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Learn True Health with Ashley James

On Learn True Health, Ashley James interviews today's most successful natural healers. Learn True Health was created for YOU, the health enthusiast. If you are passionate about organic living or struggling with health issues and are looking to gain your health naturally, our holistic podcast is what you have been looking for! Ashley James interviews Naturopathic Doctors and expert holistic health care practitioners to bring you key holistic health information, results based advice and new natural steps you can take to achieve true health, starting NOW! If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, if you are fed up with prescription drug side effects, if you want to live in optimal health but you don't know where to start, this podcast is for you! If you are looking for ACTIONABLE advice from holistic doctors to get you on your path to healing, you will enjoy the wisdom each episode brings. Each practitioner will leave you with a challenge, something that you can do now, and each day, to measurably improve your health, energy, and vitality. Learn about new healing diet strategies, how to boost your immune system, balance your hormones, increase your energy, what supplements to take and why and how to experience your health and stamina in a new way. Ashley James from Learn True Health interviews doctors like Dr. Joel Wallach, Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Oz, Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Molly Niedermeyer on Naturopathic Medicine, Homeopathy, Supplements, Meditation, Holistic Health and Alternative Health Strategies for Gaining Optimal Health.
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Now displaying: August, 2023
Aug 16, 2023

Check out Episode 496 about the wearable tech I talked about during the show:
https://www.learntruehealth.com/phototherapy-patches

Check out Episode 106 about becoming a health coach!
https://www.learntruehealth.com/holistic-health-coach-joshua-rosenthal

Get a free Health Coach Training sample class from IIN:
https://www.learntruehealth.com/coach

Get your Analemma Structured Water Device:
Coupon code LTH at 
learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

509: Ten Steps to Radical Remission

Ashley James And Liz Curran

Liz Curran explores a transformative journey toward radical remission and spontaneous healing. Through ten crucial steps, Curran guides readers on a holistic path that encompasses emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical empowerment. She emphasizes the role of spirituality and self-advocacy in achieving well-being, underlining the interconnectedness of these elements. Curran's work underscores the profound influence of one's inner strength, belief in a higher power, and a comprehensive approach to healing. Ultimately, this engaging exploration inspires individuals to take charge of their health and well-being while embracing the powerful potential of holistic self-advocacy.

Highlights

  • Ten essential steps encompassing emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical empowerment.
  • The importance of holistic self-advocacy as a crucial element of this transformative process
  • Spirituality plays a significant role in the healing journey, highlighting the connection between faith and well-being
  • The profound impact of inner strength and belief in a higher power on one's health
  • Take control of your well-being and embrace a comprehensive approach to healing
  • Harnessing your inner potential and experiencing radical remission and spontaneous healing

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. We have an amazing guest today. I can't wait for you to dive in and listen to Liz. This is exactly what the Learn True Health podcast is about. It's about showing you that there's this quantum-level healing that's available to you.

And I know that for some people, that sounds corny, that sounds too good to be true. That sounds far-fetched or just exaggerated. There's so much proof. There's so much evidence to support the idea that we can radically change our health, that even though against what all the people in lab coats have said to you in the past, that you can shift your life in a way that allows you to have true health, no matter what your diagnosis is. Liz works with people who even have end-of-life stage, beyond stage four cancer, and they go into radical remission. They go into spontaneous healings, or they go into such a beautiful remission over several months where now it's been 10, 20 years and they're still cancer free, or they're still disease free, not just cancer. 

But, you know, people take cancer pretty seriously. It's one of those diseases where people are willing to fly to Mexico and go around the world to find what's going to help their body heal itself. And so when we look at a major diagnosis, usually we're given a death sentence by a medical professional, or we're told you might have five years or, if you do all the cut, burn, and poison stuff, you may live for five years and it's so morbid. It's such a bleak outlook. And then we have what Liz talks about today, this entire other spectrum where people are plugging themselves into information that supports their body's ability to heal themselves emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically and take their body to the next level. No matter what you've been told, take it to the next level. That's what today's episode is about. I am so excited for you to dive into this because it does take a mental shift. There is a belief system change, at least taking on the hope, expanding your awareness of what's possible. That is the first step.

Before we dive into today's episode, there are two resources and a story I wanted to share with you. I meant to share it during the interview, and it came up in my mind. The conversation kept going, and then afterward, I was like, Oh shoot. I meant to bring up this one story. It's so cool. We moved almost two years ago, but like 18 months ago, we moved to a new area, 45 minutes away from where we had been living for seven years, and a friend of mine recommended a church that I join. It's a beautiful church that believes in the body's ability to heal itself, that believes that God, the divine intervention, spontaneous healings, miracles of this whole body, this whole church believes in miracles.

And it's so cool because there are hundreds of people that come to this church, and they lay on their hands, and they pray. I'm very new to this because I was raised an Anglican, which, for those not in the UK or Canada don't know much about what Anglican is. I was raised Protestant. So it's sort of like Catholic light, and I didn't have a lot of experience with the other denominations, other types of Christian outlook. So I joined this church, and I see people jumping up and down and dancing in the aisles. And I thought, well, the energy here is amazing. It was definitely not what I was used to.

I was used to incense and Nomine Padre et Fili Espiritu Sante, you know, a very different kind of church environment. But I went with it because I was like, man, people are just on fire. They're so in love. There's so there's something there. And I remember, actually, my first experience there, I went alone, and I felt my daughter in my arms. I felt this pressure right where I'd held her because I held her for hours before the coroner took her away. And right on my left shoulder, I could feel her. And when I was in church, all of a sudden, I felt her. I felt the pressure like the baby was in my arms. I went through so much emotional healing that first month, the first four times I went to that church. Each time, especially during worship, where we're singing, it was just waves and waves of grief being released, and I just brought it all.

I brought everything that I was holding on to, and it was so, so beautiful. During that time, like 18 months ago, the early part of me just plugged into this church community. There was a woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I've lost a best friend to breast cancer. I know so many people who've lost someone to breast cancer. It's a pretty big deal. I know breast cancer survivors, too. I've also been friends with them also. So, it's not a death sentence. It doesn't have to be a death sentence, but it is scary. She had a tumor, and everyone prayed for her, and she prayed, and she received a very clear; she said it was a voice from God. And He said to her, I am burning this away out of you with fire. It is gone. I burned it away with fire. And she wasn't quite sure what that meant. 

At the time, I wasn't confident that I would ever hear God's voice audibly, but I so wanted to have that same experience because some people have these phenomenal spiritual experiences, these metaphysical experiences that are so beautiful and brilliant. And then there are other people who don't. It's like, well, why do some do, and why do some don't? I think we have to take the first step and say, I want this. I want to plug into this. I want to experience this. And she threw herself in, and she goes, I have faith, God, that you'll heal me. That this is what you have for me.

So she goes to the doctor, and they want to do another scan. They're getting ready to cut her breast off or do radiation, all the stuff they're ready to do. And she goes, I don't need any of that. God told me that the tumor was gone, that he burned it away. And they're like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Right. Get an MRI.

Like just, okay, sure, sure. Get it in. Like, let's just do the scan anyway. She's like, fine. Well, I don't need to prove it to myself because I believe God did it because He said so. But I'll humor you to show you God's work. And she went, got into the machine, and they scanned her breasts, and they just had a scan. They're going to compare one month to the next month kind of thing. Or it was a recent scan that they had. And now they're checking it again. In order to do surgery, they need more of an exact, like, okay, how much has it grown? Like, where are we going to cut? And they said this is so wild. It's gone. The only thing left on the scan is something that just looks like smoke. It just looks like there's smoke there on the image. That's all that's left. There's no tumor. There are no defined lines. It just looks like smoke. And she goes, I told you, God burned it away.

Now, that was so powerful. It hit me. And I know there are people out there who don't believe in God, and I'm not here to make anyone upset. I want to give you all the information and hopefully allow you to expand your awareness of what's possible. And if a woman goes in and, you know, okay, let's, let's play the devil's advocate because I am such a doubting Thomas. Let's play the devil's advocate. And I believe that there is a God. That's my own personal belief system. I believe that there's a divine creator, and there are people who don't.

So, if you're someone who doesn't, and that's you, I honor, love, and respect everyone listening. What I want for you is I want true health. I want you to feel love. I want you to feel purpose. I want you to feel that you get to have true health no matter where you come from politically, what country you come from, what belief system you have, and whether you have religion or not. You and I are connected. We're both humans. We both breathe the same air. If we're cut, we bleed. If you hurt us, we'll cry. You and I are connected. And I love you. And I want greatness for you. I want you to have your goals. And I want you to have your health. So, regardless of whether you believe in God or not.

Let's play the devil's advocate. Let's say that there's no God. Right. And now, again, it's not my belief system. Maybe it's yours, but let's just say there's not. Does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Whether there is or isn't, she's healed. Now, is it all in her mind that she heard a voice that said to her, her tumor is gone, and now it's gone?

Does that matter? So for me, it's like some people say, well, ginger, you know, ginger is super healthy for you or turmeric is super healthy for you. And some people have these amazing miraculous healings when they, when they take ginger and turmeric and some herbs and, and then, then other people go, well, we have to have studies, and we have to have science.

I'm like that. I don't care whether it was a placebo or not for that individual. They get to go home to their family. They get to hug their kids. They get to be with their spouse like they have a new lease on life. And so their belief system shifted to a point where whatever they were doing, whether it was divine intervention in God, whether it was a placebo effect of some kind of miraculous, like a mind over matter experience, whether it was the herbs they were taking, whether all of the above, the fact that she no longer has cancer. For me, that is the end result. I want everyone to have true health. Now, at the end of the day, we know that people who have a connection to the Source, a connection to their Creator, that they are generally more fulfilled and happier in life. And so, you don't have to get involved in religion, but we do talk, at some point in this interview, we do touch on this subject.

So I just want to preface it with, I want for you to feel purpose in life and to feel fulfilled and to feel deeply, deeply loved and valued. And some people get that from their connection to God. And some people get that from their connection to nature, their connection to family. Those things are things you can't buy, but you can cultivate, and you can grow.

So we talk a bit about that. We talk about a lot of really cool things: ten steps to radical remission and spontaneous healings. We're going to dive in. Beautiful episode. Before we jump in, just one more thing. I wanted to let you know about two episodes that I mentioned in today's podcast. So, I want you guys to go back because I didn't mention the numbers during this interview.

Episode #496 is the phototherapy episode. Check that out. As part of it, we discuss something that increases glutathione by 300 percent in the first 24 hours. And it's the equivalent of a coffee a day kind of thing, the cost of a coffee a day. Whereas it's actually the cheapest way to increase glutathione in the body.

It's cheaper and more effective than any other modality. And so, that's something I feel that everyone should know about, but especially those who want radical remission. There's also a way to stimulate your body's own production of stem cells at any age by increasing several peptides that have anti-cancer properties. It's really phenomenal. I have over a hundred clients using this technology now, and we're seeing outstanding results. So, definitely check out Episode #496, and I'd love to chat with you. If you want to chat with me, we can have a free phone call. I'd love to help you. I'm a health coach. I've been doing this for 12 years now, and I am deeply passionate about helping you overcome your health issues.

You can go to learntruehealth.com, and in the menu, click on Work with Ashley James, and scroll down to the first appointment. That's the free consultation. I'd love to chat with you. You can hire me as your health coach. You don't have to. That's an option for you. You can just chat with me for free. I'm going to email you some resources and help set you on your path to health, help answer some questions for you. And you can choose to hire me or not. I'm just here to help you. The last thing is, Episode #106. This is a few years ago episode, going all the way back to Episode #106 with Joshua Rosenthal. He's the founder of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. which is IIN, and they do the world's biggest and longest and most popular and most thorough online health coach training program. They have a 6-month program. They have a 12-month program. Deepak Chopra has now become a part of it. He's now a business owner with Joshua Rosenthal, and that together, they have even revamped the health coach training program since I took it, and they've added a lot more. It's a wonderfully transformative year. If you do it in a year, it takes about 20 to 30 minutes a day. You can do it while you're driving. You don't have to sit down at a desk, so it's designed for very busy people. But if you want to get it done sooner, you can do their year-long program, which is about an hour a day. And I'd love for you to check out the free course. They give you a sample course. Go to learntruehealth.com/coach. So if you have any interest at all in health coach training programs, or just want to look into it, see about it, check it out.

I negotiated years ago, back when I interviewed Joshua Rosenthal. I got them to agree to give a really big discount to my listeners and they honor that. So when you give them a call to sign up, make sure you mention Ashley James and the Learn True Health podcast because I get a great discount for you guys. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much for being a listener. Thank you so much for sharing this episode and all of my episodes with those you care about, especially this episode with your friends and family who are concerned about overcoming major illnesses and getting their health to the next level. Enjoy today's episode. 

[0:14:21.6] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #509.

I am so excited for today's guest. We have on the show, Liz Curran from radicalremission.com. I can't wait to dive in. This is such a juicy subject. I pretty much feel like all my listeners want radical remission. So before we even just dive in, Liz, can you give us that definition of what radical remission is? 

[0:14:56.6] Liz Curran: I absolutely can. So a radical remission is, there are three points. The first one is someone that heals without conventional treatment. The second one is someone who first tries conventional treatment, which does not lead to a remission, so they try an alternative treatment, which does lead to a remission. And then the third one is, that someone that uses a combination of conventional and alternative treatments at the same time in order to outlive a dire prognosis that is less than 25% five year survival rate.

[0:15:39.1] Ashley James: So for radicalremission.com, is that talking specifically about cancer and other major diseases? Or are we also covering things like remission from alcohol, from addiction or remission from emotional trauma? Does it cover all of health — mental, emotional, spiritual, physical? Or are we just talking about physical disease?

[0:16:04.5] Liz Curran: Absolutely, we believe that these concepts, these ten healing factors that we'll share are for everyone. They encompass the mind, body, and spirit. So, anyone that is looking to heal from situations where they're kind of in a dire diagnosis of sorts, or even people who, the research for radical remission, that is the foundation for the Radical Remission Project was done on cancer patients. So, a lot of times, people will think radical remission is applicable only to that. We have another book that came out in 2020 called Radical Hope that opens up these healing factors to people who have life-altering diagnoses. And as we'll share in my personal story, my sister passed away from a very aggressive cancer. And because of her situation, I practice these from a preventative place. So I'm what you call a previvor. 

[0:17:25.7] Ashley James: Oh my goodness. I think everyone's ears are perked up. I feel like you're talking to everyone. Absolutely, everyone either has something they want to overcome that maybe a doctor has said, well, you're just going to have this for the rest of your life, or you just have this cause it's genetic or because your mom had it, or because of the color of your skin, or whatever. We're told so many lies by the medical establishment, and I feel that individual doctors have their hearts in the right place, but their training has brainwashed them to tell us that we can't heal ourselves and that we're stuck with a problem that needs a drug. I believe that drugs have their place, but I think 90% of the time we're misusing them when we need to look at

the body as a whole, our life as a whole, and that we can heal. And I love the more that we listen to radical remission stories, the more it builds our hope, and we realize that, yes, my body can heal itself, and it begins to build that hope and that vision in our mind, and we see time and time again in studies that that placebo effect — again, I'm not saying that natural medicine is a fake thing — but I'm saying that your belief system, how many books have been written on the belief system overcoming medical things and having wonderful remissions. So, of course, there's that mind-body connection. Of course, we can build that hope inside us, build that vision and that we can seek out natural remedies to support our body's ability to heal ourselves. And so I think you've touched, you've just talked to all the listeners because either they want to overcome something or they have a dear loved one in their life that can overcome something. Type 2 diabetes is a hundred percent recoverable easily. I help people all the time recover from Type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes can be helped so much that they can become so healthy and live such a long, healthy life. It's not about not having Type 1, it's about how good we can get our health, and they're told they can't. But there's so much out there in the holistic space that lets them build their health. So I'm just thinking about all the different diagnoses that, if we listen to the medical establishment, we're told we just can't heal. And that's not the case. Time and time again, it's not the case. We can heal ourselves. So Liz, I'm so excited for what you're doing. I'm so excited for your podcast. It's going to be launched soon, in the fall time. Hearing the radical remission stories — I have a feeling I'm going to listen to that show and just cry every episode. 

[0:20:16.6] Liz Curran: Well, one of the original missions of Radical Remission when the information was first being brought out was to make sure that we could share as many healing stories as possible for people who've overcome the odds of their diagnosis. So it's really making sure that people know that whether you're using treatment or you're not using treatment specifically around cancer, but in general, knowing that, again, the body has the ability to heal. As I'll share these ten healing factors from this research, it really gives people the tools that they need so that they can begin to take the reins and find their own way to healing with or without the aid of their practitioners, depending on who they feel is going to have a seat at the table.

[0:21:11.0] Ashley James: Love it. Liz, we definitely want to jump into those 10 steps. We definitely want to leave the listener with some meat. Some tangible stuff that they can start to shift their life and their hope and their health today. Before we do that, I want to jump into your story, though, because I'm really curious how you came about finding radical remission, and I hear you have your own radical remission story.

[0:21:40.5] Liz Curran: Well, I guess it all started back in 2014. My sister was diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive breast cancer and went through the typical conventional path of chemo mastectomy radiation. And on the last day of her 30 days of radiation, she had back pain, so they gave her a scan and they found the cancer was throughout her whole body. So that was the last thing we expected and the last thing we wanted. So, that was a really hard time. And during her treatment, I really went deep into kind of like, you know, some people go into an addiction of sorts. I went into an addiction to health. I went into diet change and learning about meditation and stress reduction and anxiety reduction just for my own personal sanity. And after she passed, almost not quite even a year after she was diagnosed, I had all this information and these tools that really helped me get through, obviously, the most difficult point in my life at that point. It was really powerful for me to be able to go into health coaching and begin to share the different things that I had learned. At the same time, a couple of years after my sister passed away, a neighbor of mine was diagnosed with basically an untreatable cancer and she was 35. She had a four and five-year-old, and they basically told her that chemo would buy her time, but it wouldn't be a high quality of life, and it would not be curative.

So, as she said, she's extremely religious, a very powerful Christian. So she followed her belief system, and with nothing else to lose, she ended up going to Mexico to be treated for her cancer at a healing center with an integrative approach in Mexico. Within three months of her trip to Mexico, her tumors had reduced 50%. By six months from her first visit, it didn't even show up on a scan. There was nothing to be shown. So that was a huge wake-up call. She was shocked. We were shocked. We were thrilled. Unfortunately, during that process, we realized how very expensive getting that treatment was and how that was kind of unfair and we didn't believe that people should have to lose everything just to be able to live based on a diagnosis. So, a group of our neighbors and friends created a nonprofit at the time to help fundraise for people who were seeking treatment for cancer that was not covered by health insurance. 

So that's actually the very long version of how I found Radical Remission because it was through that work in the nonprofit that I was introduced to a dear friend of mine now, John, who was a Radical Remission survivor at that time. And so he introduced me to the book and to the Radical Remission project and told me that there was a training and as a health coach, I was a practicing health coach at the time but had not been working in the cancer realm, found that those ten healing factors were the roadmap that people needed, regardless of cancer, but just for any old health coach to use, so these great tools to guide people to a full body healing. Like you said, that mind, body and spirit approach. 

[0:26:01.2] Ashley James: What's the name of the nonprofit? 

[0:26:05.0] Liz Curran: Well, it just retired this year, but it was called Heal Thy Life. And it's spelled healthy life with a little spin on a capital T and healthy. So we always loved that Heal Thy Life kind of embodied our friend, Sharon, on her journey that was just an incredible inspiration to everyone that knew her in our area, just kind of a local celebrity for choosing that path to healing and finding so much success in it. So it was very pivotal for me in my approach to healing and approach to life really. And so once I knew of that, it kind of lit a fire in me that I never wanted anyone to go through what my sister had gone through without having all of the information because, had she had the information, she may have had more time.

[0:27:03.9] Ashley James: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've lost my mom to cancer, and I lost one of my best friends. And she started out the natural way. And then she stopped the growth of the tumors, but the tumor remained. Actually, it's just one tumor at the time. It just sat there, but it stopped. It was very aggressive, but she was able to get it to stop growing. And then she ran out of money and she had fundraised $50,000. She'd been to Mexico, just everything. And she had lost a bunch of weight in a good way because she was juicing and eating super clean, and she was doing everything right. But she ran out of funds. She couldn't buy any more of the supplements or the juice or anything. And then she talked to a naturopath. He's like, well, we need a killing agent. So, if you don't have the money for it, go for very light levels of chemotherapy, which is metronomic chemotherapy, where they do small amounts each week instead of these giant boluses. And very quickly, because she coupled that with still juicing, still fasting, the intermittent fasting, all this. And it went 100 percent away. It was gone. But then, this is where I wished, and I begged her to just stop, reevaluate, and build her health back. It's just gone. It's not on any scans. Just please, please, please trust the process. Your body has overcome it. Trust the process. And the chemo dealer, the doctor said to her, now you have to go for radiation because if you don't, it's going to come back and you're going to be wiped out. Well, that's where everything went downhill.

I once heard one of my mentors say that one of his clients said, never get radiation. There's a hole in my body that will not close and will not heal because of it. Now I'm not saying that you can't just say a blanket statement about everything, but I have not personally met someone where they had a positive like, oh yeah, radiation totally helped. I feel amazing. And my health is a hundred percent, you know, five years later. She ended up having, within the first treatment, it caused radiation scars on her lungs. And then everything went downhill from there, and she died a few months later. And the day she was in the hospital in a coma, the oncologist, the same oncologist called and said, when are you coming in for your next round of chemo? Like, come on, we got to get you back in. We got to get you back in. And I'm like, two minutes later, she died. We called them the whole time, saying, hey, she's in the hospital. It's getting worse. It's getting worse. And it was so painful because if we had just had more money. And that should not be a choice. That should not be the reason why someone suffers and dies and leaves their seven-year-old son alone. Right. And she cried and cried because she lost her dad when she was really young and she just didn't want to leave her son with the same as she loved him so much.

So the fact that we're given a wellness model that is like, if you're not a millionaire, go suck an egg. So that's why I was really touched by the charity that you guys built. And I'm so grateful for crowdfunding because we can get together and help each other. But there needs to be a better way. And I hope that what you're doing can inspire people, can inspire listeners, that together, we can figure out a way to help each other. And I just hope that the podcast that you do reaches the right person. That starts a movement. That makes it more affordable for all — I hate the word alternative care because it's like, well, this care is better — but we're going to call it alternative. It's secondary. Oh my goodness. Well, Liz, so since meeting John and being introduced to Radical Remission and beginning to work with these ten steps with your clients, what kind of changes have you seen in your own personal health? 

[0:31:17.2] Liz Curran: Well, I say that these factors brought me out of my grief. That's really how I feel. Like, they helped me with my mental and spiritual self at that really difficult time. What happens a lot of times when people don't know of the healing factors, but find their own version of healing, which I expect that you'll see the same when you see them or hear them, that people see that they've been doing these steps just intuitively. And that's exactly what happened for me. If you'd like, I can share a couple of the healing factors if you'd like for me to, as I share my story. 

[0:32:03.1] Ashley James: Is this part of the 10 steps? 

[0:32:03.8] Liz Curran: Yes. 

[0:32:04.5] Ashley James: Okay, well, okay, fine. Let's just jump in right now. 

[0:32:08.6] Liz Curran: Do you want to keep teasing them? 

[0:32:09.6] Ashley James: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to string them along for a bit. Now, you graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a health coach. And then later on, you've been studying the radical remission ways and became a coach with them. This is what I love about health coaching. It's not like one and done. Well, I mean, I guess some people could do that, but most health coaches, they're growing constantly, ongoingly taking on, bringing new tools and under the tool belt to aid their clients in the best possible health, emotional, mental, spiritual, physical. We're not like, well, you got to drink your eight glasses of water and go for a walk, like, see you next week. It's so much more than that. It's so custom tailored to each person and their unique needs. And we help them build their health based on what they want and help them. And usually, clients will come and tell you where their problems are. Like, listen, I have a really hard time with this and I really want to overcome that. And you're like, okay, let's work on it. And it's so beautiful because we pull the solutions out of them and help them take charge of their health to where it's easy. Now we take it from being hard to be easy, and then we help them master it.

And so I love the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is where we both graduated from, surprisingly. I have a feeling we graduated at the same time because I started the podcast when I graduated. I have to go back and look because it's been so long. But I think we might have graduated at the same time because I know I started it soon after the podcast. So that's really cool that we probably did at the same time and IIN has transformed so much since then. They have Deepak Chopra with all of his courses added to it. They have a lot more that's going on. And listeners who are inspired by Liz and would love to become a health coach, either just for their own personal growth, about 50 percent of people that graduate from IIN do it just for their own personal growth so that they can help their friends and family and themselves. But if you want to either add this to your tool belt because you're a practitioner or you want to just experience this wonderful transformative year of being focused on health, check out learntruehealth.com/coach that gives you a free sample class. So you can get some feel for what it's like. And then also listeners, if you have any questions at all about it, I would love to share my personal experience or answer your questions about the program. I'm such a huge advocate of the IIN's program because I see that it really helps people get that full picture of how they can support their body mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

So, okay, let's jump in. Let's jump into the ten steps to radical remission. 

[0:35:08.0] Liz Curran: Okay, now before I do, I'm going to explain a little bit about how they came to be, because I think that really sets the stage. So Kelly Turner was a PhD student from Cal Berkeley back in — I don't even know how many years ago now, at least almost 20 years ago.

And she was an oncology social worker at the time and decided to go back for her PhD to study spontaneous remissions because she did not know why no one else was researching them and felt that there was a lot that could be learned from. They're healing and what it is that they did, and I don't think she really knew what she was going to find out.

So she traveled the world. She was sponsored by the American Cancer Society, and she traveled all over the world to interview radical remission survivors and their healers so that she could figure out what it is that they did on their healing journey. And what she found was there were over 75 different factors that came up in the research on what these people did. But after researching 1,500 plus cases of these spontaneous remissions, she found 10 things that they all did. So all the people that were researched — live interviews versus also medical journals and whatnot — she was able to conclude ten factors that they all did, and those are what we refer to as the radical remission healing factors. And so I can happily share what they are.

They fall into three categories. One is physical. To no surprise, you will hear about movement and exercise being one factor, changing your diet and taking herbs and supplements from a licensed practitioner. And those are, out of the 10, those are the only three physical factors and probably the ones may be more familiar to people than the others as a healing modality. Truly each of these factors, it can be supported and is supported. We do a workshop called the radical remission workshop. And in the workshop, we talk about each factor, how it came up in the research and then peer reviewed scientific research that backs it up. And then we share a healing story of someone who changed their healing path with that factor as one of the leads. And then we do an activity in the workshop to help people figure out how to implement that into their own life. So the three physical — diet, exercise, and taking herbs and supplements — those are the physical and then the rest are emotional and spiritual. So we have one that sounds very familiar to what the kinds of things you've been talking about today so far called empowering yourself. And empowering yourself from a radical remission survivor perspective is really someone who we might think of as a typical difficult patient. So someone who's trying to ask questions and understand the medicines that they're going to be taking and maybe finding their own research and bringing it to their doctor, finding second, third, fourth opinions, different kinds of practitioners and healers that they want to have on their team. But really someone who is taking the reins and being the CEO of their own health and making sure that they are really, mindfully adding practitioners and ones that they feel really aligned with in their healing. 

