the entire body is replaced over a period of seven years or so. So many of the things that are bothering us happened to a person that doesn’t even really exist anymore at a physical level. We’re just holding on to the energy field, and we can change our mind about that if we allow ourselves to.

[01:25:30] Ashley James: I like that you brought up that this is the habit that we can use to replace. We can replace those other habits with this. We learn coping mechanisms from our parents and the people that were around when we were growing up. Those coping mechanisms might not serve us right now, but we don’t have anything else. So now we can go, “I’m not going to run to the cigarettes or the alcohol or the sugar or the porn addiction.”

As you said, it’s a misguided self-love because we’re in pain, but we can use the tapping, and if we want to also in addition to that, use affirmations or positive self-talk or positive imagery, or use tapping and then make sure we go to a therapist or hypnotherapist or some counselor to augment.

[01:26:24] Brad Yates: Yes, I’m a big proponent of 12-step programs because I’ve known people in the past who were not aware of how challenging addictions are. I’ve known people who said, “This person was saying they needed a drink and it was like a 10, and I tapped with them, and it was a 0. So they’re cured of alcoholism now.” I’m like, “No, no, no!”

The fact that you’ve helped them clear the craving at the moment doesn’t deal with a lifetime of addictive behavior. So if you’re dealing with addiction, especially one that has life-threatening consequences, have a program of continued support.

I’m open to the possibility that in some cases you could tap away so much that kind of unhealthy craving never shows up. But I would never tell somebody after losing the craving at that moment that they’re done because that would be highly irresponsible.

[01:27:28] Ashley James: But it’s a tool that we use at the moment, and we can use it preventively every morning when we wake up. We can also use it at the moment during times of stress at stoplights, in between business meetings, throughout the day, and when we go to bed at night. Use it for like one to two minutes a few times a day to clear out the stress, lower the cortisol, so then we’re not going to get to a point where we have to self-soothe.

[01:27:58] Brad Yates: Right. The tapping, in terms of addiction, helps in two ways. One, it deals with the immediate issue of the craving and whatever is bothering us at that moment. It can also be used to heal those past injuries that contribute to the addiction.

Over time, we can clear out so much trauma and emotional pain that we rarely, if ever, feel inclined to do something self-destructive. It’s what helping at both levels. It’s not just a band-aid at the moment, but it does help to clear the pain that’s underneath the addiction. Don’t assume that it’s all gone after a few minutes of tapping.

[01:28:49] Ashley James: When I say addiction, I’m referring to 100% of the population. I think that a small percentage of population will use addictive substances where it’s obvious. But 100% of us have been known to use something to self-soothe, whether it’s bingeing on Netflix, eating a pint of ice cream, choosing to smoke cigarettes or whatever -- do behaviors that we know aren’t healthy -- play video games all night. We have self-soothed. When I say addiction, what I meant was unhealthy coping strategies.

[01:29:25] Brad Yates: Yeah, we all have drugs of choice. We all have to face challenging situations, and we all have our different ways, our learned behaviors, our defense mechanisms, our different ways of self-soothing, of making ourselves feel better. Unfortunately, so many of those are unhealthy things.

Some people learn very healthy coping mechanisms -- lucky them. But you’re learning healthy mechanisms now. Virtually anyone has some less than ideal way of dealing with emotional or physical discomfort.

[01:30:09] Ashley James: But now we have a new tool that is safe, effective, healthy and a great alternative.

[01:30:16] Brad Yates: Yes.

[01:30:17] Ashley James: Awesome. This was so much fun, Brad. I know we could talk all day long, but I’m really excited for you to tell the listeners more about how they can learn from you. The links to everything you do are going to be in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com, including access to your 800 YouTube videos. But I know you also have online workshops and in-person workshops. Tell us how people can work with you.

[01:30:43] Brad Yates: Thank you. You can find that information on Tap With Brad and in the links in the show notes. Besides the YouTube videos, I do have online courses, and I also do live workshops. Coming up very soon, I’ll be up in your area, in Seattle. Thank you for helping me find a venue.

[01:31:07] Ashley James: Absolutely. You’re doing it at the Lynnwood Convention Center, right?

[01:31:11] Brad Yates: From your recommendation.

[01:31:12] Ashley James: Yes, I’m so glad that you chose that. I’ve been there several times for events, and then I’ve been to events where people who aren’t from Seattle choose to rent a venue in the downtown Seattle, and no one goes downtown Seattle for events. It’s just like crickets.

I hope that you get standing room only at your event to the Lynnwood Convention Center, and then in the same parking lot is one of the best spas for women. It’s a Korean spa. Only for women -- sorry, Brad. But all the women afterward could go to the spa. It’s this amazing, very relaxing spa. So they’ll already be relaxed, and then they could just walk across the parking lot to the best spa, my favorite spa to go to.

So Brad, tell us about Seattle -- what are the dates and how can people who are local buy tickets.

[01:32:13] Brad Yates: The Seattle workshop is going to be on April 13th. The workshops that I have coming up will be daylong workshops, from 10 to 4. It’s a lot of tapping. It’s peeling a lot of layers of the onion. I sometimes do two-hour workshops, and sometimes I do full weekend workshops.

I like having the longer workshops where we have a chance to clear stuff out, then find the next layer, clear stuff out, and get to an amazing feeling place.

And then in June, I have workshops coming up in Austin, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Philadelphia. Later in the year, I will be in Toronto and Vancouver, and probably in some other places. I just haven’t gotten beyond the next several months.

[01:33:18] Ashley James: Fantastic.

[01:33:19] Brad Yates: Hopefully back in the UK maybe this summer.

[01:33:23] Ashley James: Very good. Those are some great cities. I know we have wonderful listeners in all those cities. Looking forward to them attending your live workshop. What’s the difference between watching YouTube videos and attending a live workshop?

[01:33:38] Brad Yates: The live workshops -- one, they’re a lot more fun just because you have a live audience. It’s fun for me as an actor to have an audience. That’s my favorite thing to do. But also the group energy is also powerful, and everyone who goes to live events says that you feel the other people with their energy shifting and it’s combined energy.

So many people have said, “I have something that I want to bring up, and I just couldn’t. And then someone else said exactly what I wanted to say, brought up exactly what was bothering me,” and that happens all the time. So those things that we feel unable to voice or we didn’t even know. That happens all the time too. People would say, “I didn’t know that was bothering me until this person brought it up, and it feels so much better now.” There’s an amazing group energy that’s really powerful.

Not that tapping through the videos is not powerful on its own. I try to make it as fun as possible. Bring in some humor, so it’s the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down as opposed to, “Alright, now let’s deal with this unhappy situation and tap, tap, tap.” It’s already painful enough. Why do I want to do that? Not that we don’t deal with some heavy stuff sometimes, but taking that lighter approach.

I say to folks, “If you like my videos, you’re going to love the live workshop. If you love my videos, you should already be signed up for a live event.”

[01:35:19] Ashley James: Very cool. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I like that you brought up you might not think of your problem in that way, and then you hear someone else say it. So people can grab the mike and share, but the introverts who are listening right now are freaking out. You don’t have to put your hand up or share the mike, but someone who does, you might start to see your problem in a different light. That’s very cathartic to hear other people resolve their problems. Do you do on-stage one-on-one coaching with people?

[01:35:54] Brad Yates: I rarely do that now. Sometimes if I do a longer workshop, there might be times where it feels appropriate to bring somebody up to work more specifically on them. But in general, I’ll ask the audience. It’s all created by the group that’s there. Every workshop is different because it’s always a different group. But I tend to leave them in their seats so that the tapping around that I do is for everybody and I’m looking at everyone as we go through it. It’s only in the longer workshops where there may be times where that feels appropriate.

[01:36:31] Ashley James: Awesome. This has been so much fun, Brad. I am very excited to hear about all my listeners, their results working with you. We have a great group of our listeners, our Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group. After we publish this show, I’m sure we’ll be chatting in that group about you and my listeners’ experiences as they follow your YouTube videos and hopefully also see you live.

Is there anything that you’d like to say to wrap up today’s interview?

[01:37:04] Brad Yates: The last thing I always like to say in interviews is to express the importance of self-love and learning to love yourself. I do believe that we all do love ourselves, that’s why I say that self-sabotage is misguided self-love. But allowing ourselves to acknowledge that love, because so often so many of us have programming saying that loving yourself is wrong, it’s arrogant and conceited, and things like that.

It’s really at the root of turning things around for yourself and your relationship with others and the world at large as you allow yourself to love yourself more -- real genuine love. Arrogance is trying to pretend, trying to convince yourself that you’re better than other people. If you’re doing that, that’s because you have some doubt.

When you acknowledge how awesome you are, you can’t help but start to see how awesome other people are and help them to realize that too. It’s a total win-win situation.

Any reasons you might have as to why you couldn’t love yourself more, please tap those away. Allow yourself to acknowledge your awesomeness and share it with the world, and thank you for doing that.

[01:38:15] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you so much, Brad. It’s been such a pleasure having you on the show today. You are welcome any time if you want to teach us more EFT and how to have an awesome day and awesome life.

[01:38:28] Brad Yates: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on the show, Ashley. I had a great time chatting with you, and I greatly appreciate this opportunity to share this work with your listeners.

[01:38:39] Ashley James: Wasn’t that a fantastic interview with Brad Yates? Don’t you love EFT, and won’t you love to go and meet him live and in person and do his class? If you can, you should do that.

