How Mindset Shapes Physical Symptoms, and How to Hack it for Healing

Introduction to Trauma and Guest House 0:00

It's no surprise that the ability of trauma, psychological trauma, emotional trauma creates much larger destructive processes than we could possibly know. I'm sure your talk with doctor use of ilium on. He is the founder of Absolute Health in Ocala, Florida. He's a world wide national speaker on integrative medicine, functional medicine, and he lectures for the Institute for Functional Medicine, as well as an international consultant on what it takes to create holistic strategies in functional medicine to create overall health.

More importantly, he's also the founding medical director at, this place called The Guest House in Ocala, Florida, which is the center that's really focused on overcoming trauma and addiction and other challenges in a safe and comfortable environment for healing. What I talked about today on the physiology, actual physiology, how trauma affects our gut, our brain, our memory centers, our emotional centers, our immune system, and what that really means for health. So can't wait to introduce Doctor Elliott one.

Welcome to the forum. I'm so excited to rekindle our connection again. Our first discussion was back in Florida a before the pandemic. And now we get to talk about a lot of this stuff. Now that it's like 2022 and we have a much better vision of what that's the stress and the trauma like really does to to overall health. So, first of all, I just want to kind of have you introduce yourself and, what you actually do when it comes to patients or people that are going to the things that are very traumatic.

Okay. Yeah. No, thank you for having me again. And, always, always a pleasure. What? I just a little about me. I am an internal medicine doctor and a pediatrician. So basically, you can think of me as a family practice doctor, and I take care of patients at, in Ocala, Florida. And, absolute health is is our practice where we have health coaches, we have, physicians, nurse practitioners, PPAs. But I also and in primary care in family medicine, you can't avoid stress and mental health. And and we we all we all have I mean, we, if you're human, they're, you're going to have stress and trauma and, and sometimes some mental health and spiritual imbalance.

But I also certified in psychological trauma through through Judy Crain, who's a world renowned, in the, in the trauma field. And I work at her facility or a facility that she co-founded called the guest House. And the guest house is a trauma center. It's a psychological trauma and substance abuse center. And we actually get people from all over the world that come here to Ocala, Florida for that. You know, trauma is not an easy topic to talk about, especially amongst doctors. We're not we're not trained to talk about it in residency, in medical school.

I mean, we we kind of argue can not. Right.

How Trauma Affects the Body 3:34

We're sure as hell trying to avoided conversation, I think. Right. But what we have to understand is loneliness contributes to the top ten causes of death, in the world. Right. And by not addressing that, it's, it's kind of a shame and actually creates a lot of burnout within physicians, ourselves as well. So let's talk about how traumatic thoughts shape our actual physical body. Yeah. What? That's, so how traumatic thoughts? Yeah. How traumatic thoughts shape. Yeah. Our physical body. Yeah. I'm.

I'm still maybe give me a little bit, more where you're going with how how they, like an example. All right. Of the physical. Let me let me give you some examples. Right. And this is what everyone listening to this has thought about before. Okay. Someone, experiences something and it starts as maybe a text message, a phone call, right, or something on TV and the the, the experience that something's not right, and then they get nauseous, right? And their stomach gets a little upset. Now, if you're really traumatized, you may even throw up.

Right? Or if you're like 50% America, you may want to go to go to the bathroom and start pooping, right. You're up syndrome. Right? Okay. So there's so many physical manifestations of when someone receives a thought process. So let's, let's, let's start with how that works. Maybe like a gut brain connection or something. Yeah, yeah. So, traumatic event that you've had in childhood and, and hopefully we can go back to big T and little T trauma because there's a differentiation that that's been a big issue.

Actually, for me in the beginning to wrap my brain around things that they were calling trauma that I didn't think were trauma. But we can get back to that. But yes, when you are in a situation and when you're in a when you're in a stressed, unhealthy state and then and, and then usually if there's more of a chance of maybe you can call it being triggered. So when you're in a one of the, emotional states that is not, that, that, that is, that is not, then what can happen is, is that you could see something or hear something or smell something that your subconscious mind will be triggered by, because it'll remind you of that event where you felt like your life is in danger.