[0:38:53.4] Ashley James: I love that you said difficult patients, because like it's called self-advocacy, right? Advocating for yourself. And my friend who I talked about, she brought me, and sometimes it was my husband and I, who would attend all of her appointments. She got second and third opinions from doctors and naturopaths and all kinds of practitioners that are not in the same network, because you don't want to go to Dr. A and then walk down the hall to Dr. B. They work under the same roof. They're in the same network. They're, of course, going to agree with each other. And she had a huge binder she built. And I feel like that even intimidated the doctors. She walked in with her very well organized binder with all of her labs, all of her scans, all of the notes. And she collected data and she researched, and she was so thorough with all of it. And then she always had someone with her, and we always recorded each appointment. This ensured that they wouldn't belittle her, talk down to her, brush her off, or start urging her to go to start chemo tomorrow, because they tried to do that. And my husband stood up, he wasn't being intimidating, but this woman started speaking fear into my friend. My friend had a golf ball-sized tumor, nothing else. It wasn't stage four yet. And this woman was like, we have to get a port in today and we're going to start chemo tomorrow. And this was her first appointment. She hadn't gotten any other second opinion, third opinion.

And it was just rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. And that's what they do. They try to fear you. And, of course, we want to do things in a timely manner. We also want to take a step back and really evaluate and collect data. And my husband stood up and said, if our friend follows through and you guys miraculously picked the right chemotherapy — because they weren't going to do any kind of testing to figure out which one was the right one — and let's say it goes away, what are the side effects of your chemotherapy? Tell us all the side effects, and will it cause cancer? And she said, yes, even in the best of cases, two percent of people. Oh, it's like she goes, only 2 percent of people will develop leukemia from getting this. And my husband was just blown away. He goes, no, no, no, no. That's not “only” two percent. Two percent is two people out of a hundred. That's a lot. That's not small. That's not like an insignificant thing. And they give chemo to tens or hundreds of thousands of people. Just think about how many leukemias they've created. That's just a cash cow. 

So anyways, this idea of self-advocacy, sometimes it's also like grabbing a friend, making sure that you're heard, and making sure that there's someone else that's also taking notes. That was so impressive that you do not need to be alone. My mom was so ashamed that she got cancer. She didn't tell any of her friends till she died. And everyone was shocked at her funeral because she had so many friends. She was surrounded by all these women that were in tears thinking, I could have been there for my friend, but she never even let me in. And it's just, my mom felt such shame and guilt. And I didn't understand that. Your friends want to be there for you. And yet, when we're the ones sick, we think, oh, we don't want to be a burden on someone. 

[0:42:34.7] Liz Curran: Yes, exactly. And actually, one of the healing factors is increasing social support. Because having that social support system in place — and in our workshop, we'll talk about how there's two kinds — there's giving love and there's receiving love. And giving always feels a little bit easier to be the one that's offering the help, but it's equally important to receive, if not more so sometimes, to be willing to ask for the tap back into those people that you've been there for that want to be there for you.

And I always suggest this to people when we're working together on this factor, specifically. If your best friend were to ask you to do something for them, would you think they were a burden? And I'm pretty sure most people would say no. And in fact, the joy that people get from helping others that they love, that is what we really want people to focus on. Think about it as a gift that you're both receiving. They get to help you and you get helped and it's really important for people to realize that having people, even just the little things like, hey, can you bring in my mail for me? Something as small as that. But that is a person that's going to cross your path that day that wouldn't have otherwise. And with that path crossing, you're going to have a conversation, and you're going to maybe find out what they did today, and they're going to talk to you a little bit, and then the conversation becomes something that may have nothing to do with your disease, your depression, your fear. It's a way for you to kind of get outside of your head and feel supported and feel the love from some people that are in your support system.

And like your mom's point, there's a lot of emotions around it. So I feel like that social support has varied tremendously from person to person. It's just as individual as a diet might be. Some people only want their spouse to know, and they will never tell anybody at work, and they don't want anyone to know. And then you have somebody else, the next person might say, oh, yeah, I'm on every possible Facebook page, every social media outlet. I'm sharing my story. I have a blog. I have this, that, and the other. So there is such a spectrum of people's comfort in sharing and giving and receiving that social support that it really is very personal. And it's important to respect that perspective because you don't want to push somebody that really doesn't want that to be something that they identify as.

[0:45:16.2] Ashley James: Right, exactly. Benjamin Franklin figured something out. I read this years ago and it fascinated me that there was a politician who they sort of butted heads. I think one was on one side, one was on the other. And he went over to his office and he asked to borrow a book and he didn't need the book, but he just seemed interested in the book and asked to borrow it. And he was doing this experiment and what he saw was, we often think that when we do favors for other people that that makes them like us, but it's the opposite that is even more true. That when we ask for favors, it's something in the brain that makes the person who's giving the favor like the person they're helping even more. It gains more rapport because, of course, you're doing something good for someone. It's like you wouldn't do something good for someone that you didn't like. And so he ended up turning that around to a really good friendship after a while of borrowing his books and asking for favors he either needed or didn't need just to build that rapport and that trust. So when we're sitting there worried that we're going to be this burden, it's actually like you said, that gift of giving to someone else. They become more invested in you and your health and your well-being, and they feel so good doing it. So you're giving them that gift of feeling so good, being part of someone else. So we really like stepping outside of ourselves and helping other people. It's also very cathartic for those around you. So you're not just asking for healing for yourself. You're actually helping your community heal. 

[0:46:44.1] Liz Curran: Yeah, it's pretty powerful that the power of connection, the science research that we share, which on this specific factor, social support and having the right social support is more powerful for your healing than not drinking, not eating junk food and not smoking. So combined. So, if you have a really good social support system, then that trumps all those other attributes that are also important. But imagine if you can do that with social support. It's just exponentially more healing. 

[0:47:20.3] Ashley James: This makes complete sense. I interviewed Dr. Alan Christianson, I think three or four times. He's a really interesting doctor, a naturopathic endocrinologist, and he cites a very large study. They did this nurse's study. I apologize, I don't remember the exact details, because this interview was about two years ago. But listeners can go search Dr. Alan Christianson on the learntruehealth.com and find it. It was my most recent episode with him, but he talked about this study and he also talks about it in his book, The Adrenal Health Recovery book. But he talks about how they looked at the factors of overall health and they followed people to their death, basically. They followed people from adulthood all the way to when they passed away. And they looked at what were the most important factors, and you would think not smoking would be the number one, but it wasn't. And that was really interesting that number one had to do with your stress levels. It's like, for example, not having social support is a high stressor. And when you have social support, it lowers your stress levels, just like getting enough sleep, that kind of thing. But it makes so much sense. So those people that live to be 110 years old down in the South and the reporter goes on their porch and asks them what they've done their whole life, and you're thinking they eat kale. And they say, well, I make sure I drink a whiskey and I definitely smoke a cigar. Those people probably have this wonderful support system of this very rich social network. 

[0:49:03.1] Liz Curran: Right, yeah. It's kind of proven in the blue zone theory. So those people that are most often centenarians are over 100 years old. And what do they do? A lot of times, people will research that and those people and what they do. And it's not that they're not drinking and smoking. It's that they have that social connection and that bond. They feel included, that they belong. And all of those things are just their innate things that we need as human beings.

[0:49:35.3] Ashley James: It's probably why women live longer than men. 

[0:49:38.0] Liz Curran: We're social creatures. 

[0:49:39.6] Ashley James: Yeah, because, I mean, God forbid, if I passed away — knock on my Sunlighten sauna sitting beside me — my husband, I don't know what he would do. And I'm his liaison to all social things. He would probably just crawl into a cave. Hopefully not. But I just see women definitely live longer than men. For the most part, we're also just wired to be more social generally and build networks and build connections and help each other. 

[0:50:15.9] Liz Curran: All right. You want some more? 

[0:50:16.9] Ashley James: Yes. I want some more. Give it to us. 

[0:50:18.3] Liz Curran: Okay. All right. So, releasing suppressed emotions is one of them, which is where we put in stress, anxiety, depression, those kinds of emotions that get stuck in our bodies. And we counterpoint that with increasing positive emotions. So not only is it important to release the traumas and things that kind of get stuck in us emotionally, and not just push it down, but to release it. It's also very important to increase the positivity in our lives every day. And the Radical Remission Survivor interviews defined increasing positive emotions as something that was like a muscle that needed to be worked. And it was something that they needed to do at least five minutes a day and grow from there to as much time as they could throughout their day.

And again, very personal to each person, but the research is really impressive when you look at the cancer research on increasing positivity. So there are research studies that show that when someone is in chemotherapy, they did a study where half the people doing chemo were just told to go about their business, do their usual routine. And the other half was shown comedy. And then, as they followed those in the study, they found that those who watched comedy during their treatments, the treatments were more effective. The side effects were lower. They had a higher quality of life and longevity. And that's just simply from the power of positivity and joy and laughter and finding that within. So that's really powerful. Both of those are really kind of that emotional component to those factors. 

[0:52:15.0] Ashley James: Love it. 

[0:52:17.8] Liz Curran: The next one I will share is spiritual connection. This one doesn't tie to a specific religion. It's really just making sure that people realize the power of believing in something greater than themselves, whether that's standing overlooking the Grand Canyon and having awe of nature, or feeling connected to someone that's passed away. There are ways to tap into spiritual connection that don't revolve around religion, and it's important to have some kind of connection. Again, it doesn't matter what it is. It just matters that they had one. 

[0:53:01.1] Ashley James: And if you find significance in a religion, run with it.

[0:53:06.2] Liz Curran: Oh, absolutely. Yes. 

[0:53:08.7] Ashley James: It's whatever connection you have to the Source.

[0:53:11.4] Liz Curran: Yes. Exactly. 

[0:53:11.4] Ashley James: In the Bible alone, there are so many names for God. Like we don't need to get hung up on a name. It's an intimate and beautiful relationship you have to this connection we have to our creator. And what I love is the more I look into the science of the universe, the more it becomes irrefutable that there's a divine intelligence behind it. Chaos does not create life. We've never observed chaos and randomness creating life, right? And when we look deeper and deeper into life, we see that there's so much organization, but there's something behind the veil happening in the background. And it's that beautiful belief that we are connecting. We're part of something greater, and there's a purpose for us. That is what I want you to have. I want you to have that feeling that you've been created and divinely created for a purpose, and that you matter. 

[0:54:13.4] Liz Curran: Yes. Yes. And that also helps propel that desire to be here on this planet and gives us the essence of hope. If you don't have a belief that there's something greater out there, it probably would be very difficult to find hope from within to believe that you can heal. 

[0:54:32.8] Ashley James: I personally am Christian, and I lost my daughter two years ago. Some people turn away from God when tragedy happens, and I felt Him so strongly in my life. I don't know the grand scheme of things. You know what I mean? I believe I had this belief that everything happens for a reason. I don't know what the reason is for losing her, but I believe I will see her again one day. And God has a plan for me, and I trust God. And we put that on her gravestone. We put, “Trust God.” That was my husband who said that. I said, what do you want on her? We were planning it out. And he never grew up in religion. He just always believed that there's something out there. There's something greater, that we're connected somehow. And after she died, we both felt the Holy Spirit. We both felt God just hugging us and comforting us. And we turned to each other and he goes, I've never felt this before. He goes, I feel him. I feel like I feel God's presence, like just trying to comfort us. And so he said, I want to say, “Trust God” on her gravestone.

She's buried in a child cemetery. I weep every time I go there just for all the other moms, just because these babies were loved. Just loved so much and are loved for the rest of the parents lives. And so they're not forgotten. And so you don't have to be a Christian, but if you are, then I just want to say that God loves you. He loves you regardless of whether you're Christian or not. I just know, God has love to tap into. There's a divine love to tap into. And as a side note, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I'm Canadian, so I'm very polite. But there was a bumper sticker that made me laugh out loud. My son came running around the car and he's like, what? And I just couldn't stop laughing. There's a bumper sticker at our church on one of the cars that said, “It's okay. God doesn't believe in atheists either.” And so, a lot of people have been turned off by religion because of man-made corruption. It really hurts people's intimate connections with the Source, with creation. 

So it's not about joining yourself to something that you don't align with. It's just about you and God. It doesn't have to be anything in between you and God. It doesn't have to be a building. It doesn't have to be a person. It doesn't have to be an ideology, but just sit down with God. And just say, okay, show yourself. Increase your presence in my life so that I can know you're here for me. So I can know that I am part of something, and that opens up so much. It's really cool. He's a gentleman. This isn't about like, obviously God doesn't have a genitalia, like people get all hung up on he or she. My pastor says, God is a gentleman and he will wait to be invited in, so just ask. But it's really beautiful, and for me, I don't care what religion people join. I want them to have a personal experience of God's love for them. I think that opens the doorway for so much for that person. 

[0:58:08.8] Liz Curran: Yeah, and I think that as people who are in a situation with a really heavy diagnosis, one of the other factors is to follow your intuition. And I feel what you're saying about the spiritual connection. Similarly, the way that intuition has presented in the research is that once something really big has happened to you, that will change how you view life, whether it's grief or a diagnosis. For me, my loss brought an intense validation of spiritual connection that I will never lose. And I'm grateful that that was a silver lining that can come out of something that is so difficult. And having that personal belief, and having that spiritual connection, was really powerful for part of my healing and through my grief and acceptance of my loss. And what's interesting is that a lot in the research, the following your intuition is another factor. And what Dr. Turner's interviews, they shared that some people would actually start hearing voices when they received the information that they had a cancer diagnosis, and to the point where they thought they were going crazy. They really just could not believe that they were hearing something inside speak to them. And there's a lot to be said for when your brain your mind, and your body all have this physical shift together. Things get shaken up, and you might find a spiritual connection that you may not have had before. You may find an easier way to tap into your intuition, whether it's through voice or through dreams or through guided journaling and meditation. There are lots of different ways to connect with that intuitive part. But just the way I see it, like spiritual connection, those things can birth from a big life change.

[1:00:26.2] Ashley James: I love it, and listening to that soft, steel voice — and for me, intuition is always the first thing that comes. It's always the first voice. It's not as loud as the objections because that's your logic brain going, what is cancer? Like, you wake up in the morning and it's sunny outside, and this little voice says bring an umbrella, and then you're like, why do I need an umbrella? I don't need an umbrella. It's sunny outside. And I talk myself out of this little voice. and the voice doesn't fight back. It's just a suggestion. That's why I said God is a gentleman. You know what I mean? He's just so you know, this, and you're like, well, I don't need that. And then of course we're outside, and it starts raining, and we're like, oh, that's why my intuition said bring an umbrella. 

We often will argue or dispute the little voice, the intuition. And so, instead, we need to learn to slow down. Even just prayer, meditation, or just sitting with yourself — it doesn't have to be for long periods of time to sit with yourself. Take some five slow, deep breaths, focusing on your gut, focusing on the tension, and releasing the tension in your body, and just listen and be with yourself. Then ask yourself, okay, what do I feel? How do I feel about this decision? How do I feel about this information? And slow things down so you can hear. The first thing that happens is usually intuition. Slow it down and take it seriously instead of disregarding it. Because that's what the logic brain loves to do, to just squash the intuition. So I always kick myself 'cause I'm like, oh man, like, looking back, I'm like, I knew I should have done this, but I just overrode the intuition. 

[1:02:05.3] Liz Curran: Yeah, yeah, and that's easy to do. I mean, a lot of things can be really loud in people's heads. It depends on the person, obviously, but that's something that we work on with our clients and in our workshop. It is kind of teaching people that that is a scientific part of our body and that your intuition does exist. Also, like increasing positive emotions, it needs to be a muscle that we work so that we keep it present. And little ways that you can test stuff like that or to work the muscle would be if you're standing outside of two elevator doors, which one's going to open first. Or if your phone rings, or you get a ding that you have a message, take a pause and try to just in your gut, who do you think it is. There's little tiny ways that we can try to tap into the unknown without aid. 

[1:03:06.9] Ashley James: Love it. 

[1:03:07.3] Liz Curran: Yeah. And then we only have one factor left. It is having strong reasons for living, which, in other words, is the purpose. So, that is a really incredibly powerful factor and came up very clearly in the research that everybody needed to have a reason to be here, whether it was something little like they're not going to go anywhere until they get the scrapbook finished for their grandchild. Or they want to walk somebody down the aisle, or they have a mental note. 

I actually had a client fairly recently who talked about how all they wanted when they were diagnosed was to see their kids graduate from high school. And they started crying and crying. And I thought that's great. Their kids are going to high school now, or I guess when their kids are graduating high school. And she was like, but my kids are graduating high school now, as if she was about to expire because that was happening. And it was like, well, you just need to reset that goal, that's all. You're still going to be here, and there was no reason to assume that things had changed physically just because that monumental moment had finally come. She had made that achievement, and she just needed to set the sights a little further. 

[1:04:32.6] Ashley James: When you set up a timed goal, or a goal that's like by September 1st or by March 1st next year. When you say a timed goal, at 85% of the way towards your goal, create a new goal. We are driven by that momentum. We are driven by two things: the away from — so moving away from what we don't want — and moving towards what we do want. As we get close, like a train coming to the train station, it slows down. It's like, okay, I'm approaching my goal. I guess I'm slowing down. So we have to pick up the goal and throw it further down the timeline. We don't want to always focus on what we don't want to have, because that motivation fades the further we get away from what we don't have. Those are people who kind of bounce off zero, or they bounce off rock bottom because they're only focusing on what they don't want to have happened. They have to use what they don't want to launch them to, like, ‘I don't want to die of cancer. Okay, good. Let's get to work. And then it's like the bigger thing is they need to see the future. They need to see themselves a year, five years, ten years in the future, and have those visualizations of the goal. But always pick up the goals at 85% there and throw it further into the future and keep moving towards that.

[1:05:54.4] Liz Curran: I love that. It's a really good point. With the strong reasons for living, we define that a lot of times as being the opposite of depression. So because depression is defined by not having a will to live, so to your point of making sure that you continue to have something down the road, whether you have to push your goal back or go back or reset a goal or have a new target. You always want to have the reason that you want to be here, being bigger than the fear. So, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to die from cancer. Okay. Well, we don't want that, but what do you want? So trying to have that mindset switch of trying to think positively and setting, manifesting out there, putting in a lot of traction, whatever you want to call it. But what do you want to happen as opposed to fearing what you don't want to happen? 

[1:06:51.6] Ashley James: Exactly. Love it. So how long is radicalremission.com? Like these workshops and these books? How long has this been a movement? 

[1:07:03.2] Liz Curran: So Radical Remission, the first book came out in 2014. 

[1:07:07.9] Ashley James: Okay, yeah. You said that. Sorry. So it's been around the block, but it's not ancient. It's based on all the science. But it's been around long enough to prove itself, right? 

[1:07:20.5] Liz Curran: Oh yeah. There's lots and lots of healing stories on social media or in the newsletter every month. There's another healing story that's being shared. And that's what we're hoping to get from the podcast. It's for people to be able to hear the voices of these people with incredible healing from late-stage cancers. And that's something that's been really important to me after working with these incredible people, these human beings that we cross paths with and really sharing that cancer does not equal death sentence. And even if you have a metastatic diagnosis, that does not mean that that is something that you're going to have to have the rest of your life. There are so many amazing things that can happen and changes that you can make to improve your quality of life and your longevity. And I really can't wait to share the stories of people that are years out of their terminal diagnosis and thriving and just living such cool, incredible lives that I can't wait to share those. 

[1:08:28.5] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. Do you have any right now you could share? 

[1:08:32.4] Liz Curran: Stories?

[1:08:32.8] Ashley James: Yeah. 

[1:08:33.9] Liz Curran: Oh yeah. I have all kinds of stories. 

[1:08:36.9] Ashley James: I only want to hear ones that made you cry.

[1:08:40.9] Liz Curran: Oh interesting. Well, I'll tell you one that I think I always tend to default to the story because this guy's just an incredibly inspirational man and a friend now, a colleague. He's a radical remission coach now, but he is somebody who has two different kinds of cancer naturally, through the wild. Maybe a great future podcast guest for you. His name is Dean Hall, and he has a book just put out called The Wild Cure, and he has healed himself. He wanted to prove to the world that late-stage cancer patients could still have a life. So we're very aligned in that mission. This was years ago, when he had leukemia and lymphoma, when he had set a goal to make history by swimming the length of the Willamette River in Oregon. He put everything in place to do the swim over the course of a few weeks or a couple of weeks. And during his swim, he would go into hypothermia multiple times throughout this swim, and he had to shake off his coldness. He can't feel his extremities again before he would pop back into the water. At the end of his swim, after he's done, he makes history swimming the length of this river. I think it's like 183 miles or so.

[1:10:23.9] Ashley James: 187, I just looked it up.

[1:10:28.1] Liz Curran: And he ended up curing his leukemia with hypothermia. 

[1:10:32.4] Ashley James: Oh my God, I love it. 

[1:10:34.8] Liz Curran: Yeah. And so, I'll leave you with that being as to how he cured one of his cancers. But he did cure his other cancer also through nature, and he's an incredible story. The book's outlines — it's kind of a cool book the way that it's positioned because it's all the different interviews with the people that were part of that swim in different perspectives. So, it's a really cool approach to sharing the story in writing. So, Dean will share his story in our podcast. But I'm sure if you reach out to him, he may share his story with you as well.

[1:11:12.8] Ashley James: Oh I'll get his story. Don't worry about that.

[1:11:19.1] Liz Curran: He's a great guy with a great story and really just a great soul. He really has a beautiful energy about him in the way he shares his story. So I will say he is one. And then, of course, I got to throw it out to my business partner, Carla. She and I worked together virtually. I'm in New Jersey, and she's in the Chicago area, and she is seven years in remission or no evidence of disease from metastatic breast cancer. Through all of her radical remission, healing factor usage, and finding her way to healing, she, too, is someone who continues to just inspire me all the time with her ease at just having moved on from such a big thing in her life, and embracing every single minute with joy and interest. And she's just a very passionate person. So, she's another really great person to share her story. 

[1:12:29.4] Ashley James: Cool. Just at the top of your head, is there anyone you can share that really blew you away? 

[1:12:36.6] Liz Curran: Well, I have heard of some really funky healing modalities.

[1:12:45.8] Ashley James: Alright, let's talk about it. Sure, why not.

[1:12:47.7] Liz Curran: That's some fun things to share. I mean, people try some different things, and if you're not well-versed in the alternative cancer world, then you may not know about coffee enemas.

[1:13:00.4] Ashley James: Oh honey, you're preaching to the choir. I can't guarantee everyone, but that's not a taboo subject here. So, yeah, bring it.

[1:13:11.6] Liz Curran: I'm well-aligned with the audience then. But one of the coaches on my team in my private practice is actually called the Health Navigators. And there's a bunch of us that coach together over on that platform. And one of them is my friend, Emma, my fellow coach, and she shared that she had some kind of poison from a toad or something. The terminology is escaping me right now. But she said it was an incredibly detoxifying treatment, as ugly as it was in the moment. She said it was worth it. There's some pretty fun things to hear people help people heal. And they all say, I don't know if that helped or not, but it felt right.  

[1:14:05.9] Ashley James: Yes, it is important to understand when you're up against a major diagnosis. I know the scientific way was like, well, I should do one thing at a time just to make sure I know which would work. I have clients that's like, well, you've given me three things to do, but I'm just going to do one and see how it goes because I don't know which one is going to work. And I'm like, honey, if I had a major diagnosis, I wouldn't care which one worked. I would have thrown in the kitchen sink at this as long as it's not going to hurt me. It's all beneficial stuff. It's all building the body. And sometimes, to tip the scales, it takes multiple things. It takes licking a toad and drinking juice and putting coffee in your butt. I don't know. It's just like, do it. Do it all, because what's the alternative? Cut, burn and poison? And their success rates are horrible. And then, while you're doing their modalities, it's so sad. 

Here's the crazy thing — something as simple as fasting, like being on a three-day fast before chemo — they have done these studies and people have tremendous results. They don't lose their hair. They don't have nausea, and there's a plethora. I was just looking up this information. There are hundreds of studies on ginger juice, like just taking fresh ginger root or taking ginger capsules or whatever, but just ginger between 1 and 4 grams of ginger significantly reduces nausea. But of course, doctors are not trained in this. They're not looking at it. They're only looking at what drug they can give you, and they're going to give you some anti-nausea drug. And we see that just by incorporating herbs and roots like ginger, we're helping the body and supporting the body. It's like an immune booster. So we are supporting the whole body, not poisoning it. And it just drives me nuts that there are simple things if you decide to do chemo. It's proven that fasting helps before chemo. It's proven that ginger helps before chemo. These are studies, scientifically driven. And you can do ten different things, like watch comedy. You could go down and list this stuff if you wanted to also cut, burn, and poison. If you wanted to go that route. 

Like you said, part of radical remission could also be combining conventional. I really dislike this word ‘conventional', because we say conventionally great farm produce in the grocery store and I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm 43 years old. I remember when you could buy food that was real. I remember when carrots tasted like carrots and not cardboards, and tomatoes actually were like a food orgasm in your mouth, like tomatoes had flavor. Now, everything tastes like cardboard. And a conventionally grown apple — which I think you also would have learned this is in IIN — conventionally grown apple has fifty different chemicals sprayed on it. So, of course, the tree is up taking that as well, so it's not just like, oh, it's just purely apple. Just wash the apple. It's going to wash away all the fifty man-made chemicals that are forever chemicals.

[1:17:10.3] Liz Curran: Buy their special detergent in a squeeze bottle or spray bottle from the grocery store to clean off the pesticides. 

[1:17:17.1] Ashley James: That's ridiculous. So this idea that conventional is better, this is the Orwellian language. Again, everyone, get out your tenfold. We're going to fold a little hat to put on. You know you're in the right place when you get on my soapbox and grab my tinfoil. But this idea, like, look into Orwellian language because this is part of the PR. And if you look way back to Edward Bernays, who was the nephew, he was able to make women smoke cigarettes. Women didn't smoke cigarettes. It was very rare. Only the cowboys and the bad guys, and the jocks smoked, and it wasn't sexy or cool. They didn't have filters. It was gross, right? And he manipulated and brainwashed everyone to believe that it was part of the women's liberal movement. And so, women took up smoking, and of course, they had doctors think smoking is good for you. It's all a scam. PR is a scam, and the words they use are manipulative. 

So when they say conventional treatments versus alternative, you think, well, I'm going to go with conventional because that sounds proven. No, the conventional treatments are nouveau. And alternative treatments have been around for three thousand years. Now, listen, you're going to do what you're going to do and I respect whatever decision you make, but don't let the marketing brainwash you into not being fully informed.