I’m going to make sure the links to all of the dates of his live events are in the show notes of today’s podcast at learntruehealth.com. But to iterate in case you don’t have a pen handy, I want you to know that the upcoming dates are: Saturday, April 13th, at Seattle. You can go to learntruehealth.com/seattle to sign up there. Saturday, June 8th, in Austin, Texas. You can go learntruehealth.com/austin to sign up there. Sunday, June 9th, in Las Vegas. Go to learntruehealth.com/vegas to sign up there. Saturday, June 22nd, in Atlanta, Georgia, and go to learntruehealth.com/atlanta to sign up there. Finally, to come to his Tap Into Your Best Self class in Philly. Go to learntruehealth.com/philadelphia.

I hope to see you there in Seattle if you’re local. If not and you do go to one of the other classes, make sure that you say hi to Brad and tell him how much you love his interview. We should definitely have him back on the show.

If you like this interview, too, come to the Facebook group and comment. Let me know what you think. I know we’ll start a discussion about this interview after it goes live in the Learn True Health Facebook group.

Funny story I have to share with you -- just today, one of our listeners, Mercy, posted in the Facebook group, and she said, “Can I just say how much I love Ashley James and Learn True Health. My husband just called from the car on his way home from a business trip and said, ‘Hey, I’ve been listening to your girl Ashley James,’ and then he started telling me about one of the episodes like I haven’t heard it yet. He was pumped up about minerals and several other tidbits. Thank you, Ashley, for putting out the best podcast on true health.”

I got to tell you, I was smiling ear to ear. It totally tickled me pink, and I said, “Hey, tell me his name. I got to do show notes.” So his name is Neil Westfallon, and I hope I said that right -- big shout-out to Neil. I always love it when husbands and wives, or boyfriend/girlfriends or partners, sisters, brothers, and I love it when friends get together and listen to the show. I always love it when I hear that someone said, “Yeah, my friend turned me into this, or my sister or my cousin turned me on to this.”

What I get a lot is, “My mom turned me on to this,” or I’ll get a mom saying, “My daughter turned me on to this,” and I love it. I love that we can share this information and that we could have this common ground of wanting to celebrate and build and cultivate true health together.

Isn’t it amazing that we can express our gratitude and love for one another by sharing podcasts like this that will help enrich their lives? Thank you so much for sharing this podcast. Join the Facebook group if you haven’t already and join the fun discussions there.

Neil, big shout-out to you. Thanks for having a fantastic business trip traveling home while listening to the Learn True Health podcast. Can’t wait to see you guys in the Facebook group, and have yourselves an excellent rest of your day.

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Living The Good Life Naturally

https://www.learntruehealth.com/living-the-good-life-naturally

I am very excited to welcome back to the show, Kristen Bowen, the founder of Living The Good Life Naturally and my favorite Magnesium Soak!

I am a huge fan of this magnesium soak. I’ve been experimenting with different forms of magnesium supplementation for eight years, and this one has been the most effective by far for helping me achieve full cell saturation levels of magnesium.

In this interview, I go into more detail and share my experience with using Kristen Bowen’s Living The Good Life Naturally Magnesium Soak. We first had Kristen on Learn True Health in Episode 294: Magnesium Foot Soak.

Sleep Through The Night

I’ve been using Living The Good Life Naturally Magnesium Soak since last summer with my husband and our 3-year-old son. Before this soak, it would take us up to 2 hours each night to get our son to sleep! Even with taking liquid magnesium as a supplement approved by his Naturopathic Pediatrician he was still always wound up!

The very first night he did his regular bath with a 1/8 cup of Kristen’s Living The Good Life Naturally Magnesium Soak in his bath he ASKED us to put him to bed without reading his regular five books because he was ready to sleep!!!

Ever since then we have regularly added this concentrated magnesium to his nighttime baths, and he has stopped fighting us at bedtime. He falls asleep quickly and stays asleep through the night. Plus he is calmer during the day!

And that is just his results! My husband and I have also noticed fantastic results of our own. There is a Facebook post in our podcast’s Facebook group with 175 comments of people in the community sharing how great this has been for their health and the health of their family.

One community member made a video sharing how this magnesium soak has stopped her life-long migraines!

Several others have shared that it has helped them finally get better sleep, stop restless legs, aid them in more energy and fewer or no feelings of stress in their day.

Our body needs magnesium for over 1,800 cellular processes, Dr. Carolyn Dean shared in Episode 227: Curing Diseases with Magnesium.

Magnesium is the most important mineral for health and the one we are chronically low in all of the time!

Lab Test For Magnesium Levels

If you are not sure that you have a magnesium deficiency, you can get a $50 blood test called the RBC Mag test. You can get it from walkinlab.com if you are in the US.

You want your number to be between 6 and 7.2. Most people are below 5, which means they are chronically deficient. When you are deficient in magnesium, it affects hormones, immune health, soft tissue health, stress, sleep, the brain! The list goes on and on. Every system of the body requires magnesium, and every system begins to breakdown without it.

That is why this magnesium soak is so effective. As you can tell, I have become a big cheerleader of Kristen Bowen’s Living The Good Life Naturally Magnesium Soak. I was very skeptical at the beginning. I am open-minded enough to give something new a try, and I will let the results speak for themselves. And they did!

Near the beginning of our interview Kristen shares that for the next two weeks Learn True Health listeners will get a free jar of her 100% natural Magnesium Muscle Cream plus the regular 10% off that LTH listeners normally get by using the coupon code LTH.

What Saved Kristen’s Life

This interview was quite a rollercoaster ride of life-changing health information! In our first interview, Kristen shared her story. At her lowest point, Kristen was 70lbs, in a wheelchair and having 30 seizures a day with her hair falling out in handfuls and brain fog so bad she could barely talk.

She tried everything to regain her health. It wasn’t until she discovered this pure, concentrated magnesium from the Zechstein Sea that she began to gain her health back!

Kristen came to discover that with this specific type of naturally occurring magnesium we absorb 20 GRAMS of bio-available magnesium in a one hour bath with this magnesium soak! This is the most effective way to get magnesium into your body for relaxation, pain relief, sleep, and anxiety!

For her, within weeks of using the soak, it helped end her seizures, combat her autoimmune disease and restore her health to the point where she could walk, talk and think again! She said it was like a light bulb went on inside her. She had been so minerally deficient for so many years that the magnesium she was soaking in filled her like a car engine on empty gulping in gallons of fuel at the gas station.

How To Achieve Low Maintenance Health

In our interview, Kristen brings up an interesting point. Looking at her life, some might think she has to do a lot of things each day to keep on top of her health. These small, daily rituals have built a strong foundation of wellness that allows her to thrive. Her investment into supplements, clean foods, online workshops, holistic medical devices like saunas, herbs, lotions, treatments like massage and acupuncture all have been part of building this foundation.

And now, over 12 years after Kristen was able to liberate herself from the frailty of illness the MDs said she would never recover from, she has built a foundation of health so strong that she refers to her health as “low maintenance.” She shares that the years of hard work do pay off. It takes the right mindset, lifestyle, and food choices to have low maintenance health.

Importance Of Boron For Our Health

Many of our listeners reached out to Kristen after our first interview with a barrage of wonderful questions. The most common one was, “After I reach cell saturation, how can I maintain and hold onto my magnesium better?

“Kristen shares that many other deficiencies and conditions can “burn through” our magnesium stores quickly, like a boat with a leak, leading to perpetual mineral deficiency.

“If you use the magnesium soak daily and are unable to reach full cell saturation after 30 days, we have a crack in the foundation. I did not rebuild my health by chasing symptoms. But rather I built a strong foundation. Adding boron helps you hold on to that magnesium. It’s like a booster pack for the magnesium,” said Kristen Bowen.

Kristen Bowen says boron helps you hold magnesium in your cells. If you’re experiencing the benefits of magnesium, but you have to soak all the time, you may have a boron deficiency.

“Boron gives the cell wall flexibility. And the cell wall is like your brain. It’s what communicates the information in your body. If you don’t have enough boron, you are stopping the communication at the cellular level,” Kristen Bowen explains.

She adds, “Boron can also help bring the inflammation markers down and help regulate the inflammation in your body which is attached to your pain level. It also helps your pancreas balance blood sugars.”

In different areas of the world where there is naturally occurring boron, Kristen Bowen reveals that cancer cases are lower proving the importance of this trace mineral in preventing disease.

“Boron works through the parathyroid and helps re-mineralize the bones. But a lot of women will have hormone problems when they add boron,” said Kristen Bowen. “The missing component is cortisol. It is stress. I call it the magnesium mindset.”

Recognizing Our Power

Kristen Bowen believes we have to recognize how powerful we are. Many of us are “addicted” to our stress and use cortisol to get us through the day. When we produce excess cortisol, it is giving us a short-term fix. It gives us a little bit of energy and clears our head in the short term.

“But one of the long-term consequences of living off of our stress hormones is that it robs us of the building blocks that our body uses to make progesterone and estrogen,” said Kristen Bowen.

She adds, “If we have some cortisol issues, we need to be a little slower adding boron until we have soaked in magnesium long enough. Because that will help you get on top of the cortisol issues so when you do add that boron, you’re not having issues with your hormones as well.”

Maximizing Boron

Kristen gets her boron from the all-natural, 100% boron, cleaning agent “20 Mule Team Borax”, Kristen Bowen recommends taking about one liter of water and mixing it with a rounded teaspoon, shake and let it dissolve before taking it.

