Breaking Free: Emily Penton’s Carnivore Journey

Introduction and Emily's recovery story 0:00

Hey everybody, it's Dr. Rimka and I have an exciting conversation to share with you today. This is Emily Penton and we actually met on the gram. So believe it or not, you can actually meet people in real life that you have a lot in common with. And so I'm pretty not into the social media, but every now and then I do get social. Emily, I am so excited to have you because you really stirred my soul with what you share over and over, and, over again. Because people are living right now with a sense of, a deep sense often, of hopelessness or no way out of certain situations.

And certain diagnoses come with the feeling of a lifelong sentence. This is how you are, or who you, are and there is no changing it. So there's an incredible sense powerlessness and sometimes the diagnosis itself is it adds a layer of trauma onto a person and it makes it much harder for them to heal unless the clinician knows that. So your story is very similar to mine in many ways. We're not gonna talk about me at all, but I'm excited for you to share with everybody basically the overcoming story of you knowing how to tap in to who you are and your own, I love this, your inner clarity to learn to trust yourself again and drive your own healing journey, along with finding the right guides to help you.

So why don't you tell them who you are, and then we'll get, I'll let you drop the bombs of the diagnoses that you've overcome, because these are exactly the things I do in private practice. And I've recovered person after person, after a person with these diagnosing, but people just don t believe it because they've been told you can't get better. Absolutely. My diagnosis actually came while I was in grad school. I getting my masters in clinical counseling and I so interested in psychology, didn't know I trying to figure my own self out.

Diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At my most, I on 900 mg of lithium. 80 milligrams of Prozac, 80 mg of Adderall just to get out of bed every day. I would take 40 mg in the morning and then 40 milligrams at noon. And I obviously had to take Ambien to sleep every night. I was not functioning at all. And it got to the point where it turned into rapid cycling, where instead of me having a break of the mania and the depression, I didn't know who I. From one day to. Would you do about a hundred cycles a day or what would you, what was your, Phenomenon and usually it's drug induced, by the way.

Well, that's one thing I didn't have. Thank God. That was one. Thing I. Didn't. Have was drug use. No drug. Induced like the rapid cycle comes from what you were like how the medication. Yeah, That's what I mean. It's a drug, yeah. I Mean, you're right. You're. Right. But I Didn.t realize that that came into play. How often would you do it? So you guys, bipolar can be, you can have these long periods of stabilization and then you could have a period of deep depression and you're gonna have period what we call mania, like this elation.

And it sounds lovely to be manic, but you make some very bad choices and do some dangerous things. Money spending, drug, alcohol, divorce, affairs. I've seen people pick up and leave and run off with people and it's, oh my gosh right and you feel amazing so you don't think you're doing anything wrong at all that maybe is a harder thing to contain or it can happen like a hundred or two hundred times in a day which is just a very hard thing for people to experience very unstable kind of place to be.

What mine used to be or was every month or every year, like I would get these longer cycles and then it turned into, I noticed about three days out of the week, would knock it out the park. I'd be great. All the other days I was in bed with debilitating depression. Then when my turn into rapid cycling, It was I would have a whole day booked of clients and I. Would get through the first four. It'd be like 11 o'clock and then I'd have to reschedule the whole rest of the day because I wouldn't be able to even pick up my phone.

I will just be paralyzed with depression and that it became unethical obviously for me to practice because if I'm having to re schedule my clients every day, that's not continuity of care. So at 40 years old, I had to quit working and I to move in with my mom and that was a lower depression than I could even imagine. Thankfully, my brother reached out to me and told me about the carnivore diet. And I before then was eating ramen noodles and entire pizzas by myself, cookies, cakes, ice cream, beer, wine out of the box, all the things.

So I wasn't even on a diet, And so I went overnight to just eating ribs, chicken wings, burgers. What convinced you in that, right? So to go from the standard American diet with alcohol and on all these medications, that is a hell of a thing to do, to be able, what did he say, or was there a video, a moment, like what inside of you was like, I'm doing this?

Bipolar disorder, rapid cycling, and medication struggles 5:34

My brother's an asshole and he never does anything nice. And so for my brother to reach out to me with help and acknowledge my mental illness, he saw me. So it got my attention and all he did was he sent me an audio book. It's the first chapter by Amber O'Hern. She told her story about how 10 years previous to then she had bipolar disorder and she managed it. So I remember listening to this audio book and sitting there and not caring about the science because I didn't read a journal article. I couldn't even really understand what this science behind this is.

And bipolar disorder was a benefit to me because I was in one of those cycles where I just jumped right in. We don't ask questions. we're just impulsive and we just do. And thankfully I did long enough to have results. I started February 24th of 2019. My last bipolar episode was April of 2018. But I didn't play, I don't have cake on the weekend or anything. I literally ate animal meat and animal fat. There's light in your eyes and you're speaking clearly. And then I went back to work full time in June.

Was there any medication titrations in that eight month in, that time with it, like getting up to there? Like what, when you were working with a psychiatrist? Yeah. He, once I started functioning, that's when he started titrating me off. Um, and we went super slow cause I was just so happy to be back working full time and be stable. And we were at super-slow and my last psych med was September of 2019. And I actually kept my psychiatrist for two years, even after that, because he knows my crazy.

So I knew that he would see it coming. And then finally, after two of him not prescribing any meds, I was like, all right, and I got your number. I'll let you know if the crazy comes back. Yeah. That's beautiful. Let's thank your brother, let's think somebody who took a risk because who knows what he was feeling to send that to you, who found something that he thought would resonate he had to trust his own inner clarity he has to It was another woman sharing her story, which it's not easy for people to say, I have bipolar, or I had bipolar.