[1:18:48.1] Liz Curran: I think one of the important things to do, because most of the people that I work with are doing an integrative approach, they are using both modalities and I can tell without a doubt that doing the combination is the secret sauce to their success with high quality of life, high energy ability that have a life outside of working through medical treatments. So, you just have to look at a doctor as someone who's staying in his lane. And there's a lot of things that they can't and won't say to protect themselves legally. 

[1:19:31.5] Ashley James: And that's so sad. 

[1:19:33.9] Liz Curran: The culture has created this. And back to this empowerment factor, the most important thing you can do is see that your doctor is just a human being, and he is in one lane. He can be part of your team, but he does not have to be the person telling you what to do. So make sure that you feel aligned with this person, that you agree with their bedside manner and their treatment plan for you, and that you believe that what they're going to do for you will help you heal. And if you don't believe that wholeheartedly, then that intuition in your body is going to speak, and it's going to counteract the benefits that you're gaining. It's not completely necessary, but it can impact that. So, knowing that these healing factors are all immune-boosting, scientifically proven to be immune-boosting, and unfortunately, it's up to us human beings to educate ourselves on things outside of medicine and find them on our own. That's what makes it seem alternative because it's not the ‘standard of care' being the norm.

[1:20:49.3] Ashley James: The for-profit industry. 

[1:20:52.4] Liz Curran: Right. And when you go outside of what's ‘normal', it can seem risky or there can be uncertainty around that. But the thing about these ten healing factors and just lifestyle changes, health coaches that would teach people, are that these are things that you can do on your own. I mean, does it cost you anything to increase your positive emotions? It takes some effort, so there's endless listening to your intuition. There's nothing you can do to pay for that. No, you can't buy your intuition. So there's a lot of things that can be done that are free, but you have to know that that's a healing factor and also have the ability and the tools to implement them. And that's where you and I both know, that's where health coaching comes in with the implementation. How do we do these things? 

[1:21:43.5] Ashley James: Yes. Love it. Liz, tell us about how we can follow you and how listeners can plug into what you're doing. What should the listeners know so they can take some actions? 

[1:22:00.7] Liz Curran: Yeah, absolutely. So, radicalremission.com is going to be a great place to start. It will walk you through all of the different offerings, from what we do, whether it's sharing about the research. There's teacher training that we do for health coaches and medical practitioners who want to embody these healing factors into their current practices. We offer the radical remission workshops, constantly always having more workshops up on that website on the workshop page, and then there's 115 radical remission coaches certified at the moment. There's another training class starting in about a month. Those health coaches are all on the website as well so they can be connected with all over the world, all the different countries, all different languages. And the book, Radical Remission, itself has been translated into 22 or 23, I think. It recently got another language there. But you can find all that on the website. And the Radical Remission project is on Facebook and Instagram and always offering more inspirational stories to share. 

And if you are interested in connecting with me, myself, my practice is the Health Navigators. My website is healthnavs.com, and you can find myself and my team there to join in what we call the Virtual Cancer Wellness Community, because we gather people who are like-minded and bring them together. We call them our inspired cancer patients because they are always kind of looking ahead. Like what's the next healing modality? And what else is out there and sharing with each other? So, having a community of like-minded people who are overcoming a significant diagnosis, that's where you will find that. 

[1:24:04.5] Ashley James: And it's not just cancer. Although, that's really what we're up against, but there's so many other diagnoses. I have a friend who's bedridden right now, and she's overcoming some major diagnoses. She was poisoned by Monsanto, it's such a long story. She's part of a giant class-action lawsuit, and it ate her body. The doctors thought she'd died years ago. And just because of natural medicine — looking at this list of ten things, she's following this, and I can't wait for her to one day be on your show because she's in the middle of it now. But I'm really looking forward to introducing this to her because she's like, oh yeah, I'm doing that. Maybe she needs to increase this and more of that. But she's doing all this stuff, and the doctors are shocked she's still alive. 

And then I introduced a type of therapy. It's a wearable technology. It's actually really affordable. And she's having amazing shifts, like leaps and bounds. One of the things it does, which made me think of the coffee enemas. Coffee enemas are messy or can be messy if you do it wrong, and also takes a lot of time. Because if you have cancer, the thing is, they say, do it six times a day. Who has the time to do six enemas a day? When I do a coffee enema, it's like half a day to work up to doing it, all the preparation and everything. So it's definitely emotionally costly. There's a lot of energy that goes into doing these coffee enemas. The whole point of a coffee enema is to stimulate more glutathione production, and one of the things this wearable technology does is it increases glutathione by 300%, and it's less than a dollar-a-day kind of thing. It's way more effective than oral. It's way more effective, and it lasts longer than IV. 

So, I had an episode about it a few podcasts ago. But if listeners are interested in gaining more information about that, I'd love to share. I'd love to provide. I've got a whole email I've compiled with all these videos and all the science behind it that I send out to anyone who wants it. You can go to learntruehealth.com, and then in the menu it says “Work With Ashley James.” Just click on that, and then click on the first session down. It's a free 15-minute phone call, and I'll talk to you about your health, the things you want to overcome, and I'll send you all the science, the information and stuff, and help you if you'd like to try it. It also has a money-back guarantee. I pretty much don't work with any company that doesn't, because I want a company to stand behind their product. It's been around for 20 years. It has over a hundred studies, and I have about 120 clients right now using it with incredible success. But one factor is that it increases glutathione by 300%. For me, coffee enema is great. But if you could just wear a little technology and go about your day and have an even better result than oral or IV, or messy coffee enemas, and it's affordable, then it's a no-brainer. 

I've seen my son, his allergies are significantly reduced, which is really exciting since I introduced this to him. Yeah. So this is what I'm all about. Learning about these off-the-wall, not conventional but still science-based, still proven modalities that could be the determining factor for someone. That could be the difference that makes a difference. But we have to do all ten steps because, like you said, it's been proven that all these together really shift things for people, whether it's cancer or something else. We want that shift. We want you to get to that place in your life where you are thriving, and that's what Learn True Health is. It's thriving on every single degree of your life. That's what I want for everyone. Yeah. Liz. I know I've thrown many questions at you. We talked so much. But is there anything left unsaid? Is there anything you want to make sure that you leave the listener with today? 

[1:28:17.4] Liz Curran: I would say if this resonated with you, please, please reach out for a Radical Remission workshop. We do free info sessions all the time. You can find them on radicalremission.com under the workshop page. And you can learn more about the healing factors and how the workshop works. The workshop itself is usually about a 5-week commitment. It's 10 hours and all done virtually. There are local ones on the website occasionally, if one of the teachers can do something locally to where they live, or retreats, and we hope that we can answer any questions for you there. 

[1:29:01.1] Ashley James: Awesome. Thank you so much, Liz. It was such a pleasure having you on the show. I just know introducing people to this concept has been a breath of fresh air, just like, yes, this is what I've been looking for. It's proven we can heal ourselves. Our body has a God-given ability to heal ourselves. We grew ourselves from two tiny half cells that came together and made one cell. We came from one cell. And now we're 37.2 trillion cells, and if that wasn't miraculous for you, cellular biologists have described the human cell as having more things going on inside that cell than Manhattan, the entire island of Manhattan. Like, you can think about all the organizations that bring the groceries in and get the garbage out and get the electricity in. Just all the things that happen in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. There's more things that are happening inside the human cell wall. They're complex cells, right? There's so much going on inside our body that we're still learning every day. We're still learning new things. There's still undiscovered territory, and it's miraculous and beautiful.

And so, we're like, back in the day with the leeches, right? Like, doctors who are like, yup, we got to blood let. That's the way to do it. Whatever your problem is, we gotta get some blood out of you. We got to bleed the humor out of you. And these doctors are standing there with their lab coats, and they're telling you, well, you're only going to live for three months if you don't immediately cut off your breast and get some radiation. Think about it. The radiation causes cancer, but we're going to cure and kill just the cancer, but we're definitely not going to hurt any other part of your body. Well, maybe a few cells, but you will be fine. And it's kind of wild to think like this is the only model we're allowed is to cut, burn, and poison. In the United States, it is actually legally meant to be protected, right? But if you go to Europe, they're allowed to use hyperbaric chambers. They're allowed to use ozone. It's part of their scientific model for helping people overcome. And then you have Mexico, which is like a free-for-all of natural modalities that may work or may not. But at least you have access to do it. And it is such a wild thing. But to take the advice of a doctor with a lab coat and say, this is the final word, that's like going to a doctor five hundred years ago and saying, well, okay, I totally believe you doc. We gotta put some more leeches on me. They only have one piece of the pie, and we still, as humans, do not fully understand the human body. 

We still do not understand fully how our cells work. So to have a doctor say, this is the way and the only way, is ludicrous. That's why I love what you're sharing today. What you shared today, Liz, is that it has opened our eyes that our body can heal itself and that we can take charge. In NLP or neuro-linguistic programming, there's a saying, ‘who's driving the bus' and you started off by saying that we want you to empower yourself. And that's you stepping. Just imagine yourself visually, you stepped from being the kid in the bus. Now, you stepped over from that seat, in the bench seat. I want you to stand up in your mind. Go sit down in the driver's seat and put your hand on the stick shift. In your mind, you know how to drive a stick? Okay, if you don't. And you're going to drive that bus. 

This is your life. You get to drive. You're the one driving the bus of your life, and you get to build your team of professionals that are there to help you and support you. And you get to fire professionals if they're not in alignment with your goal of 100% radical remission. And I love that you can plug into this whole group of the support network for radical remission to see that it's possible, and to have other people say, yes, it is possible. It's a worthy goal. You are worthy of this. So thank you. Thank you, Liz, for coming today and sharing this. Please come back on the show anytime you have more to share. We'd love to hear more. 

[1:33:08.3] Liz Curran: Yeah, it's been so much fun chatting with you and getting to share the Radical Remission stuff. And I look forward to connecting again in the future. 

[1:33:17.3] Ashley James: Yes. And I am going to be your number one fan the moment you hit publish on the first episode of the Radical Remission podcast. Can't wait to hear it. 

[1:33:25.3] Liz Curran: Thank you so much.

 

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Aug 9, 2023

Get your Analemma Structured Water Device:
Coupon code LTH at 
learntruehealth.com/structuredwater

 

508: Healing Waters: Science of Structured Analemma Water with Dr. Eric Laarakker

 

https://www.learntruehealth.com/healing-waters-science-of-structured-analemma-water-with-dr-eric-laarakker

Ashley James And Dr. Erik Laarakker

Dr. Eric Laarakker discusses the paradigm-shifting concept of using Analemma Coherent Structured Water to support the body's natural healing abilities. Dr. Laarakker emphasizes the scientific basis and studies that back the effectiveness of this structured water device, challenging mainstream beliefs. The conversation delves into the partnership with Viome to investigate how drinking Analemma water can positively impact the gut microbiome, a crucial element for overall health. Dr. Laarakker's holistic approach to medicine is rooted in the idea that the body possesses inherent healing power, and his work involves resetting the body's information systems to trigger this process. He draws a parallel between the body's functioning and that of a bioquantum computer, emphasizing the significance of water and information in this context.

Highlights: 

  • Using Analemma Coherent Structured Water to enhance the body's healing capabilities
  • How consuming Analemma water can positively influence the gut microbiome
  • Activating the body's intrinsic healing potential by resetting its information systems
  • Dr. Laarakker's extensive experience with animals and children
  • Exploring photon emissions from living organisms
  • Noteworthy experiments involving structured water on plants

Intro:

Hello, true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm going to make this super and jump right into today's episode because it's such a good interview. Oh my gosh, the amount of times my jaw hit the floor is amazing. I can't wait for you to hear it. But first, I have to say a big shout-out to my husband. Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. He's my best friend. He's my teammate, my partner in life, my partner in business, my partner in every aspect, and I feel blessed beyond measure that he's in my life. So, I just want to let you know that if it weren't for him, I wouldn't even be here doing this podcast. You see, he's my rock, and he supports me so much that I just want to basically say my little love message to him. Thank you, Duffy, for everything. I love you so much. And I'm so grateful I can be here helping all of you guys, helping spread this information of health and healing. Our body has an amazing ability to heal itself. We have a God-given ability to heal ourselves. And if you're sick and suffering, I'm here to tell you that there is a way. And through all the information that I bring to you on my show, I hope that I can give you the answers that you're looking for. I was sick and suffering for many years, and my husband married me even though I was sick and suffering. And together, we went down this rabbit hole after rabbit hole, discovering what true health is. Now I have shed all those diagnoses, all those diseases and illnesses and syndromes.

I'm still in my health-healing journey, but I no longer have type 2 diabetes, chronic adrenal fatigue, chronic infections, infertility, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. I am a world's better than I was. My husband has also gone through major transformations as well mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, both of us. And I've learned so much from my own show. I'm just sitting in the audience with you guys, just munching on the popcorn, going, “What? I can't believe this.” So, although I consider myself a health expert because I've dedicated tens of thousands of hours of research and diving in personally to help myself heal, and then also over the course of the last ten years helping clients support their body's ability to heal themselves and helping them overcome major health obstacles, I have seen people heal and recover from things that they were told over and over again by medical doctors and the mainstream medical establishment that they have to be on drugs the rest of your life and they'll always be sick. And I'm here to tell you that, most likely, that is not the case. We can support our body's ability to heal itself. 

Today's episode is one of those things. It's one of those things that is totally outside of the realm of mainstream, and yet, there are plenty of studies and science to prove that we can use the analemma structured water device to support our body's ability to heal itself. We're going to get into that with Dr. Eric Laarakker right now. I want you to go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater to check it out. Read all the studies for yourself, and they're to be publishing even more studies because their ongoing studies are constantly coming out with them. I'm super excited that Dr. Eric announced that they're partnering with Viome. I have two interviews with the Viome CEO and the top scientist. You can go to learntruehealth.com and search Viome to listen to those. It's all about the genetic expressions of your microbiome, which is absolutely fascinating. But they are partnering with them to do some really interesting tests to show how drinking analemma water improves your gut microbiome, and it's all about the gut. Everything is about the guts. We heal the gut and get strong, healthy, robust microbiomes. Everything else is so much easier to fall into place. And if you don't have that, that is one of the major pillars of health. So, I'm very excited about the ongoing studies. So, constantly check in on that. Go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater and use coupon code LTH, as in Learn True Health, to get your listener discount. Then, come join the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group and join the conversation because we're talking about it. Some people say, “I don't taste the difference,” then people jump in and go, “I definitely notice the difference.”

And it's okay. It's okay that some people can taste or feel a mouth difference when they're drinking this water, and some people. Some people just aren't as necessarily as kinesthetically sensitive as others. But the real thing we're looking for is the proof in the pudding, whereas the real thing we're looking for is the results. That's why I want you to come join the Facebook group if you're going to drink the analemma water, and I'd love for you to share your experience. We've got plenty of listeners sharing that they definitely feel a difference, just like I did and just like so many others in the studies that they've done. So, thank you so much for being a listener. And thank you so much for sharing this podcast with those you care about. Together, we're turning this ripple into a tidal wave and helping as many people as possible to learn true health. 

[0:05:40.3] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #508. I am so excited for today's guest. It's been months that I've been waiting to have today's guest on the show. I'm going to do my best to say your beautiful name, Dr. Eric Laarakker. Did I say it?

[0:06:05.8] Dr. Eric Laarakker: It's almost perfect, thank you.

[0:06:10.5] Ashley James: I almost got it. You know, I got an app on my phone for my son, who we homeschool. He is eight years old, and he wants to learn languages. I thought maybe he'd learn French or Spanish, and he wanted to learn Norwegian. So we're hearing these very different accents as he's been studying these languages. He's kind of popping through different languages that we're not used to hearing. Your last name reminded me of some of the words he's learning. 

[0:06:42.4] Dr. Eric Laarakker: You know, there are only five million people who live in Norway, so why does he want to learn their language?

[0:06:49.6] Ashley James: I don't know. 

[0:06:51.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: But anyway, I'm not from Norway. I'm from The Netherlands.

[0:06:55.5] Ashley James: Oh, yes. No, I'm sorry. I know you're from The Netherlands, and it's the beautiful sound of your name that reminded me of the interesting language that my son is trying to learn right now. We tried to explain to him that it's a very small country, but he's stubborn, so he's becoming a linguist.

[0:07:13.9] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, good for him. He should be stubborn.

[0:07:20.0] Ashley James: You know, that's a gift. It's hard on the parents, but it's really good when they grow up. And he's an independent thinker, which is great. One thing he's loved since we introduced it to our household has been the analemma, the ability to structure our own water. It's interesting to watch our 8-year-old really get excited about something, when he starts to go, “Wow, this is interesting. I can feel the taste. I can feel the difference in the water analemma. I can even taste the difference in the water. I can feel the difference in how I feel. We have used the analemma to structure all of our water since November. So it's been a good nine or ten months or around there that my family has been only drinking structured water, and there's been a lot of really cool changes that have taken place in our lives. And we noticed that we jumped out of bed in the morning. We sleep deeper. We feel happier. One thing that helped me is — our daughter passed away two years ago, and I was going through PTSD and grief — when I introduced the water. I've been doing a lot of stuff to heal. But when I started drinking the water, I noticed, within days of beginning to drink the water, the constant low-grade sadness that was in my heart all the time, just sadness in my chest, had been replaced with a constant joy — just this low-grade, just background noise, just feeling of happiness. I haven't stopped drinking the water because I love this feeling.

[0:09:06.0] Dr. Eric Laarakker: That's so beautiful to hear. Thank you so much. 

[0:09:09.4] Ashley James: I want to have you here today to understand the science behind it because we feel like it has transformed our lives suddenly. It's subtle, and then I look back and realize how significant the changes are that we feel healthier in our bodies. And then, of course, we start putting it on our house plants, and they started growing like we're in the jungle. And I thought, man, this is just proof like, “Look, our house plants are doubling in size.” And we've had them for years, and now they're doubling in size after we started feeding them the structured water. And, of course, this is how I feel inside my body. Now, I'm kind of getting a visual of what's happening inside my body with my husband. So, Eric, I'm really excited to have you here today to dive in.

[0:09:54.2] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, thank you so much. I love those stories. 

[0:09:56.5] Ashley James: Yeah, absolutely. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structured water and use coupon code LTH to get themselves an analemma device that you place in your water and stir, and it allows you very quickly to transform the water to permanently structure it to coherent structured water. It is very interesting because it's like a science experiment. Every time my friends come over, I do it for them, and I give them a glass that hasn't been stirred and a glass that has the analemma device, and I blind test them. “Which one is the stirred one?” And they all cannot believe the difference. It definitely has a mouth feel. The water feels wetter. The water feels smoother, silkier, and wetter. How interesting. So, I'm really excited to dive into the science today. Before we get into that, can you share a bit about your background? I know that you have extensive knowledge around holistic care and that you practice as a veterinarian, and this is right up your alley. You're just as passionate, maybe even more passionate, about structured water and how we can use it to support the body's ability to heal itself and the planet's ability to heal itself. What happened in your background that led you to get so excited about this?

[0:11:14.7] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, it's a long story. To be honest, I finished university already in 1993, so that's about thirty years ago. Actually, already in the university, I had some issues with the Western way of looking at medicine. Usually, we don't read the symptoms, but we never treat the origin or the cause of the disease. And actually, a lot of problems that we face are chronic. There are multiple causes and not just one cause. Causes could be food, environmental, congenital, emotional, microbial, toxins, etc. So, I went into holistic medicine, and holistic medicine is about trying to find the cause of the problem and treat that problem. So if you go back to the root of the problem, heal that, and then actually, the body will heal itself.

Our body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. It just has to push the right button, and the train will run by itself. That's how I usually try to explain it. An issue is we don't really understand exactly how our body functions or how our internal communications system works. Our body, while more and more has been looked at as a bioquantum computer, it's called quantum biology finally to me. I'll look at it that way. Your body is like a quantum computer. If you manage to reset a computer, the body will heal itself. Actually, as doctors, we don't heal our bodies. We try to reset the information system so it can heal itself. We are just nature's assistants.

We don't heal anything, and if you combine everything, that's true holistic medicine to me. Like in my clinic, we treat horses, dogs, cats, and human beings with a whole staff of veterinarians and human doctors. Personally, 50% of my patients are humans and 50% are horses. We use a lot of different modalities to heal. Actually, my first acupuncture school for humans was already way back in 1986, so that's a long time ago.

And the reason was healing and healing energy; trying to understand how our body functions has been an obsession for me since I was a little kid. I was growing up in the forest next to the river, and nature and water. Actually, they were always my biggest teachers. I spent all of my life almost in the forest and near the water, and really, they were my teachers. They taught me a lot. After my first acupuncture school, the holistic way of thinking grabbed me so much that I traveled literally all over this planet to study all different modalities in holistic medicine, both in humans and veterinarians, like homeopathy, herbal medicine, chiropractic osteopathy, energy treatments, and everything. And then we started to combine all of them in our clinic, and it gave us completely new ways of treatments, and that's what we apply now in our clinic. Water and information, both of them play a key role in all these modalities.

Actually, working with animals gave me the most knowledge, and it was beautiful. You talk about your kid already sensing what's good for them is the difference in the water. It's the same with animals, and they don't have a placebo effect. If it works, it works, especially in chronic diseases. Since I'm a veterinarian of over 30 years, I have seen many of my patients for a whole life, and that's usually a chance you don't get as a human doctor. So it can give you a lot of knowledge about how you can have a long and healthy life. That's why I still like working with animals. It's very pure. It's the same as working with kids. I also work a lot with kids. They are a lot purer, so if I push the right button, it is just easier to cure them than most grown-ups, unfortunately.

[0:15:17.6] Ashley James: And that's so true about the placebo effect. Children and animals do not have the placebo effect. So when you see something working with babies, toddlers, and horses, then it really gives us an insight. So you have a beautiful background. What led you to work with analemma, with the structured water, and study it? 

[0:15:46.4] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Water was always talking to me. Water is very important. If you look at the body, 99% of our body molecules are water. We usually say 70%, but it's in mass. But actually, 99% of your body molecules are water. If that is so, then water is the most important ingredient in your body. And about seventeen years ago, I met my colleague, Dolf Zantinge. Actually, it was quite a funny story. I was giving a 60-day course on how to measure energies in and out of the body with a Lecher antenna. And that's how we measure our patients. And it's a system we developed over 30 years. I can only think in energy, not in the physical part, if you know what I mean. Everything which is physical is also energy. Dolf was one of my students, but I only saw him on the first day. A lady told me that he was so allergic to horses that he couldn't join the classes anymore. And since I teach him at a horse clinic at ten and the classes were not an option anymore, but Dolf was very eager to learn how to work with the Lecher antenna, so I gave him private lessons on that. That's how we came to talk and share our ideas and our worries about this planet and the fast speed at which everything goes down, especially the whole immune system of this planet but also in humans and animals. 

Thirty years ago, we didn't see any, almost no allergies, no auto-immune diseases, no cancer in horses. But we see it daily these days. So, something is happening over there. So we decided to join efforts and start a laboratory to understand something more about what life is about. We don't understand what life is. Nobody knows what life is. So in the last decade, actually, we have been working on this water. We know that there is more between heaven and earth than science wants to make us believe. Nobody knows what life actually is, but mankind acts as if it knows everything and that we are a coincidence on this planet. I personally don't believe that. Since we were very concerned at what pace the planet is moving to destruction and, like I said, having a chronic disease becomes the norm, and life shouldn't be. So we decided, like I said, to just start a laboratory just to do open science and hopefully find something which is easier to use, to help to restore diseases and this planet. Although I did a lot of modalities, almost all the modalities you can find in regular and holistic medicine, I still miss a thing. And that is what I call the life force, so to speak — the glue between all these different modalities. And that's how we came up into water. 

[0:19:05.0] Ashley James: Is water the life force? Can you explain that a bit more? 

[0:19:08.7] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Maybe I can explain a little bit more how we got into water. And of course, like I said, water has always been very important in my life. But first, what we did was dig into all the scientific possibilities that were available to study life, especially on energy levels in plants, animals, and humans. Then we stumbled upon the work of the famous Professor Fritz Popp from Germany, who proved that all living beings are midlight, the so-called biophotons. The amount of biophotons says something about the health of that system.

By that time, Fritz Popp had ended his career, and we were able to take over the whole laboratory, including the scientist, and move it from Germany to the Netherlands. We want to find out what were the most important parts of living systems and how we could influence it in a positive way. We didn't actually know what to look for. We just started more or less blindly to see what research will bring us. Soon, we discovered that water and information were a crucial part in the biological systems. So then we started to focus on water. 

[0:20:16.9] Ashley James: A lot of us think water is just like a rock. It's just inert. It's just a substance that isn't alive. And the modern-day idea of water is that we should sterilize it, that it's dead. We should sterilize it, and that's the best way. Or filter it, sterilize it; that's the best way to drink it. Or manipulate it in some way so that we have to remove chemicals from it. Make sure there's no bacteria in it. But there's no concept of the structure of how the molecules that exist inside the fluid can influence us. People just think water is water, like dirt is dirt. It's not that important. A rock is a rock. It's not alive. And your experience is quite different.

[0:21:17.1] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Completely different. Actually, we bought a 6-acre greenhouse to do just tests on tomatoes. We decided, okay, let's go for a little bit easier, a challenging test in the beginning, done on humans and animals. So we bought a 6-acre greenhouse, and we were just testing on all kinds of vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, et cetera, and measuring the biophotons. Of course, they have a very short life cycle, so it's easier to test. And just by changing the structure of the water, we saw a tremendous difference in the amount of biophotons. So the amount of light which is in a tomato, from 60% up to 150%, 200% more light emission is constantly over when we use analemma water. We tried all kinds of different water. We tried to do different things with it and then see what happens with it. But actually, one of the most important things we could do, an easy thing we could do, is to change the amount of biophoton in a plant. So, if you have more biophotons, it actually means more mitochondrial activity. So we have a healthier plant.

When we're very sure about the outcome, then, of course, we start digging into other kinds of research because measuring biophotons in humans is not easy. That's why we went into other kinds of research, like the microbiome brainwaves, ATP GlycanAge, etc. And every time we did research, we saw there was a difference. For me, it is very easy. Now, it's very easy. Of course, the issue is we only use our eyes. So, only what we see is what we believe. But if you look at what we can see, it's just a few nanometers of the whole electromagnetic spectrum, and there's so much more that we don't see, which is immeasurable, and water plays a key role in this. Water by itself is a broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic fields, only not if you conduct in visible lights and about a few feet, which water doesn't absorb that well.

It's such a genius — water. Think about a very simple thing. You learn at school that we live on this planet because we have an atmosphere around this planet, and this atmosphere absorbs about 70% of the income of harmful radiation. Now, that's very smart of water. But if you look at the whole electromagnetic spectrum, maybe it becomes a little bit difficult. But if you go from the ultra-low frequencies, radio waves and microwave, gigahertz, infrared, visible light, UV Express cosmic armor, so from low to high frequency — from this whole scale, the only part water doesn't absorb actually is the visible light and part of the UV which are only two of the octaves of the whole spectrum. It is so genius because if what would absorb the visible light as much as X-rays and cosmic armor, etc., then it will be dark on this planet.