“One teaspoon equals three milligrams of boron approximately. So, I take anywhere from 18 to 24 milligrams a day. But if you chose to take your boron this way, make sure you buy the one that is without the fragrance and 100% all natural. That is why I use 20 MuleTeam Borax, which is 100% boron, the same quality they put in supplements for a fraction of the cost,” said Kristen Bowen.

She adds, “Because there are some places in the world where the 20 Mule Team Borax has fragrance added. That’s not appropriate to ingest. Best thing to do is take the 30-day challenge where you get to full cell-saturation of magnesium before you add the boron.”

Kristen says you can also get boron from foods like raisins, almonds, dried apricots, and chia seeds, as long as those foods were grown in boron-rich soil. If you take time to gel chia seeds, it creates a polysaccharide and helps mops up excess cortisol in the body. It is also a food source of B vitamins which is crucial to holding magnesium in the cell.

PCOS

If you have PCOS, Kristen Bowen suggests not to take boron first because it’s just going to aggravate the problem. Instead, you have to do more to support decreasing cortisol and improving magnesium levels. And that’s where chia seeds come in to play.

When chia seeds are properly soaked, it will help mop up some of that excess cortisol, and the polysaccharides help as well. So, when your body is ready to handle boron, it’s not going to throw you into converting testosterone at a faster pace.

Candida

According to Kristen Bowen, every time we have that cortisol spike, it strengthens the biofilm that coats the lining of the gut and harbors harmful candida. The stronger the biofilm is, the harder it is to break the candida down and rid ourselves of unwanted parasites.

“Magnesium is good at helping the body to clean out the candida-rich toxic biofilm. If you have had extra cortisol and a candida issue, the magnesium breaks down the biofilm,” Kristen Bowen said.

Vitamin C

It’s also essential to understand vitamin C dosing. No one can tell you how much you need. It’s different for everybody because the strength of your adrenals determines it.

Kristen shares that you can only hold as much vitamin C as your adrenals are strong. The stronger your adrenals, the better your body can utilize vitamin C. When we are under toxic-stress our body burns through our vitamins and minerals faster, leading to deficiency and furthermore, illness.

Most people believe that the RDA on the vitamin bottle is the maximum dose we should ever take of vitamins C. However, it is the MINIMUM required amount of vitamin C to barely stave off disease.

If you want to be barely diseased than only take the daily RDA amount, we want TRUE HEALTH; so we are going to take more vitamin C than the minimin RDA of 50mg!

Dr. Mathius Rath studied under the famous Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, and after his death continued his research on the importance of vitamin C and amino acid proteins. Dr. Rath has several free ebooks available including one called Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks, and People Do where he outlines fascinating discoveries on how vitamin C works at preventing and reversing cardiovascular disease.

An interesting fact that he points out about animals is most of them produce their own vitamin C, much like we produce our own vitamin D internally. A goat will have about 16 grams of vitamin C coursing through its bloodstream at any given time while a wolf will have 32 grams.

If a human adult is twice or three times the size and weight of a wolf, how many grams of vitamin C do you think we require for optimal health and healing? The US Government says only 50 mg, while researches like Dr. Mathius Rath and Linus Pauling say we need many grams of vitamin C each day. If we are not getting it from eating a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, then we need to consider supplementing our vitamin C from a whole foods source.

Acerola Cherry Powder for Vitamin C

Kristen Bowen experienced a miraculous recovery in her gut health when she added Acerola Cherry Powder to her protocol. Acerola Cherries are naturally high in vitamin C, and when made into a powder it becomes a potent vitamin C supplement that is bioavailable and easily absorbed and utilized by the body. You can buy her Acerola Cherry Powder from her site  LivingTheGoodLifeNaturally.com and be sure to use the coupon code LTH for 10% off.

Kristen Bowen’s favorite way to take Acerola Cherry Powder is mixing a drink that has some coconut water, grapefruit juice, and good green algae. My favorite algae is from EnergyBits.com. Be sure to use coupon code LTH for 20% off!

Toxic Stress

The abuse Kristen Bowen went through as a young girl set the stage for high cortisol levels later in life. A groundbreaking study conducted in 1995 by the Centers for Disease Control and the Kaiser Permanente health care organization in California looked at the relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences and overall outcomes in life. They found that the more ACEs we experience will set the stage for what has been now coined as “toxic stress” later in life.

Toxic stress is when the body is overreacting to everyday occurrences as if they are threats. A door slams, a car alarm goes off, someone yells, these sounds are enough to set off the fight or flight response in the body. For someone who went through Adverse Childhood Experiences, those sounds feel like dangerous threats and spiral their body into extreme stress. All day long they are overstimulated by little sounds or sights their body perceives as threats.

If you know you had ACEs as a child, it is imperative that you take action now to lower and manage your stress; otherwise, this study concluded that you have a greater the chance of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, substance abuse, smoking, poor academic achievement, and early death.

The good news is there are many things you can do to be proactive to mitigate the effects that ACEs have on your stress levels, including soaking in magnesium!

It was fun to hear Kristen share that as women, as the matriarch, as the mom and wife, we set the tone for digestion at the table. It is set by the female who sits at the table. Our mood affects digestion for everyone dining with us! If we are in a state of relaxation and joy, everyone can relax and digest and absorb the nutrients in their food. If we bring our stress to the table, or worse, all eat in front of the TV, we are setting up our body and the health of our family to fail. We cannot properly digest and absorb the nutrients in our food when under a state of stress.

“To create low maintenance health, we have to take into account and claim how powerful we are. For me it was a real mindset shift in helping to re-wire my brain,” said Kristen Bowen.

Parasites

Remember how I said this interview was a roller coaster of health information? Well, the biggest plot twist was when Kristen shared about her experience with expelling parasites from her body.

At some point in her recovery, Kristen realized she had hit a wall. All of her symptoms pointed towards parasites.

For over a year Kristen Bowen performed expensive parasites cleanses with little results. Eventually, she stopped taking the abrasive herbs designed to kill the worms, amoebas, and flukes she felt was causing her symptoms and instead turned to study further about the gut’s biofilm and what she could do to support her body in making her gut an inhospitable hotel for those unwanted pests.

That is when she discovered the before mentioned Acerola Cherry Powder, and it’s benefits to help aid her in making the parasites leave her body.

After adding the Acerola Cherry Powder to her daily protocol, along with soaking in her magnesium and taking boron, she began to expell parasites from her body!

However, each month they would return only to be expelled again. She did her research and found out that when we have low stomach acid the parasites can reproduce each month and continue to thrive.

Kristen tried taking HCl supplements, but they did not agree with her. Instead, she looked to natural ways to stimulate and support her stomach to make healthy acid. She found that drinking fresh celery juice did the trick!

“I use 16 ounces of celery juice on an empty stomach every morning,” said Kristen Bowen.

Parasite Release

Kristen Bowen believes that on the subject of a parasite release, it’s not just about checking off a list and making sure you got all the supplements. You must put that mindset and be willing to take your power back.

“Because your energy goes up, your ability to communicate goes up; your ability to follow through with ideas fills up. We have to be willing to increase our accountability,” said Kristen Bowen.

When Kristen Bowen experienced that parasite release and was able to figure out the need to build hydrochloric acid, walking away from the constant reproduction cycle happening, that’s when Kristen Bowen achieved low maintenance health.

“We are the CEO of our health and body! We don’t just lift ourselves. It is our gift. Our feminine gift is to lift others around us. Tapping back into that power is crucial,” said Kristen Bowen.

Living The Good Life Naturally

As a treat to Learn True Health listeners, Kristen Bowen is giving 10% off whenever you buy her products on her website. Just type the coupon code LTH at checkout. And for every jug of magnesium soak, Kristen Bowen includes a free jar of magnesium muscle cream for a limited time.

To those who have suggested that the magnesium soak be available in a powder or flake form, Kristen Bowen says the effectivity will be compromised.

“The purity, quality of the product and ability to get cell saturation is crucial. And flakes do not meet my standard. I would never sell anything that I’m not willing to use myself,” said Kristen Bowen.

However, Kristen Bowen says you can’t get the full cell saturation with the cream, but people do see more localized results. It cannot replace soaking, but it’s a beautiful spot treatment to relax muscles and decrease pain and inflammation.

Get Connected with Kristen Bowen:

Official Website

Facebook

Facebook – Living the Good Life Naturally

Instagram – Kristen Bowen

Instagram – Living the Good Life Naturally

Recommended Reading by Kristen Bowen

Healing Is Voltage by Jerry L. Tennant 

 

Get the supplements Emily and Ashley use:
http://takeyoursupplements.com

How to reach Emily Becker:
remediesbyemily.etsy.com
http://theherbalhomemaker.com
https://www.facebook.com/emmieserves
https://www.instagram.com/emilyb eckerservices
emilybeckerservices@gmail.com

Natural Remedies For Hair

https://www.learntruehealth.com/natural-remedies-for-hair

Natural remedies have been proven by numerous studies and testimonials to be effective especially when it comes to hair and skincare. Apart from healthy hair, having glowing skin is a positive outcome of being able to take care of your health. My guest Emily Becker dealt with hair loss or alopecia for several years. But she was able to correct that along with other health issues by using natural remedies.