I've had this. So many patients come to me. And they have such shame in a diagnosis. It's a huge secret that the child has autism. Can you fix this and make this go away? Oh, our families don't know. They can't this, so they're hiding it. grandparents from coming to the States to visit because they'll, they feel the shame will be, there'll be thrown away basically and shamed so hard because their child is broken or defective. Very, these diagnoses are hard for people to talk about. My website can't be flooded with testimonials because who wants to say my child had this?

My child, had that my, child was psychotic and was biting us or trying to stab my other child with a knife. They don't wanna talk about that. They wanna put their kid's business out there. It's tough. So the people who do have the courage to tell these stories like you're doing, I thank you very deeply because there are gonna be people hear this and they're gonna recognize themselves or their husband or mother or child and say, maybe we can try something. And I like that everybody needs to hear she didn't do it alone.

There was somebody who knew her, that she trusted, and it died. And you never want to come off any psychiatric medication by yourself. In particular, alcohol and benzodiazepine coming off those, they can kill you. So you must have someone helping you if we have those things on board or in any type of, especially alcohol addiction. But benzodiazepines, I have to always remind people, you weren't on any. Please. Always get a professional. If you don't know any, man, reach out to my office. We'll help you find people that are good.

You know what I mean? If your doctor's not on board with trying to help and say, wow, look, there's light in your eyes. What are you doing? You're getting better. That's what you want. So that's awesome. Thank you to the psychiatrist. What was really cool was that I didn't have to change my medication. I have so many people that come to me and they're like, oh, but I don't think my psychiatrist is going to be on board with this. Your psychiatrist's not going be onboard with you stop eating ramen noodles and you start eating burgers.

Why are you asking your psychiatrist what you're eating? They have zero training in it, they have no idea. I cannot tell you how many psychiatrists I talk to, They don't even actually understand neurotransmitters really. They do not even understand what zinc does in the brain, I am continually stunned. What exactly do you study? They run no diagnostic tests of the brains, no lab chemistry panels of brain. So if you don not take a picture of it or run a number on it what exactly are you doing? No other physician can treat an organ and not test if the organ's okay.

You know what I mean? They supposedly treat a brain, but you don't look at it? It's really mind-blowing how little they know. They know symptoms. I use this medicine, medication for it. That's what they do. Here are symptoms with a medication. That's not studying an organ and how it works. And they certainly don't study nutrition at all. The ones who know anything about it and are in the functional kind of integrative space and they'll market themselves. They're going to talk to you about. So yes, I love that.

Eating real food is never a contraindication to restoring your health or any diagnosis. Exactly. Whenever you're in that life sentence of bipolar disorder, the hopelessness is palpable. Like it is so just like there in front of your face that you're literally never going to get better.

Carnivore diet and returning to stability 12:19

And so that's why I keep telling my story because it's so important for people to understand that literally the pizza and the cake and ice cream is causing more inflammation in your brain. and you are in control, like I'm in, control of my health. I get to make those choices of what foods I put into my body and it makes a difference. i never thought in a million years that I wouldn't be suffering from bipolar disorder. Oh, this is what normal feels like. Which is unfortunate as a therapist going through school, getting a degree.

No one explained to you what metabolic chaos does to the brain and how that leads to mental illness and all these diagnoses are just a label. I do think. There's three subsets of bipolar disorder diagnosis that I've seen that. I'm like, okay, there's this one group. Okay. There was a real thing and we can fix it. We can address it, this other group, is really state three state four trauma and they get misdiagnosed because they have hot and cold symptoms, but it's really a trauma patient and you mis-diagonosed them and started medicating them instead of doing trauma work and restoring their energy, which again, metabolic health, dietary interventions.

That's a mitochondrial disorder, right? That is a physical issue. The autonomic nervous system in a state of trauma is an unconscious, non-cognitive, and nonverbal problem. Total misdiagnosis. Then you have the complete severe inflammatory disorders that lead to crazy B6 and zinc deficiencies, often called the pyrrole disorder. Often very commonly mis-diagonosed. All three have are deeply influenced by lifestyle choices, where dietary influence is the quickest, fastest, most profound thing, because we're going to deal with insulin levels, inflammation, and sleep patterns very quickly.

Some of these, like this one, you can fix in like six weeks. Like it's really fast. You know what I mean? Like you had so many meds on board, it took a lot longer. Had you not even had that, It would have taken much. Not that it'd come off the med, but I'm just telling you, we have more derangement. They aren't even taught this. So it's really sad. I feel like, wait a minute, if we just at least start with all of this foundational work first. we might never need a medication or we're just gonna temporarily use it to give some symptom relief like morphine if you break your leg like we gotta give okay they're in a lot of pain give them something like why she's screaming while we cast it up or do surgery but we'll not gonna stay on that forever and it's a different type of triage system but that they don't understand that and that's heartbreaking how many talk therapists, whether it's a master's in counseling, a PhD psychologist or a psychiatrist that are not taught the metabolic chaos and the storm of high insulin, high blood sugar, inflammatory processes, chemicals, poisons that're doing it to the brain.

And how quickly if you throw water on it, Oh, well, I feel like a normal person again. I don't know if you end up saying this, the most powerful thing I end saying for most of my patients at one point in the conversation, at some point, often it's the right moment. And sometimes I have to say it over and over again, and I've had tears multiple times. Often there's this moment of, you're not crazy. It's just no one said that to them. No, you're not crazy. You're NOT crazy! These are normal nervous system responses to the environmental input.