That's very clever of water. All these things are just in front of us, and actually, you can find them on Wikipedia, but we don't think about it. So, what is a broadband absorber for almost all electromagnetic frequencies, and we are electromagnetic beings? It's very simple, and there's a beautiful book written, the Electromagnetic Manwhich was written, I think, twenty to thirty years ago, which beautifully scientifically explained that we are electromagnetic beings.

And so our water — now we go back to the body — if you push all the vapor which is in the atmosphere, push it together into a liquid form, it's only 3 cm of water. Only 3 cm. Think about it. Now, go back to your body. 99% of your body molecules are water. So, you are the definition of broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic frequencies. 

[0:26:01.1] Ashley James: Boom. That hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh my gosh. Think about the cell towers, all the electromagnetic, just static out there, the frequencies. I'm surrounded right now by wires and electronics. And thinking about all the different broadband, all the different signals and frequencies all across that spectrum, and if you’re 99% water, we’re clearly highly affected by these entire spectrum of frequencies. 

[0:26:47.3] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And it's a big issue to me, to be honest, and science defines the harm done by EMFs by how much your body has been heating up. I mean, it's just a definition they give. And if we get the whole perspective that we are a broadband absorber for all the electromagnetic waves — maybe I can tell you a funny story I did last year. I was in Corsica with my kids and my wife, and in the South, they have this beautiful place over there which is on top of a mountain. More or less in the harbor, you park your car. So we went up to this village and we could hardly see somewhere down there, where my car was parked and I showed him one thing. I used my automatic key for the car, when I pushed it to open the car, you didn't see anything. Then I held it against my head, I pushed it and then we saw our car opening. So our head full of water is an antenna. We are antennas.

[0:27:51.7] Ashley James: I learned that from my husband. When the car is on the other side of the parking lot, we can't find it. He puts the car key, the key fob to his chin. He puts it right to his head, and he says, we act as an antenna, and it always works. It always works. He can hit the alarm button because we can't find the car. I mean that almost never happens. We know where we parked our car. But if we get turned around or it’s like Ikea parking lot and where we have no idea where we are, you can hit that button and then we hear our car alarm way off in the distance really far away. But if you just stood there and clicked it, nothing would happen. But when you put it against your head, you are the antenna now and it always works. 

[0:28:35.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: So it also works the other way around. 

[0:28:39.8] Ashley James: Because water is that absorber, the broadband absorber. So, 99% of us by molecule is water, where we are highly absorbing that entire spectrum. But how beautiful and brilliant and intelligent it is that there's this huge spectrum that we can't see. We're kind of in the middle, right? There's like all the stuff we can't see that is lower than our vision. All the stuff we can't see that’s higher than our vision. We’re sort of somewhere in the middle in terms of our very small bandwidth of light that we can perceive through our eyes, and water absorbs everything on each side but not in our own vision. That is brilliant. I love looking at science to see that there's God, to see that there's this beautiful intelligence behind the scenes. The more I look at science, the more I see it's irrefutable. This is not random. This is so beautiful. 

[0:29:42.5] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Life wouldn’t be possible on this planet if water would absorb everything. It is as simple as that. And what I purposely don't understand, I mean, the science is in front of us. You can find it everywhere. And people still misuse it. Personally, I don't understand why we do any research on this whole 5G satellite stuff, etc. It's almost like the microwave was sending to this planet its complete destruction. To be honest, we proved already that our water is quite stable in it. So that's a lucky part of it. But still, I'm concerned about the trees and everything around us. We are just bombarding everything with loads and loads of the wrong information.

We are electromagnetically beings and we used to a certain amount, which is been there for ages and, but the last, especially, 20 years we're bombarding ourselves constantly with a lot of information. That's one of the reasons why I always tell people, okay? It's very hard, not to deal with it. But at least what you can do always switch Wi-Fi off at night. You will sleep a lot better, if you do. And almost everybody I know uses the phone as alarm clock. Why?

In our house, the mobile phones. Also, not with our children are allowed in the bedroom, never ever, put your Wi-Fi and your Bluetooth on only if you need it. Both of my kids and my wife, when I put the Bluetooth on they feel it immediately in 2 seconds. The issue is, if we have, if you're confronted with so much radiation then more or less, you get used to it. But it doesn't mean that's how harmful compared with smoking. If you smoke one cigarette, you become sick, but if you start keep on smoking a package today, you won't feel it in the end anymore, but still harmful. So, people would tell me “I don't feel it.” Well, it doesn't mean that is not harmful and we created a lot with all the devices in your home. Everything these days is on Wi-Fi, Smart, everything is smart, smart watch, everything. Actually, not at my house, I don't want to have it.

[0:32:19.06] Ashley James: Smart. I always sleep better when the power goes out. When we have a storm and the power goes out, I sleep so well, or go camping, I sleep so well. The other day, our son was over at Grandma's for a sleepover, and I had to have my phone on just in case an emergency happened, we have to stay in contact and I got such poor sleep not because I was worried about it but just because of my phone was on and I try to keep it as far away from me as possible, it's still in the room, and I don't know, I could feel it. I don't I don't like that. Definitely, I don't like it. I've done a few interviews on EMF. But one of them is really interesting, I mean all of them are interesting, but this one, Episode 445 with Arthur Firstenberg he wrote The Invisible Rainbow, now coming with the analogy you've given us, listeners, if you haven't already go back and listen to Episode 445. With this knowledge that your 99% by-molecule water, it is a Broadband absorber and then go listen to his interview and his books are phenomenal. He shows that every single major health like pandemic that's occurred in the last over a hundred years has been directly related to when a technology gets introduced and he shows it all, it's really, really interesting. But here you have a more proof. You know, we are made up of a Broadband absorber. And now we're introducing these frequencies into our atmosphere, into our bodies, and look what happens. It's haywire, it's causing the whole system to go haywire. So let's go back to the tomatoes. You wanted to measure the biophotons from plants and using structured water, see how that could help. Could you go back a little bit before that? What made you guys decide that water needed to be structured in the first place?

[0:34:33.88] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, very simple. Like I said, 99% of our body molecules is water, so water must be important. I always had this feeling that water was talking to me. So already before we even did this research, I was digging into water-structuring devices.

There are many over there. There's a lot to find information over Victor Schouberger. He's one of my heroes and he did a lot of research on it in the beginning of the 1900s already. And if you look at how when water is vortexing, what the energy, how it gives. If you walk in the mountains when the water comes down with a waterfall and it starts vortexing, it gives you completely different kind of energy. So we already knew there is something there about water. So we started to test all kind of different devices which were on the market and they gave some results. It's not that they don't give any results but they had one big problem and they were not stable. After, it depends on how you shield it, after being produced, it works like for half a minute up to one and a half day, depends on how we shielded with aluminium foil or stuff like that, but then it went down. So we knew it was not good enough and all of those devices actually they are made out of crystals, vortexes, electricity, et cetera.

And so we knew this was not good enough, we had to dig deeper into it. And so actually what we did, we first did a whole study for years on different geometric forms, metals and cosmology, before we were able to combine all of it in one device. It's not like this device was there from one to the other day. We did research at it and we saw an amazing improvement already on those biophotons. But then we discovered that we needed more and that lightning played a role. Try one thing, after lightning, go to a lake and see how it feels. It is like the water's been charged over there. So we needed to add lightning to it. But then still, it went better. Bio-photon emission became better. But then we realized we need something more. And then I go back a little bit to the discussion before. We need to get it open to the cosmos. Because we need information out of the cosmos. We are constantly bombarded from out of the cosmos with all kinds of electric-magnetic frequencies, with everything out of there, from all the planets, the moon, the sun, etc.

Why do you charge your energy in the sun? Because actually you're charging your water system. So then we created a third device and to make it more open to the cosmos. And then we realized another thing is that biology is never ever the same. And that's a big mistake that we make in medicine anyway. We always think that everything is the same. Nobody is the same, luckily. And even your liver, your kidneys, we found out there is a rhythm in energy. So even the frequencies of your liver for your kidney, everything in your body is actually changing every day. And so that's when then we realized that if we want to make the mother water it would take us a year. So it takes us a year to make the mother water because we want to have all the seasons in. And that's actually the reason why we call it Analemma water. Look at the internet what the Analemma is and you see this infinity sign. It's the position of the sun to the moon and it's very important.

So if you want to have all the frequencies in, all seasons in, we need one year to create it. And then we knew, okay, now it's ready. And actually from that moment on, we start putting it on the market. But it took, actually the whole research until where we are now is about 17 years.

[0:39:04.93] Ashley James: Wow.

[0:39:06.46] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And because we were not doing this research trying to find a device and sell it for a lot of money or whatever. We really were trying to find something which helped. And we want to be sure scientifically that it does what we think what it does. So we heavily invested last year, constantly we're heavily investing in research.

A double-blind placebo-conformed randomized research in ATP. We did in a microbiome, brain wave studies, etc. It's constantly going on. Constantly we are doing research.

[0:39:51.08] Ashley James: I want to talk about the research for sure. I'd like to know when you first started drinking the structured water after you created the mother, and for those who haven't listened to the first episode that we did, Episode 498 about the Analemma Water, and the inside of this device, and they call it a wand. You're not performing magic. It's not, but it is the shape of a wand that you would stir the water, and inside it is the mother water. And the mother water, like you said, takes you a year to make, and that it connects with, and you can explain this much better than I can, but it connects with your water and tells the water inside the glass to structure in a way that is coherent and beautiful, not chaotic like the structure of our water that comes out of our pipes, comes out of our municipal water system. And we did dive more into that in Episode 498, but I'd like to go back. When you first made the mother water and you first started making structured water with it and you first started drinking it, what was your experience?

[0:41:08.70] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I will never forget because actually at that moment we were doing research in the south of Germany in organic farm and the device, our first device is huge. It's like one by one by one meter. And very heavy.

So we brought the whole device over there and it was very exciting for us. We need to write pressure and stuff like that. So when the first water came out, we drink it. And it was for me, it was like we knew this is it. It was like, how can I say? For me, it was like an explosion of light in my body. I never had it after that.

Yes, how can I say? It was like a very instant change. And also because we were excited and we want to know and to test it and to drink it and feel what it is. I will never forget this moment. We were drinking it. We looked at each other and we were like instantly happy. Let's put it that way.

[0:42:17.60] Ashley James: That's it. That's me too. I have to tell you, I was really, really, really skeptical. I was so, so skeptical, but it was introduced to me. It was offered. Just try it. I was like, okay. And I remember I was standing at the kitchen and I got out two glasses. I filled them both with our filtered water.

And it's municipal water, so it's been through all the pipes and through the system. The chaos is known. If you if you just imagine in your mind how many pipes and 90-degree angles and near power lines and just like how bastardized this how abused the water is. Fluoride, chlorine, trace pharmaceuticals, just the way they scrub it, all this stuff is, it's not natural, right? It's obviously, the water's been very abused. And now that we understand water absorbs, water absorbs information, it absorbs energy. And so it's just taken a beating, but before it comes out of your tap, and then I put it through a little plastic filter that filters the crap that they put in, fluoride, chlorine, that kind of stuff. And I put the water into two glasses, and I stood there and I counted, then I stirred for about a minute and I brought the glass to my lips and I took a sip and I said, no way. I said it out really, I said it out loud, really loud. And I just, a big smile came across my face. I said, I cannot believe it. And then I took another sip. I said, no way. This is absolutely, and it just hit me. I couldn't believe it. I was kind of freaking out. I was called over my son, called over my husband. You gotta try this, you gotta try this. I can't believe it.

And I was from that moment, a believer, but I was so skeptical, but I was willing at least to try it, but I was so skeptical. And some people say they don't taste a difference. Some people say they definitely taste a difference, but there's a feeling in your mouth of it's how water should feel. And it's kind of like, do you remember as a kid that carrots were sweet and tomatoes were
like an entire meal, you could just eat it. You could eat it, you take a whole tomato and cut it up, put a little bit of salt and pepper on it. And that was like fulfilling. It was so rich and it was so delicious. And now carrots and tomatoes taste like cardboard. They just don't have the energy, the minerals, the nutrition, the vibrance. Food is dead and water is dead. Like the way we've treated it, it feels dead to us. It's not nourishing us and disease is prominent. And when I first drank that structured water, it was like my cells woke up and I remembered, this is what it's supposed to be like. It feels very natural. Now, structured water does occur in nature, but not everywhere. Can you talk a bit about that?

[0:45:26.36] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, yes, I can. The issue is, to be honest, that there are not many places left anymore where the water is coherent. And I must say the whole idea of coherency is a theory. Nobody knows exactly what's happening over there. And maybe I could first explain a little bit more how I look at it, what means coherence, to understand it a little bit better.

If you would have the most powerful microscope and you would look at the water and you would see the molecules of normal chaotic water you would see that they had randomly bumped against each other so they're not in sync and what I think what we did, what we managed is that all the molecules start working together you know they're in sync moving in sync and they start behaving like a crystal. So if you would have the strongest microscope, probably you would see the most beautiful crystals. And crystals are very important, very important. And that's also the reason maybe we can talk later about why we use quartz glass as the outside of the wand. Crystals can receive, store, and give information. Think about the first crystal radios, they were there to receive information. So…

If you manage to structure the water, and like I said, it's a theory, and nobody saw how it really looks like, then you would see all these beautiful minerals, and they are constantly in tune, like the first crystal radios with the cosmos, and that's very important. That's how they receive the pure information what we need. The funny thing is that most people who drink water, become more conscious. So on a conscious part, it's very important to drink that water. And we see that constantly when people start drinking the water, they stop, you know, destroying this planet by themselves because you become aware that you are just a part of everything. Me is you, you are me, everything is us. And we're not divided from each other. And by drinking that water, it makes it clear that you're part of one big whole.

So that's how I look at it. You know, it's a beautiful crystalline form. You can compare it a little bit. I love to compare it with a laser light, although it's not completely the same, but just for the comparison to understand a little bit more. If you would have a five watt lamp, you know, it's just giving a little bit light and it's not coherent light. If you would make this five watt coherent, that means that you let the waves of this electromagnetic frequency work together, then those photons, when they start working together, you get a laser light and a 5 watt laser, it's a very strong laser, I'll tell you that. So in the same way, I look at that water. And so it's very important for all the systems when you get that water, it starts flourishing, it's a lot more energy into it. Like I said, in the biophotons in those plants, you talk about these tasteful carrots and tomatoes. Well, start using Analemma Water and you get them back. For sure. And now go back to your question. Sorry for my diversion. In the past we didn't have so much like you said energy lines, Wi-Fi's, 4G, 5G, whatever. Everything is over there. And water is also reacting on our thoughts.

Look at the last couple of years where we are, everybody's afraid of everything, from COVID to CO2 to whatever, we just live in fear. And that doesn't help water. In the past, people lived near natural streams. And they were moving from what we call meandere, they go from left to the right, they make a left vortex, a right vortex, a left vortex, a right vortex. That's no coincidence. And it's not what people say, it's because they search their way.

Nonsense. Why there's always a left turn and then a right turn and then a left turn and then a right turn? That's energizing themselves. So water comes pure out of a well and then it keeps on energizing themselves. And that is the issue. That's not happening anymore. Just a few people maybe are lucky enough to live close near the most perfect well. We tested water from all over this planet and most of it was not stable. That's why making the water stable was so important for us. Otherwise, you can use your wand once or twice and then you can throw it away because it doesn't work anymore. We tested water in the laboratory which was standing there for over a year near the wifi router and we tested it on tomatoes and it gave the same amount of biophotons. So the stability is very important and there are not many places to find over here and we tested from the Ganga water to whatever. I even took water from the South Pole when I was there, from Greenland etc. And it's not stable so it very easy falls back into the chaotic state. So if you're lucky and you live near a beautiful pure well, of course, you're a lucky person. But how many people on this planet live in that opportunity. In my country, nobody.

So that's why, unfortunately, we didn't find a lot of structured water on this planet anymore. But in the past, but in the past it was necessary because nature did it by themselves, but we destroy so many things in the nature. Like you said, we have straight lines, we have canals, and the water doesn't like to go in curves of 90 degrees. Water doesn't want to flow in a straight way. And that's what we do with water.

[0:51:48.84] Ashley James: We force it to do that. Yeah. One of my mentors, who's also a veterinarian, Dr. Joel Wallach. He's also a naturopathic physician and a research scientist. And he's in his 80s now. He's still active. Amazing man. He discovered that we're largely minerally deficient. We require 60 essential minerals. And the way that they farm the last 100 years, they just pillage the land, they tear off the first layer and then they till the water, or they till the soil, sorry. And then, and the way they farm, it's destroying the minerals in the land. And so now we also know now, between using the way that we channel water on, straight lines and 90 degree angles around farm lands also isn't very helpful, although we need to give our plants water, but it's not structured.

And then we use pesticides, herbicides, all kinds of chemicals, it's ridiculous. A conventionally grown apple in the United States has 50 different chemicals found on its peel. Just by peeling the peel away doesn't remove them because the whole tree is absorbing these chemicals as well. So it's inside the apple. But just to give you an idea, and that's just one apple, an eating organic
is definitely necessary this day and age. I used to have chronic monthly infections for which I was on constant antibiotics for this is 15 years ago. And when I switched to eating organic that my very first month, my chronic infections went away. So that would that told me how important it is to avoid as much as possible what they're spraying in the farms. But what Dr. Wallach said, he goes, look at where our minerals are going. And he goes, it's not just us, it's the planet. Because if you look, he uses the United States as an example, but many other countries do this. All of our major rivers are damned for energy, which I mean, that's clean energy. That's great. But look, he goes there. We are, what we're doing is we're stopping water, sorry, we're stopping the minerals. The trace minerals that are supposed to naturally go into the ocean and feed the ocean were stopping the silt from reaching the ocean. And looked in the science behind it and everything, and he saw that man has influenced almost every major river in the world. And those rivers feed the ocean. And we've been doing that for a while, right? So between that and what you've talked about how water is a broadband absorber and we have frequencies either from ourselves, you can actually measure fear as a frequency coming out of our own body. And then we've got cell towers, you name it. And so water's just here absorbing it all and being coerced into a state that makes it so that our water system around the world cannot restructure itself naturally. So that's one thing.

I had Igor Smirnoff on my show back years ago in Episode 161, because I was interested in his research around structured water and cancer. And he was looking into how to structure water, but he didn't figure out what you guys figured out, cause his structured water device doesn't keep the water structured, it doesn't keep it structured after a few days. Like it doesn't hold the structure like yours does. But what he talked about, which was fascinating, is that those from Chernobyl, they were sent to different hospitals with radiation sickness and poisoning, and there was one hospital up in the mountains and they had a well, and the well was structured water and they didn't know it at the time but everyone who drank it got better and didn't have cancer. And then they finally figured out, like why did everyone have such good results in this one hospital, but not in the others? And they figured out it was because everyone was drinking structured water. So there's a aspect of structured water that helps the body remove radiation, remove free radicals. Can you talk a bit about that?

[0.56:24.85] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, yes. Well, then I have to first enter one very important topic in that, and that is the microbiome. Because I tell my students, the way I look at the body is that we are a heap of bacteria in a pool of water run by the cosmos, a colony of bacteria in a pool of water run by the cosmos. And everything is 100% true. And don't forget the microbiome because it's told you a story about the antibiotics. And one other thing that we do with all the pesticides, et cetera, the biggest issue is on the microbiome. As you maybe know, Parkinson's disease has been proved that it comes from the pesticides. And most brain diseases now have been related to the microbiome in your gut. A healthy gut has over 1200 different species of bacteria in your gut. In your bladder, you have 60 species, 600 plus species in your lungs. On your skin, 1000 species. And they recently found even, I think, over different genes of the microbe in your brain. We are a colony of bacterias in a pool of water run by the cosmos. Those little creatures are so important, so, so important and even our mitochondria who produce ATP, which is our energy. And as you may know, probably noted that all the chronic diseases, cancer, etc. has to do with retarding of mitochondria. Now it has been proved that mitochondria actually were bacterias before. So even inside of every cell, you have 500 to 3000, 4000, 5000 bacterias.

We are a bacteria colony. So, and also these bacteria colonies can be harmed by radiation, by toxins, et cetera. And the funniest thing is, is if you look at it like for horses, vitamin B12 is not essential. Why not? Because they make it themselves, if they have a good microbiome. Cats need taurine, and we don't, because we can make it ourselves. So the microbiome is a very intelligent thing.

There is something which is called biologic transmutation. And what it means that actually bacterias are capable of making from turning one material in another mineral, so go from one mineral to another mineral. Think about chickens. They don't eat as much calcium as they lay every day with their eggs they return silicates, they eat silicates and they make calcium out of it.

[0.59:25.90] Ashley James: Really?

[0.59:26.98] Dr. Erik Laarakker: Yes, so this is called biological transmutation and under our soil, in our soil, that's where all the good bacterias are that we need. That's why we need contact with the soil. You need to dig with your hands in the soil. Kids have to play outside and not behind a computer to get in touch with the soil because that feeds them with the right bacteria. if you have good soil. And so he's completely right that by using all the toxins we put on the soil with farming, et cetera, it kills the bacteria. And for me, that's even a bigger problem than the minerals because first it starts with the bacterias and then the minerals go down. All of it is true. But for me, the minerals are on the second place, if you know what I mean.

[1:00:21] Ashley James: Yes, I'm hearing that.

[01:00:24]Dr. Erik Laarakker: If your microbiome beautiful and perfect and it does its job, you need less minerals because they do a lot of job for you. That's what we found out in our clinic. And water plays a key role in the microbiome. We did a double-blind placebo controlled research with people and we found by drinking the water that the bioindex of the microbiome went up dramatically. So your microbiome, they love the water, the good bacteria, they love the water and it's crucial. So we talked about the information side, what the Analemma Water could do, in the information part, we already talked about that you have a lot better information system in your body that you need, but on the microbiome part, it's very important. We literally could prove that your microbiome becomes better from drinking the right water. In that way, your microbiome will produce a lot more nourishment for your body.

[01:01:33] Ashley James: I did two interviews with a lab called Viome, and they test over 100,000 gene expressions of your microbiome. You send them a stool sample. It's a home test kit. You send them a stool sample, and they send you back just pages and pages of data. But really interesting. I know that we need good bacteria in our gut, right? Like we have about six pounds of bacteria, between four and six pounds. So it's like a little chihuahua basically living inside us. And we can have an overgrowth of fungus, an overgrowth of candida. We can be out of balance, right? A lot of people are. And we all know that they've done studies on those who are naturally skinny, they could eat whatever they want and they're kind of like just naturally skinny and their microbiome is diverse and those who are obese, no matter what they do, their microbiome is not diverse, right? It's unhealthy and they've done fecal transplants where they take the microbiome of skinny people, put it into overweight people and the overweight people lose weight.

So we see this, like you said, we were seeing in Parkinson's, there's a lot of different illnesses where we're seeing that we have to look at the microbiome. But what I learned in those interviews about the biome is that, we eat food and we think we do all the digesting and all the absorbing, but the microbiome actually will eat our food and poop out nutrients for us to absorb. So we have inside our gut a pharmacy.

And I had started to get heart palpitations and I'd gone to a cardiologist and he said I was fine. And I was like, what's going on? And I noticed that my heart palpitations were correlated with when I ate eggs, but I didn't have an egg allergy. I got tested, it wasn't an allergy. I didn't have histamine problems, but I could eat an egg and within minutes I would having heart palpitations. And the cardiologist who wasn't a big help because he said, basically, come back when you're so sick, I can give you drugs, you're too healthy.

But he did say the heart will have palpitations because it's intelligent and there's something that's irritating it. There's something that's inflaming it and it's trying to reset itself. So it's not having heart palpitations because it's weak. It's having heart palpitations because it's strong and intelligent. And I was surprised to hear that coming out of a cardiologist's mouth, but how interesting.

And then I had this interview and she looked at, she was one of the chief scientists there and she looked at my Viome results and I didn't tell her about my heart palpitations, but she said, oh, this particular bacteria, which is actually really good for people, it does a lot of good stuff, but one thing it does is it will convert the nutrients from eggs into, and then she explained stuff that went over my head, but she said it converts it into something that causes irritation on the heart and can cause cardiovascular problems. And so, I mean, I cut out eggs right there. That was it. That was done with eggs. But how interesting that our microbiome digests our food, helps us with nutrients, or can harm us because we've taken a bunch of antibiotics and we have an overgrowth and we have, we all know that we can have dysbiosis and not so healthy gut bacteria, but we want to get to a place where we have very healthy, robust and diverse microbiome in the gut. And you're saying that there's a correlation between that and creating that and drinking structured water. You did some tests. Can you explain them?

[01:05:33] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, we did a double bind placebo controlled test with people and asked them to deliver the stool and after three months did the same thing. And actually we want to test now also with this Viome company, do the same test again with a lot more people. And we found out that the Dysbiosis index actually improved for 30% in three months.

And so the diversity of the microbiome was a lot higher and the harmful ones went down, which is very important. And there is something you think of and this is the nervous vagus, which is very important to mention in this whole area because our brain is directly connected to your gut. You have the nervous vagus, and it passes the heart. It touches actually, your throat, your heart, your stomach, and then it goes to your intestines. And there's a two way communication. So when you're craving for sugar, actually these are the bacterias in your gut to tell your brain that you should eat sugar. So probably in your case, that you got your heart palpitation was because of the feedback from the bacteria to your heart, if you know what I mean.

That's why it goes so fast. It's one of the most beautiful nerves, which is there. And I also call it the nerve of alignment. When that is literally when you're aligned, that nerve works, in two way up and down very well. But go back to the research. So we literally could prove by drinking structured water that you improve your microbiome a lot.

Like I said, over 30% of the microbiome index. And that's a lot in three months time.

[01:07:32] Ashley James: Yeah, that's huge. So for those who are having digestive problems, have you collected data for those who have digestive problems and then drink the water every day and then they report back to you that their digestion is improving?

[01:07:50] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, and many people report back that it's improving. Actually it did it for me. Before I drink the water, I have a lot more like bloating problems. After dinner you know you have this bloating of your stomach and it all went down after drinking the water after two three months. So many people report that back and we see of course in animals we see the also the same especially with horses, they have a lot of problems with the appendix and after drinking the water, you see a lot less problems with that. So of course it's not the only thing, but all those bacterias and also we proved it in a soil because what we did, we did on soil which was damaged completely with Roundup, we did a trial and one got normal water and the other one they got the Analemma Water. And the good thing is after a couple of months, the amount of variation of bacterias in the soil with Analemma Water went up. So it's not only in your gut, but also in the soil. That's why it's very important to get this water back into the rivers, back on the soil. And actually, personally, I think that is the main reason why tomatoes, cucumberss, etc. give a higher photon emission is because you get more beautiful bacteria which you want, the right microbiome back in the soil and also everything is the same also with vegetables. Those plants are being fed from the microbiome in the soil. They need a microbiome. That's one reason why I never want to eat plants which has been grown on aquaponics. Because you need the microbiome of the soil that makes the plant healthy, that gives them the taste, that is giving them the nutrients.