Alopecia

Emily Becker was 17 years old then when she tried to dye her hair. A week after she colored her hair, she saw a patch. Emily Becker initially thought it was from chemicals and hair dye. But eventually, she felt like maybe it was something more. A few years after, the hair was growing, but it would fall out again. It still hadn’t dawned on her to try using natural remedies.

Fast forward a few years later, Emily Becker got married at 21 years old, and a few months after, all her hair fell out. That started her big search for natural remedies.

“I didn’t want to take the steroid creams and injections because of the side effects. And I had itchy parts all over my body. What I realized after a while, my hair on my body was also falling out,” recalls Emily Becker.

Turning A New Leaf

Then one day, Emily Becker heard a radio commercial for a doctor who does lectures around the United States. She was able to go to one of his, and it was life-changing.

The doctor asked Emily Becker some questions about her diet and bowel movement. Then he identified what she needed nutritionally.

“He wanted me to stop eating grains, wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Plus, he wanted me to take supplements and become gluten-free,” said Emily Becker. “Within two weeks, I noticed my body becoming itchy and noticed my hair growing again. It was life-changing because I was bald for a year and a half.”

She adds, “I had to go through all those emotions of watching my hair fall out. And I became depressed. Most of us who lost their hair go through the depression. Even the men that I’ve met and lost their hair, too.”

Dealing With Health Issues

Emily Becker became pregnant in January of 2013, but before that, she had an irregular menstrual period. And Emily Becker also had a miscarriage which was tough and heartbreaking. She had terrible mood swings, too.

“I believe that it was about 70% physiological. Looking back, I can almost feel in memory the changes as I was getting healthier. When I first changed my diet, I almost went into a rebellion stage. I was having withdrawals from the foods that I miss,” Emily Becker said.

Before her health improved, Emily Becker would get so upset with her fingers because her cuticles were so split. They would bleed. And Emily Becker would have tiny bumps all over her hands like warts. She also had night sweats, dry skin, and acne. Hence, she was so grateful to have worked with a doctor who wanted to make a more Holistic approach.

“The hardest part of switching my diet and everything else was trying to find the right stuff. It included the make-up and shampoo which I had to make sure there was no barley or anything like that. That’s when I started to look into making my products for myself,” said Emily Becker.

Starting The Business

The first thing Emily Becker ever made was a belly wrap to address cellulite—4 ounces of carrier oil, add a little lemongrass, grapeseed, lavender and just a tad of frankincense essential oils to stimulate skin cells to regrow and restore themselves. You rub the mixture onto your belly, wrap your belly using a food wrap and leave it on for about an hour. Emily Becker says it’s effective because she used it herself.

“Coconut oil is great, but I don’t like the greasy feeling of it. I only use it in my body lotions. I recommend shea butter which can moisturize and won’t have that greasy feeling,” Emily Becker said.

She adds, “It’s more healing than any butter out there because it has the highest healing properties. If you can find it raw, it’s even better. And the oil I like for my face is tamanu oil. It makes your skin glow.”

Expanding Her Product Range

Emily Becker never thought she’d start a business. She said making products was initially to help her my father-in-law find something he can put on his hives that weren’t a steroid.

“Even going through the Naturopathic route, he’s always struggled with hives. So, I made him a very basic shea butter and beeswax salve with those essential oils. The jar lasts two years,” Emily Becker shares.

Then Emily Becker mother-in-law started getting allergic. She had some favorite face products from a company that has products with natural ingredients in it. But it also has fillers and chemicals to preserve. So, Emily Becker made her a face cream made of shea butter.

“Eventually I made body lotion for some people for Christmas. Within a month or two, people started asking for it and offered to pay me. I started a small business making all-natural products that are truly natural,” said Emily Becker.

Emily Becker also made a skin salve for psoriasis, eczema and general skin damage. She makes it with the tea tree that she grows in my own home. Emily Becker infuses the tea tree with jojoba oil and blends that together to create a skin salve. She also mixes it with carrot seed and lavender essential oils.

Emily Becker’s daughter also helps her make a fire-shimmering lip gloss. It hydrates your lips, and it’s a beautiful shade of autumn red.

Like her lip gloss, Emily Becker’s natural deodorant, face cream, lip balm, hair mask, rollers, face mask, face serums, beard balms, body lotions, face cream without the essential oils are made with all-natural ingredients. She also doesn’t use water in her products. Instead, Emily Becker uses aloe vera juice.

Rhassoul Clay

Emily Becker says she uses rhassoul clay for her face and hair mask. Because when you use clay on your skin, it draws out the toxins.

Rhassoul clay is the densest type of clay.  Studies have shown that rhassoul clay will reduce dryness and flakiness. It will also improve the texture of your skin because of the minerals in it.

“If you have rhassoul clay in your hair mask, it’s like empowerment for your hair. It gives a full body texture and softness to it. Furthermore, it also helps lock curls. So, I use rhassoul clay for both my skin and hair mask,” Emily Becker said.

The hair mask comes in a little applicator. Emily Becker says to take the clay powder, put into applicator with a little bit of water. Shake it and squirt it into your scalp with the applicator.

Make sure your hair is combed all the way through and tie it up. Let the mask harden and do its work for 20 minutes and rinse. It rinses out pretty quick. And because it grabs all the oil and grime from your hair, you don’t need a shampoo or conditioner.

There are so many wonderful natural remedies on Emily Becker’s Etsy shop so make sure you check out the website. Rest assured, all her natural remedies contain no chemical ingredients and just as useful to address your various skin and hair problems.

“There’s hope, and you’re not alone. Just stick to the help you have. You can reach out to many people. If you want to hear from me, I’d love to hear from you. Just be patient, and you’re still beautiful,” Emily Becker said.

Bio

Emily Becker is not a doctor nor a scientist. She’s a mother and a homemaker. She also played video games for a living before getting pregnant. Limited on money and not willing to always be in the hands of the M.D., Emily Becker followed doctors, and N.D.’s that she trusted (Glidden, Fuchs, Mercola, Wallach. She has the giant Alternative Health reference book and spends tons of time researching including using pub.med.

Get Connected to Emily Becker!

Remedies By Emily

Facebook – Emily Becker

Facebook – Remedies By Emily

Instagram

Twitter

The Easy Wins Podcast and all links to what Mitch Harb does:
https://linktr.ee/easywinsmitch

Get the supplements that Ashley takes and recommends:
http://takeyoursupplements.com

Book your free discovery session with Ashley James:
https://learntruehealth.com/chat

Attend the free anxiety webinar:
http://freeyouranxiety.com/webinar

Easy Wins

https://www.learntruehealth.com/easy-wins-mitch-harb

I recently guested on the Easy Wins Podcast of Personal Trainer and Health Coach, Mitch Harb. The episode expounds on some easy wins towards weight loss and body transformation, as well as achievable daily habits to get giant results. So, read on to discover how easy wins can improve your overall health.

Turning Point

My Learn True Health podcast has been so fulfilling since it first launched in 2016. Today, the podcast surpassed four million downloads, and I feel blessed that my mission of helping people get their health back is taking off.

But it didn’t feel like easy wins were achievable during the lowest points in my life. I had many health struggles for years and was even bed-ridden at one point.

Eleven years ago, I met my husband. At the time, I was type 2 diabetic, I had chronic infections, chronic adrenal fatigue, and eventually had to quit my job. I also struggled with brain fog, infertility, PCOS, and depression because doctors told me I couldn’t have kids.

Dealing With Depression

What kept me together despite my health struggles was my mindset. Through my journey of learning true health, I learned NLP or neuro-linguistic programming and became a Master Practitioner and Trainer of it. I also learned timeline therapy, hypnosis, and coaching because I knew I needed to work on my emotions as well.

My depression was at its worse when my mom passed away in my 20s and my father followed shortly after. I was so depressed and broken when my mom died of cancer. I wanted to find a solution, come out the other side to be stronger and better. That’s why I discovered NLP.

While I felt like a prisoner of my own body, my spirit, mind, and mindset weren’t. That’s what kept me going. And that’s when I decided to pursue a career to help people.

Neuro-linguistic Programming

Neuro-linguistic Programming is a mixture of behavioral psychology and cognitive therapy. It’s an understanding of the conscious and unconscious mind. Back in the 60s, the creators looked around therapists who are getting outstanding results.  They created a system around what they do to replicate those excellent results.

Tony Robbins is a great example. He took the practitioner level with Richard Bandler and John Grinder who were the creators of Neuro-linguistic Programming. They allow you to shift your beliefs, mindset and emotional state, as well as let you change even your unconscious habits. The technique works, and you need to know when to use each method to help you.

Neuro-linguistic Programming is not deep hypnosis. There’s a light trance to guide the person to their aha moments and breakthroughs. But it’s not manipulative in a deep state of trance.

Find Solutions

Back in 2005, my health was getting worse and didn’t understand anything about nutrition or healing my body. Then I realized you have to set the intention of what you want. I wanted to find the answers to my help problems.

So, in 2008 when Netflix just started streaming documentaries, my husband and I started watching health documentaries. The first one we watched advised people to shop within the perimeter of the grocery store. In one week, we cut out all the junk food we were eating.

Food Choices

With a month of just eating meat, eggs and dairy, vegetables and fruits, my husband and I also went sugar-free and avoided processed foods. My chronic infections went away with a whole foods diet.