Let's just change it so we get a different response. And it's like, being nutrient-deprived or being poisoned with a toxin, that'll make you crazy, but that doesn't mean you are poisoned or deficient. We can fix that, right? You weren't born like this. And that's a whole thing to get rid of it runs in my family or we all have this. Once you get this, you can't get. This is what they've been told. So I find I spent a lot of my time breaking up those types of thoughts in. My clients is that what do you find when you're because you work with people now, right?

And I'm sure your approach is very different than when you started. So why don't you tell me when your working with clients that work with people like you that come in with these diagnoses, like what are you doing with them? How's it going? Let's talk about that. How we get them better a little bit. The thing that I say is you're not broken, you are brilliant. And these responses are actually your body functioning properly. You those signals. Hey, something's wrong here. And all you got to do is listen to the signals and navigate through the.

Signals to get to. The actual health. I like that. Listen to this signal. So what you're teaching people is to like remember how to listen. To themselves to not. I loved how you said that, like, it's, well, I like about the bag of Doritos. Like, It's hard to say that like you say. So here's the thing. I went back to work full time and I. Went back into my private practice and. And I was just so excited because I had all of this information and then the licensing panel and, uh, sorry, the insurance panel.

The licensing board didn't want me talking about food. Isn't that disgusting? I know it's disgusting. Because I didn't have any nutritional education and I couldn't put it anywhere on my treatment plan. I had to diagnose them and then put them on this treatment. Plan and. Had to stick to the script. Couldn't talk about food, so here I am across from somebody who is having anxiety depression and it. Got my arms behind my back. I know what could help you, but I can't tell you. And they're literally, it's like Groundhog Day.

They are back in every week talking about the same shit over and over. This happened when I was 14 and this happened, when i was seven and all this stuff. Neuroplasticity, what's happening when they do that? You explain what you practice grows, right? So they're practicing being broken or being a victim or whatever, being anxious and the telling of the same story that caused some trauma to your system re-traumatizes you every time. Hence, why don't women go to court when they get raped? Because they can't handle telling that story over and over.

It's worse for the victim. We all know that. Story, right? Imagine having to talk about what your daddy did to you at 14 over, and the talking is not again because trauma. That's a trauma is non-cognitive, nonverbal, and unconscious. Talking about it does not actually clear it out at all. Until people can get to a certain level, then your job is to talk to them to teach them new skills to deal with it. There is a point where cognitive things matter, but not when you're in the fire. No, and we're sitting here or it's Groundhog Day and I literally went to a coworker and this was before.

I was like, my clients aren't getting better. What am I doing wrong? And they're like oh, no, that's what we do. And I'm like that what do? Yeah, we just hold space for them.

Challenging psychiatric assumptions and nutrition's role 19:48

No I want results. So ten years later they are still coming. Yeah I've dated many a psychologist. You've been seeing that person for ten year? They just come every week or every two weeks and talk about what? I'm like, that's what you do? I like I've done about three or four months. I want them to fire me. Isn't that the goal? That was a very strange thing for me to say. It was like no, don't you think people seem to stay in therapy forever? No. But their insurance will pay for it forever, won't it?

It will. And what I've realized is we can talk and talk about the same thing. If your elbow deep in a bag of Doritos sipping on a big gulp, nothing's getting through. You're not hearing me. you're Not hearing these techniques and modalities. and it's literally became unethical to me and so I'm in my whole practice online. I said forget about. The letters behind my name call me a coach. and I get results now. I literally watch people transform before my very eyes. How do you get them to change what they eat?

This is a hard thing when you're dealing in the mental health space because sometimes that's, it's hard for a lot of people. You had the ability to do this thing. Sometimes I'm a, I feel like the biggest failure on earth. It's five years later and Did I not tell you you can't have gluten? These women are still crying about it. I'm like, come on. It still makes you sick and then you still want to whine and be a victim about. Move on and let's move up. But so I have the occasional times I like. man, they, cause there's so much emotional attachment or they they're still having these blood sugar swings.

And so any tips, pro tips or ways that you, because that's a, it's the hardest thing, I think, to find somebody in a with a mental illness. Cause it. You don't feel good about yourself. This is hard to inspire the energy to make a behavioral shift. I I use a lot of nutrients and nutraceuticals first to build them up a little bit before I start taking stuff away. I love when I have a patient that can do an overnight flip like you did. And three days later, it was like a miracle. So I'm like, don't you want to feel this good?

I didn't know you could feel as good, but a lot of people aren't there. Any insights you can have for somebody who's listening, there could be other clinicians listening. Yeah, what are you doing? How are saying it? Or any pro tips for anybody about how to finally make some changes. Yeah, obviously I share my story over and over again. I try and produce as many interviews and everything as I can, but the most results that I have seen are people that have commit to work with me for two months. And what I tell them is that, like, you can do anything for 45 days.

So let's not talk about the future. Let's. Not talk. About anything. let.s just talk, about 45. Days and we get a super simple plan, because if we make this difficult, especially for somebody who's severely mentally ill, They're just going to reinforce that they're a failure. We set a game plan so that, they can reinforce, that. They are successful. And so we, instead of setting the bar, like all the way up here, we set the, bar here so, Oh, I did it. And then we keep raising the bar just a little bit more.

But we start with removing the Doritos, the ramen noodles, that things that we know are the main culprits. Yeah. Then we gradually get them transitioned in. Most people can't do it cold turkey, but what I have found is when I had this one guy, he got into 30 days and he was like, you tricked me. And I was like, what? I like what's going on? And he was, like I feel so good. I'm never going back. And you told me at 45 days we could reevaluate and now I want to eat this way the rest of my life. So once they get to the point where they're feeling good, your job is done.