So what ends up happening? And this gets really interesting because it goes way beyond what people think. But what can end up happening is, is that you're you go into this hyper, what we call a hyper vigilant state like ready for what can kill you. And adrenaline is released. Cortisol is released. When adrenaline is released, your heart rate can go up. You can end up with a with a dry mouth. You can end up with some vision changes. You can see far, but you can't see close. And you can end up feeling the your heart beating really hard kind of out of, out of, its chest.

But like you also mentioned as well, you can start so you sometimes you could, you can feel some gut issues so you can feel like, nauseated, you can feel like your stomach stops moving. But I'll tell you something that's even, even even more mind boggling. There are people that live in this chronic, hyper vigilant state. They don't. It's like they stay in this traumatic state and they're hyper reactionary and and what can happen is, is that their since their body is looking for anything that can hurt it, they could be certain foods.

And those foods, let's say a large amount of that food would bother them. So a large amount of the food would bother them. They eat a little bit of the food and they have a reaction. So a lot of these food reactions that we see as integrative and functional medicine doctors, a lot of those food reactions that we see sometimes is just the body being in this hyper vigilant state. And when you work on trauma, they can actually start eating those foods that they can eat before. Yeah. So this is what I like to call, drinking a smoothie while running away from a tiger.

It's like you're, you're supposed to be in this fight or flight, but then you're like, you're doing something that's counter fight or flight, which is nourishing, and the foods that's supposed to be nourishing creates issues or body, you know, develop tag molecules towards the antibodies and stuff like that. And, as well. And so, yeah, drinking a smoothie while run away from a tiger and now, but but, you know, we can appreciate that this happens acutely. This happens. And in the, in the short term. Right.

But what happens when this happens consistently and it doesn't and it goes unchecked. What happens in the long term. Yeah. When the long unfortunately in the long term what happens is your body starts to poop out, your brain gets overworked and it can be toxic and you can end up with dementia. Your your cardiovascular system gets burnt out, your body when you're in that, when you're in that state, actually your blood vessels constrict and, and they decrease blood flow to different parts of the body.

And actually your uric acid can go up and you can go into a fat storage hibernation state along with cortisol, you know. But I'd like to go back to that. I'd like to go back to the foods, the bothersome foods. And these are just that. These are just some things that I've seen in practice, like I've had patients that would eat a certain food during or around a traumatic event. And then just psychologically, when they eat that food again, they have that same type of reaction. Like, for example, I had a patient that ate a certain eight blueberries and then went for a run and it was really cold outside and felt short of breath.

And then she and then it stressed her out to it and it actually turned into a panic attack. But she felt like she was dying. And then from then on, she'd eat blueberries and then that would happen. And then she was worried about the different foods and that started to happen. But there's also there is another piece that the that is interesting and it's this is just theoretical, but but I find that I find it to make sense. And that is if you, if you drink your eight glasses of water a day, that's great.

But there is a certain amount of water. If you drank too much water, it would, it would bother you or let's say, let's say that, let's just say, blueberries are healthy. But if you ate too many blueberry, if you kept eating and eating and eating,

Big T vs Little T Trauma 10:20

eating blueberries, something, there could be something in the blueberries that would bother you. Maybe. But a small amount. And and one of the thoughts is, is that a small amount of maybe a toxin in the food? Or maybe, they call them lectins in the foods that would normally bother you if you ate a large amount, your body, because it's looking for what can kill it. It detects that small amount and it has a reaction. So that that was kind of what I was, where I was going with that. But I would like to talk about the whole big T and little T trauma because.

Yeah, all of the sudden trauma became this hot topic and it's, it's the new thing and talking about it. But, Judy Crane, the, the co-founder of the guest House, she was been talking about it for years. And, that's part of why, yes, I work at the guest house, but I went and I certified in her training course or provider training course because I wanted to kind of get to the bottom of it. But. So, yeah, as a, as a physician, in the beginning, and this is where I had trouble wrapping my brain around it, I would think that, like, if your arm got ripped off or somebody almost killed or rape or something like that, that was a traumatic event.