So it's all the same, it's the same cycle in human beings, in the soil, in rivers, in the sea, everywhere, it's the same story. And those, the microbiome is crucial in that. Information is crucial in that. Water is the key player in that. Because water is in the middle of all of them. So that's why we stepped into water, because it's the most important ingredient. It's the most important ingredient in life. It's in the middle of those three.

[01:10:28] Ashley James: If we were to look under a microscope and observe water that comes out of our taps and observe the coherent structured Analemma Water, could you describe what it looks like?

[01:10:44] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, first of all, those microscopes doesn't exist. And it is a hypothesis.

[01:10:53] Ashley James: Haha! Electron microscope, maybe?

[01:10:54] Dr. Eric Laarakker: No, what I think, but it's a hypothesis. Probably what you would see. Well, actually that's the main reason why we test the water in biological systems and not in physical chemical point of view.

Because most research what had been done was on a biochemical physical point of view, but it doesn't say it's healthy. And we want to prove the benefits of it. What I think is that we managed to structure the chaotic water in structured water. So the chaotic water, so probably you would see that in chaotic water that all the H2O molecules will move at randomly and bump constantly against each other.

And probably you would see some strange clusters in it, which is the information of the toxins in it. You can take the toxins out of your water, but still the information of the toxins stays inside. That's why it's very important, even after the most beautiful cleaning with reverse osmosis, whatever you want, that still you need to make the water alive again. And so the information will stay.

So probably you will see clusters of different toxins still over there. And in coherent water, you will probably see that all the H2O molecules work together and thus form a crystalline structure.

Like I said before, you can compare it with the first crystal radios. A crystal can receive, store and send information. I personally think that we managed to create water with the most optimum crystalline form or probably crystalline forms that can receive, send the harmonic optimum information for your health and for your consciousness. So what you would see under the perfect microscope, probably you would see the most beautiful crystalline form or many crystalline forms over their own specific functions in just one glass of water. That's what I think.

[01:12:54] Ashley James: And you guys use a quartz tube.

[01:13:00] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes.

[01:13:01] Ashley James: You put the mother water in it and you made a tube and then there's a little holder at the end, like metal holder at the end. And that's what we use to stir the water. I fill up my mason jar, I have a glass mason jar, about 32 ounces of it, about four cups. And I sit there and I'll just stir it for one to two minutes and I'll watch in about a minute in.

The water, you can visually see it change. Something shifts, the viscosity changes, and I can see the viscosity shift. And it's almost like oil. It stirs differently. And now, because I do it every day, I fill up about six to eight mason jars at a time, and then I'll sit down and just stir about one to two minutes. But I'll sit there and I don't even use the clock anymore or count anymore because I guess I'm very, very in tune. And as I'm stirring, I feel the resistance change. It's hard to explain, but I feel a lightness. I feel a charge. I feel my hand feels it and I go, okay, this one's done. And sure enough, I go and I taste, I could do a taste test because sometimes, we'll stir like just a few times like, oh, we're on, we're on a rush. We're running out the door and I'll just stir a few times and it's, Nope. That wasn't enough. Uh, it's definitely, I could definitely feel it in my mouth. I can taste it, but I can also feel it in my hand as I'm stirring. The resistance changes. It just, it's like a flip of switch. It's kind of like making butter. If you've ever churned butter, you're just like churning and churning and churning and churning and then boom, it happens. There's like a some kind of chemical line. I know the end-limits causing like a chemical reaction, but in butter, it's causing something to shift and it goes from the buttermilk to butter. And that's sort of the same feeling. It happens in an instant as I'm stirring, it just all of a sudden shifts and the water changes. And it's so interesting. But like I said, I refuse to drink any water that's not structured. So I've been drinking all my water structured.

And now you guys have a device that you can hook up to the house that makes all the water in the house come out of all the taps in the house structured so people can actually bathe in it. And I'm really intrigued to know about the latest studies because we've touched on it a little bit in Episode 498, but the studies really hadn't come out yet. And I think that there's some preliminary information that you could share with us.

[01:15:45] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, to be honest, I really recommend to bathe in it. And if you don't have the whole house on Analemma, you can swirl your bath. You know, like you said, when it's ready. And it's not like, OK, for glass, you need for half a minute. So you have to swirl for half an hour. It's not true. Actually, for me, it's my belly. The problem, my microbiome knows when it's ready. Then I feel, you know, it's like the energy starts flowing. And we were surprised actually how much beautiful results we had. There is a spa now in the US where people come and just lay down in the Analemma Water and they have a tremendous positive results with it on the cardiac output, stroke volume and the blood viscosity. People are measured by doctors and now about 100 people are under research and we have beautiful results with it. And what is the reason for that? One is probably
that your skin has a huge uptake of water, but personally I think there's something else going on also and maybe more important. We talked before that water can make disharmonic tones in sound and in electromagnetic harmonic. What Analemma Water does specially that will tune your energy field from a disharmonic into a harmonic communication system. So personally I have the idea that bathing in Analemma Water even works better than only drinking it.

So I really would recommend it. There's people now, more and more people they use for the swimming pool. And they claim tremendous results with it. And like I said, there are now 100 people on the research and almost all of them have a beautiful difference on the cardiac output, stroke volume and blood viscosity.

[01:17:38] Ashley James:  So for those who don't know what that means, what would you feel? How different would you feel if you had those results? If you had this more viscous blood and cardiac output. What would that feel like? Are you calmer? Are you happier? Or like you're, you're

[01:17:58] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I bathe in it myself. Actually I shower with it every day because I have this whole system in my house. I feel energized. Better connected. Less stress.

To be honest, I need to do it. I'm hooked on it before I go to sleep. I do it twice a day in the morning and in the evening. I know it's not good on spoiling of water, but a lot of my patients actually are not in a good shape. And we do, we work with acupuncture, all kinds of healing stuff, et cetera, et cetera. And all those patients, they drain me a lot. When I take my shower, everything is over.

It reloads, like I said, it reconnects again, and all the negative energies, whatever which are on my body, they disappear. And I just feel recharged again.

[01:19:06] Ashley James: And your showers before you installed the Analemma house unit, they didn't have that effect?

[01:19:14] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, it had also a certain amount of effect, but there's a huge difference. I mean, showering by itself is cleaning your energy field. It's not only about, you know, getting your sweat from your body and stuff like that. But for me, it's always all of my life. I love showering. You know, if there's a waterfall, I like to stand under it, especially when it loads yourself.

The sea, all the negative ions which are there, they reload you. But I don't have the sea near my house and I don't have a waterfall near my house. So I have to do it with a shower. And for me, it's a big difference. I can feel it now, I just was sort of three weeks in Sweden, Norway. And I didn't like to take a shower over there in the houses where I was. And when I came back home, the first thing what I did is take a shower. And it's a complete different feel.

[01:20:13] Ashley James: Interesting. Have you guys had any observations around heart rate variability and bathing in Analemma Water or drinking Analemma Water?

[01:20:23] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually, to be honest, we didn't do any research in that, but I'm quite sure that's something we want to do. But on the other hand, we did a lot of research on brainwave activity.

[01:20:42] Ashley James: Yeah, tell us about that.

[01:20:44] Dr. Eric Laarakker: And so we saw a huge difference in that, by drinking the water, like we did for example, a test on a twin and one got Analemma Water, one got the other water, normal water, and with the twin who drank the normal water we didn't see any changes in the one who drank the Analemma Water, you saw a lot more coherence in the brain, far more relaxed, the brain waves start working a lot together. I'm not a specialist in brain waves but the results were tremendous in that way. Then we changed it around and we saw that with the other person.

After that we did a lot of tests with a lot of people and especially you see almost the changes immediately on the stress levels and the alpha state and the beta state you see a lot of changes in there almost immediately after drinking the water.

[01:21:39] Ashley James: Phenomenal. Do you think structured water protects us from different types of radiation? Like what we're exposed to? We keep going back to 5G, but cell towers, the cell phone, the computers, the Wi-Fi being constantly surrounded by electronics. Does structured water act as a way to suppress the effects of all the electromagnetics.

[01:22:11] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yes, because the water is stable. Like I said, we did tests on plants with one year old water, which was standing next to the wifi router. We found it by coincidence and it gave the same results. And actually in the middle of testing it now. And there's one other thing which EMF does and it is destroying the microbiome. And we also proved that the microbiome diversity went up after drinking the water. So in two ways, it helps, protects, against EMFs. I cannot say anything about 5G because it's not on this planet long enough. We're actually in the middle of testing it, but I don't see any reason why that will be different. And that is one of the go back to the showering and laying in the bath, all these negative information has turned into positive information. So I'm quite sure that it's very beneficial. And actually we tested that on a microbiome and in studies before by feeding that water to the plants and people who are, it's not that you not don't feel it, maybe you even feel it better. If I looked at my own wife and my own kids, they're very sensitive to radiation, but it's very smart if you know what I mean. Because the body tells you this is not good. You should worry if you don't feel it anymore.

[01:23:48] Ashley James: Yeah. Becoming habituated to something that's bad for you, like alcohol, cigarettes, sugar. That just means you're feeling low grade sickness all the time, but you're used to it. And we want people to rage against illness, to stand up and say this is wrong, to just reject it, reject illness, reject this sick mentality.

I'll give you an example. 70 percent of adult Americans are at least one prescription medication. This is how sick we are. But we've bought into the sickness mentality because we've been sold on that this is normal. And being sick is not normal. We need to reject this model that we've been sold is normal. Like you said with horses, where was cancer in horses a hundred years ago? Where was all the allergies? Horses having allergies a hundred years ago.

[01:24:53] Dr. Eric Laarakker: You don't even have to go far so bad. But now in 93, when I finished University, I became a horse vet. Most horses I saw were crippled or some had maybe some skin diseases, but not so many. And now the biggest issue is the gastrointestinal issues, autoimmune diseases, immune diseases. In 20, 30 years, it changed completely.

Even cancer now is a big thing with horses. We didn't see that 30 years ago.

[01:25:24] Ashley James: And look at humans. Look at the amount of children that have illnesses is crazy.

[01:25:32] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I think now in our country 43% of 20 year olds already have a chronic sickness. And this is evolutionary, this is nonsense. So if it is that case, then there's something wrong.

[01:25:45] Ashley James: Yeah. If evolution was the model we were looking at, we would be getting healthier and healthier, not sicker and sicker, right? No, there's something wrong with our air, food, water, soil. There's something very wrong with our entire environment. And we have to stop accepting that this is normal, because it's not. And

[01:26:10] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I fully agree.

[01:26:10.97] Ashley James: I was talking to a client yesterday about this, warning them about a few things. And they said, how do you not have constant anxiety thinking about how there's so much out there killing us? And I said, you know, where I focus is I focus on the safe waters. I'm imagining that you're in a boat and there's rocks underneath the water all around us.

And I want to tell you where the rocks are so you can avoid them. But don't focus on the rocks. Focus on the safe water. So you can steer safely and keep traveling through the safe waters. But we have to know where the rocks are. And we can't accept like, oh, well, this is just how it is. I'm just going to crash up onto the rocks because that's just how it is. And that's what we do. We take our bodies to the wrong doctor most of the time. And they just want to give you drug after drug.

We go to the grocery store and we buy food that's covered in poison and lacks the healthy microbiome because what they're spraying is killing the bacteria that we're supposed to be eating, right? We surround ourselves with electronics that are harming us. We're drinking water that is polluted and chaotic. And then we wonder why we're so sick, right? So we want to make sure that everything that's in our environment and coming into us is clean and for our best good.

[01:27:39] Dr. Eric Laarakker: That's why it's so important to drink the right water. Because the body has an amazing capacity to heal itself. And never forget that. We don't need to do a lot. You just have to push the right button. And water is the key player in all of that. Because that's a communicator. So if you want to change one thing, if you only want to change one thing, of course, you have to change all of it. It's 100% true, but if I had to choose for one, I would choose for water.

[01:28:11] Ashley James: Yeah. Well, because like you said, we're 99% of our molecules is water. That just makes sense. Now there's a lot of talk about hydrogen water and, you know, pH water, like having alkaline water and there's all kinds of waters out there people talk about. When we use the Analemma to structure our water, does it do anything different to the hydrogen in the water? Does it do anything? Could you explain, from a science standpoint is there anything different?

[01:28:42] Dr. Eric Laarakker: No, no, it doesn't change the pH and it doesn't change the hydrogen in the water. These are two different things. And so I don't have anything against the hydrogen water. And some people use the wand after they create their own hydrogen water. And all before, some people before and after, that's a good idea. But I don't want to drink hydrogen water all the time. And I don't want to drink alkaline water all the time. Alkaline water can be okay for, to recover after sickness or whatever, but it's not like using for constantly drinking that water. Actually, the most devices who create alkaline water de-structure the water because it's done with electrons.

[01:29:34] Ashley James: Oh, interesting. So even though people-

[01:29:39] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I see it as medicine, if you know what I mean.

[01:29:41] Ashley James: Yes, right. You wouldn't take one medicine and give to everyone all the time. You use it when it's needed, but they should, if they're using like a Kangen machine or something, they should follow up with the Analemma to structure the water after they've changed the pH because the kangen is destructuring the water. Interesting. Yeah.

[01:29:59] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Exactly.

[01:30:01] Ashley James: Interesting. So my husband and I, we try to be as healthy as possible. We try to make the healthiest food choices possible and we often will juice a few times a week. Like for breakfast or lunch, we'll have a big glass of vegetable juice that I'll make in the juicer. And my favorite is beet, carrots, celery, beet greens, little bit of ginger.

That's usually what I put in, oh, and cabbage. And my husband came up with the idea to then, after I've juiced, because we drink it really fast, like within, we try to drink it within 20 minutes to 30 minutes of making it, because that's where everything's still alive. And he decided to structure the juice after we'd made it. And…

[01:30:52] Dr. Eric Laarakker: He's a wise man.

[01:30:54] Ashley James: That I mean, well, he really follows in his intuition. He also had the intuition to take the Analemma and he used medical tape and he strapped it to his chest, his sternum, and he really felt it. And I talked to Mario about that and he said, well, we're gonna come up with some jewelry that people, so they can wear the Analemma. So it's right by your heart structuring all the blood. And that is just brilliant. But so I started doing that. I started holding the wand up to my heart and I've really felt it. And it just feels so good. Spending a few minutes just holding it there. So my husband decided he would stir it and I don't know if he told me, but he handed me the juice and it was an explosion in my mouth. It was like, I'd never drank juice before. It was a completely different experience. So for anyone listening who likes juicing, you need to try it. You need to structure the juice afterwards. Just spend, a good one to two minutes stirring it and then drink it. And it's a very different experience. It's as if it was completely alive. Like I just got it out of the garden.

[01:32:04] Dr. Eric Laarakker: True, that's what we do.

[01:32:06] Ashley James: You do that too?

[01:32:08] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it restructures almost everything. Even for the people who like to drink a beer or a glass of wine once in a while, you can use the one for that. And it's not an excuse to drink more.

[01:32:18] Ashley James: (Laughs)

[01:32:21] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I must say, but the taste is going to be different.

[01:32:25] Ashley James: Well, I don't drink a lot of coffee, but when I do drink a glass, I will, or a mug of coffee. I will use structured water to make it. And it is a different experience. It definitely changes the flavor. All my tea, I structure it first before I make tea. And I just, it really changes the difference. And, my husband said the other day, he goes, we should, we should open up a chain of restaurants with the Analemma Water.

And everyone's going to freak out because the food is going to taste so good. Because all the food will be made with the Analemma water and all the water we serve will be Analemma water and I was like, you're brilliant. This is genius. You know, I think that I think you're onto something.

[01:33:09] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Well, I'll be the first one to come and join in your restaurant for sure.

[01:33:14] Ashley James: I love it. I really want to make sure that before we finished today's interview, that you share what is most important to understand in terms of the science, the discovery, like especially for the people who are skeptical like I was, right? This isn't woo-woo, this isn't a new age woo-woo device. Like there is so many results, that you've used the scientific method, you can clearly see across the board, in animal, like you said, there's no placebo effect, it helps animals, and you've used the Analemma Water with animals.

Could you just leave us with what is the most important thing that we need to understand about the science around this?

[01:34:00] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually, one of the most important things for me is the results on the microbiome and on the brainwaves and on the ATP. And we did a double blind controlled research on ATP, on ATP in blood levels. And in three months time, we saw an increase of 23% of ATP in the blood.

[01:34:25] Ashley James: That is wild. So for those who don't know ATP is cellular energy made by the mitochondria. If you don't have ATP you're dead. It's the one difference I could say between people who are alive and people who are you know six feet under is producing ATP. So it's like you're 23% more alive after three months of drinking the Analemma water.

[01:34:46] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Almost all the chronic diseases, mitochondria play a key role. In aging, mitochondria play a key role. So for me, that was one of the most impressive research that we did. It was even more than we thought it would happen.

[01:35:02] Ashley James: Did you do a telomere measurements or are you going to do that?

[01:35:08] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Actually we now have a talk, the next one probably is going to be the Viome test. We did of course the glycan age study and there's a lot going on, in how important telomeres are. The science is a little bit changing so and it's not easy to do research on and of course we have to pay all the research ourselves so. We're actually now in the middle of making our choices where to do research in.

[01:35:41] Ashley James: So let's talk about Analemma and the future of using structured water to help humanity, help the planet. What are you most excited about that you've got kind of in the hopper coming up in the future?

[01:35:52] Dr. Eric Laarakker:  Well, I will share you my wildest dream.

[01:35:55] Ashley James: Okay.

[01:35:55] Dr. Eric Laarakker:  Our goal for the future actually is to make all the waters on this planet coherent. It would help this planet and all living things on this planet to become healthy and more conscious. Imagine what would happen if all the seas, lakes, rivers, all the drinking waters would be coherent. The microbiome of this whole planet would revive and this would help to clean up all the toxins in the water and soils of this planet. It would help tremendous in making this planet and all living healthy again. We would become the conscious healthy humans that we should be. And that's one of the effects of this water that we touched upon is that it raises the consciousness of the one who is drinking it. And for me, it's very simple. A higher consciousness would never destroy this beautiful planet and would do everything to bring beauty and harmony to this planet. That is for me one of the most beautiful side effects of the Analemma water. I can tell you one more research what we did, which proved it more or less. And that's been actually a test we did already years ago. With biophotons, we were measuring on seeds. Some seeds got normal water, other seeds, they got Analemma Water.

And we were measuring the biophotons over a long period, over days. And the funny thing is the water with the seeds who got the Analemma Water, there was like a sonazoid going on, there was a harmonic rhythm. And with the normal water, we didn't see that and we didn't know what it was. And then we found out that actually the seeds who got the Analemma water were reacting exactly on a moon cycle.

[01:37:44] Ashley James: Oh wow.

[01:37:45] Dr. Eric Laarakker: So that means they are in tune. The biggest issue, as I see it, that we have on this planet, is that we think we are kind of coincidence over here and that we are the master of this planet and the master of the universe. Well, we're nothing. If we would come in tune again with the cosmos, with the God, whatever you wanna call it, with the quantum field, then we would stop by ourselves to destroy this planet and do everything to bring beauty to this planet. Actually that is our wildest dream.

[01:38:17] Ashley James: There's no separation between us and our and each other and between us and this Earth. Like you said, we think we're like separate, right? We're like people think that there's somehow separate from what they put in their mouth. They can go to McDonald's and that they're like somehow they're just eating for pleasure, but they're putting poison into every cell of their body, right? But we think we're separate. We think that there's a difference between us and the Earth and our behaviour as a specie has made it so that the Earth is mirroring how sick we are, how angry we are, how disconnected we are. And this isn't political. And that's one thing that I always want to leave people with is that I'm not saying this isn't talking about climate change, right? Because that's so political. This is talking about we can all agree that pollution is bad for us. Remember back in the 80s, acid rain, like where did that go? With their spraying, the man-made pollution is bad for us. Let's not even talk about carbon, because people are like, there's too much carbon. Well, there's some science showing that there's too little carbon. It's kind of ridiculous. The problem is the mainstream media has us looking in the wrong place because they're like puppeteers. They're like, look over here, look over here. And they distract us.

Look over here. Don't look at the fact that we're spraying your air, you're putting chemicals in your water, putting chemicals in your food. We're feeding you artificial food, bio-engineered, genetically modified food. And for every 278 Cheerios, you're eating one Cheerio, the volume of glyphosate.

So like, would you sit there and put a straw to a bottle of Roundup? But that's what we're doing. And this is killing us. It's killing all of nature. Luckily, we still haven't gone past the point of bifurcation, right? We can turn this around, but each of us has to, instead of feeling guilty or shameful about this, we have to go, I love my body, I love my planet, I love the universe. I love the cosmos. I love God. Like I love it so much. I'm going to take care of myself and take care of this planet. We have to use our wallet to influence, right? So, so you're vote with your fork, vote with your dollar and invest in and get active, get vocal, invest in companies that are here to protect us and help us and help the planet, so organic companies.

I love the Analemma Structured Water Device. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater. Definitely use coupon code LTH and thank you for that. It's already incredibly affordable, which we talked about in Episode 498, how it's very affordable. And that's wonderful for you guys, because I know that you guys could be charging five times as much or more and you're not, because you're making it accessible. Make sure that we find the companies that want to help us and help the planet and help our food and help our soil, just help all of us be as healthy as possible.

I believe in that consumerism can be harmful, but we can use conscious consumerism to be helpful. And so that's why I think we can turn this around, that as individuals together, we can turn this around. Stop waiting for some government to do something. We need to, as individuals, rise up and make sure that our choices are in alignment with helping our health and the future of our planet and the planet right now. Because if you structured all the water in the earth, just imagine how quickly we could start turning things around, it's beautiful. Don't support the companies that are hurting us. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Man. I wish I could have you on for like four more hours talking about all this. I know it's really late at night for you right now.

So I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. And I would love to have you back on the show as more studies come out. It would be so brilliant to continue to share this information. You've shared so much already. Is there anything that you want to leave us with?

[01:42:43] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Thank you very much that you want to have me in the show. Let's put it that way. And I fully agree. Let's not go into fear, because I think I see these times where we in. These are one of the hardest times maybe ever for humanity. But it's a big chance. It's a chance to wake up. And, you know, sometimes you need chaos before you get a new order. And luckily, our water can bring order and chaos but there are many other things also over there. And to be honest, my God tells me we are heading to a beautiful world. And so don't go into that fear because it's not helping. That's why they want to have us, because if we are in fear or in anger, it doesn't matter, you're not in your alignment. And we should be, as soon as you are aligned, you bring beauty. And this is an energy nobody can stop. And think about that. Just keep aligned. Then things will change.

[01:43:52] Ashley James: Love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Dr. Eric Larreker.

[01:43:57] Dr. Eric Laarakker: Perfect.

[01:44:00] Ashley James: It was such a pleasure having you on the show and I can't wait to have you back. And listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/structuredwater, use coupon code LTH, try it for yourself. Come join the Facebook group, the Learn True Health Facebook group, and lots of people talking about the Analemma and the structured water and sharing their results and their experience. We'd love to have you come join the group and join the conversation. Eric, can't wait to have you back on the show. Thank you so much.

[01:44:27] Dr. Eric Laarakker: I will thank you so much. Bye bye.

 

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507: Understanding the Polyvagal Theory with Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie

https://www.learntruehealth.com/understanding-the-polyvagal-theory-with-dr-elizabeth-guthrie

Ashley James & Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie

Herbalist Elizabeth Guthrie, Ph.D. in Natural Medicine, shares her insights on the multifaceted world of plants and their significance in promoting well-being. She emphasizes the valuable role of invasive species in soil amendment, dispelling misconceptions and illustrating how these plants can be harnessed for nutritional and medicinal benefits. The discussion expands into the anxiolytic effects of Mimosa pudica bark and its role in downregulating the nervous system, with a focus on polyvagal theory and its implications. Furthermore, Elizabeth delves into the significance of the vagal nerve as a conduit of memories and the intricate connection between the gut and brain in shaping overall well-being.

Explore the transformative power of your unique plant allies as you harness nature’s wisdom for healing and resilience — and embark on a journey of self-discovery, connecting you deeply with the natural world. Sign up now for the free training— learntruehealth.com/plants

Highlights: 

  • Mimosa tree insights
  • Anxiolytic effects and relaxation
  • Beneficial invasives may provide nutritional and medicinal benefits
  • Untapped nutritional value in roadside plants often dismissed as weeds
  • Anxiolytic effects of Mimosa pudica bark and its role in soothing the nervous system
  • Vagal nerve's holistic role
  • Holographic nature of the nervous system

Intro:

Hello true health seeker, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health Podcast. We have Part 2 with Elizabeth Guthrie, who we had since the last episode, Episode #506. She was a Ph.D. candidate, and now she's officially earned her Ph.D. in Natural Medicine, and she comes back on the show to dive deeper into this discussion of using herbs as our own medicine at home. And we discuss how you can work with herbs, for your own somatics, for your nervous system. I know you'll love today's interview. I hope you go back and listen to Episode #506, which was Part 1. We just continued the discussion. So, even if you didn't listen to 506, you'd still be able to gain lots of information from today's interview. And I apologize; my microphone is just a little bit off. You're still able to hear everything and gain knowledge from the episode. A knob got bumped, so it's just a little bit off, and I apologize. I'm going to correct that and get it all fixed and sound great again. 

So this interview took place a few weeks ago, which we're publishing right now. But today, I just finished an interview with one of the top scientists around structured water and the analemma, and I'm very excited to be publishing that. And that is going to be the next episode, Episode #508. So be sure to check that out. It's going to come out in the next few days. And Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie is giving us access to her free course, so we want to make sure that you guys know to go to learntruehealth.com/plants and sign up for her free class that she's giving on Saturday. And even if it's past the date, go ahead and go to that link because I'll make sure that it forwards to the course she's giving and any future free talks she's giving. But this particular webinar is going to be fascinating. And if you have any interest in utilizing plants and learning more about natural medicine, learning more about emotional and physical health, emotional, mental and physical health, and working with plants, then I invite you to check it out. I think you'll really like it. Learntruehealth.com/plants takes you to sign up for her free talk coming this Saturday. 

Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen from, whether it's the Apple podcast app, Android, Google, PodBean, Spotify, even on Amazon Podcasts, all kinds of places, or just on the learntruehealth.com website. You could be listening from there. Wherever you're listening from, make sure that you subscribe so that you get the notifications for when episodes come out.