Years later, I came across a Naturopath who had an interesting way of explaining supplements, nutrition, and diet. Hence, I started following his recommendations. My diabetes went away in three months, as well as my chronic adrenal fatigue and brain fog.

Plus, my PCOS corrected itself. My infertility went away, and we now have a 4-year old boy conceived naturally. To think we tried conceiving for six years. It turned out; easy wins entailed doing diet and lifestyle changes.

Because of my success, I felt had to get this information out there. Hence, the Learn True Health Podcast was born. With over 300 episodes, we have interviewed experts. That’s why I love the mission of Mitch Harb. Because making easy wins is how I got my health back one little step at a time.

Minerals And Supplements

In 2011, when my husband and I intentionally went gluten-free, I lost 25 pounds of water weight in a month. I went down two ring sizes, and my husband went down two and a half ring sizes.

At this point, I realized that minerals are essential. Before I took supplements, I was hungry all the time because my body was craving minerals. Our cells need sixteen minerals to make insulin work with the cell.

One of the minerals is chromium, and the other is vanadium. They are trace minerals and the most important thing you can give to your body. We’re not getting it well in our diet anymore because of the farming process over the last hundreds of years.

Furthermore, we don’t mineralize the soil, and we don’t rotate the crops. Plus, pesticides like Monsanto’s Roundup is a chelator. As a result, they bind to the trace minerals in our soil, and they wash them away.

I don’t think I would have resolved all my health issues if I had only eaten healthy foods because I was so deficient in minerals. However, I’m not saying supplements are the answer. Supplements fill in the gaps, and sometimes that is the missing piece that puts the whole thing into place.

Sugar-free and Dairy-free

To be able to be sugar-free and dairy-free, you have to admit there’s an addictive component to dairy. Every dairy from every animal including humans has an addictive component to it because we have to make the calf or the baby want to suckle and drink the milk to survive.

But the problem is when we take the milk and concentrate it, it stimulates dopamine and all the feel-good hormones. It feels good to consume dairy, but 51% of the population can’t tolerate it because it comes from the immune system of another animal.

Sometimes our immune system reacts to it which can cause a lot of inflammation. So, for a month, try the elimination diet and observe the reaction of your body. Every month, eliminate one thing, do a test and reintroduce it. You can do a blood testing for this, but they’re not accurate.

Boosting Energy Levels

Balancing blood sugar gives you more energy. And drinking enough water is essential because if there’s a 5% reduction in our hydration, we have a 25 % reduction in our energy production.

On the other hand, B-vitamins are great which you can get from vegetables. But the best thing to boost energy levels is having a good sleep. Sleep hygiene also is a fantastic thing to look into like wearing blue-blocking glasses.

Blue-blocking glasses block the light from the blue light which mimics moon-based sun. It tricks your brain into thinking it’s not time to make melatonin or the sleep hormone. But when you wake up, get some sunlight directly on your eyeball because that burns away the melatonin and resets your sleeping rhythm.

Try also to stay away from caffeine. Caffeine is a replacement for sleep, and that will lead to adrenal burnout and exhaustion. Healthy sleep habits set you for healing mode and more energy to do more things. There is an adjustment period, but the rewards are more significant in the long run.

Infertility

I eliminated twelve bad foods that this Naturopath recommended. Bad foods cause damage to the body and inflammation. So, I took away the foods that were harming me, filled my body with foods that are healing, took supplements for three years and then consulted my doctor to help me increase my healthy cholesterol.

My doctor determined I should get on some Chinese herbs. Then I finally got pregnant the next month. It’s a case-to-case basis so consult a health practitioner you can trust.

As for men, some studies show that the last 12 months of a man’s health goes into the health of their son. But the woman’s health is more important because the baby is living in her womb and living off the nutrients in the woman’s body. The reason why we have so many miscarriages is that the body is saying it cannot support the baby on a cellular level.

Traditional medicine is just starting to acknowledge this. Pharmaceutical medicine wants to suppress knowledge around Holistic Medicine. The best thing you can do to get pregnant is to prepare the body for over a year before conception. Take your supplements to make sure you’re getting all the minerals — 16 minerals and 12 amino acids.

Also, make sure to avoid eating crappy foods that cause inflammation and damage to your body. Avoid being exposed to chemicals and pesticides as well. Eat food that makes you feel good for days after. Then do a food and mood journal to get to know your body more.

An excellent book is Dirty Genes by Ben Lynch. The book gives a good understanding of how to support your body based on your genetics in terms of nutrition. Folate, iron or folic acid is good, but there are many other nutrients you need to support the body.

The Right Mindset

I have a technique I love to teach through my Free Your Anxiety webinar. Not only does it get to the root cause and eliminate anxiety, but it sets you back towards success.

The body and the mind create anxiety when we’re focusing on the things we don’t want to have and having it happen. Example, if you wake up in the morning with fear, procrastination, worry, and anxiety, these are all symptoms of the same problem. Then eventually your gut health suffers as well as your hormones. 

Negative thoughts also trigger stress mode and its robbing the body of resources because you’re taking the body out of healing mode. Instant survival mode exhausts your long-term resources. It can cause disease and will not help you heal. 

Try this simple technique:

• Close your eyes.
• Float 15 min past the successful completion of the event that you’re interested in completing.
• Imagine yourself a year from now looking down on your life and look at it from the standpoint of success.

The whole point of this technique is that you have to make up a vision in your mind. Imagine yourself at a particular moment in time, and it is working out successfully. It’s what you want in your future.  A positive mindset is when a problem arises; you want to solve it from the logic brain and be calm and centered. Because ultimately, stress never helps you solve a problem.

Critical Thinking

We were raised to be victims of society. In any giant industry profiting from people being a certain way, there are very few institutions that want us to be free thinkers.

An excellent resource is John Gatto’s book, Weapons of Mass Instruction. He was a teacher who won outstanding awards. It talks about the history of our school system is designed to make good little factory workers. 

School systems systematically took critical thinking out of the educational system 150 years ago. It’s called the Trivium. It’s a 2500-year old system taught in Plato’s era. You can link to the Trivium Education website if you want to learn more about critical thinking.

Again, I want to emphasize that stress is not an emotion but getting rid of it is life-changing. You don’t feel stress. But instead you accumulate it, and your body snaps when you ignore the signs.

But you can cure yourself through easy wins. Bring stress down by laughing every day or do meditation. Doing five things every day that bring down stress are considered easy wins. Ultimately, find the things that bring you joy so you can achieve true health.

Get Connected With Mitch Harb!

Easy Wins Podcast

Easy Wins Website

Recommended Links:

Episode 57: Sleep Quality – James Swanwick

Learn True Health Free Discovery Session

Free Your Anxiety

Take Your Supplements

Dirty Genes Book by Ben Lynch

Weapons of Mass Instruction Book by John Gatto

Trivium Education

Robyn's site: https://www.robynyoukilis.com

The infrared oven I recommend:
https://amzn.to/2XH6GGj

Join the Learn True Self live workshop coming up!
Release negative emotions and limiting decisions from your past.
http://learntrueself.com for more info.

Become a Health Coach like Ashley and Robyn! Get a free sample class here: https://learntruehealth.com/coach
Listeners of the Learn True Health podcast get $1500 off their IIN tuition!

Intuitive Eating

https://www.learntruehealth.com/intuitive-eating-robyn-youkilis

Many of you have heard the power of intuition. That power of intuition we all have can also apply in eating intuitively to heal our gut and improve our digestive health. To explain how we can develop our intuition towards making the right food choices, my guest, Author of Thin From Within and The Go with Your Gut Way to Lose Weight, Robyn Youkilis will dive into that and more in this episode.

Ideal Figure

Robyn Youkilis’ journey began when she was just 13 years old. It was a time when her body started to have a defined shape. Hence, she started getting conscious especially because magazines featured women who supposedly had the ideal form.

It ended up that Robyn Youkilis thought there was something wrong with her body and that she needed to fix her body. Because of this, she started looking into the diet culture.

“At the same time, my mother was always an incredible cook, whipping up wonderful dishes. So, I always had a deep love and appreciation for food. However, it also led to the torment,” recalls Robyn Youkilis.

It eventually confused Robyn Youkilis through her teenage years until her 20s. But when she started dating her then boyfriend who is now her husband, Robyn Youkilis learned how to buy her food at the Farmer’s Market.

Turning Points

Another turning point was when Robyn Youkilis went to the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. She enrolled in the school as she started getting into cooking more for herself and her boyfriend. It was here when Robyn Youkilis made the connection between how she ate and how it was making her feel.

But the real turning point was when Robyn Youkilis and her husband talked about starting a family. Little by little, she shed more of that obsession and more of that unhealthy view of self. Robyn Youkilis eventually brought in more nourishing food, cooking for herself and connecting to who she already was.

Create Your Space

Robyn Youkilis’ job as a health practitioner and an individual is to create a little space. She advises people to create some support and some lightness around showing up for yourself in that change.

“Create a space so you can have this consistent conversation with yourself. When you have these little turning points along the way, they can serve you instead of taking you down,” Robyn Youkilis said.

She adds, “Everyone deserves to feel amazing in their body. And your body wants that for you. No matter what you feed it, your body will digest it for you. We can’t have our focus on so many different things. You have to think about it and feel it as well.”

Listening To Your Intuition

First, Robyn Youkilis says we must understand that it’s going to be a winding path and it may take some time. She usually likes to teach this practice to clients where you put one hand on your lower abdominal wall and let that go.