You don't have to do anything because then they actually know what it's like to have mental clarity. and to actually feel good. So how much do you go right into leveraging carnivore? Do you gauge where somebody is in animal base kind of a thing? What's your How you do it what you find because we all do a little bit differently and there's no right or wrong to this you guys so we're just letting you know it's a win if we can just get rid of the ultra process things but I usually find they're all under eating protein so that's the first thing I find looking for blood sugar stabilization and.

pretty much keto, keto carnivore, animal based is how I have to do it to get them there. It feels satiated and satisfied because as soon as you flood them with the good things, like you suddenly don't want as much. Like I make the titration, get the cravings down. I don' want you to white knuckle. We're not trying to make it be like that. it's going to be okay. And I won't shame anybody for having a piece of chocolate. I'm like, it wasn't heroin, so we're gonna be all right. You know what I mean?

So how do you, but I do leverage a lot of carnivore therapeutically. I'd do that, I wanna know, what you do. I work with their central nervous system. And so if their essential nervous is sitting there, they're telling them these messages that I need my vegetables and I this and that, then I just work it. I don't sit there and go, okay, we're going to eat only burgers and we have to gradually get them into that place. For me personally, I tell them to feed their cravings. not starve their cravings.

Everybody tries to be like, oh, I really want some cake, so I'm just going to white knuckle this and I am not going eat the cake and starve myself. No, go eat some bacon. Go eat ribs. Eat chicken wings. Feed those craving with fatty animal meat. Yeah. Bacon is usually the trick. It's almost always, you're going put a whole bunch of bacon in a sheet and put it and you are going bake it. just leave it there they're like what i'm like yep that's bacon is the one of the most common tricks you guys short of them hating it or being jewish or muslim and won't touch pork but i'll like then we go and get some turkey bacon it's nowhere near as good and delicious you might have to put it in some butter some fat but it that is yeah that Is the standard because all that salt and fat just instantly is okay iI'm Like yeah, that' why you want Doritos.

That's why he wants potato chips you the sweet craving is really satisfied by that and they're they are high in these nutrients that you're so depleted in that yeah so bacon is a kind of I can just snack on bacon all day yeah. I'd rather have you eat eight times a day in the first two weeks. A bunch of bacon. They're like, seriously? I'm like yep, don't worry about it. You'll be fine. And it gives that pattern disrupt. Yeah. Of you sitting there punishing yourself, saying I am so bad, I so am bad.

No, feed that craving. I use pork rinds too. Do you use? Yes, love pork So you guys you see that so people when they're like, wait a minute, I can, you're telling me I could like go be okay. It's good. And it usually have to make them eat more I find because people who are on psych meds, they have no appetites and stuff. Often we have a very suppressed appetite. They're not eating very much they are nauseous a lot. I'm like, I get it, but I need to eat a little bit of stuff because trying to bring this, build the system back up, the nervous system is not doing well because it's starving.

We sometimes have to just like just eat, a piece of bacon for me. And I was like oh, and then as they start eating, they trigger the response of, oh I am hungry because they're, like you said, their inner clarity, there inner knowing has gotten. I always say, use the word, strong words, NLP I say it is perverted.

Trauma, therapy, and practical coaching methods 27:48

Now your taste buds are just pervert. Nobody likes to be perverted. You know what I mean? So I use very strong word to like, Oh, I'm like I never thought of that. I said exactly. A prune or a cherry is extraordinarily sweet actually, but not if you've been eating Doritos. Sorry, Oreos. That's the sweet. See how much I don't even know the junk food. But if your doing that, like somebody made fun of me once like in a cute way laughing when my son was like and I might have been four or five or whatever.

And we were at the playground and she's with me and I'm doing my thing. And I gave him the sweet treat for something, whatever happened, I give him some prunes. I said, what? And his overwhelming joy and elation about the prune and how amazing. It's the greatest thing, whatever. And my son was always so present. He said, what's your favorite food? He'd be eat prunes. Whatever he was eating, salmon, he would just say whatever he's doing. I'm like, they're like he so president. That's exactly what he is.

There's no, you won't come up with something he ate yesterday. It is literally whatever is he doing, that's his favorite. Right now is my favorite moment. Why are you laughing? And she's like what is wrong with you? She's about giving him prunes. I'm like, what's funny? I really was clueless. She said, because most moms said everybody I know they'd be Oreos or candy or something. Like, oh, we don't. What? Like I love my son. And I don' hate him. Am not trying to kill him, so I am not understanding why I would do that.

Prunes are sweet. This is incredibly sweet, and he only needs a couple of them. He's happy and satisfied. So I m like that's like my ice cream. That's candy. So that's, he doesn't, wouldn't even know what that is. So it is like they do what you teach them, but we've become very desensitized. I teach that to parents, except to people, parents actually, and any patient. That's the thing. Yeah, bacon, pork rinds, even olives. Some people they like, they want something. Let's just open some things, put them in the bowl, have it ready.

So you're prepared so you don't door dash it or Starbucks drive through. I had to in the brick and mortars, we actually had people on staff to grocery shop with them. That's so bad. Yeah. Because you got to imagine most of my patients were coming from psych hospitals and they just had no skillset. They're in their twenties. they had horrible families that came from a lot of trauma. So there is no supportive mom or dad. to teach them ever so they don't know how to eat if they're not buying it from Starbucks.

And Chick-fil-A or McDonald's or they already made something. They never did it. So we started with a crock pot. Order a crack pot and you're gonna learn how make a roast. Do you like chicken? Do like meat? Whatever it was. That's what my secretary did. She liked cooking and teaching people to cook so we made it be like a little side gig. And she would literally teach people where this is the meal we're going to make this week. She was their mother who never, it got like that. And we would go online and sign them up for a CSA.