I want to make sure that you definitely hear next week's episode. It's going to be amazing. I was just floored. There were several times when my jaw was on the floor, and I just can't wait to give you that information. With these interviews, it's like gold is coming out of the mouths of the guests that I have on, and I get so excited thinking about these little tidbits. Sometimes it's just one sentence. Someone says one sentence, and it is all the insight that was needed to spark the action, the mechanism of action for you to take your health to the next level. And certainly, I learned so much from my guests that have taken my life to the next level. So, I'm so thrilled to share this with you. I know today's interview will give you lots of gold, lots of insights as to what you can add to your life to enrich your life and your health and your continued growth in your well-being. And next week's episodes are going to be amazing as well. So remember, go to learntruehealth.com/plants so you can get access to Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie's talk coming up soon, and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day and enjoy today's interview.

[0:04:17.4] Ashley James: Welcome to the Learn True Health Podcast. I'm your host, Ashley James. This is Episode #507. I am so excited for today's guest. We have back on the show — I think it's the third time we've had you on the show, and now I can say, Ph.D. Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie. Welcome back to the show. It's so good to have you. We recently published an episode with you where it was just before you got your credentials, and you're saying, “Any day now, I might find out,” and then, of course, it was days after I saw you on Facebook going, “Yay, I got it!” So you've been Ph.D. for a while now. Although I've just published that episode. It was actually a few months ago. So it's been a few months, and so much has happened in your life. I'm really excited to have you back on the show because what you teach is a type of medicine that is so accessible. We actually all used to use it. Our ancestors only a few generations ago had such vast knowledge, and we've lost it in the last hundred years because of –, and I don't want to get into sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but it's the truth — that there was a concerted effort by those who owned the pharmaceutical companies to make it so that we didn't practice natural medicine. Instead, we focused on just going to the doctor and buying drugs that were petroleum-based patented drugs. And three generations later, we have no idea what herbs do other than maybe drinking some peppermint tea. And yet, right in your backyard, you have access to amazing herbs. 

My friend, last year, got stung by a wasp really bad, and a friend of his who, I believe, is a First Nations person, a Native American, or has that background, turned to my friend and said, “Oh, go grab that yarrow right there. Chew it up and put it on the wound. Put it on the bite.” And my friend, who was in immense pain, did it, and within seconds, it felt like the pain just went away. And he was like, “Woah, what was that?” And his friend was like, “Yeah, yarrow. It grows everywhere and really good for…” and he started listing off all these things, and it was right there. He got stung, and he didn't even have to take a step. It was like the yarrow was the medicine.

And the cure to the problem was right there at his fingertips. And this is what it's like in our backyard. You could just reach out. You can just walk ten paces, reach out, touch, and as long as you don't have just a manicured lawn, you can grab something that has wonderfully beautiful medicinal properties. There are trees that I know in our area that grow the seeds that fight parasites. There are things that we think are weeds that are growing up between the cracks in the cement, making wonderful poultices for eczema and bug bites and for calming fevers. The list goes on and on. It's amazing that we could just take a little bit of time, learn from Elizabeth today, and begin to cultivate this excitement around how we can use plant medicine to support our body's ability to heal itself. Even in some cases, in the first stage, just to calm the nervous system and bring in nutrients, decrease inflammation, swelling, and pain. 

So we have lots to talk about today. I'm really excited that Elizabeth is doing a free introductory event to plant medicine. You're going to learn so much. I want you to sign up for it. Go to learntruehealth.com/plants. I just tried to make it as simple as possible to type in instead of having to type in plant medicine. So just type in learntruehealth.com/plants, and that'll take you to her free introductory event, where she's going to teach you lots of great information, even more than we're going to discuss today. So, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here.

[0:08:39.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Thanks. I'm thrilled to be here. 

[0:08:41.1] Ashley James: Absolutely. So, take us back to the moments we hung up the last time, and then days later, you finally got your credentials, your very hard-earned Ph.D. in Natural Medicine. Let us know what's happened since. What has unfolded since? 

[0:08:59.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Wow, there's been a lot of different fascinating discussions with people. I got my Ph.D. in Natural Medicine because it was accessible to me. It was something that I was able to do. I was able to really buckle down and do a lot of hard work around it. I've learned a lot about natural medicine in general and, of course, my focus on plant medicine and the way that it can help after significant emotional distress or trauma, depending on the situation. And it is a little bit different from Naturopathic Medicine. There are naturopathic medical schools in both America and Canada that can teach you how to become almost like a primary care physician. This was more research-based, but it's been really helpful in my practical application as well because I do support people in a clinical setting to help them find out what their bodies need and what's going to help them the most. 

I guess it's been about nine months. It has been a whirlwind. I got to teach a class for the American Herbalist Guild on polyvagal theory in herbalism. I've begun to train in somatic practices. So I was already doing some somatic work, and, of course, I've been training for yoga therapy and things like that. But I've really started to do these professional level trainings with Dr. Peter Levine in somatic practices in order to better merge plant medicine and what's happening in the body, how we can really come in contact with our body, and really get to that point where we feel embodied. So that, then, our intuition is a little bit clearer. When we look out into nature, we look at the different rhythms that are happening in nature. We look at the things that are occurring, the seasons, or sometimes the doctrine of signatures for the plants in the way that the plants look or the things that were called to. If we are more centered on ourselves and we understand a little bit about the plants around us, it becomes easier for us to intuitively reach for the right things at the right time. And that's a lot of the work that I've been focused on.

[0:11:29.5] Ashley James: Love it. Well, since we talked, I've been having tea a lot with my son. He gravitates towards them much more intuitively than even I do. And it's cool because he's very sure of himself, and he's very grounded in knowing who he is. He knows what he likes and what he doesn't like. And he asks for tea, and that's so cool. So we've been playing around with the different teas, and he loves Sleepytime tea and all those herbs that are just calming and soothing right before bed, and I noticed he does definitely seem to just ease into bedtime a bit better. So we enjoy, and we each share a cup of Sleepytime tea. On the back, it says do not let children drink it, and I noticed that after about the fifth time, we were drinking it. I was like, “Oh no, why?” It's not like I'm giving him five tea bags. It's not strong. I'm not making a strong one. But I was like, “Why is it saying this?” So maybe you could enlighten me. Are there teas that they sell on the shelves of the stores just like premade kind of tea mixes that are unsafe for certain ages? Obviously, I'm not feeding it to an infant. My son's 70 lbs, and he's drinking one cup. So maybe you could enlighten us on that. And what we've really enjoyed is that he likes picking his own herbs and making tea like peppermint. He likes picking fresh peppermint, and he'll make his own teas without me prompting him. He kind of just knows how to do it, which is amazing. He's got this innate knowledge. 

And then lately, I've been making a turbo moon tea elixir where I've mixed fifteen different herbs. I felt really drawn to that Ayurvedic mixture. Let's see, I have got like ten to fifteen of them, so I don't know if I can name them all off, but I've got like licorice root, dandelion root, a ton of turmeric, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, ginger. The list goes on and on. And then I blend them all up with pepper, with some coconut milk and water, and then I put it in the fridge, and it becomes this congealed, very thick substance. So it's a concentrate, and I just take a spoonful of that — and ashwagandha, a ton of ashwagandha — put it in a mug of hot water, and I stir it, and then that's the tea. My body loves it because it's so calming, so relaxing. I fed some to my husband last night, and he fell asleep within five minutes, snoring on the couch. I was like, “This is really good.” Any time I do this moon tea — I call it moon tea, but there's way more in it than the normal moon tea — I just notice that my nervous system loves it, and I have even better sleep. And, of course, my husband, it just knocked him right out, which is wonderful. A lot of the stuff in there helps detoxify, and it's antiparasitic. Its anti-inflammatory and its adaptogenic herbs are helping to stabilize the body. Ashwagandha is good for men and women. I always thought it was just women, but I started reading about how ashwagandha is good for men, and I thought, “Oh, I'm going to feed this to my husband.” And he loves it. 

So you've inspired us to play with herbs since we talked. So thank you. Thank you for that. So you came up with this course — the introductory events and then the whole course that comes after it. So, fill us in on what we are going to learn. Or can we dive into what you are so excited to teach us today? 

[0:15:33.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I think it's really interesting because your comments about your son and his intuitive sense towards the plants, making the teas, and choosing the things that he's really drawn to at that moment is a natural intuition that we all have. And I believe that a lot of the time, one of the reasons that we have this kind of deeper homesickness, this deeper sense of “I don't quite feel like I'm in the right place,” comes from our lack of connection to nature.

When we look around us, and we connect to nature, we connect to the rhythms of the universe and what's occurring. And when we can start to really find ourselves in that deeper relationship — first, it may just be like, “Oh, this is nice,” but the more that we do it, the deeper our relationship becomes. And we can get to a point where that stillness actually becomes part of what we experience on a regular basis. And once we're at a place where we can embody the stillness of just knowing that these rhythms are a continual thing, “this too shall pass” — some of the stuff that we teach in mindfulness-type practices — then we can really get to a point where we can listen to our deepest consciousness and understand more about why we're here doing what we're doing. Like what our purpose in life is or the way that we can better connect to things, that kind of ancient wisdom that everybody holds, but we may not be able to access as easily when we're so disconnected from our natural state. And that's a lot of what we're talking about. 

Now, of course, we're getting into, “Here are the different plants you can do for this, and here's the teas that you could talk about or hear, the different essential oils.” But the core essence of this course, starting with this free introductory event, and then, of course, if you decide to come into the main course, we're really getting into tapping into that more natural intuitive sense to help to build and strengthen that relationship with the plants that are around us and what that means for each of us individually.

[0:17:53.1] Ashley James: So what herbs have you been featuring the last few months? What herbs have you been most excited about teaching or using yourself, seeing that they are so needed right now?

[0:18:08.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So, it's interesting that you ask me that because I've been chomping at the bit to talk about invasive species. Think about dandelions. For a lot of people, it is considered invasive, and the entire plant dandelion is helpful. The new leaves that come out in the spring they're nice on a salad as part of the bitters. There are a lot of benefits to the root. You can get roasted dandelion root to add to your coffee for people who drink coffee, and that's a really interesting flavor addition, and it has benefits. So there are all kinds of different ways you can use dandelion, and yet a lot of people see it as an invasive weed. 

To answer your question, one of my favorite plants right now is the mimosa tree. And it's really funny because the woman that you shared on your Facebook, I know that woman. That's one of the herbalists from our area. She and I have a very similar view on Mimosa because a lot of people go, “Oh, it's so invasive. It's terrible. I hate it. I can't get rid of it.” And I'm not saying that it's not very frustrating if it takes over and you don't want to take over. But I was very excited this year when one finally popped up. My neighbors have one on the property line, and every year, I've been like, “Okay, come here, come here.” And this year, what has finally popped up on the property? The bark and the flowers both have anxiolytic relaxing effects to them. I love this plant, and I use it for flower essences. I use it in tincture form for this anxiolytic effect. So, I am thrilled that this little baby has popped up on my property.

And so we don't need to just see invasive species as a pain. Sometimes, they're helping to change the soil. So, a lot of the time, these things that we consider invasive may actually be helping to amend the soil. Also, even kudzu has some properties that are beneficial. I don't use it very much. And so those kinds of things we can harvest without having to worry about the sustainability of it. Some plants we have to be more careful with because we've never harvested them. But a lot of these invasive plants that have benefits, either nutritional or the medicinal herbal side of things, whatever that is, we can harvest these and use them. 

I was recently reading a book by Pascal Baudar. It's his new book called Wildcrafted Vinegars. And one of the things that he mentions is that there are all kinds of different plants. He used to live in California, and there were all kinds of different plants that would just grow on the roadside and all over the hills that had nutritional value to them. But people saw them as weeds and never did anything with them. And you know, when people are concerned about, are we going to have enough access to food. Are we going to have enough capacity to take care of ourselves and things like that? So it may be more on the proper side of things, but still, we can look at those. And there are certain foods that can come from these things that we call weeds. There are medicinal benefits and survivability benefits. I encourage you, whatever you have around you, to get out and start learning about it and start understanding what these plants are. Not just the native plants but the invasive plants that we have in our area that might have benefits. Sometimes, you can find some really strong allies in those plants that we might normally think of as kind of a pain. 

[0:22:23.8] Ashley James: So the Mimosa pudica bark, you said the word anxiolytic? Can you explain what that means? So, if we were to take the bark and make tea out of it and drink it, what effect would it have on us? 

[0:22:36.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So it helps to reduce the feelings of anxiety. It has a very cooling, relaxing type energetics that helps you bring the nervous system back down. So this gets a little bit into the polyvagal theory — the sympathetic state, that fight or flight response. If somebody is really into a fight or flight mode, then the Mimosa can be very helpful on that front. 

[0:23:04.4] Ashley James: I can hear people say, “What if I poison myself because I don't know what I'm doing? Or what if I drink too much of it or have a bad reaction?” They're thinking, “I have to call poison control or something.” Can you maybe relieve our tension around the fear of using plant medicine because we're so used to picking up a prescription bottle and seeing how many to take and knowing that it's controlled, even though tens and thousands, if not a hundred thousand people a year die of improperly using prescription medication, not including the deaths overusing them? We think prescribed medicine is safe, and it's not. There's also a risk to that as well. There's more risk because the safeguards from nature have been taken out. 

I think we've talked about it before, but it's worth repeating that the willow bark was where we get aspirin from. Willow bark in its whole state; if you were to make a tea out of that, for example, or tincture, if you consume too much, it would cause you to throw it up. So it helps prevent you from overdosing. Whereas aspirin, they removed those things in nature that help us. I'm not saying every plant has the safeguard because, obviously, there are many plants that you can't eat, and that'll kill you. But there are even more plants out there that you can eat, and that will help. It's like snakes. Most snakes won't kill you, but it doesn't mean all snakes will kill you, either. So, a bit of knowledge goes a long way, and having a healthy respect for plants, just like having a healthy fear of human-made medicine or chemical-made medicine, we should just use more caution and look into each thing more. So, for all of us who have a mimosa tree in our backyard, why don't you just run out there right now and start gnawing on the bark. 

Tell us about the safeguards of beginning to use plant medicine just so that we can be rest assured. Like my son, without any thought, he will run outside, pick some bush, and start eating it because he loves plants. And I'm like, “Sweetie, there might be something in this garden that could kill you.” I know there's at least one plant that is in Washington State. I mean, it's killed one person in the last 60 years, but it could make people very sick. And I've told him not every plant is safe. We should really know what we're putting in our mouths. But he's like, “Well, you told me vegetables are good, and this is green, so I'm just going to eat it. He likes foraging, but he does it without me. So he just comes home chewing on something, and then I have to say, “What did it look like? Hold on, let me look it up.” So we want to go in our backyard or out in nature, or just go to the health food store, maybe. Sometimes, I start there. Can you teach us a bit about the safeguards, though, while we get into this?

[0:26:23.4] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So I encourage people to look into local guides and their plants, what they have locally grown. There are all kinds of different books that are available to give you an idea as to the safe dosing of different plants. And I will say, when you start looking into this, a lot of the dosing is based off of somebody who weighs about 150 lb. And, of course, children's dosing is a little bit different. But when it comes to an adult, usually, if you're looking at a bottle, it's kind of based off of somebody that is 150 lb. If you're heavier than that, sometimes you'll need to take more. But when you get into that level of taking capsules and taking a lot of it, and maybe there are some extracts, or maybe there's something else, that's where I think it's really helpful to find a clinical herbalist in your area, and work with them to learn a lot of these safeguards, a lot of these things that we're finding out. 

I think what we got into talking about last time with turmeric and the fact that there are some extracts now that may be giving people problems. We don't quite know yet. Is the whole plant or the whole root safe? Are these extracts, these curcuminoid extracts, giving people problems like, “What's happening there?” And you can work with a clinical herbalist to get a better feel for that. But there are a lot of plants that we can get into, most of which are in the teas that we see at the grocery store, like we're talking about, that are generally recognized as safe. For most people, there's not going to be an issue. If you have a lot of chronic illness, if you have a lot of unusual allergies, that would be a good time to say, “Hey, I think I am going to at least try to get an idea of what I want to do together.” Take it to an herbalist and just pay for time to sit there and talk through it with them. Maybe it's not like a full consultation, but maybe it's almost like a mentorship session. Consultations are good too, but if you're already kind of taking it into your own hands, you already have an idea; maybe you sit down for an hour of mentorship with them where they can help keep you in that safe range. But generally speaking, if you're in a situation where you're relatively healthy, and you're trying to just start to explore these things, then a lot of what you're talking about, like peppermint, is relatively safe for most people. There are going to be some people that may have some issues with acid reflux with it. But for the most part, people are going to be okay, and it's going to be fine, like lavender and chamomile. 

So there's a lot of these different herbs and a lot of the adaptogenic herbs that are very safe for most people. So there's a lot of those herbs that you can learn a little bit about, learn a bit about the dosing, and very quickly benefit from them. For instance, with the bark, it is about 10 grams into a decoction, and that's what people can use. Now, it's going to be lower if you put it into a tincture. But it's a pretty decent amount of it that is considered, at this point, safe to use. So it's definitely like an entire conversation in itself, like safety and safety buffers. And I think it's just really important to recognize that you don't necessarily read an article on the internet and assume that it's right. Go back to these people who are herbalists who have been doing this for years or who have credentialing. Notice that I used that separately because there are a lot of people who don't have credentialing who are very good herbalists and have experience. So, both of those things are valid career paths. So look for things like K.P. Khalsa's books. It's a little bit older, but Louise Tenney was a master herbalist who has some good reference guides. Obviously, Rosemary Gladstar's work is really amazing. Now I'm freezing up on the man who did the adaptogens. But David Winston has an adaptogens book if you're into that. So there are all kinds of different places you can go to find out what people are generally seeing as safe dosing.

[0:30:54.3] Ashley James: And they can also go to you, right? 

[0:30:58.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I'm here. I just don't want to be totally focused on myself as perfect, like I know all of this. A lot of this I'm learning from. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants with a lot of this information. We have a lot of indigenous healers who have given us a lot of information, and we've got a lot of these people who have really studied and codified what these dosages look like. But yeah, absolutely. And there are ways to look at this from a more energetic angle. So, the first interview I did with you was on chakras and talking about energy healing because, at the base, I am very much an energy healer. And so there are ways to get into plant medicine where we are focused on very low dosing or drop doses that are focused more on the energetic train and less on the chemical constituents. There's just so many different ways that you can go with us. And yes, that is absolutely an option as well.

[0:31:59.1] Ashley James: So, bringing us back to the Mimosa pudica plant, which I first learned about because I had Dr. Jay Davidson on the show, and he talked about using it in conjunction with other herbs. But he used it from ayurvedic medicine to rid himself of 12-inch worms that were parasites in him. And then, he created a line of parasite-cleansing supplements in which Mimosa pudica was a main component of that. Mimosa pudica seed, I should say. So I became very excited about Mimosa pudica, but then I learned that it's sort of like the dandelion. We can use the flower. We can use the leaves. We can use the seed. We can use the bark.

Tell us about the other parts of the Mimosa pudica. Let's pretend 20 years from now, when you have this thriving Mimosa pudica tree in your backyard, what are you going to do with all the properties of this tree and beyond the bark, helping us calm ourselves from anxiety and the seeds that have antiparasitic properties. What other healthy properties do the other aspects of the plant have? 

[0:33:15.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Mimosa pudica is actually a different species from Albizia julibrissin. It's very similar, though, but the Mimosa, which is called Mimosa pudica, is actually like the one you're talking about, where I think it's used a lot in Ayurveda and TCM, maybe.

[0:33:35.9] Ashley James: Oh, so these are like cousins?

[0:33:37.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, they're kind of cousins. And so, Albizia, you'll hear it is sometimes called silk tree, but it's also called Mimosa here in the South. But our main invasive mimosa is the Albizia julibrissin. The bark and the flowers are the two things that I use most frequently. So with pudica, I think you use the seeds, and maybe the roots are another aspect that you can get into. But for this plant, the Albizia julibrissin, that's the one that I work with most. I tend to get the flowers in the late spring when they bloom and tincture them, and then go back in the fall when it's time to trim it back, and trim it back and take the bark, and I do it right before it starts to get really cold because obviously, the energetics move into the roots when we get in the late fall and early winter. But in mid-fall, probably mid-to-late September, I'm going to trim it back and take the bark and put it into the same tincture I put the flowers into. And then, I use that as one of the relaxing, cooling herbs and formulas that I use specifically to support people who are dealing with that sympathetic fight-or-flight state. So that's a lot of it for me because a lot of the time, I am working with people that have a lot of autoimmune issues or maybe chronic pain and things like that. But a lot of the work that we're doing actually starts in the nervous system.

And so, when I'm using things like Mimosa and things like that, I'm not worried as much about the anti-inflammatory properties. They are good. But what I'm really focused on with it is the cooling and relaxing properties that it offers the nervous system to help bring them back into balance, so that their body is no longer in that alarm state, so that their body can start doing what it naturally does to reduce inflammation and flush everything out and get them back into balance. So that's kind of where I use it. I know there are other people who use it in other ways, but that's one of my favorite ways to work with it. 

[0:35:57.7] Ashley James: Very cool. I love it. And it's so interesting about the idea that an invasive, not noxious species, but an invasive species could actually be there for our benefit to help balance the ecosystem or prepare the soil or something maybe medicinally that we need. I think of other examples of that. So, there are a lot of invasive thistles in Washington State. I'm thinking about the invasive trees and plants. Not the noxious ones, not the poisonous ones, but the ones that are safe to eat, but they're just kind of taking over. And I'm just wondering if you could share, if you know a bit more about other ones that are known medicinal invasive species.

[0:36:50.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So I can speak mostly from the South because that's where I'm at. But like kudzu, it is rampant here, and there are traditional uses for kudzu. There's kudzu jelly. There is a reason that some people use it for headaches and things like that. There's all kinds of things like that. Somebody said English ivy, but I have not played with that. I've not dug into that. And I'm trying to think of ones that might be out there as well. And chickweed, is chickweed something that you all have? 

[0:37:34.1] Ashley James: We've got English ivy, knotweed, Scotch broom, ragwort, Kitsap weeds. There are a lot of different thistles, although I don't know their names. Dogwood trees take over everywhere. Well, it's something like you said — it's very regional.

[0:38:02.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. And that's the beauty of getting out there and really learning from a local herbalist. I'm happy to help anybody get started on that side of things. A lot of the work that I do doesn't consist of necessarily, specifically, it's more about the connection once you find plants that you're interested in. It's more about encouraging the exploration of this plant. So now, locally here, I've got chickweed. Like I was just saying, that is invasive, but it's edible. There are so many different things you can do with it, and there's all kinds of stuff like that all across the world. 

[0:38:40.5] Ashley James: Okay, so let's talk about chickweed. I'm going to Google it so I can know what it looks like. But let's talk about it. So you can eat it. What is it good for? What does it help people with? 

[0:38:50.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Chickweed, I tend to use it just as part of the food. That's the beauty of a lot of these plants. There's a medicinal side to them, but then you also have the fact that a lot of these things are edible, and they can be fermented into really interesting culinary things that people can use. A lot of the time, chickweed is something that people are talking about for digestion. I see it a lot because it is a spring herb, so it's kind of part of those clearing herbs that we use early in the spring. Some people use it to try to help with the kind of systemic inflammation that leads to circulatory problems. I can't think of the official word for it, but obesity and things like that. But I don't go too far into that because I have a doctorate. I have a Ph.D., but I'm not a medical doctor. So, I'm less worried about diagnosing somebody with diabetes or metabolic syndrome. That's the word I couldn't think of. I'm not looking to diagnose somebody with metabolic syndrome and say, “Oh, here are the herbs that can help you.” I'm more about the rhythms of the seasons that we're in. So, in the spring, we eat chickweed. We eat dandelion leaves. We do things like that to help clear the system, to help clear the congestion from winter, to help our body to prepare for the spring energies that are coming up. 

If somebody comes to me and they've got metabolic syndrome, I'm less worried about metabolic syndrome and more worried about what are the energetic patterns happening in their body. Is there a lot of stuff? Usually, somebody's coming to me because they've got some form of trauma or emotional struggles and things like that. They really want help with mental health-type things. So we're looking at the nervous system first, like, what's happening in the nervous system? There is a lot of heat and irritation in the nervous system that we can use to cool things, like chickweed is kind of cooling, right? And it can help to cool the body down and bring it back into balance. And that's where some of the polyvagal stuff comes into play with a dorsal vagal versus sympathetic. And if somebody's in a sympathetic state, there are certain herbs that energetically have benefits for that sympathetic state versus the herbs that are going to be more helpful for the dorsal vagal state, where somebody's body is almost too cold, and there's almost not enough movement. And their nervous system has almost slowed down too much, and we have to warm it back up and bring movement back in. 

[0:41:45.7] Ashley James: Just to clarify, for those who just need a refresher in dorsal vagal, polyvagal, fight or flight, sympathetic versus rest and digest, parasympathetic, or maybe, like you said, they're having trouble getting proper vagal tone. I don't want to say fight or flight, but when we need that cortisol, we need that stimulus, those healthy cortisol levels, it's just not there. So, for me, I had a really bad end stage, chronic adrenal fatigue. So bad that if something were to happen, I wouldn't have been able to jump up and run out of a burning building. I didn't have to get up and go. And then, out of nowhere, I'd have these adrenaline dumps where I felt like I was dying. That would happen occasionally, like my body was like, “Okay, come on, let's go. Come on, let's go. Let's just release the cortisol.” And it was dysregulated. That was not healthy, and it took nutrition and dietary changes and lifestyle changes. And then the final thing really was minerals, remineralizing my body. But it took a lot of healthy changes to get me back to where I was balanced again. 

And thinking about the herbs that I was regularly using, I can remember cinnamon. I was taking cinnamon capsules. It had a few other things in it, but it was like some minerals packed with cinnamon. That was brilliant for me, the minerals. Cinnamon is the only herb I can remember. I know that there were a few other ones. This was like twelve years ago. But I was very exhausted all the time and didn't have to get up and go. So, for me, I was like the other side, where people who are living on cortisol, they're living on adrenaline. They're kind of tired-wired at night, and sometimes they can't bring themselves down. They might go, go, go during the day, but then when they need to relax, they can't, and then it gets to the point where they're burnt out. So when they need to get up and go, they can't. So, the vagal nerve is brilliant. We definitely want to talk a bit more about that. We've discovered it before, but it's so worth talking about more. It's a wonderful nerve that runs from the brain to the gut. And there's so much to discuss because there's a direct connection. We've got like a brain in our gut. We have a brain in our heart, and we have a brain in our head. And that's why we're just discovering what kind of what we know in natural medicine, in indigenous medicine, for hundreds and hundreds of years. We're now just discovering in the West that there are bundles of nerves in the heart and in the gut and that they're communicating to the brain. We used to think the brain just tells the body what to do. But we actually have a brain in our heart, a brain in our gut telling our brain stuff. It's like a consciousness, like thinking that we do in our head. Sometimes, I go all over the place, but it makes sense in my brain. 