“A lot of us spend a lot of our day sucking it in, especially women. And it’s really about giving yourself a moment to breathe into that space. At that point, ask yourself what would make you feel most supported,” said Robyn Youkilis. 

She adds, “You have the answer already. Often, we’ll hear a little helpful voice from our intuition.” 

Robyn Youkilis says journaling is also good because it means your thoughts have space and they feel valid. You may not do anything with those thoughts. But just having a place for that helps, rather than turning to food to experience comfort, space or a place.

“In learning to listen to your intuition, you would learn to figure out what feels more supportive in a given situation,” Robyn Youkilis said. “For example, having a grounding practice like taking a bath when you go home for the day can help you feel supported instead of turning to food.”

Understanding Your Cravings

According to Robyn Youkilis, a healthy craving feels like it’s something nice to have. And a craving that you might want to gather a little more information on is one that feels like you have to have it.

There might be a nutritional deficiency going on there, or it might be something around your day. Ultimately, Robyn Youkilis says it takes little moments from our day where we can start to have that conversation more deeply with ourselves.

Eating Using Intuition

Robyn Youkilis loves all kinds of food. But it doesn’t have a grip on her because she says her diet now is much more supportive of her gut and her body.

“Focus on the gut because that is the center of your body. Our digestive system is responsible for so many things on even more than just digesting food,” explains Robyn Youkilis.

Having A Healthy Gut

A healthy gut better absorbs the nutrients from the food you’re eating. Robyn Youkilis believes you get more out of what you’re consuming. You’re going to feel better from that food. A healthy gut also means a happier you because 90% of our serotonin is produced in your gut. And 80% of our immune tissue is in our gut.

“Aside from the mental conversation going on, there’s a lot at play. Something that may serve you this month may be different next month,” said Robyn Youkilis. “So, know that there’s never going to be the one thing that’s going to fix all the things. It’s always going to be a lot of parts of this conversation.”

To have a healthy digestive system, Robyn Youkilis also reveals that it is ideal for releasing waste at least once a day.  She recommends a huge glass of water first thing in the morning and gives your system a chance to flush itself out. For others, it may be a dehydration issue for our colon.

Importance Of Hydration

Juicing organic celery first thing in the morning is quite trendy. Robyn Youkilis says there are some medicinal benefits, but she believes that part of the reason why it’s working so well for so many people is that it’s hydrating their body on a cellular level.

Robyn Youkilis says adding chia seeds to water is also helpful. Chia seeds act as a lubricant and essentially allow your organs and the cells of your body to integrate the hydration into your body. A pinch of Himalayan sea salt or lemon water can also help with hydration.

“The ultimate goal is to connect to our intuition more so that we can digest not just our food, but we can digest our lives,” said Robyn Youkilis.

Importance Of Chewing

Robyn Youkilis stresses that another important thing is how you chew your food. Take time to eat your food well. It’s a miracle worker.

“The science behind that is because our stomach does not have teeth. It wasn’t designed to break down whole chunks of food the way we usually do it,” Robyn Youkilis explained. 

Robyn Youkilis also says some foods are harder to digest like nuts, dried fruit or some leafy greens. That’s why raw, dense, leafy greens are going to cause a little bit of bloating or stomach upset. Red meat is also hard to break down.

Meal Prep

Meal prep for Robyn Youkilis means making some basics ahead of time. A lot of people take this further and meal prep specific meals. But in Robyn Youkilis’ book, she teaches readers first to boil an egg and roast two trays of vegetables.

“Prep your greens and keep in the fridge, ready to go. Once you have done these basic items, I also talk about a power parfait in the book. It’s like an amped up yogurt bowl so that you feel full longer,” said Robyn Youkilis.

Robyn Youkilis does meal preps for the week, and when it’s time to put it together, she will use a basic template. The Rule of Five Plates is part of what she teaches in her book.

“I would have the power parfait in the morning, mix and match based on this little light template for lunch. Dinner will be some prepped things. Keep it simple and get real with your meal prep. It’s about having these staples ready in the fridge,” advises Robyn Youkilis.

For me, the Panasonic infrared oven significantly made meal prep easier. The oven heats things fast like two to three minutes. I use glass containers without the lid. It heats up way more than a microwave would, so you have to use a mitt.

Rule Of Five Plates

Robyn Youkilis has a meal prep class showing how she meal preps and walks you through it. She does the templates from the Rule of Five Plates mostly for lunches.

One template is greens. Raw or steamed is fine. Mix up the greens. The next template is healthy fats like avocados, olive oil, butter, coconut oil or some good healthy fat. Sliced almonds or goat cheese is also good.

The third template is protein. Wild salmon, grass-fed beef, organic chicken, lentils, trout, sardines, smoked mussels are sustainable options. Know what you have and know what your resources are.

Number four is fermented foods. That is where the gut health comes in, and it’s going to be the food that helps you digest the other foods better. Fermented foods can be raw fermented sauerkraut, fermented carrots, radishes or kimchi.

“I have some recipes in the book that’s easy to do. Fermented food is rich in live probiotic bacteria which will feed on the good bacteria in your gut and create a happy, healthy microbiome,” Robyn Youkilis said.

The last template is a cooked vegetable. This is where the meal prep comes back into play. It could be anything from cubed sweet potatoes, roasted zucchini or roasted carrots. Ultimately, you can do so many different things using the templates.

“For dinner, you can have a bean pasta with some tuna and kale. And then I would eat some of my fermented radishes on the side,” said Robyn Youkilis. “I’m always thinking more greens, healthy fats and fermented food. Also, know when you need new inspiration to shift things up.”

She adds, “I don’t want you to feel bad about what you’re doing or not doing. You got this. Life is always changing, but you can do it. You are designed to thrive, heal and to feel good.”

Bio

Robyn Youkilis is changing the way thousands of women and men around the world relate with food, and she’s redefining what it means to eat and be healthy. 

Robyn Youkilis is a Certified Wellness Expert, TV personality, and author. She’s frequently featured as the go-to expert on The Today Show, in People Magazine, + Redbook. And she is the founder of her health coaching company Your Healthiest You. 

Robyn Youkilis has been featured by The Cooking Channel, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Fitness, The Huffington Post, CBS News, and more. Known for her straightforward yet supportive coaching style, Robyn Youkilis helps clients break free of the craziness of dieting and connect to their truest and best selves-through practical action steps. 

Robyn Youkilis’ first book, Go with Your Gut: The Insider’s Guide to Banishing the Bloat with 75 Digestion-Friendly Recipes is now available in bookstores. 

Robyn Youkilis is changing the way thousands of women and men around the world relate with food and she’s redefining what it means to eat and be healthy. 

Robyn Youkilis is a Certified Wellness Expert, TV personality, and author. She’s frequently featured as the go-to expert on The Today Show, in People Magazine, + Redbook. And she is the founder of her health coaching company Your Healthiest You. 

Robyn Youkilis has been featured by The Cooking Channel, The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Fitness, The Huffington Post, CBS News, and more. Known for her straightforward yet supportive coaching style, Robyn Youkilis helps clients break free of the craziness of dieting and connect to their truest and best selves-through no-nonsense action steps. 

Robyn Youkilis’ first book, Go with Your Gut: The Insider’s Guide to Banishing the Bloat with 75 Digestion-Friendly Recipes is now available everywhere books are sold. 

Get Connected With Robyn Youkilis!

Official Website

The Chewing Challenge

Meal Prep Workshop

Books by Robyn Youkilis

Thin From Within Book

Go With Your Gut Book

Recommended Link:

Panasonic Infrared Oven

www.EvaWorldwide.com

Whole Plant Hemp Phytocannabinoid Therapy

https://www.learntruehealth.com/phytocannabinoid

Phytocannabinoid therapy can be significantly helpful if you’re looking into alternative ways of healing. I’m sure most of you have heard the benefits of hemp to address health issues. But surprisingly, whole plant hemp phytocannabinoid therapy can also heal pets. My guest Nicole Davidsohn has an exciting story to tell regarding phytocannabinoid therapy as well as educate us on the other healing benefits of this wonderful hemp herb.

Series Of Accidents

The Eva company story began in spring 2014 with a series of accidents. Eva founder Dane Kemp was in a near-death experience because of a car accident but still came to work. He did, however, suffer from post-concussion syndrome.

His partner and co-founder Nicole Davidsohn, on the other hand, was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Doctors initially thought it was a stomach flu. Even with a flu protocol it never stopped. Nicole Davidsohn was misdiagnosed. It was only after a colonoscopy that she discovered she had ulcerative colitis.

“The biggest thing I noticed with ulcerative colitis was fatigue. The way that it hurt my life was that I just wanted to sleep all day and I had no appetite,” shares Nicole Davidsohn.

Before Nicole Davidsohn was diagnosed, she was a raw vegan. After her diagnosis, Nicole Davidsohn was prohibited by her doctor to eat raw foods and vegetables. So, she ate boiled chicken and sweet potatoes to get back on track.

A few months later, Nicole Davidsohn fell on a flight of stairs. She ended up with misplaced ribs and extreme pain throughout her nervous system. Nicole Davidsohn still did a high-intensity workout class but felt worse after. Hence, she was rushed to the E.R., stopped going to work and eventually went into depression spiraled by her injuries.