And it could create response, but it turns out that there's something called little t trauma where we're things where events that happened to you that they the events that happened to you over and over, or when you are in a, in a, in a stressful state or not in the right mindset, they also can have the same response. And I'll give you an example. So, so actually things that you wouldn't even think of, of being traumatic. So, so this, this is a common one, patient that, his mother or her mother would do their homework for them and they would do or not do their homework, that the person would do their homework and they turn it in and, there and their parent thinking, trying to be a good parent would correct it.

And every time this person does their homework, the parent corrects it eventually. Eventually, they grow up feeling like they're not smart enough. Right? The parent was trying to do good, the parent was trying too good. And the, and not not a bad parent, but the parent in overly trying to help their child. Actually it it it ended up hurting their child. But then then and this brings us to another concept. It's not about right or wrong, it's about what is and what was. So sometimes we want to blame and we want to say this was a bad parent or this is a bad person.

And sometimes it's just it's just what happened and how it affected us. Right? Right. So you were saying that the little t maybe things that we thought were just kind of normal things or it's our upbringing that's our parents showing us love. But but that process no longer serves us as an adult and therefore it can become, traumatic. And that's the little t the sort of the subconscious side. Right. And the big T is like the big thing, you know, because of injuries and rape and, and, combat veterans going through all that stuff.

So that's the big T, right? Yeah. So, so I guess technically we all have our own levels of little T, right? No matter who we are. And I, you know, I want to go back to something that you said, that I think is powerful, mixed, full emotional is that there's no such thing as right or wrong, you know, and, and you have a bunch of kids. How many kids do you have? Seven. You have seven children. I have three, and I thought it was a lot for both of us. You know, being fathers. And I'm sure you're the same way as me.

I was like, oh my gosh, am I raising my kids, right? Am I doing, you know, X, Y and Z? And then is my perception of what's right actually, like hurting my child and stuff like that. But. Well, you just said kind of made me a little while up a little bit is that there's no such thing as like right or wrong. There's just is. And and I guess we just have to kind of build resilience around it, right? And have the open communication, which is the opposite of me growing up in China. That's there's a will we don't do any that we'll talk about stuff.

Right. And so I think that's part of my maybe my little T too is that and I do I do have a, a cultural bias, against, you know, talking like this. And it's created a little bit of a torment, for me. And so how, like, how about you? Like, how do you balance that as a parent? Like, how do you how do you know? Yeah. So I there's two, two issues that you brought up. One is one is the, what it just it's difficult because of the way we're raised. It's difficult to, to even talk like this. But. Yeah, but the other issue is the parenting.

So. Yes, absolutely. As I went to these trauma, as I was doing these modules and I was training becoming that trauma trained, trauma informed provider, I, I or a practitioner, I should say I was, you sit and you, you hear the things that people went through that bothered them and you just feel so guilty like, oh my God, I'm messing my kids up. But there was actually a lecture that we heard in one of these modules and basically said that, you know what? We all you never know. Everybody's so different.

So you never know. Exactly the right thing to do with children. But this is what he said, which made me feel better that everybody kind of makes these mistakes, but should know deep down your intention. And as long as your intention is good, even though you might mess them up a little bit, you probably will mess them up a little bit. If your intention is good and it's with love, it'll be all right. They'll be okay. We'll work through it. The second thing you mentioned is something very important.

I'll tell you in my life anyway, because it kind of hints and moves towards something that has been transformational in my, in my life. And that's Rumi's poem called The Guest House. So, Rumi, I'm sure a lot of people, if not Google Rumi. He is a he was a Islamic thinker, but but people of all faiths like that that are more into spirituality, love some of his poetry. And he had a poem called The Guest House. And in this poem it's short. I recommend everybody read it in the poem. What he what what he mentions is that these different emotions, the negative and the positive, he calls them all guests or honored guests.