There's a really great book written a long time ago, and I read it back in 2005, and it still sits with me. It's called The Holographic Universe, and it talks about how we think that all of our thinking is in our head, but it's actually stored holographic throughout our whole body. And it's so beautiful — this idea that our nervous system is actually throughout our whole body, and we can store memories. People will have transplants, like a heart transplant, and then they'll have memories from the person they got it from. There was even a little girl who had a transplant, and she had perfect memories of the murder, and they were able to use them in court and convict the murderer. And that was the organ that she received from the murder victim. We've got several other cases in which we've seen that memories exist outside the brain because the stored holographic leads to the whole nervous system. So that's why I love the vagal nerve because it's this superhighway from the gut to the brain.

And there's more going on in the gut that we need to acknowledge like a thyroid hormone is turned over and produced in the gut that we always think it's just in the thyroid, but there's actually stuff in the gut that's very important. Something like upwards of 70% of our serotonin is made in the gut. There's so much going on with the 6 lb of bacteria in your gut that's making so many of our nutrients for us from our food. So you eat that McDonald's, that's what you're using to build yourself. But that's also what you're using to build your microbiome and feed your microbiome, and you feed the wrong microbiome. It's a bunch of sugar and flour. The bad microbiome is going to produce bad chemicals. So I could go on and on. But the vagal nerve is so important on an emotional level, mental level, physical level, energetic, and spiritual level for our being. 

So there's my little soapbox rant about how much I love the vagal nerve. But you talked about the vagal nerve when it comes to herbs and how we can acknowledge, “Okay, I'm kind of running empty.” How can we restore ourselves? “Okay, I'm running. My body is running like there's no tomorrow, and I need to calm myself and put myself in healing mode.” When we're in fight or flight, we're not really in healing mode. Our body shuts off in somatic processes for long-term healing in order to survive the day, the fight, or the flight. So we want to bring restoration because it's good to have the ability to fight or fight when we need to. It's good to have the rest when we need to have to bring ourselves back into the balance. And that's what I love. You teach us how to think about plants as our support system for bringing the nervous system back into check.

[0:48:07.2] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, and there's a lot of nuance to that. And that's some of what we get into in the course. It's like, “Well, if you have this going on, then is it sympathetic? Is it dorsal vagal?” Sympathetic means fight-or-flight. The dorsal vagal is a part of the vagus nerve that creates the freeze response that shuts down. And so, what do we do when we're having those responses? How do we balance that back out? And those responses are healthy in certain situations. But like you said, what's happening for a lot of us, especially with the life that we have to live to survive in today's society in a lot of situations that get thrown off, a lot of that is being held in different parts of our nervous system. A lot of the frustrations or the traumas or whatever else, the memories, as you said, like with the holographic body, that's getting held in other places in our nervous system. And so a lot of the conversation becomes, “What are the herbs that we are drawn to?” Because we can talk about medicinal plants. But we can also have plant friends that we don't eat. But the energy, the resonance between them and us, is something that you can't replace, and it feels comfortable, and it feels safe. A lot of the times when you've been through a lot, and things have been very bad chaotic — there's good chaos, and there's bad chaos — but when you've been through something that's overwhelmingly chaotic, sometimes it can begin to feel like this is too much. Everything feels like I can't get to a point where I know what's going to happen next. And if you have a plant ally, a plant buddy, if you will — it sounds fancy to call it an ally, but — 

[0:50:06.6] Ashley James: Emotional support plant.

[0:50:08.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right. It becomes an emotional support plant. And I have some of those. I have this bloodleaf. I don't use it for anything nutritional-based. I don't use it for anything in the medicinal realm. But the plant itself, I feel comfortable with that plant. And when I'm around that plant, I get the same feeling from that plant. And so now that becomes almost a regulation tool for me. So, there's a side to polyvagal theory called co-regulation. Usually, we talk about it with adults and children. If the adult can consciously allow themselves to stay in that ventral vagal state, which is a part of the vagus nerve that helps us feel connected. It allows us to go into rest and digest where the healing can occur. If the adult is able to consciously do things to help themselves stay in that state and their child is dysregulated, the child can begin to see the adults and see the adults' facial expressions and body movements, and they will begin to regulate. And if the adult can continue to keep themselves in that ventral vagal state, it helps the child to regulate. And so adults can do this for each other. But I have begun to realize that you can get some of that from plants. It's not quite the same thing as being around another mammal, and so on and so forth. But you can get some of that from plants. If there is a plant that you enjoy, that you feel safe enough to really get into that place where you can begin feeling healed, that connection is important. 

So, in this course that I'm doing, we're not just talking about, “Use this for this nervous system state. Use this to help your digestive system.” We are talking about some. We might talk a little bit about the different plants that people bring to the table, depending on what they've got going on, and so on and so forth. But really, the core of this is there are all kinds of ways that you can learn from different books, or I can teach you about the different herbs. At the end of the day, what really begins to matter, once you understand enough safety to keep yourself safe, like, we're not eating datura over here. But once you understand that and you're able to keep yourself safe within working with these plants, then there's a whole world to explore that allows us to realign our nervous system, realign our body in general, and get back to a place where we can listen to our intuition and decide what our tea needs to look like this morning. What are the plants that I'm being drawn to right now? Once our nervous system is back in alignment and that vagus nerve is feeding the brain the right information again, then our subconscious can begin to direct us toward the things that we need on a regular basis. 

[0:53:09.1] Ashley James: Can you give us Beginner 101 going into the grocery store? I hate to say grocery store because I only go to the holistic grocery stores. I go to the grocery stores that have the bulk section of herbs, and I'm like, “I'd like a spoonful of ashwagandha today.” Sometimes, I'll buy the big bulk things, and sometimes, I know I'm not going to go through this herb enough. I've learned my lesson. So I'll just go to the bulk section, and I'm like, “I'm just getting two tablespoons of this root,” because I am not buying a $50 bag of it. I have an apothecary near me as well, and they sell so many herbs, dried herbs in bulk, as well as tinctures. But when I'm working with herbs, I like to start with the herb itself without it being a tincture because I can ease into it if it's new to me. Like tea is something that is so gentle, and they'll get into a tincture for bigger things. 

I like to think of it this way — the size of the medicine should reflect the size of the problem. I know several people with cancer, and they're like, “Which tea should I drink?” I'm like, “Lady, this is when you bring out the sledgehammer.” This is when you want to go big and go 100%. You got to change your diet and your lifestyle and bring everything to it. But if I feel a little stressed, I don't need to bring the sledgehammer. That's what I like about homeopathy or Bach flower remedies. Let's bring some gentle energy to nudge the body back into balance. And those are very powerful medicines. Even in themselves, they are energetic medicines. But they're not a sledgehammer necessarily. You can do it gently. The way you do it properly is you do it gently.

So, with full herbs, I can make a tea and just experience it, and then I can go from there. So, let's say everyone's had peppermint tea, and everyone's had some experience with general herbs. What would you say if they could walk into a holistic supermarket or an apothecary, and what are your five favorites to have in the medicine cabinet for those who want to take it up one more notch beyond chamomile peppermint and lavender?

[0:55:57.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: In a lot of these, I will say you do have to explore and see if it works for you because, again, depending on your nervous system state, depending on your underlying energetics, there are all kinds of different caveats to different options. But one of them that could be really interesting is Damiana. Damiana is normally thought of as an aphrodisiac. Yeah, it's really very spicy in smell, but it has a very warming effect. Now I will tell you, if you've been through a lot of trauma and you naturally tend to dissociate, Damiana is not something you want to try. But for people who are not experiencing that, Damiana may be something you want to go play with and see how it makes you feel. 

Holy basil is generally a great one for almost anybody. You can use any of the three subspecies and usually get very good results. It's not an official adaptogen by whatever the fancy version —

[0:57:16.4] Ashley James: I was going to say the National American Adaptogenic Society. 

[0:57:20.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yeah, I can't think of the right phrase for it. But it's not an official adaptogen if you look at it from the definition like what David Winston uses for adaptogens. He's one of the foremost experts in my mind on adaptogens. But it is adaptogenic. So, it has a lot of those qualities that help the body to adapt to different stressors. It does build that buffer for people, so that can be a fantastic one for just about anybody.

Rhodiola is good if you are dealing with a lot of the spaciness that the dorsal vagal kind of shuts down. Now, if you are like me and you run on the sympathetic nervous system side, then that's going to be a little bit too much, and it may actually make you feel more anxious. But for a lot of people, Rhodiola can be a very, very beneficial option. 

Hawthorne is usually thought of as a heart herb, but it doesn't have to be just heart. There's also that warming energetics behind it. It's really beneficial for a lot of people. So if you're dealing with a lot of burnout or compassion fatigue, that sense of, like, “I'm tired of trying to be caring.” That happens. That's a thing, and Hawthorne is a great one for that as well. 

[0:58:45.0] Ashley James: I had a bit of that after the last three years. I'm so empathetic, and there's been so much turmoil in the last three years. But I found myself becoming cynical. When you describe compassion burnout, I feel like I've recovered somewhat from it because we've had a bit of relief. But the last few years have been pretty intense, and there's so much polarization in families. And it's kind of disgusting when you think about politics, and I don't think this was handled very well on any side. It doesn't matter what side you're taking. No one handled this well, especially the government. And the people who loved each other were fighting and at each other's throats and saying really nasty things that we all kind of regret. Even if you try to stay out of it and even if you're just a neutral party, we all felt horrible for those who were suffering — suffering from loss, suffering from being through illness, suffering from isolation, suffering from having fights with family members or losing their job, or whatever. It hasn't been that great the last few years, and I find a lot of people are acting like they have amnesia. What is that when you go through trauma, and then you're like, “I'm just going to compartmentalize that in a part of my brain and lock it away and not think about it anymore.” And then they're like, “Oh, we're just back to pre-90s. Screw the 2000s. Let's go back to the 90s.” But my brain is like we're back in 2019. We just kind of skipped over the last few years, and that's trauma. And I really think the globe has been through trauma. And if you haven't personally, if you just somehow managed to isolate yourself in the cave and not go through trauma, you've witnessed trauma. You've witnessed people experience it instead of locking it away because so many of us have to skip doing what we're doing to survive and keep a roof over our heads. You still have to go to work. You got to come home and do your laundry. Your days off aren't spent healing. Your days off are spent doing groceries and taking care of the kids, or the husband, or yourself, and your cats or dog, or whatever. But no one has sat back and gone, “Okay, as a society, let's start healing from this.” It's just like, “Nope, let's go back to normal. Come on, go back to work.” So I think that acknowledging — and that's what we talked about a bit in the last interview — acknowledging the trauma that we've been through and then, obviously, we can use herbs and plants as a support, but we need to acknowledge the last few years that there's some level of acute stress. And when you go through acute stress for years, there's a drain on the body. 

And I just realized, when you said compassion fatigue, I was like, “Oh, that's why.” I didn't like feeling cynical. That's not my nature. So I became the observer, watching myself become cynical and I'm like, “This is very uncomfortable. This is not me.” That's, I think, the defense mechanism for having compassion fatigue. And I love Hawthorne, and yes, it is wonderful for the heart. But also because it is so anti-inflammatory. As you are mentioning these herbs, I'm thinking we have to stop thinking about herbs like they're drugs. Like, “These are the effects, and these are the side effects.” No, drugs were copied from herbs, and herbs have so much more. So, for drugs, they took one chemical component or more from a plant, and then they stripped it of minerals and nutrients. They strip it of the thousands of enzymes, phytonutrients, and phytochemicals that make plants beautiful, and then they use some kind of petroleum-based chemical to then make a patented compound with all kinds of side effects, and the body just gets so confused when given drugs. I like drugs to save someone's life. I'd rather you be on a drug and be alive than not in debt. So drugs have their place, but they should not be the first thing we jump to. Unfortunately, most of us only know to go to one doctor, which is the drug-based doctor, and that's why my show features people like yourself from so many different paths so listeners can know that there's more than one choice. Because mainstream medicine is the mainstream — I get that I'm going to sound like I'm a conspiracy case, but it's all true. Just go look it up — almost every single TV show or movie is produced by or owned by corporations that are either owned by or funded by the pharmaceutical industry. And so they have a reason for not featuring — can you imagine if there's like a Grey's Anatomy made, but it's plant-based medicine, herbal doctors? I think it'd be fun. It would be a lot less drama because you're coming in to help people meditate and calm, and like, “Here, have some tea, and let's discuss this. Let's bring in nutritious herbs to help yourself heal.” I think it would be interesting. But it would make for really boring TV because we're not feeding into the drama of it all. The whole system of what we've been raised in is designed to make us think that there's only one form of medicine. And that's part of the PR that has brainwashed us for the last three generations. But if we go back to our great grandparents, they would look at us like we're aliens because they just went to plants as natural as breathing. They went to plants as herbs in their cooking, as herbs in their stews, soups, teas, as herbs that they would use on a regular basis through the seasons, like you talked about using plants in season. They would deworm all their animals, and then they would use the same herbs to deworm themselves. We had to use herbs to survive. That was our medicine. I just want us, as a society, to recognize and be taught that, to this day, there are more options than just drug-based medicine. Plants have always been around, and like I said, you could walk out of your front door and grab a plant and probably have a wonderful time brewing tea and supporting your body. Hawthorne is beautiful. I love it. One of my friends used it to heal her heart condition, in addition to using other herbs. But Hawthorne was her daily go-to. She made a huge 4 liters of sun tea, and she just sipped on it, and Hawthorne was one of them. It was so important to her because if she didn't drink it, she'd have heart palpitations. 

[1:06:47.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: It's an amazing herb. One of the things that's really coming up for me as you're talking is remembering that a lot of the times — of course, people knew this plant was good for this, but there was also some intuition that came into play there especially when people are first trying to figure it out, like the plants. And a lot of the indigenous folklore, the plants speak to people and tell them what they're good for. And we have a lot of those pieces that I think people are working to reclaim at this point. In some traditions, it was never lost, but for many of us, it was lost, and we're trying to reclaim that. The last three years have really brought people to a point where they want to know that trauma thrives in isolation and in fear. Trauma occurs when things happen too much, too fast, and too soon, or when it's not enough, too slow, or too late, And we had a lot of that. We had a lot of isolation. We had a lot of unknowns. We had things happening too fast or too late. There was a lot of that over the last three years, and a lot of people who had not struggled before are now struggling, whether it's related to things that had happened or if it's just related to the stress. There's a lot of brain fog. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of emotional struggle for people. One of the things we can do to really start to heal from these moments of compassion fatigue and things like that is to start turning back to nature and exploring what's around us. So what's in our backyard? Like you said, if it's not manicured and you've got a more natural backyard, you're going to have plants in your backyard that are probably beneficial. You just have to learn about them and start to learn how to ID the items in your area.

The fifth herb that I was going to suggest — maybe some of the other apothecaries have it because I haven't seen it a lot in our apothecaries here — is dandelion. Dandelion has several different parts to it. So, like we talked about earlier, you can use the roots for certain things. You can use the leaves for certain things. The flowers make beautiful teas and breads, like people make dandelion cookies. So there are all these different ways that you can use dandelion and the different parts of dandelion. So if you mindfully learn about it and you mindfully start trying like, “What do I feel?” Not just emotionally, but what are the physical sensations that occur when I use the roots versus how is it different when I use the flower head? What does that feel like? So, for me, I have a downward rush of energy. I can feel my nervous system almost rushing, like bringing my attention downward almost to my root chakra into the ground, which makes sense, with the root being a little bit more grounded or connected to the earth. Whereas I feel a lot of warmth in my chest when I'm using the flowers, which is interesting because, from a chakra angle, I might have thought of the solar plexus. But for me, it's in the heart region with the flower. 

So these things are going to be different for everybody. But when we start noticing those sensations, what that brings to the table, the intuitive thoughts that we have behind those sensations, the emotions that those physical sensations create for us, the things that we're reminded of, we can easily start to think, “Oh, I like this because it helps me feel this way. I like this because when I'm feeling scatterbrained and I drink some tea that has dandelion root in it, I can feel my energy starting to settle back into a lower center of gravity, so I feel more focused.” That's the kind of thing that people want to look for, and it's really hard. We've got a couple of hours here where we're talking, and it's really hard to encompass that entire feeling. But that's where I would start — playing with plants like that and just getting to know a little bit about them in order to notice your responses to that plant. What is the intuitive feeling that you get? Do you hear something? Do you hear a phrase, or do you get a visualization? I get a visualization of places sometimes, and that can tell me some about my relationship with that plant. It doesn't always have to be a single plant. So if you're in an area that only has a grocery store and doesn't have an apothecary section, you can still get a tea — now you're dealing with three or four plants at the same time — but you can still notice what sensations are created for you and how that relates to you. What are the intuitive thoughts that you're getting? What's happening on a somatic level? And all of that combined can start leading you towards, “Oh, I need this for the part of my healing journey,” or “Oh, this is going to be a lifelong friend.” 

[1:12:18.5] Ashley James: Now, one thing you're asking us to do is something that many of us really need to do and don't do, is take a moment to turn off the devices, close our eyes, and just be in our body, and take a breath. That's why I love the idea of tea. It's so nourishing just to hold the cup. Now, of course, we're getting into summer, where it's blistering hot outside. You might not want to have hot tea, and it's okay to make what's called sun tea, where you just put the bags or the herb itself into a big glass pitcher of clean water or purified water overnight. You can place it in the sun like in the window if you'd like or just leave it in your kitchen and it doesn't have to be hot. You could even serve it over rice if you want to, although in certain medicines, like Chinese medicine, they say never to drink anything cold ever. There is no way to do that. So it's room temperature or warmer. And then I have Canadian friends who swear that if you drink hot things in the summer, it'll make you feel cooler because it stimulates your body to open up your blood vessels and to sweat, and then that cools you down. But I argue with them that you're introducing something hotter into the body, which is just increasing your temperature. But they're like, “Well, it makes you feel cooler.” And then they will actually drink cold things in the winter because then it forces their body to warm up. I'm like, “No, just going outside in the winter is fine enough for me. My body will be triggered to warm up.”

But you can play around with hydrotherapy and drinking hot or cold. Either way, you're stepping inside yourself. And this is something that we so need to do because I feel like we're rushing around like we're floating heads. Do you ever feel like you've dissociated from everything below your neck and you're just ignoring your hunger cues, your thirst cues? You're just ignoring everything until the end of the day, and that's when people stand by the fridge at 11 at night going, “I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I have a craving.” It could be thirst. A lot of times, people think that they want to have a cigarette or have chocolate when their body is just really thirsty and very confused because they have not tapped into what actual thirst is. Hunger versus craving dopamine. 

[1:14:49.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: This can be daunting. When somebody is being told, “Hey, it's time to tap into your body.” This can be a daunting task for a lot of people. If you have a lot of chronic pain or if you've been through trauma, every time you start to notice your body, you start to really reverberate with that trauma. That can be a very unnerving thing. So that's the time that maybe you need to come to talk to me and let's get a plan together. But for general purposes here, I will say that when you start to do this, if you find yourself feeling very uncomfortable or very unnerved, or you start to feel overwhelmed by it, back off and just do a little bit. This doesn't have to be a 30-minute practice, just like two minutes or maybe even thirty seconds, and then come back to it later. And as you begin to increase your capacity for it, it becomes easier and easier to tap into that side of things. And then you're getting into what you're talking about, Ashley, where you're really being able to cue into those hunger cues and those thirst cues and understanding what the cravings really mean at the base level. 

[1:16:01.5] Ashley James: Yes. I'm imagining holding a nice warm cup of tea because in Washington, where I live, it's like 66° in the morning, and it's 78° in the evening. So, in the morning, it's very nice to have a cup of hot tea. And then in the afternoon, it's very nice to have iced herbal tea. But holding the hot cup of tea of herbs that you've chosen to experience, or one herb maybe, one herb at a time, and just sit there and breathe. We talked about this in the last interview but just start by closing your eyes, taking one breath, and just noticing how much tension you can let go of. Can you let go of the tension in your jaw? Can you let go of the tension in your shoulders? My mom always used to say, don't wear your shoulders as earrings. Can you let go of the tension in your belly, in your chest, in your abdomen, all these muscles? Can you feel yourself sinking into the couch a little bit? I'm not asking a hundred percent. Just a little, and just noticed how much. If it's five percent, good. If it's ten percent, good. Just notice how much you can release in that one breath, and then take it inhale through your nose. Hopefully, you're not stuffy, and take an inhale through your nose and just be aware of the sensations. 

So I'm not asking you to become aware of just your body alone because, as you said, with trauma, a lot of times, people will have racing thoughts, and they get agitated by the racing thoughts. It will bring back things they don't want to think about. But what I'm asking you to focus on is your experience of your body in relation to the experience of the herb because you're inhaling it, and then just notice how you feel. Become the observer going, “What is that smell like? How does my body relax into that? Do I like it? Do I like the sensation? Do I feel comfortable with this?” And then take a sip and just notice, like you said, you notice where it affects you. So obviously, you might feel it down your throat, you might feel it in your stomach. But then you might notice other body parts relaxing, enjoying, singing with it, or nothing at all, and that's okay, too. And just being with that tea, with that herb, taking that moment to disconnect from the world and be with yourself, like you said, it could even be 30 seconds. What a great way to start to become aware of your nervous system. Because sometimes we are going at 11 and we really want to bring ourselves down to 5. That is such a beautiful practice because we can tap into the experience of our body in that moment of the herb, of our nervous system. 

A lot of people discredit the importance of your stress because people go, “Stress isn't an emotion. So I'm not stressed.” I've had clients say to me, “I'm not stressed,” and I'm like, “Okay, so your mom has cancer. You're taking care of five family members. You are a manager. You sleep 5 hours a night.” I'm listing off all the things, and they go, go, go, go, go, go. They never have a day off. They work seven days a week because they're always taking care of other people. And I'm like, you don't feel stressed. But your nervous system is in a constant state of stress, meaning that you've shut off processes for long-term health and healing. And you've shut off even access to the logic centers of your brain. So there are so many benefits to just taking a moment and supporting the vagal nerve and tonifying it and coming back into balance. 

So I love that you introduced that in the last interview and that you talked about how we can have a beautiful relationship with these herbs and also, at the same time, train ourselves to feel where we are and to bring that calmness back down. A lot of times people, especially women, say, “Well, I need the stress in order to do everything I have to do today.” They're afraid that if they weren't going, go, go, go, go, then they would just stop, and they would lose all motivation or all momentum. We could definitely talk about herbs that help with that. But I propose that by getting into a calmer state, they were able to sustain themselves.

[1:20:36.6] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So in Western herbalism energetics, you have hot and cold, damp and dry, tense and relaxed. In a lot of people, the stress that's occurring in an energetic standpoint is tension. And there needs to be a balance. We have to find that balance between being atomic and totally relaxed to the point of things like leaky gut. In the digestive system, we see more of that atomic relaxation that creates that leaky gut. It makes it easier for stuff to get in the body. But in the nervous system, we have the relaxation kind of into that dorsal vagal shutdown response. Or we have the tension that takes us into that sympathetic fight or flight response. And a lot of people really need to be able to find that balance and that center. Now, I will say what people are talking about when they say, “Oh, I'm afraid that if I let this go, then I'm not going to have the energy.” That can happen sometimes. That's actually what we see sometimes when people start healing from trauma. More of it starts to bubble up when they first start feeling safe because their body is like, “Oh, now I'm in a place where I can really, really work on this.” 

The same thing happens when people start to relax; their body goes, “Oh, I can finally take a nap,” and then they want to sleep for 19 hours. And so if you find yourself in those situations where you're beginning to allow yourself that space to heal and you start to notice that it's overwhelmingly headed one direction or the other, you can talk to your body about this and say, “Hey, I have 30 minutes a day set aside for us to work on this. It's going to take a while, but we're going to get there. But we're going to work on this for 30 minutes a day. And then we have to get back to it so that we can survive.” It's that kind of thing for some people that makes a big difference. It keeps stuff from bubbling up in the middle of the day. It keeps it from feeling like we're just not going to be able to do anything because now that we're able to relax, our body is just totally giving out. Things like that where you're even acknowledging to yourself, it sounds silly to do that, but if you can just acknowledge yourself or even say it out loud, like, “Okay, I have 45 minutes, I'm going to do a Yoga Nidra for instance, like a guided meditation. And then I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to get back to my day.” Recognizing that I'm going to get to do it again tomorrow or I'm going to do it in a couple of days again, and I am acknowledging this. I am working with this, and I'm working to heal. Sometimes, that can keep it from becoming that overwhelming sense of exhaustion that can hit.

[1:23:17.7] Ashley James: Well, that's what I want. I want everyone to have a growing experience of being tuned in to their nervous system and tuned in to their body, and then have the tools to support their body coming back into balance when they catch themselves off balance like we do in life. We're human, and I hear it so often. I know all the things I need to do, but I don't do them all the time. And then I catch myself, and I'm like, “Oh, I'm over here, and I know some things I should be doing.” So everyone does it. I hope everyone knows to drink an adequate amount of water, and then sometimes you catch yourself with a dehydration headache. And you're like, “Oh yeah, I forgot.” Or everyone knows certain things, like everyone has certain foundations, and we forget, and then we remember, and we go, “Well, I know I should be doing this, and I need to come back.” Often, it's just because we dissociate from our body and we prioritize the dues. Like we're not human doing; we're human beings. But we have to do what we have to do to keep the roof over our heads, and our family is fed, and take care of our loved ones, and we prioritize. There's a bunch of things we do, and we don't put our bodies first. 

Our body is our home, and it's our sacred temple. If you're religious, look at all the texts that talk about how it's the God-given temple. It is the house you have, and you're not going to get a second one. Not in this lifetime. You're not going to be given a second one. I like to read, and sometime in the past, I've read sci-fi. And there was a cool sci-fi book written by the same author that wrote Like Water for Chocolate. That is not a Sci-Fi novel, but her second one was, and it was all about how you could take your consciousness and put it in a new body. And I thought, what a thing to think about. The prisons were full of love because they thought people who went to prison for doing something wrong just really needed to heal, and they needed love. It was a really cool, interesting society to think about sci-fi. But the idea that stuck with me is that we don't have the ability to take our consciousness and put it in a brand new body. So why do we take better care of our car than our own body? When the check engine light comes on in your car, you are going to drive around for months and months and months and ignore it. I know some people do. But for the most part, if the check engine light comes on in your body, you're just going to ignore it. Some people just take drugs just to push down the symptoms, ignore them, and put duct tape over the body's check engine light. But you wouldn't do that for your car. So, if there was a fuse box blue in your house, you're going to fix that quickly. But if your nervous system kind of starts getting fried, people just want to ignore their bodies. This is the body you have, so let's take care of it. Let's prioritize it and learn some herbs and how to have a healthy relationship with them and use them like a tool. To support your body's ability to heal itself is just like prioritizing the only house you have, which is your body. 