Health Struggle

Weeks went by, and Nicole Davidsohn tried the medication the doctors gave her. The medicines were really strong which made Nicole Davidsohn sick. She slept a lot, avoided the sun and noise. Dane Kemp convinced her to move into their home in Baltimore so his mom could help take care of her, but Nicole Davidsohn’s condition didn’t improve.

One night, Dane Kemp suggested to Nicole Davidsohn that they go to Oaksterdam University in California. He initially wanted to take their cannabis seminar on the history of growing. It was timely because, in 2015, the industry was beginning to open up.

Availability

Nicole Davidsohn says cannabis helped Dane Kemp in the past with attention issues. But on the East Coast, it’s not easy to get. Even if Nicole Davidsohn had a medical card for her ulcerative colitis, it limited her to two grams per day of the only strain they had which was blue dream. Blue Dream is a strain to get you thinking, be creative and invigorate your mind.

“You can’t just smoke any cannabis and get relief from it because you have to have the correct ratio of cannabinoids and terpenes to help you with your specific ailment. In D.C., the dispensary you go to is dependent on your address,” Nicole Davidsohn said.

Seeing An Opportunity

Because of this, Dane Kemp saw an opportunity and also saw a way to help people. Taking a seminar at Oaksterdam University, the couple learned so much about cannabis, cannabinoids, growing it, its history, starting a business, and learning about the industry.

Nicole Davidsohn also called up an old friend in California who gave her a bag of medical cannabis goodies like edibles, vapes, and joints including a type of caramel popcorn which contained THC. It was the first time she used cannabis as real medicine.

Nicole Davidsohn ate the popcorn at night and slept well. It did have Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC in it, but she wasn’t high when she went to class. Instead, she just used it after class. The THC popcorn ultimately made Nicole Davidsohn feel better.

Going back home to the East Coast, the couple did some preparations to move back to the West Coast to start a new life and begin healing holistically.

Cannabis Juice

When Nicole Davidsohn was in California, she had been studying the work of Dr. William Courtney who was famous for cannabis juice. She eventually wanted to grow her own vegan cannabis plant and juice it.

“So, I bought an aero garden, planted some seeds and started growing cannabis like a normal herb on the counter. When it was big enough, I stuck it in my juicer with some turmeric and ginger. It tasted great,” said Nicole Davidsohn.

Cannabis has acidic cannabinoids in its raw form. THC is THC-A, so it has a carbon molecule on it. Nicole Davidsohn says that for it to become psychoactive, or to make you feel high, you need to heat it to 220 degrees Fahrenheit for a certain amount of time.

“When you juice it, just like you would go outside and take a fresh apple off a tree, chop it up and put in your juicer. I would take the bud off the plant and put in the juicer,” Nicole Davidsohn said. “It extracts all the cannabinoids, terpenes and chlorophyll which is super healthy for you. You won’t get stoned.”

Effects of Juicing

First thing Nicole Davidsohn felt was that her eyes widened, and her brain cleared up. It gave her four to six hours of energy. One reason is that raw cannabis is full of nutrients. It’s also a complete protein with all the essential amino acids. It has a ton of vitamins and minerals, too.

“The reason why I started juicing was to help my brain recover, but it was also to help get my colitis back in remission,” revealed Nicole Davidsohn. “I think because I needed the nutrients, it started to slow my digestion and bring my body back to homeostasis instead of an inflamed state. It didn’t heal my post-concussion syndrome. I went to speech therapy for that.”

She adds, “Juicing is not the easiest thing in the world. I juice three times a week. But once I made a container of it, it last three days unless you vacuum seal it then it will last seven days. I wasn’t consistent at first. For the first year, I was juicing every month and taking other cannabinoids as well.”

Birth Of Eva

Starting the company Eva, they began as the first 100% comprehensively lab-tested dispensary delivery in Sonoma County. Both Dane Kemp and Nicole Davidsohn got familiar with the certificate of analysis on everything. Eventually, Eva was the only dispensary in California in 2015 to have their menu comprehensively third-party lab-tested.

“The juice inspired the capsules that we have. I made one called Better Brain which has Bacopa, Matcha and the whole hemp plant flower in it. The speech therapy plus the juice and Better Brain capsules helped my brain to heal,” revealed Nicole Davidsohn.

Mary The Dog

Mary was Nicole Davidsohn’s a Pit/Dalmatian mix who received a terminal lymphoma diagnosis in October 2016. She was given three months to live with or without chemotherapy.

Nicole Davidsohn was making the juice at the time and helping people with assorted health ailments. So, she thought of giving Mary the juice by incorporating it in her food. It was not long before Mary went from being fatigued to energized.

“We also bought some CBD oils and mixed it with the whole plant. They were raw oils. But Mary did not respond the same way compared to when she was given the juice,” recalled Nicole Davidsohn. “I think because the oil is fat-soluble, and it takes a lot longer to digest and be absorbed.”

Nicole Davidsohn continued to give Mary the juice with turmeric and ginger. The dog continued to stay energized and didn’t get sick. After Eva company developed Better Pet Relief for Mary’s cancer and arthritis, Mary’s cancer has gone into remission.

The capsules also help manage Mary’s arthritis. Aside from this, Nicole Davidsohn also adds a little bit of black pepper extract into Mary’s diet to help in the absorption.

Compatibility With Hemp

Nicole Davidsohn explains that we have an endocannabinoid system. Endo means inside. We already have receptors and cannabinoids in our body. And cannabinoids are also found in the plant cannabis. But when we’re stressed out, we make fewer cannabinoids naturally.

“When we take in external cannabinoids from hemp or cannabis, it’s like getting a multivitamin. So, it’s fulfilling that deficiency. I like to think of it as vitamins,” said Nicole Davidsohn. “When I think of the endocannabinoid system, I think like it’s just another set of receptors for a vitamin that we aren’t taking any more.”

She adds, “I believe we have an epidemic of what I call endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome. When people are deficient in making their natural cannabinoids, they feel so much better when they ingest CBD oil, Eva CBD capsules or edibles.”

Dementia

First of all, Nicole Davidsohn says their capsules can’t cure, treat or manage any disease. For dementia, in particular, she suggests their product, Better Brain. Nicole Davidsohn also revealed that the element Bacopa was used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years for dementia and there are studies behind it. But cannabis can also do that.

All of Eva’s capsules contain whole flowers, so everything is raw. And it is made of organic hemp flowers. It aims to clear the brain and give you that phytocannabinoid nutrient in case you’re deficient in it which could also be causing memory loss. Nicole Davidsohn again assures everyone that the capsules will not get you stoned.

Dosage

According to Nicole Davidsohn, the capsules are formulated to last four hours. If you’re looking to last an entire day of super brain power, Nicole Davidsohn recommends taking one capsule when you wake up and another one in the afternoon.

“The formulas are based on research I did to find the best dose of Bacopa, cannabinoids, and Matcha green tea,” Nicole Davidsohn said. “Bacopa is also an adaptogenic stress reliever. People use it for stress relief, and they also use it for pain relief.”

Panic Attacks

For panic attacks, Nicole Davidsohn highly suggests their Better Mood product. It contains Valerian Root, Lemon Balm, and Hemp.

A little dose of Valerian Root helps you calm down. It’s used for insomnia, anxiety and increase GABA receptors. Nicole Davidsohn says Lemon Balm is safe even for kids. Many kids take Lemon Balm for anxiety and focus.

Pain Medication Addiction

Nicole Davidsohn says their formula may help someone with a pain medication addiction by employing phytocannabinoid therapy. As a person tapers off the hard pain drugs, Nicole Davidsohn suggests taking Better Relief Capsules. However, it is advisable to work with a doctor to help taper off the medications and increase the intake of raw cannabinoids with turmeric and ginger.

“Many studies have shown how CBD and whole plant hemp can reduce the side effects of withdrawal by nourishing the endocannabinoid system,” said Nicole Davidsohn. “If we’re able to supplement the body with phytocannabinoids, it would help people get off pain medications more quickly.”

Eva’s products are also safe for children because it is non-psychoactive. Nicole Davidsohn says all their capsules are whole herbs, whole plants, and raw vegan.

Better Brain and Better Mood Capsules can help children focus better and address their emotional issues like anxiety. Nicole Davidsohn also says that one of the big things that children can benefit from phytocannabinoid therapy is to help them reduce toxin overload. 

Full Spectrum

Full Spectrum would be including all of the cannabinoids and the naturally present terpenes in the plant. Nicole Davidsohn says you can get a Full Spectrum extract which would be using the whole plant.

“Take a whole hemp flower, put it in some olive oil, shut it and put it in a dark place. Shake it once every day. Leave it in the dark cupboard for two weeks,” advises Nicole Davidsohn. “Then strain the oil out from the flower, and now you have a Full Spectrum Tincture.”

Full Spectrum means it contains all of the cannabinoids and all of the terpenes that are naturally present in the plant. Nicole Davidsohn reveals that their company uses therapeutic hemp, specifically grown to be phytocannabinoid-rich, organic and does not have any contaminants in it.

Eva Products

There have been many success stories of people who have benefitted from cannabis juice and Eva’s products. Other worthy products to check out from the Eva website is Better Sleep and Better Pet Relief. As mentioned previously, Better Pet Relief helped Nicole Davidsohn’s dog get on the road to recovery. 

Contest

I’m thrilled to announce that Nicole Davidsohn is generously giving away ten bottles of Eva’s herbal supplements. Go to the Learn True Health Facebook group to find out how you can win. Each of the ten winners will have the chance to choose the formula of their preference so make sure you check out our group. 