Now, here's the thing about here, here, let's take it back a little bit. So the way that a lot of us were raised is that you cannot show emotion. You're allowed to emotions. Most of the time. You got to be happy. And sometimes if it gets to be too much, that lid kind of pops up, pops off, and you get angry,

Parenting, Emotions, and the Guest House Poem 17:28

and then you can't be angry for too long because that that's not going to that's not going to go well. And what happens is, is that especially it's it sometimes gender wise, like a man can't be afraid, right? He can't be scared. He can't be, he, he can't feel insecure. So you just have to feel you just have you have to put on a front and you have to pretend like you're happy or get angry, and you kind of go back and forth. And what happens is, is that just in from, from my understanding of the poem, that each one of these are honored guests and they've been sent as a guide from beyond.

So how has that changed my life? Well, I mentioned before, oh. Listen. So that's number number one. It's a gift, right? So this thing is a gift that's been given to us. So I have a narrative that I tell myself when I start to get triggered, when I'm in that state, you all know how it is. You're with your wife or with you or your husband, and they're the best way for best husband in the world. And you get triggered and then all of the sudden, that's the worst wife or the worst husband in the whole world.

And not only that, I can remember everything bad they've ever done and they've ever really cared about me. It's because the brain went into that state looking for what you call it and right, right, and so on and so forth. But so when you say healing that state, what what I tell myself is, I know I feel like it sucks. It always sucked and it always will suck. But the reality is this will pass. And according to Rumi's poem, it will pass. You just you have to invite it in. So I say, I tell myself, I have to feel this.

If I don't feel this, then I'm going to get worse. But if I feel this, if I say bring it, if I bring it in, then what's going to happen is it's going to clear me out and I'm going to be better than even before this even happens. So, I sit and here's the key. This is the thing that I would tell people this and it works. Sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes we're all we want. When we feel uncomfortable, we try to fix right. We try to fix it with action. We try to think about a plan or a solution. So this is the hardest part.

You have to turn off this frontal lobe, the thinking part. So you stop and you say bring it and you feel maybe do some heart breathing. Right? And you just hold it and you just keep saying bring it, bring it, bring it right. And, and and what happens is, is that if you if you run from it, it gets bigger and bigger. But if you actually sit and embrace it and you feel it and with it, with turning your brain off, this is the key. Because people will start thinking and thinking and thinking and ruminating and it will cause a problem.

So if you just feel it, turn the brain off and just say no, feel, feel, and then maybe do some heart breathing in through the heart and out through the heart then. And you hold it for as long as you can. And then there's different processes you can do, but then you go on about your day. What I have found maybe an hour later, maybe two, maybe three hours later, but I end up feeling more balanced now. What would have happened before is I would have I would have, I would have made a positive thought through it.

I would have been happy, happy, happy. But really, there's something going on in here. And then I would have got angry. And then that pop anger is over and I go back to being happy, happy, happy again. And that really doesn't serve and that doesn't serve anybody, anybody around. But, but that actually brings me to another point. We all want to we want to be aware. We all get triggered. Right? So we all want to be aware of what it is or how to tell if you need to sit and feel and if you need some of that just to sit with your emotions.

Right. And so, so so I'll ask you, I'll tell you what mine are, and then maybe you can tell me what yours are. So I from Judy Crain, the, the founder of the guest House. So yeah, she's an author as well. Trauma heart. So. So what so what she said is I can tell when I stop saying please and thank you, and I stop putting the shopping cart away at the grocery store. Y'all know how sometimes you, just put that shopping cart, like, to the side and run right and go. Since Judy Crain said that the shopping cart I am, I always put that shopping cart away because I know to me it's a measure of my state, right to me.