So they would get food delivered to their house. Like we'll get you with the farmer. We're gonna get the stuff coming. Going to get to the meat and it'll be local in season stuff. and she wouldn't teach them how to do it. And it got to that level because they didn't know how to cook. A 30-year-old today, right now, a lot of them have no idea how do it. And do you come across that? They just don't even know what to do, because we had to teach them how it do. Yeah, I definitely have had some conversations with people who have been coming from vegetarianism and like, how do I cook meat?

What do i do with meat, How do know when it's done? How Do I even handle it? And so we've definitely had Some of those conversations and I use a app to communicate with my clients called Marco Polo and their video messages. And So they're literally in the kitchen. Okay, is this how I do it. And I'm like, and I can send them a message back and be like yeah, this is how you do it. So we have like our 101 basically. That's fantastic. Yeah. I, that's the thing. A lot of people, clinicians, maybe they don't know to ask because I am 51, I think people know how to cook, but I was a vegetarian for 14 years and didn't how make a roast either.

Because it was all in my developmental 20 to whatever, right? When you start to live on your own and you're cooking on you own, and doing all that stuff. So even though my mom, we grew up eating meat, I missed some things. I had to call my Mom, my sister, like I'm in the grocery store. What am I supposed to buy? And it all came down to crock pot. Get a crack pot, you're going to put that thing in the morning and dinner is going be ready. Like I know how to scramble some eggs. I'll do some whatever I can make.

So I always make breakfast and lunch pretty easy. But yeah, the croc pot became the thing. so I had to teach these moms, busy moms stuff like, no, we're not doing this last minute business. You're tired. That ends today. You can even make it the night before, have it in the fridge and it's ready to go. And it can be the same three meals over and over again. Your family won't care because it is delicious every time. So that became the, and I know they have instant pot, not whatever, but that same version of a cooker where dinner is always ready.

with the busy schedules and the driving kids to this game or the doing of the that. So I don't want to hear your excuse. There is no drive through the Chick-fil-A. I'm not doing it. We're not getting pizza. This does have to end, especially when I deal with a lot of children and they're in control. And I have teach these mothers, no, this must end because they deserve it and if we don' do this now, Good luck at 16. Because this starts very young, many times. Yeah, so we had to do a lot of that. And I think a lotta people don't realize there's a lack of skill set now.

We've gotten very lazy and no one's cooking. So the children aren't watching you cook. They don' know how to cook, So if I can get families to start doing that, I'm like, you can give the kid a knife, they can chop things. they could chop the carrots, They can peel the potatoes, that can do the stuff, get them involved, teach them how do it. So I think that's a big part for me of the family unit becoming healthy is teaching them how to do this, which if anybody would have told me I would've have to that 20 years ago, getting into practice or whatever, I wouldn't have believed it, but it's the big that I have actually teach them.

Yeah. And I love whenever a whole family comes together. I had this one client, I believe she was 12 when she started working with me, severe anxiety, just intrusive thoughts, everything. Her whole, family went keto. Two siblings and her parents all went Keto to support her. That's the only way I'll do it in my office. It's amazing. We will not isolate and make that child feel weird. I'll get on board. Dad better get onboard. We can have a lock box of his little snack. What he wants some bullshit.

It's always usually the dads, right? And I'm like, it's fine. it'll be hidden with a lot and you're not eating this in front of the children. We're not, no, that kid is not going to feel awkward. And in fact, the child is the Buddha that's going elevate all of you. Yes. That's the master and y'all better say thank you because, and usually the mothers, yeah, this is a time to do it. Everybody gets better. I'm like, let's do this all together. It's really nice. Usually almost always have the whole family and then they all just come in for care eventually.

But it's, I want to be clear. We're not going to medicalize this child. We are not gonna make them abnormal. Were not to do any of that type of stuff. This will not be their fault. Yeah. I take a very strong stance on that. Awesome. Yeah. And then of course I got the call, I think it was a month in, maybe two minutes. No, it's a months in and the mom said, i got my daughter back. Thank you. I was just like, thank you, you did the work. Like you stepped up. You were the one that hired me. Good job you because the Mom had been going to psychiatrists, put the kid on just tons of meds.

and everything and nothing was working. And then that's when she finally, she was like, Hey, I used to work with you. I don't know if you remember me, but I've been watching your Facebook and can you help me? And I was. Yes I can. Yeah. Just side note this, please understand every, any mom or dad out there that has had to make that decision. It's hard. Scary. Uh, You're doing the best you can. We all are. I hope you hear no shame or blame in this. These are powerful medications that might be used, needed at some point in time to, like I said, just like a broken leg,

Family support, food skills, and working with kids 36:48

we have a crisis situation. Sometimes things are necessary, but then you find somebody like Emily, right? To get help and let's go in. That's the root cause. Something's wrong there. Your children are no child and no adult is born to live. anxious, depressed, miserable, bipolar, anything else like that. Do you want to talk about the other diagnosis or you just want stick with the mental health stuff? Yeah, no, I would love to. Talk about it. I actually just spent some time with Dr. Sally Norton or not.

She's a doctor, but Sally. Yeah. I feel like she, I think she doesn't have a PhD. I it's like a master of something. Sally K. Norton is amazing. Whatever it does matter. She's amazing! I didn't realize until I heard her that what happened soon after I started eating carnivore more than likely was oxalate dumping. So I starting eating this way February 24th of 2019 I was hospitalized March 12th. 2019 and I couldn't walk. I had acute dysphasia where my throat just closed up. They did an MRI and a lumbar puncture and they diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis.

and I can look back 10 years, I've had symptoms all along the way. And so it wasn't that carnivore gave me MS. Carnivor pulled back the curtain and showed what was going on. You can't develop MS that fast. But what really cool was that inner knowing because a logical person would be like I started this all meat diet and now I cant walk. But I had this knowing that, okay, if inflammation is the problem, then me eating animal meat and animal fat is going to help. Because if you look at it, the MS is deteriorated myelin sheath on the nerves.