Eva is also giving a 20% discount to Learn True Health listeners. Just type in the LTH discount code upon checkout at the Eva website.

“I am grateful being on a podcast speaking about Eva, our goals and our passion and our love for the world. And I’m grateful for this show and listeners who listen with an open mind and are here to learn. The goal is to have a happier and healthier world than where we are now,” said Nicole Davidsohn.

Bio

Nicole Davidsohn was born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Lancaster, CA.  She grew up the youngest of 4 becoming the first in her family to attend college at Antelope Valley Community College before transferring to UC Irvine on a full scholarship.  

Nicole Davidsohn received her BA in Psychology in 2011 and later received national certifications in personal training and nutrition consoling. In 2015, she left the world of personal training and fitness to attend Oaksterdam University before moving west to start Eva with Dane Kemp.

Get Connected With Nicole Davidsohn!

Official Website

Facebook

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Twitter

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Become A Health Coach-Learn More About The Institute for Integrative Nutrition's Health Coaching Certification Program by checking out these four resources:

LearnTrueHealth.com/coach

1) Integrative Nutrition's Curriculum Guide:
http://geti.in/2cmUMxb

2) The IIN Curriculum Syllabus:
http://geti.in/2miXTej

3) Module One of the IIN curriculum:
http://geti.in/2cmWPl8

4) Get three free chapters of Joshua Rosenthal's book:
https://bit.ly/2wgkLOU

Watch my little video on how to become a Certified Health Coach!

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If this episode made a difference in your life, please leave me a tip in the virtual tip jar by giving my podcast a great rating and review in iTunes!
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Ashley James
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Enjoyed this podcast episode? Visit my website Learn True Health with Ashley James so you can gain access to all of my episodes and more! LearnTrueHealth.com
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Energetic Boundaries - Part Two

https://www.learntruehealth.com/energetic-boundaries-part-two

This is part two of our interview with Metaphysical Counselor, Exorcist, Psychic, Healer, Eric Thorton who talks about how energetic boundaries play a significant role in healing. Energetic boundaries are in everything we do.

Even what we experience in this life is brought about by energetic boundaries from our past lives. To know more about energetic boundaries, energy exchanges and how it affects our whole being, check out this episode.

Reincarnation

Whatever it is you do, it’s going to come to you naturally in a future life. Eric Thorton says that in all of our lives when we resolve issues, we bounce energy typically.

“For example, if a person has committed suicide in a past life, it is a bad thing. The knowledge that would come into it subconsciously like fear of a high object will affect the present life,” said Eric Thorton.

He adds, “So then you’re going to start re-living being thrown off a high object. You’re going to think about negative things and then feel negative. And then they are going to remember jumping off a high object, and then they’re more likely to do that again.”

Eric Thorton also explains that if they are tapped that suicide is not a bad thing, it’s just a way of dying. And start having memories from jumping from something high, they can feel sad. It removes it from the table for the next life.

Going Towards the Light

Just because we die doesn’t mean our soul dies. Even ghosts have energetic boundaries. Eric Thorton says so many ghosts and souls have not moved on. Because they’re afraid of the things, they were tapped that were going to happen after they died.

“In our life, just like if you’re taught suicide is bad, if you are taught that this is the way to heaven, then that’s what you’re going to be looking for when you die. And if it’s not there, you might think it’s going to lead to hell and don’t go to how people would call it — the light,” Eric Thorton said.

He adds. “The light is knowledge. So, when you do die, you leave the body and see everything around you. You don’t feel your body anymore, and you have full knowledge and full personality.”

Dealing With Death

If you’re taught to fear death, Eric Thorton says you are going to fear death. And you most likely won’t move ahead as easily or at all.

“People who become ghosts, some of them are become ghosts simply out of fear,” said Eric Thorton. “Others don’t move on because of their narcissism. They must control the family. They’re the patriarch or matriarch. They hang back to control people.”

He adds, “If they are a ghost with some possessions from the life they just left, we call out a poltergeist. Because those kinds of ghosts will have a hard time separating themselves with their possessions, that’s why you’ll experience situations where things move even when no one is there.”

Level Of Possession

Eric Thorton reveals that depending on the level of possession, the poltergeist can walk into your energy field just like a ghost can. That’s another set of energetic boundaries. Once you enter the energy field, it can control every aspect of your body in every way. It changes your personality. You can’t protect yourself. If it happens, it happens.

“If you can make it safe for people to explore who they are on a soul level, that’s when they can get through the drama and start coming out on the other side of the field. And you have to do it step by step as per each’s guides,” said Eric Thorton.

Using Your Gift

“Everybody wants my gift. And the fact is, if people have my gift, I earned them in a past life and this life,” said Eric Thorton. “On the gift of second sight, it can break your brain. So, you have to be psychologically ready for that. And anyone who says they want it is not psychologically ready for that. That is the first dead giveaway.”

This is because Eric Thorton says Masters are born. It takes a unique gift to recognize energetic boundaries and how to use it properly. Masters have these series of past lives that had old souls and gained the wisdom that keeps their brain from doing drama.

Because ultimately, if you are seeking to be a healer, you have to care. And you have to understand what energetic boundaries are. If you don’t care, you still have some learning to do. And Karma is the learning tool.

“If you don’t care, you have to learn to care. So, you will live life then, or you aren’t cared about in whatever way it is. And that’s your karma. You learn by not being cared about, and you learn to care. That’s the learning tool,” Eric Thorton explains.

Acceptance and Truth

The soul doesn’t learn by reading a book. Eric Thorton says the soul learns by doing things. Humans have to legitimize where we are at to feel safe. So, people legitimize bad behaviors, so they feel safe. And the safe is righteousness and proof.

“Possessions play on the filters that we develop so they can keep you in a certain pattern. This is where the bigger possessions start to come in. These are the ones that will make your belief system so strong,” said Eric Thorton.

He adds, “Different influences are thought forms. Those are cultural thought forms. Denial is a big wide river. It gets worse when you deny it.”

Bio

A session with Eric Thorton internationally recognized metaphysical counselor, exorcist, psychic, healer, and author of Educating the Soul, Spiritual Healing, and Our Eternal Psychology® can awaken the spirit within you. Healing and liberation through clear channels by a gentle, loving and humorous man. The gift you receive is your Self. 

As a Spiritual Healer, Psychic, Medium and Exorcist, and animal talk and healer, Eric Thorton has found a profound new avenue to achieve physical, emotional and spiritual healing for you and your pets. He has accomplished this by combining the gifts of healing with those of the psychic, medium and exorcist.  

Eric Thorton’s unique abilities are now available to others for both therapeutic and healing processes, in person in the Seattle area and remote sessions anywhere on the planet. 

Eric Thorton points out that we spend much of our time taking care of the conscious mind and body for ourselves and our pets that we often lose sight of the essential parts, how our subconscious mind and our spirit play in the delicate balance of our health and that of our furry loved ones!

Get Connected With Eric Thorton!

Official Website

Facebook

YouTube

Recommended Reading by Eric Thorton

Educating the Souls, Spiritual Healing and our Eternal Psychology

************************************

Become A Health Coach-Learn More About The Institute for Integrative Nutrition's Health Coaching Certification Program by checking out these four resources:

LearnTrueHealth.com/coach

1) Integrative Nutrition's Curriculum Guide:
http://geti.in/2cmUMxb

2) The IIN Curriculum Syllabus:
http://geti.in/2miXTej

3) Module One of the IIN curriculum:
http://geti.in/2cmWPl8

4) Get three free chapters of Joshua Rosenthal's book:
https://bit.ly/2wgkLOU

Watch my little video on how to become a Certified Health Coach!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDDnofnSldI

************************************

Learn How To Achieve Optimal Health From Naturopathic Doctors!

Get Learn True Health's Seven-Day Course For FREE! Visit go.learntruehealth.com
http://go.learntruehealth.com/gw-oi

************************************

Do You Have Anxiety? End Anxiety Now! Learn Two Powerful Mind Tricks for Removing Anxiety, Ending Worry, & Controlling Fear So It Stops Controlling You! Attend my FREE Webinar that Will Teach You How! Click Here!

http://FreeYourAnxiety.com/webinar

************************************
Need Help Ordering The Right Supplements For You?

Visit TakeYourSupplements.com, and a FREE health coach will help you!
http://takeyoursupplements.com

Do you have a blood sugar issue? I can help you achieve healthy, normal and balanced blood sugar naturally!

************************************
Visit BloodSugarCoach.com for your free 30min coaching call with Ashley James!

http://www.BloodSugarCoach.com

************************************
Join Learn True Health's Facebook community group!
Visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/LearnTrueHealth
or search Learn True Health on Facebook!

************************************

If this episode made a difference in your life, please leave me a tip in the virtual tip jar by giving my podcast a great rating and review in iTunes!
http://bit.ly/learntruehealth-itunes

Thank you!
Ashley James
http://bit.ly/learntruehealth-itunes

************************************
Enjoyed this podcast episode? Visit my website Learn True Health with Ashley James so you can gain access to all of my episodes and more! LearnTrueHealth.com
http://learntruehealth.com

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Follow the Learn True Health podcast on social media! Share with your friends and spread the word! Let's all get healthier & happier together!

Learn True Health - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2LearnTrueHealth
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Visit Eric's Site: www.ericthorton.com

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