So for me personally, I can tell if I'm getting if if I'm, if I need to sit with my feelings, sit with my emotions, or sit with maybe even some of the negative ones, if I, I like to joke, right? So I like to make jokes. I like to keep everything lighthearted, but if I'm overly joking to where I can't get work and no one else can get work done, that's I know that's me trying to treat myself right. That's what I know. I need to sit a minute, maybe five minutes by myself and do this feeling. The other thing for me is I find myself, I'm not judging people and I'm looking at, you know, look at you looking from their point of view because I haven't I don't, I don't know, I haven't walked their shoes and back to when you know their story then their actions make sense.

But when I start being hard on myself, that negative self-talk, oh, you're so stupid. You're so dumb. Why do you do that? Or if I start being hard on other people I know I need to take a break. So what are yours? How can. So, it's it's pretty identical. You know, for me, my big issue before, was, was binge eating. I mean, I, that's that's how I dealt with things, right? And, and I identified myself as a positive thinker. So whenever I have a negative thought, I'm like, well, why? Why am I have a negative thought?

It doesn't jive with my identity. And then sort of that, that sort of feeling like, oh, you're stupid, you're X, Y, and Z, right? Comes through and everything becomes a catastrophe at that point. Right. And there's sort of a blow up period. But for me is actually making my bed. So if I don't do it, and if everything's in disarray, it really drains me like, the rest of the day. And that really affects my, the way I eat. And then I notice, oh, my gosh, some bloating and whatever. Whatever. If my ex was, like, acting up, then I have to take a chill pill.

I'm like, all right. Like what? What happened the last 24 hours and then I really have to give myself a timeout because I'm the same way as you. I keep everything lighthearted, to help, connect people, but that can come at a detriment. And so I have to I just sit back and say, okay, let's kind of go through last 24 hours, okay? Let's go. Let's go through the last 48 hours, like what exactly happened? And then I let the feeling and, and there's sort of the peace that really comes over me as well.

But that's after I went through a lot of the mind body medicine training as well. So this didn't come like naturally. And it's, it's not something that, people understand, especially in the medical profession. You know, we as doctors, we're taught to do the complete opposite of that. No, we just talked about. Right. Push your feelings aside. Yeah. We're taught to say patients are more, more important than you. They may be more important than your family. Therefore, you must sacrifice everything and not feel anything and then exclude yourself, right?

Even even the the, the continuing medical education courses. When I was at, when I was at Columbia, their, their like emotional thing was to like, isolate and just, just to step back and then avoid. Right. And then all they care about is you don't do anything that's with like that goes toward malpractice, but then you never deal with the actual situation in the first place. Right. And so, in fact, like I talked about this on right before you come on, I was talking with the military surgeon. And this is the same way in the military. You're talking to the exact same thing.

You're taught to like, avoid that and kind of bury it. But it's very counterproductive. It really shows up, in your health. So, yeah, I'm very similar to you, in that regards as well. Yeah, yeah. And so, so there the interests. So just kind of going, going like further into what's, what's happening when we're triggered, our body's trying to protect ourself. Right. So we, we feel that uncomfortable ness and we want to go into fight flight freeze. And then if it's chronic we go into what's called fun.

So fight you. You do something about it. So when you're for binge eating, when you have that feeling and then you, you want you want to change that state. You want to do something to change that state. You don't like the way it feels. So you go and you eat something and those endorphins are released and the serotonin is released so that you're actually doing something about it. Right? You also, it is a way of flight, too, because you don't have to think about it because you're eating. Right. Some people will get an argument with their wife or with their husband, right?

Because they are the because now they're it's it's better to be angry than to be sad. Right? It's it's more you're less vulnerable. Right. So but you get fight, you do flight, you can freeze up. Some people freeze up and they just can't think right. And that's where they need to do something to kind of pull out of it

Functional Medicine and Physical Contributors 26:48

and then fall in is when people are just chronically doing this and they just go through the motions. And I would say that if somebody feels like they're just going through that motions every day, you got to do something to pull out of it. You really want to do something to pull out of it. But here's here's the other key, the other piece. Right. That and I like picking up these phrases because I remind myself of these phrases when my capacity really isn't there to kind of so that it sets and so that I can, it's kind of like just a reminder to snap me out of it.