And that myelin sheathe is made out of fat. So it's logical. It makes sense for me to keep eating more fat. And my last MS symptom was May 9th of 2019. I've had multiple MRIs. My last MRI showed no MS activity. Can do CrossFit. Not supposed to get over bipolar disorder. But I did. So there's something there. It's called healing. You healed the body heals. So I want to be clear to anybody hearing this because she probably took some supplements or took somethings that you didn't do anything. I took enzymes.

I'm saying anything. Digestive enzymes, nothing. It took digestive enzymes for the first six months. Okay. And you didn't take anything to bind up the oxalates? I did not. That's interesting. So I probably should have. so that's really good. Some people need some more intervention than that. Cause there might be some other things going on, but ultimately, no supplements, no, not even a diet. That's not what healed her. Her body heals itself. You have enough nutrition and Stop poisoning it. Basically, you give it what it needs, the essentials that are required to rebuild, regenerate, regrow and heal.

And you stop poisoning. Because even if you keep, eat what's good, but you add poisons all the time, if the toxin level and it's harder, Jesus, I'm trying to clean the pool and you'll keep pooing in it, and I don't understand what to do anymore. Like it was getting real hard, right? So you have to stop shitting in a pool. put clean water in the pool. Okay. Like we need to clean the bowl, change the water. So that's basically what you did. The body heals itself. No supplement heals protocol heal.

You, the body is designed to do it. And I think the greatest evidence of this is, which I can't stand when people say, how do you know it's not just placebo? You mean self generation, self healing, just what? Placebo means you just healed yourself with a thought, dummy. I think having a though in being able to cure things is probably the greatest thing on earth. Wouldn't you want to just do everything with the thought? I would just, and the studies show at least 33% of all healing is coming from self-generated healing placebo based on your own thought or believing in you can heal.

So why aren't we leveraging that more in medicine? I think all of psychiatry should start with fucking sugar pills. Every single person should just be given sugar. This is the greatest thing ever. If you started doing that, the level of damage and danger, you would see at least 33% of everybody would be naturally healed from sugar pills. So you might have no side effects in any case, what's more, right? You would probably see the number go higher, but they're too stupid or too greedy or to evil to bother doing it.

I just wanna remind you, that's what you're designed to do, guys. You are designed heal. She stopped shoving poison in her mouth. Did you make any other changes? Did it make you go on more of a natural, typically when people start to become more holistic in their eating, their thinking becomes more wholistic, winning begets, it avalanches one way or the other, like you said, right? So it usually, I started to like, buy deodorant from Whole Foods, I started to do this. They start to things in that direction because they resonate with a different group of people and a difference frequency and now you want, oh I like essential oils now or whatever.

So did other things happen in your life that changed the products you were using or just the way you did the other thing as well? Yeah. Cause when you know better, you do better. And so that was definitely a process. I actually started living in, I was living. In a camper and I. Was on food stamps because I had come from six months of not working at your mom's place. Yeah, And I was a mom and I, so I. Was on food stamps. So I just ate out of the grocery store for the first year. And then whenever I able to, I started going to the farm and.

I start getting all of my meat from the. Farm and that was. A huge shift for me to realize that I making a better choice for. The entire economy and the entire environment. Then of course I did change like my deodorant and everything else. But what was most significant for my journey was in March of 2020, when the whole rest of the world was falling apart, I had a family tragedy happen and it literally took the air out of my lungs. Like I couldn't breathe. I Had so much like just trauma. And thankfully I had carnivore because if I hadn't already been stable, I probably would have been back in the psych ward.

But I reached out to a friend and I was like, what do I do? I'm already eating fatty meat. What do i do and she goes, get your feet on the ground and your eyes in And I was like, no, I have this thing that happened, but what do I do? And she said, get your feet on the ground and your eyes in the morning sun. And it was fine. I. Was mad. You're not listening to me. That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Kind of advice is this. And I did it, and I started April 4th of 2020. That's what these dates, your mind is just wild.

Because everybody asks me these freaking questions. I have no idea how old I was when I gave birth. How do you know this stuff? It's fascinating. People just keep asking me. I'm like, I don't know. It was that day. Anyway, so I started and that was profound. That totally changed my life and got me into a completely different mindset. Remember one tip for mental health. People say, what's the first thing you can do? That's it. Even if you can't wake up that early, set your alarm, wake, up do it for 10 minutes and go back to bed.

Go back and eventually you're going to be addicted. It's my favorite part of the day. Don't call me, don't text me. don' talk to me It is my sun time. it's earth time, it is everything.

MS diagnosis, healing, and the power of self-healing 45:24

You're charging your battery. Yeah. So what you're basically doing, I just did a talk in Dallas to a bunch of doctors and I basically said, and one of my slides is going through. I'm like, ultimately at the end of the day and showed the Messiah and kids doing yoga. And I showed a group in Siberia and, where you are, what color you doing. Notice they're all doing the same thing. I think it might be as simple as you're supposed to be grabbing energy from the sun, discharging static into the earth, grabbing some nitrogen for some protein throughout the day.

And the rest of this shit, we are really overcomplicating way too much. Basically that cycle of energy. It's free. We grab it from above and below. and we're able to cycle out what's unnecessary discharging anything that's not helping us and the earth just doesn't the ground does it for us the trees do it force the sun so that that is one that In the bowels of depression for people, it is a hard ask because they're really tired. The battery is like at 35% in the morning, right? I'm like, yeah, I know.