[1:26:46.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And when we look at the rhythm of the seasons, there are certain things I'm going to do in the winter that I'm going to do differently in the summer. And if you're into Ayurveda, there's a lot of discussion around the different elements. We see this in traditional Chinese medicine as well. The elements rule the seasons, so different things are going to be beneficial at different times. People will do different cleanses based on the seasons in order to try to keep their bodies in that rhythm. And that could be very helpful because we can get off the bandwagon, so to speak, for certain things that could be really beneficial. But if we're constantly looking back to these cycles in nature, whether it be the moon cycle or the seasons, or whatever it might be, then we can really help to bring ourselves back to what we need at this moment. What does our body — with its very unique constitution, with its very unique makeup — what does it need at this moment? I think we may have talked about this last time, but one of the things that can be really helpful is what is growing in abundance around me right now.

So, for me, in the very first year of the pandemic in 2020, lemon balm just exploded. Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact, it was right before I realized anything was actually happening. And, of course, lemon balm is prolific, right? Lemon balm meant things like that. If you don't want it to scatter across your yard, you definitely keep it in a planter. But I don't mind because I make tea with it and everything. So, I just let it do its thing, and I collect it and bring it in. But that year, it particularly went wild in my yard. It took over the mint section. I had to really keep it pruned back several different times. And I understand now why because when everything hit in March, I was completely in mental chaos from it all. Not to mention, I was in my masters of Public Health, and I was taking the epidemiology classes as all this was going on. So it was a really weird combination of learning about things in real-time, trying to process everything, trying to understand the what-ifs. And that lemon balm tea really made a difference for me and for some other people. I had a lot of it, and I was able to pass it around. There was plenty of it. 

And so this isn't necessarily something you're going to catch on day one, but as you start to do this and as you start to grow a couple of things or maybe you are really getting out there and noticing what you have around you, if one year you notice there's a lot more of a certain plant, pay attention to that. Look at it and see, “Is this something that I need to look into? Is there something to this?” For instance, I would probably say with you and Mimosa because it seems like Mimosa has come up a lot for you in the last few months; I would maybe dig into that and see if there is a relationship to be had there. Anyway, I think it's really interesting to really attune yourself to those rhythms because sometimes those rhythms can help us to remember different beneficial actions that we can do throughout the year or throughout the month if we're going on the moon cycle. And it also just helps us to become more in tune with how our body is responding to those different things. 

[1:30:16.1] Ashley James: I love the idea of looking into the plants that are kind of taking over in your area. I was thinking about a garden I had back at the same time as you in 2020. It was a beautiful vegetable garden that was spontaneously taken over by creeping buttercups. When you dry them, they lose their poisonous effects and can be used for several things, but one thing is bronchitis and inflammation. What we were all afraid of experiencing was problems with the lungs, right? Isn't that interesting? I love nettles. Nettles just exploded in my area. I accidentally touch nettles everywhere, and they're just wonderful. I didn't harvest them this year, but in years past, I've harvested them in huge garbage bags and then put them in giant pots of boiling water to get rid of the little needles, the stinging part of the needles. It's so delicious putting them in a soup, like you would with spinach. We make a fermented sauce with it. We take it and blend it with a little bit of salt and nutritional yeast, pine nuts, and garlic. It's like that kind of green sauce, that Italian green sauce. Why am I not thinking of it? 

[1:31:57.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Pesto?

[1:31:58.2] Ashley James: Pesto! Thank you. Yeah, we make a pesto out of it, and then it ferments a bit because we make many jars of it, and it's so good. It's so good, and it's so nutritious. And then, of course, drinking the nettle tea is wonderful, but don't do it at night because it's a diuretic, and I learned that the hard way. I was up all night running to the bathroom. But it's so nutritious, not something that comes back to with herbs, as long as you understand the safety of eating a bunch of it. Like with nettles, it's a food as well as an herb. You can eat lots of it. But it's in this natural form, not concentrated. It's the moment you concentrate something into a tincture to be more careful of dosages. But eating it, eating these herbs is so nutritious. They are superfoods. They're densely nutritious, and that's part of the medicine as well.

[1:32:56.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Yes, and it's really important. You were talking earlier about the connection between the gut and the brain and how the ability to absorb is also part of having all of the beneficial bacteria in your gut. And when we have the right minerals coming in, nettles are usually highly dense in minerals. Chickweed, which we talked about earlier, is really helpful for absorbing more minerals into the body. And when we do that, we're giving ourselves the trace minerals that we don't normally get. Then you're feeding your body, you're feeding your nervous system, but you're also giving the right nutrients to the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Now, if you are somebody who has a tendency to order out a lot, DoorDash has been your best friend, I get it. I've been there and done that. Like when I was very fatigued, we had to do that, or otherwise, there would have been no food in the house. But if you're starting to try to turn away from that and you notice like, “I really don't feel good after I eat this food. This is supposed to be more beneficial for me.” A lot of the time, that has to do with the less beneficial bacteria beginning to starve, and now it's kind of mad at you, and sometimes it's a matter of releasing chemicals in your body to make you feel bad, to make you eat the food that you know isn't as nutritious. And so when you start noticing that, even just adding a couple of more veggies and adding a couple of things that are more beneficial and slowly shifting, that can be the way to handle that. And when you do that, and you get to a point where you do have these more beneficial herbs getting into your body, and things are more balanced, your inflammation levels usually will start to lower. Well, I think we talked about this last time. Inflammation actually exacerbates trauma. It makes it harder to heal from trauma. So all these little things, getting connected with these different plants and nettles, is a great one. Of course, with nettles, you do have to be careful. If you are going to go wildcrafting nettles, make sure that you're getting it from a good area. Soil test it if you need to, to make sure it's not taking the heavy metals. But usually, nettles are great. It's wonderful. And those kinds of things can really make a big difference as to how your body is responding to your attempts to heal the emotional side of things.

[1:35:44.2] Ashley James: In healing the physical body, also healing the mental body, emotional body, we have to understand that they're not separate. We like to take off our heads and dissociate from everything else, and just be human doing all day. But really, we need to understand that our body stores trauma, emotional trauma. And I've had episodes; I have this amazing episode with the doctor who invented the emotion code. That was really interesting. I remember I was in massage therapy college — in Canada, it's like a $5,000 program. It's not like a 500-hour little course. In some states, I'm like, “What do you learn in 500 hours? I went to college for three years to learn massage therapy. What did you guys do? You went for like two months?” Everyone does the best they can. But in Canada, in some provinces, massage therapy is in the hospitals. We're alongside the doctors. I remember working in the Scarborough General Hospital and in Toronto General, working in the upper motor neuron lesion ward and working with a physical therapist. 

It's fascinating when you can plug in as someone who's there to help with rehab can plug in into a medical system and that they acknowledge massage, which I mean, of course, it's a physical manipulation. But in massage, we know that the body is also energy and spirit. It is connected to spirit, and it is also connected to our emotions, connected mentally. It's all connected. We have to acknowledge that. In massage therapy college, I was at the table, and our teacher was showing us a specific technique, and she was isolating my scapula and working up around the back of my underarms. And I burst into tears, and I could not stop crying. Everyone went to lunch, and she sat with me, and I said, “I don't know why I'm crying.”. And I'm not a weepy person. I feel I'm very strong, like I think of my Russian-Polish grandmother, who was strong like a bull. And I just think of all the strong women in my family, and I felt like I was one of those. Then she touched a spot that was tender, and it triggered some trauma, and I was crying for an hour, just releasing, just crying and crying, and I've no idea. And that was my real first experience of, “Oh, wow. There's some trapped trauma, and I didn't know, and it's physical. I got triggered by something physical, and that was so real. 

And so I've had these guests talk about how we can clear it from the body. We need to process it in and then release it, which I do with timeline therapy. It's an amazing technique to help the mental body heal. But it's all connected. And so, you talked about using herbs for healing the body, but we're also connecting to and recognizing that there is an emotional element to this because it's not separate. We cannot separate one part of ourselves from the other part of ourselves. You've mentioned how Rhodiola is great for spaciness, and it reminded me of how many people — this is probably just my algorithm when I go on Facebook — so many people are talking about ADHD. I feel like it's the new buzz term, like people are recognizing that there is an ADHD spectrum, and so many of us are on it.

Early on in the podcast, in the first 100 episodes, I had people come on and talk about how they were diagnosed with ADHD as a child and were put on medication, and then they came to natural medicine and they “no longer have ADHD.” But really, what I'm seeing is it's more of how we process information and that it could become dysregulated. Through holistic medicine, we can become healthier and, regulate better, and learn strategies for success. But that ADHD is a real nervous system regulatory, or how the person sees the world– they call it neurodivergent — but how we process information, how we see the world, how we function. I'm not saying we want to fix it or cure it, but how do we support the mind and the emotional body to function as healthy as possible when feeling like ADHD is dysregulated within someone?

[1:40:47.3] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: As a matter of fact, there's a joke with some people — is it ADHD, or is it trauma? Because a lot of the same or similar symptoms can show as both ADHD and trauma. They're just very similar to a lot of people. I'm neurodivergent, so I have a lot of unusual processing, and my brain works a certain way that has created many hilarious stories through the years. For those of you who are old enough to remember Amelia Bedelia — I had several moments like that. And I think it's really important to remember that there are times when accommodations are the right move. It's not a matter of, like you said, we're not necessarily looking to heal people. We're not necessarily looking to change somebody's brain from a function that your unusual brain can actually create solutions to things that a neurotypical brain can't. So, there is a reason to celebrate that side of things. There's a reason to really embrace that side of things. But neurodivergent and things like ADHD can cause herbs to be a little bit different. 

I have a friend who works primarily with people with ADHD because she also has ADHD, and the way that the herbs work for her subset of the population is a little bit different. It's like caffeine. For some people, caffeine really makes them focus, and for other people, it can make them really hyper and really fast. And so, she has a slightly different way of using the herbs with people based on a certain diagnosis or a certain type of neurodivergent. That is more of the reason why taking the time to learn about the herbs in relation to you and your specific experience on this planet is so important. If you are able to do that — because I can tell you all day long, why I prefer Asian ginseng over rhodiola in certain situations. We can get into all of that nitpicky conversation, which is fun, and I love it for research. You can get into a lot of really interesting things, but at the end of the day, your experiences with your plants are what is going to help inform your healing process. And so I really have gotten to, and I love helping people to really dig into that, and that's part of what this class is all about. It is really opening up that experience so that you can start to figure out what this means for you and how this is going to help you on this journey that is our experience here on Earth. 

[1:43:44.2] Ashley James: Beautiful. I love it, and I love that you brought up that. Again, it's that spectrum of ADHD — because so many of them, my husband included, he could drink a venti and fall asleep. I drink a venti, and I'm up for three days. Our bodies will process stimulants differently. Now he, on the other end, if he drinks caffeine on the other end of sleep, he'll fall asleep on caffeine, but he'll wake up at 5 in the morning. So I know that it's definitely affecting his melatonin and his stress hormones on the other end of sleep. But he can fall asleep on caffeine. I cannot fall asleep on caffeine to save my life. He processes pain meds differently. He has to tell the anesthesiologist, “These are my things.” They usually ask these kinds of questions, but when it comes to things like local anesthesia for tooth stuff, he has to say to the dentist, “Listen, you have to give me twice as much as you think you need to give me. And you have to ask me in half the amount of time you think you need to ask me if I'm feeling something because my body processes pain meds way faster than you think.” And he'll give the whole speech to the dentist. They won't believe him, and then in 10 minutes, he's like, “Ow, ow, that hurts.” And they're like, “It already kicked it. I gave you the stuff.” And then he's like, “No, no, no, listen. You have to give me more.” And his nervous system, his body, his clearance, whatever it is, he processes herbs a little differently, processes stimulants a little differently. He falls asleep on stimulants. 

So yeah, we've got to check in with ourselves, and that's why I like starting with something simple like teeth, something gentle, and then working your way up to the stronger one, should you need it. But off the top of your head, is there like, “Oh yeah, these adaptogens are always good for ADHD people,” or is there like a Ritalin of the herbal world? “Come on. Give me a quick fix. Give me a blanket that is good for everyone. There's got to be one out.” 

[1:46:04.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Right, no. It is interesting. I will save it. The stimulating adaptogens like rhodiola or Asian ginseng tend to be the ones that I see as helpful when somebody has an ADHD diagnosis. But I don't always reach for that because just because you have an ADHD diagnosis doesn't mean that you're always in a dorsal vagal state. There may be other things happening, but that dorsal vagal shutdown that causes us to feel more spacey and it causes us to be a little dissociated is sometimes part of that ADHD experience. And so, it makes sense that Rhodiola and Asian ginseng can be helpful. But everybody is a little bit different. My life would be easier if I could name stuff off and just be like, “This is it, boom! I fixed it.” Like I'd be rich. But that's just not how it works. And this is part of what this class is for. We are going to talk about different herbs, different adaptogens, and nervines like the lavender and the camomile that we talked about earlier, which I think we talked about in the last session as well. And we're going to talk about some of those, get a little more in-depth on them, and then we're going to be doing these guided visualizations where you're actively tapping into your subconscious, and you're really trying to discover more about what your body is telling you in this moment, in a way that allows you to also connect with nature. 

And so in those moments, I'm going to give you some information. I'm going to give you some ideas about how to stay as safe as possible based on what we're talking about. But then we're also going to get into that intuitive space. So we've got our boundary set up, and now we can just play in that intuitive space within the safe boundaries, and that's where the real healing comes from. I know we call ourselves healers, but the reality is I'm just kind of a facilitator. I'm just telling you these things and letting you understand what we've learned and then trying to help you create space for your body to tell you what it is that you need in these moments. Again, when somebody's got a chronic illness and things like that, there's more nuance to it, and we can work one-on-one and talk about that. But in general, having the space to explore, in my mind, is one of the most powerful ways that you can find what works best for you and your situation.

[1:48:37.9] Ashley James: And you're teaching a person to fish rather than giving them the fish. You go to a doctor, and even a doctor of natural medicine, they're just going to say take this and this. They might tell you what it does, but there isn't a huge education piece, or at least teach you how to get into it and listen to your body. The body speaks to us, and it really does tell us what we need. But again, we're floating heads. We've cut ourselves off, and we really haven't been trained to tap in and listen to our bodies. One of my mentors is an old-school naturopathic physician in his 80s, and when he trained me in this, he devised a way to understand nutrient deficiencies based on the symptoms the body is speaking. I can talk to someone for 10 minutes and say, “Okay, these are the nutrients your body is saying it's missing,” based on having a conversation with someone. And we didn't need to do expensive blood tests and hair analysis and all that. So, it's interesting that we can look at it from a physiological point of view, like, “Okay, muscle cramps, problem staying asleep, urinating in the middle of the night, falling asleep after meals, weird symptoms, eye twitches.” You can give me all kinds of interesting symptoms, and then I can say, “Okay, these five symptoms are all related to the same problem, and I'll explain why.” But beyond that, it's impressive for you as an individual to learn, just like for me to learn how my body responds and what it needs. 

And so your body will buzz and love the feeling of an herb when it's good for it, like I made that tea, that turbo tea that I've been really drawn to make. I've made it before in the past. I kind of go through phases where I'll drink it for a while, and then I'll move on to something else. But I was really drawn to it for a while. So I'm like, “Okay, it's time to make it.” And we love it, and my body buzzes and loves it. It feels so good when I drink it, and I'm really called to it, like my body just says, “This is what I want.” And when you tap into yourself, and you learn, like Elizabeth teaches you, how to listen to yourself, your body is going to say what it needs. Now, this is a good feeling. The good feeling you get is not the artificial good feeling you get from sugar from cocaine. Yes, everyone's done cocaine. You know what I mean. Some people think about street drugs like, “Oh, you know, it's very artificial. But they “feel good” just like alcohol.” “But wine is healthy for you. There are antioxidants. There's resveratrol.” I'm like, “Then eat the grapes.” You don't need the toxin. “But it feels good after I drink alcohol.” I'm like, “Yes, and so do street drugs.” But you don't do them. If you want to drink alcohol, I'm not judging. I'm just letting people know there's a difference between the artificial feel-good, which is harmful. And then the really healthy for you, that buzzing — like if you drink organic juice, freshly-made juice drink, and now all your cells are filling with an abundance of vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients, and antioxidants — that good feeling when your body buzzes, it's so delicious. It's so wonderful. Again, you have to re-attach your head and allow yourself to start to tap in and listen to your body. And it's like a muscle. So, at first, you might not know, you may not be aware of your body, or know, the more you do it, the more you'll strengthen that muscle till you get a feeling, you'll just go, “Oh, wow. My body is saying to me, “I want some peppermint tea,” as an example. You just feel at the end of the day like, “Oh wow, I could really use this at the end of the day to bring myself down into a nice state,” or maybe in the morning, you feel like trying all the herbs that can be put in a chai. It doesn't even have to be caffeine. If you want, you can just do all the herbs in a nice warm tea milk kind of thing. I'm not milk or whatever. But the point is tapping into the body and listening is this beautiful thing, and I love that you emphasized this because not many practitioners do. Not many practitioners teach people how to be their own physician, in a sense, because their body is the one that's telling them what they need. 

[1:53:09.1] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And I think it's important to recognize that — talking about some of the stuff you're talking about, like, with wine and feeling good — a lot of the time, we are chasing the excitement of feeling blissed-out or feeling powerful. Like a lot of times when somebody is angry or frustrated all the time, it's that feeling of power that keeps them going to that. Or if we're trying our hardest to almost disconnect and ignore the things that are happening to us, we're chasing that sensation of being blissed out and the excitement of being blissed out. And the reality of our human experience is that it is cyclical, like nature is cyclical. There are going to be highs, and there are going to be lows. And when we can approach it from that place of equanimity, then we are better equipped to experience those highs and lows in a way that gives us the full spectrum of the human experience without the overwhelm. Plants offer us a way to really buffer so that we have that tolerance to stay in a state of equanimity more often. 

[1:54:29.2] Ashley James: That's really beautifully said. We're chasing the artificial stimulants because we have dissociated from that, and we don't have that equanimity. So you're teaching us how to really get the true highs, feeling the true healthy highs in life by getting back into our bodies. 

[1:54:55.3] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: But I wouldn't even call it a high. This might be kind of a disappointment for some people, like “sorry.” A lot of people chase the highest success, right? They chase the high of “I got this done,” or “I can check this list off,” or “I watched this TV show,” and it gave me that artificial high, or like, “I'm going to feel so blissed out all the time because I am just on top of the world.” The high that we get from natural things is not even a high. It is like a deep knowing, a deep understanding that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. You can't crash from that the same way you can crash from the highest success. 

[1:55:53.0] Ashley James: Wow. For me, it's a joy. I remember being sick for so many years, and when I wake up in the morning, and I jump out of bed, and I don't have aches and pains, I don't have brain fog, I don't have the headache, and I don't have this gross feeling like a prisoner trapped in a sick body when I jump out of bed, and I am on, and I start my day, and I love my life and I love my family — I mean, I got lots of stuff I want to improve in my life, don't get me wrong, there's definitely a few things I want to be better — but I guess what I bring in within the first moments of me being awake is I have a sense of gratitude throughout every cell in my body, because I remember being sick and suffering, never to the point where I wanted to die, but to the point where I wanted a new body.

[1:56:54.8] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And you have the tools where if that happens again, you don't fall into despair. It's like, “Okay, I can do this.” You still have that gratitude. It may not be the same level of joy that you have in a moment where you feel full and complete. But you still have that ability to know, “Okay, I know where I need to go.” It's not the same thing as the despair that can happen after those artificial crashes. And that's what I love about what we're doing with natural things. 

[1:57:24.5] Ashley James: Love it. That's beautiful. So there is a spiritual, emotional, mental, and energetic component to physical health, and we have to acknowledge that and just know the body is a whole. The body is all of those things, and that is life. That is why I say the Learn True Health podcast is not just about learning true physical health. We'll have guests on about homeschooling, about relationships, and about a healthy workplace because it's life. Nothing in your life and body happens in a vacuum. Your body can be affected by every aspect of your life. So that's health. Health is bringing awareness and balance, joy and gratitude, to every aspect of your life. And let's not be afraid of plants. Let's use them because they're given to us. They're surrounding us. They're here for our use and it's a tool that we got to tap into for optimal health. You know, those people who are preppers or afraid of something bad happening in the future, it's very real. Just over a hundred years ago, there was a solar storm that took out so badly. It melted all the wires that they were using to send communications. Why am I forgetting the name of it? Dang it.

[1:59:06.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: The Telegraph.

[1:59:08.5] Ashley James: Thank you! Okay, so what herb do I need because my brain is forgetting words? I'm like, the rest of the day, I'm going out being in the sun with friends at a pool. So I think my brain is like, “Goodbye!”, walks out the door, slams the door. It's so funny. So, anyway, the solar storm made the telegraph go away. Thank goodness we haven't had one, but it could happen again, and it would completely melt and destroy all electronics and whatever part of the Earth was facing the sun at the time. And we only have about 8 minutes of warning because it takes 8 minutes for the solar storm to hit us. So it's not even like the end of times, like nuclear fallout, or all the kinds of things they talk about. But God forbid — I don't want you to imagine this too long because it will cause anxiety — but imagine something happens, and we are left with no communications, and the world's a little bit chaotic because there's no electricity. What do you do? Do you know how to go into your backyard and pick some herbs and do some medicine for yourself and your family? Do you know how to forage food? Do you know the basics of survival? And that's not a whack job crazy to think about. I don't want anyone to be obsessed about it and worried about it every day because, again, that's not healthy. 

But just taking some time to learn basic survival skills, foraging skills, and learning the basic herbal medicine of your region is intelligent. And if you have children, do it with them and learn together. In our area, there are a lot of local foragers that will take you to the woods and teach you the good plants from the not-good plants. “Don't eat those. Eat these.” And that's something that I think we should all just have an understanding of. And I love that you take it to a level of supporting the emotional body's ability to heal along with the physical, which is something that, like I said, I don't see many people doing. And so I really like that you're focusing on that.

[2:01:31.0] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: I agree, and I don't even think it has to be as catastrophic as something like that. It can be as simple as, what's happened with the eggs? I mean, now it's back to normal here. Our prices are back down to normal. But for a minute there, it was a luxury to have eggs. Things can happen in the supply chain. But whether it does or doesn't, the thought of being more connected and more aware of my surroundings is important to me. Feeling a little bit self-sufficient, feeling a little bit like I can walk outside, and instead of being aggravated at the bugs or annoyed by the different weeds that are growing, I can walk out there, and I can see the magic, the beauty that is our universe. Being able to connect into that on a physical level from the self-sufficiency angle, but also the emotional level, just to be able to reconnect to things that are going to be here hundreds of years after I'm gone — there's something to that, that is powerful and emotionally healing, as well as physically healing. Whether you choose to come to check out the free introductory event and get a little taste, I'm going to do a guided visualization to a meditation-type thing in this event. Whether you choose to do that or not, I hope that you will go outside and start to notice the things that are around you. Maybe get a plant idea and start trying to see, like, take a picture of that plant and see if it brings up the right plant, check it, and make sure that it matches up. Just start learning those little things that can teach you more about what you have in your area. 

[2:03:13.5] Ashley James: I'm thinking about Pokemon Go, which I never signed up for because the moment it came out, I just knew me, and I have an addictive personality. And I chose never to install that app because I knew if I did, I probably wouldn't have even done the podcast. I'd be out there. Maybe I'd be like a hiker because I'd be walking everywhere. That would be good. But I kind of knew it would take over my life, so I didn't do it. But I'm imagining a Pokemon Go, but with plants. Just make it fun, like geotagging or something. Make it fun, like how they do bird watching. Like, “You have to find these ten birds.” Imagine it like, “I'm going to find and learn about five new plants today in the wilderness of my park nearby or whatever.” You could kind of make it a game like Pokemon Go but with plants. So get a plant identifier app and then just make a goal, or get the family together, and they'll get their phones and this app, and it's like, “Okay, the first person to identify ten new plants today wins. Make a little scavenger hunt, and it's learning. It's walking, and it's fun. And then maybe pick something, maybe just a little bit to bring it home or something, I don't know. I'm a homeschooler mom, so I'm thinking about all these like; I could totally do that with my homeschool group.

[2:04:40.9] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: So, I know a lot of people, especially since I have this long COVID, that has really limited my movement. I've gotten a lot better, but for a hot minute, it was scary how limited my movement was. So if you're stuck inside or if you're wheelchair-bound and you can't get out into a park, or at Oak Mountain State Park here, there's no way you can get a wheelchair up half the trails. But if that's happening to you, you can still connect with these things. There are all kinds of ways. Teas alone, ingesting the tea, is a form of connection. But you can also watch videos with the different plants. You can look out a window and see the plants that are around you. There are ways to still connect with those vibrations that don't necessarily have to be totally hands-on. So whatever it is, whether you're able to gamify it, like what Ashley's talking about, or if it's just something that you have to adjust, these practices are pretty accessible for almost anybody. And I encourage you that if you haven't heard something that totally resonates with you today, play with it, sit on it, and maybe meditate on it if you have time. “How can I begin to connect more deeply with these plants?” If you have a lot of severe allergies and you're afraid of drinking tea, then maybe, like we were talking about earlier with the flower essences, that is an energetic signature. There is no physical component of the plant left in a flower essence, and maybe that's how you begin to connect. There are all kinds of different ways, and when you find the right thing for you, and you find the right way for you to go, when it clicks like that, it makes a world of difference.

[2:06:26.6] Ashley James: Love it. Listeners can go to learntruehealth.com/plants to check out the free introductory event where Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie, PhD is going to be teaching the awesome stuff we've talked about today and share with your friends too. Send them to learntruehealth.com/plants. Share it with your friends, go check it out together, go geocaching together, and make tea. We talked about that in the last episode, where every friend gets a different tea herb, and then we all get together and have a little tea party and experience it together. You can make it fun. You can do it with friends. If you have mom friends, if you do it with your sister, your family, or your neighbors, or if you're not near your friends, you guys can get on a video call together, and everyone can sip their tea on video call together and talk about it. We can make it communal, or if you're an introvert, then just do it alone in the corner, wrapped around a blanket, like my husband would be totally happy being all alone wrapped in a blanket with his tea. However you are comfortable, let's enrich our lives with these plants. 

Thank you for coming on the show again today and sharing. This is beautiful, and I love that you're giving us another tool for emotional and mental healing, along with physical healing. I really, really appreciate that, especially in these times when we are all looking to come back into the healthiest versions of ourselves. 

[2:08:12.4] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: And this is the perfect time for us to do this. If we can really take responsibility at this point for the healing from the chaos of the last few years, and if we can really take the time to reconnect to nature and to reconnect to ourselves and our body, it is what we need for emotional and physical healing, we set ourselves up to really be able to support our communities and offer healing overall for the next several years. I think this is the perfect time, as the dust is settling, to set ourselves up to be as healed as possible so we can take care of each other and create the kind of community that allows us to feel supported and loved. 

[2:08:57.4] Ashley James: Brilliant. Beautiful. learntruehealth.com/plants.Thank you so much for coming on the show, and let's have you on again when you've published your next book or your next course. You've got more to teach. We'd love to have you back. 

[2:09:11.7] Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie: Always thanks.

 

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