And one of the phrases is, is that if you want to be well, you have to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. You have to feel you have to be okay feeling uncomfortable. Because whether it's binge eating or gambling or sex or drugs or whatever, arguing or fighting, you feel uncomfortable and you try to change that feeling. And by changing that feeling, that self-destructive behavior, the rumination, if you kind of go down that vicious cycle. So you just have to stop, I feel it. Turn off my frontal lobe now.

By no means am I trying to replace counselors. We work with counselors. We work with therapists. We work with what they call we work. Psychiatrists like that doesn't replace. Yeah, this is the. I'm not saying if you have schizophrenia, you just sit and feel your feelings. You're fine. But what I'm saying is, is that, for the in general, I think for everybody, a good a good prescription is reading that poem The Guest House and implementing. So, I'm going to read the poem because it's in front of me, and I haven't read it because I'm paying attention to you.

So let me read the guest house. So this is the guest house by Rumi. So for those of you who want to Google search it, the authors is Rumi. Rumi. So this is the guest house. This being human is a guest house. Every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor welcome and entertain them all, even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meeting them at the door, laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Scary chills. That's the end of the poem. That's awesome. So? So that's not even relevant. And we're just reading it in English, like I'm sure in Persian. It's like in Farsi. It's like even more. Yeah, rhymes or whatever happens in Farsi. Poetry. So each so you think about it, gratitude is mentioned there. So be grateful for whatever comes and then not.

It's not like, why is this happening to me? No. Each has been sent as a guide. Meaning? And that's why I tell I have I tell myself the narrative. I need to feel this. This has been sent to me to transform the frequency of my soul. If I feel this and I, then what will happen is, is my soul. And this is just how I think about it. My soul is transforming to a, a, a, frequency that's more compatible with the next realm, right? Or the next, right. The next dimension. So it's transforming me if I feel it.

But if I try to run from it, or if I try to think through it, or if I try, but the gratitude is there. And also feeling even those negative feelings and saying that he may be clearing you out for a new delight because maybe there's too much going on. You feel the emotion it passes through and now you're ready to receive. It's clearing you out. That's an amazing concept. Now tell me this. And, because you see these patients just like I do. A lot of times you try to get people to recognize this. This is or may be trauma.

The that's creating a lot of these these symptoms. Right. And we're not saying hey patient you're crazy. You know, or we're saying that a lot of it comes from previous events, right, right. And then you like, oh you think it's all in my head. I'm like, Thank God. That means we can do something about it, you know? But, but a lot of these symptoms are, are seen, in a very reductionistic way in medicine. It's sort of the fault of medicine. Right? You have these set of symptoms. So you, you know, you file under this thing called fibromyalgia, right?

You have these symptoms. This is, you know, complex regional pain center, whatever it is. Right. But in reality, the experiences that we've had, it's correlating with these symptoms, that can be either generated or that can be taken away. So now a lot of people are thinking, oh, it's because my iron's low or my B12 is low, or I can methylated them too far. I have x, y, and z. I have two too many toxins in my body. Right. So how do you relate that that physical reductionistic view of medicine to our experiences, how to connect that together?

Yeah. And I think that's why you and I both do functional medicine. Right. Because that's why we practice functional medicine. Because we understand we understand that there are that there that there are different components that can contribute. Right? There's mediators and contributors. So if I have a magnesium deficiency, then it will be easier for me to get triggered and it will be easier for me to have an anxiety attack. Right. And I'm not going to feel well, which is going to throw off my psychological spiritual state.

But, you know, the more I do this, the more I realize that it's that heart in the mind that really drives the healing. Even the drives too, like taking that vitamin D or taking that magnesium with the right mindset versus I'm never going to get better, right? You see, if you see a, a great, you see a correlation, but, but but here's the thing. I actually I'm glad you mentioned that, because I want to mention just a couple of things that we see that do contribute and they can help. So we check something.