I was asking you to do something that seems really stupid, but slow. Whoa, that was different. So it starts to really recharge the battery very quickly for me to get them. out of some of their clothes and exposing skin to the sun. It's a real disrupt. The people who are down, they're protecting themselves. They're trying to find a safe, dark space. Many of them literally are in a basement of a parent's house. Like they've gotten that bad. And I'm like, yeah, I need you to go outside and take the black sweatshirt off.

I see they wear all black on every appointment. Literally, like I have to change your frequency in few ways. I'm like, I need to, it's ugly. I don't care. This is what you're going to wear. It's all stupid, dumb, and it is free. They find it because it' free, they don' think it will be valuable because the money exchange must mean something. What are you talking about? I might be paying me all this money to tell you what to do. You just do this. And as they start to do it, it is so profound what happens.

So I'm so, listen, you have amazing people in your life who come along, voices of God, here's the thing, do this. You're like, wow, so bravo for you for collecting these people. Okay, that's all you want to, I love this friend. Yes. And obviously like the, my favorite thing that I got whenever I was standing there, the message I kept getting from the sun, from God, and from source, whatever, whoever the heck is talking to me was that. I am completely safe. and that I am completely taken care of and then I don't have to be here with like my shield and my armor and I've got to fight the fear and fight, the bad things.

No, I can transmute it. I literally transmutes everything that's coming at me. Everything that i'm feeling and seeing and i can use it all for good. And I dont have wait on someone else to come and nurture me, i get to nurture myself. I get to make that choice to go put my feet on the ground and connect with my mother earth and Connect with the sun and be safe. And that was the best message to my central nervous system in that moment to know that. Everything's okay, baby. Everything is okay. You're just fine.

you're actually doing great. And it just keeps getting better. I'm not who I was a year ago. i'm Not who i was six months ago, it was keeps Getting better I love it. On that note, tell everybody where to find you how to get ahold of you and If they're struggling with what? If this, I'm your gal. Like, obviously you can find, tell them what to do and how, who you, can help. And I don't know if you do take kids and say you did take a 12 year old, whatever. Let them know that. and we'll make sure we have all of the information down below in the description.

I guess you work with people all over the world. You do stay with the states? Yeah. Yeah, me too. Okay. Cool. Cause you everything on zoom and she uses the app for communication. Perfect. And I like that you run a commitment. I do the same thing. We don't do one-offs. It's like, you're going to work with me for a certain amount of months. This is how we're gonna do it. Because you can't, I can do this in two visits or two minutes. So we are going have to make some changes. And usually it's all just about education and allowing you time to implement one thing, it is okay.

Get you get that under your belt. Now we do the next thing. Get that on your Belt. No, we did the Next thing you can't wake up one day and run a marathon. You guys typically you're going to. We're gonna slowly train you and get you ready for it. That's how I think about it, so tell them how to find you. Yeah, absolutely. It's just at EmilyPenton.com and you'll find all the ways to communicate with me or connect with Me there. There are tons of awesome coaches out there who could help you lose 5 pounds or whatever you need.

I'm here for the intense. I do not work with anybody unless they commit to work for two months because I realized that for me it was a broken model for just working with people for 30 minutes and then see if they schedule another appointment. I need you to jump in. I needs you commit. And I help the people who are pretty severely either mentally ill or they have severe food addiction and they're emotionally eating. So we jump into that and it is for me personally so rewarding to literally watch people transform before my very eyes because I get results.

I am so grateful that I get to do this work, but I will always continue to share my story because I know how miserable it is to be in the pit of mental illness. I assume you're like me, cash practice. Yes. Yeah. Everything is self-pay. I don't take any insurance to just to talk to me for a one-off visit. It's $111, but I go deep. We go in and that's just like an interview for you to find out if you're a good fit for me. And then to work with me, for two months at $6,500. And then I've had multiple clients who wanted a year contract.

A year container and that's $30,000. And it seems, oh my gosh, but I had this one client just last year. She was literally living on her kitchen floor. She would get up, go cook the food and go back to the floor. Go to bathroom, Go back the floors. She couldn't even pick up her phone because she was so paralyzed by anxiety, depression. And thankfully her boyfriend sent her a video of me. she started working with me and this year she got a six figure income in a marketing firm and she just bought her first house.

And she told me, she was like, Emily, this was priceless. Like you gave me my life back. And so sometimes it takes a really tough person because they cuss me out. They are not easy to work with for the first time. they're bad. and so I'm able to handle a lot, especially a borderline personality disorder. Yeah, I do a lotta that. You have to be able to handle that. Really, that's the reality of it. Not everybody's meant, I just want to, again, telling this group of 1,500 doctors, like probably even 2,000, it's okay if you don't want work with these types of clients.

You don' need to. But you do need find the clinicians who do like to work this. And you have partner with them. Like you can be an expert in what you, but please understand what trauma looks like and what is required.

Sunlight, grounding, and finding safety in the body 53:24

and how to address a calcium shell and to match their tone. Because there's going to be some tough love moments. You've got to make it. It's just where we're at. Okay, bro. Like you've gotta hit the armor. I'm here and you're not pushing me back. So it's like a nurture and then you nurture as they put the arm down, but you can't rip through it, you cannot brutalize them. so it is an interesting dance. And if, you know, that it's an art form and if you have done it, know how to do it. And it is called a practice because we're going to keep practicing.

Yeah. I've had, yeah, borderlines. It's a very, there are a lot of energy. it a, very interesting, but it really just, I just look at it as severe PTSD. Like this is just really severe PTSD. and If we just tell them like that, let's stop thinking about you, have this thing for life. This is who you are. We just get this nervous system regulated and yeah. Diet is a huge, what they're eating. is the floor of it all. And then from there, we can teach these behaviors of grounding in the sun. Because sometimes, like, she's on the Floor.

How is she going to get outside? It's so mind blowing to them. When you're asking, I know you've got like 14% energy, and I'm asking you to do something that's going take about 7% of energy. I Know it's gonna feel worse at first. At least saying that I KNOW this is going feel worst. And I need you to trust me on this. And then eventually they gave me the money. Clearly I'm smarter than you. I say that sometimes, you already paid me, clearly I am smarter, right? They're like, oh, God, I hate you!

It's a lot of I-hate-you-I-love- you I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, get cussed out. Get hung up on. But I love them! I mean, they're all of it because I came from bat shit. You're crazy. Let's go! Yeah, yeah, I love it. And I'd love that you mentioned eating addiction and food addiction. It's very real. So please understand that if you're out there dealing with that, you shouldn't don't get the compassion you deserve. We would never mock an alcoholic like that. We never would mock a, a opioid addict, the crack addict.

we don't do that really. And it's so okay in the health by doctors. I've seen physicians and coaches just have no understanding of this and really mock people. and I can't stand it. It's very real and not everybody acknowledges that it is real. you if you are a food addict, a Food Compound Chemical addict you need to be held in the space of someone who understands that and who can love you and with compassion and yet with some firmness help you see that because ultimately I find all they're having to do like you they have to have permission to forgive themselves it's okay well you aren't a lazy dumb fuck okay like oh I'm like no You got conned, you got tricked, no different.

I've had opioid addicts that they broke a bone, they were prescribed a pill and now they're a drug addict. They didn't go looking to be a drugs addict, if you aren't a scumbag, okay, stop. But they are living in shame and they live in hiding it. So I love that you said that because it's a really important part. And for me, carnivore has been a game changer for these people. No. It's been a game changer. And the freedom that a food addict will feel on carnivore, it's like a freedom they've never experienced.

They're like, I don't care if I... We don t tell an alcoholic it s okay to have a shot of tequila once a month. Once they understand that, they're all like let it go. This is what you do. You don' t have to explain it to anybody. they can all kiss your ass at the family holiday dinner. How about that? You know what I mean? Like we don't, it just, that's where we're at. So I love that you know that. And I think that it's a great fit. I want anybody out there struggling with that because not everybody understands that, so I loved that mentioned it.

They have that whenever like we have the Marco Polo, they have, if it is three o'clock in the morning and they're standing in front of the fridge, then they can send me a video and then know the next day I'll hear it and I had a client work with me for two weeks and she goes, I feel like you moved in with oh and i was like that's what they need they meet somebody who is literally in the trenches with them and they're not alone i love that you're able to translate that in such a way i don't know if i've been able To translate to people feeling like i'm in their home with that they sometimes say they always talk about through the internet was that doctor said my husband is very sick of hearing your name i'll bring him on to zoom love me he'll love hard not to love you.

Yeah. She's making us buy a lot of things. I'm like, listen. You need a freezer, honey, because you're buying a cow next year. So just get on board with it. What's really expensive is illness. Correct. That's what's expensive. Yeah, you don't want to buy that. Exactly. It's cute. I like that, that's cool. Like I said, I really don' know if I've translated it, it's very inspiring. Because I always said to people, the dream as a residential treatment center that I would do, and I know exactly how to do it.

I've had it planned for 10, 15 years, I knew exactly all the things. But I firmly believe I can help a person heal from any diagnosis, disorder, disease known in existence if I could control everything in the environment. I go, it's much harder than this. I've reversed schizophrenia dozens and dozens of times. Now, can I do it for that guy in the corner? No, because he doesn't even have a home and there's no family support, there is no structure. No. done it over and over again. Everybody can, it just requires, and I'm working with other clinicians, all experts and we work together as a holistic team.

They do their part. I do my part, you do this part and then that person is empowered, knows everything, has an integrated self back on board and they're like, we're done with that identity. Then we, self-identity is gone. You're not schizophrenic, You are not bipolar. you don't have MS. That's it. You're just a divine human being living your maximum potential and out there having a joyful life. Bye. Go make shit. That what I'm looking for. I love when they fire me. Yes. And thank you so much. Send me a card.

Yeah. Like send me Christmas card, that's all I need. Keep me updated because I miss you guys, but I don't need to see you all the time either. No. I love that. Awesome. We'll make sure everything's there. It's EmilyPenton.com, you guys, whole family is anything. So we get, remember we have the talk therapy, mental health background. She doesn't bother with that license anymore, but the expertise is still there, bringing in diet and nutrition and coming up with sounds like some really nice, reasonable ways to work with people and where they're at to help bridge getting them to be able to take care of themselves and empowering them with some skillset to beyond their way.

thank you for sharing your story with us you guys please you are designed to heal yourself there is no magical anything out there doing it and the most important thing is basically the machinery between your two ears called your brain and those thoughts some of those thought have been put there and they're stuck in your unconscious from other people and other things and it can get real jumbled if you're throwing in food dyes artificial flavorings poisons on top of it for you to be able to hear who is really in charge, who was the divine being that's actually running the show.

So I love that you gave the example outside of how you're able to really connect to those different messages because you are connecting to Source South and Source south is light and it's all goodness, but it is hard to hear that through Coca-Cola. That's brown and ugly, you know what I'm saying? There's not a whole light getting through a bottle of Coca-Cola. Thank you so much for sharing your story. And you guys, please check everything out in the description and get ahold of her. Take charge of your life.