The regular labs do it called a red blood cell magnesium, an RBC magnesium, because magnesium, the the normal magnesium tests that you do in the lab is going to is going to look at the minority of your magnesium. Why? Because the magnesium is inside our cells. Most of it is in our cells. It's not in the water, in our blood. When we check our plasma for magnesium, which is the water in blood. So you can check how much is in your red blood cells. And what we'll do is we'll get their their red blood cell magnesium level up to around six.

We get it to a higher level and that can help with muscle spasms. And you can it can help with, constipation. It can help with fatigue. Some people with chronic fatigue syndrome, they're just magnesium deficient. The other thing that we check and we do these all this in the guest house, by the way, when our clients come in, and I do this outpatient with my primary care, with my family, practice patients as well. So we'll also optimize their vitamin D, because if your vitamin D is low, it can throw off multiple things.

We also we also there have been studies that are looking at people that went to that go to the e.R. And those patients for anxiety or panic attacks and they have lower B vitamins. And some people like you mentioned methylation. For some of them they can't activate these vitamins as well. So we'll give them an activated B complex. So there are these things we do. There's a test called a homocysteine level which which I'm sure you're familiar with. We'll check homocysteine if that's high. That means you're not methylated.

But it's hard because what came first, the chicken or the egg like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Is your magnesium deficient because you're burning it up so much because your adrenals are constantly stressed or is is or is the low magnesium deficiency what caused it in the first place? I mean, who knows. We're going to start somewhere. We're going to work on exercise. We're going to work on nutrition. We're going to get the magnesium level up, and we're going to work on how to deal with those emotions. Supplementation never cures anything.

We have to deal with what's inside of us, right. Because a lot of these things are just allowing us to work with nature. And, you know, once we supplement magnesium, we're still working with nature, right? But you're right. Like, what came first? You know, the chicken or the egg? You could be constantly stressed ever since, you know, you're 12 years old or something like that, right? Your body's always in fight or flight. Don't get enough sleep. So much so. That is not enough time for the gut microbiome to heal.

And then you absorb less. Your your villi in the gut becomes a lot more blunted. You can't absorb, those, those ions anymore. And maybe that was the issue. Right? But you. Right. You got to start somewhere.

Practical Healing Routine and Daily Practices 35:48

In reality, it doesn't really matter what what started what, right. We don't want to put the blame on one thing. Oh, I have low magnesium. Therefore I have this. I have low authority for I have this people who are chronically stress is supposed to have lower thyroid because the body thinks they're dying, that it's going to down regulate your thyroid production. Right. It's going to upregulate cortisol down your thyroid production. And that's what naturally happens. So we can't be too reductionistic in the way of looking at this and saying, these labs are off. Let's corrected.

That's that's is half the game. The other half of the game is let's, let's talk through the experiences of you as a human, not as a disease state, as a human. And that's what's beautiful about about functional medicine. But then when you put a lot of the trauma in the mind body to sprinkle that into a lot of the functional medicine, the things that we do, that's for true healing, you know, really, really starts. Right. And, you know, whenever, whenever we have, when or whenever we see people, I'm sure you're the same way is that the biggest successes always comes from some sort of realization into like, a poem like this, like the guest house.

Right. And that's where all of a sudden there's physical manifestations of change. Do you experience that as well? 100%, yeah. Awesome. And so what do you think is going to be, some really easy step because a lot of people who are listening to this right now, right now, they're thinking, oh my gosh, like, you know, I have some memory issues, chronic issues. Do I have any trauma? Do I have any because you don't have any little tea or some people would be like, I know exactly what happened, you know, six years old, right?

We're we're you're talking to them right now. So where do they start? Yeah. So where do even start? So, Yeah, I can you know what I, I, I have a, I have a prescription recommendation that I will, that I will give patients, often. And I can share that with you guys today. And the ones that do it, they actually find a, they find that they do better, but, so, so I'll, I'll mention that the kind of that psychological, spiritual prescription, but I think that, eating six servings of vegetables a day is extremely important because it helps the body rebuild and can actually help with mood.

And there's a study called the Smiles trial and the Smiles trials like reduction of depression by eating a healthy Mediterranean food plan. Right. So we also so so try to eat that balanced six servings of vegetables, two servings of fruits a day. Exercise is extremely important. There's research that shows that that if you go on a walking program versus taking Prozac, you do exactly the same when it comes to mood. But the one that walks is probably healthier. So start doing some sort of movement or exercise every day, right?

You know your limitations. Talk to your provider, whatever you're okay with. So those those are things. But I'll tell you I'll tell you this prescription that I give people, and then I follow it. Might I follow myself? So you said twice a day you and I go with the threes. Take three deep breaths. Right. Imagine that you're surrounded by energy, surrounded by your higher power. And your higher power is connecting you to everything, to everyone. And you start by saying, you start by first, mentioning three things you're grateful for.

I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my practice. I'm grateful for my my great friend Chang, who we've been we've been friends for how long now? Thank you. Thank you God, right? No, I don't remember. It's at least six, five years. Yeah, 5 to 6 years then. So it feels like forever. And it feels like the other day. So. So yeah. So you mentioned three things you're grateful for. Then you mentioned three positive affirmations. Part of the trauma is these traumatic toxic thoughts that have been planted in her head.

Like if every time you make a B, if you make all A's in one bee, why is it a bee? This isn't good enough. This isn't good enough. This isn't good. If eventually what happens now? If my kids are watching this, I still want you to make all A's, right? But I'm definitely be causing a problem here. But, but, but the thing is, is that you get that message. That I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not right. The brain, the brain locked on to that. So now when they're not successful, see, I'm not good enough.

Or see why is this all there was like a thousand things good that happened to you, right? So. But but why is this with that one thing? See, it always happens to me. I'm unlucky. Like so. These things that we've picked up when we were younger, that were programed when we were younger, it's because it the thought was planted and it was reinforced and reinforced and reinforced by our own brain saying, see, because it's looking for patterns. See, I'm not smart. See, I'm not smart. See, I'm not smart.

Oh, she corrected my homework again. See, I'm not smart. See, I'm not smart. You're not smart, right? So because because we literally have thousands and thousands and thousands of times of that programing, we want to rewrite that program. So I stop and I'll and I'll say, what does my heart need to hear? I'm smart. I'm funny. Right? I'm I'm fit right? I'm a good man. Whatever it is, but not something. Memorize something that comes to your heart. You like. What does my heart need to hear today? So you say these positive affirmations now you don't want to become a narcissist, right?

So if you. So what you can do is you can say, you can say I'm highly intelligent, thank you God or thank you higher power or thank you universe or whatever you're saying thank you to. Right. So if we thank you, if you don't take credit for it. Because if you if you if you just are humbled by this gift that you've been given, I'm smart. Thank you. I'm, I'm I'm so. But you mention three things that your heart needs to hear. Make them very positive. Then you take it off yourself. Take it completely off yourself and think about other people.

You think, who needs positive energy? Who needs a prayer? You stop. It might be somebody you ran into in the supermarket, and you made contact with their eyes, and you never saw him again and you don't know their name. You said, please give that person hope. Please give that person success. Please help make that person wealthy. Please help that person know that they're enough. Please help. So whoever it is, whoever comes to mind and I say three because you don't want to make it this long thing that you don't, do you?

Minimum is three. If you want, you could spend hours just going through as many people you want to pray for it as many. But I say just stick to three because you're trying to get a routine. You're trying to get a habit going. You're doing this twice a day. You can do it in under five minutes. So you mentioned three. You pray for three people positive, and then you ask for three things, and then for the three things. If they're material things, say if it is best, right, I could I could win the lottery and I can buy a Lamborghini and I can get a car accident and die.

Right? So knowing that there is a greater wisdom and sometimes the things that I feel like are not beneficial are beneficial or and things that I think are beneficial or not beneficial. I say, hey, please let me get that Lamborghini if it is best. Right. So but but what I encourage people to do is ask for the deeper things. Please help my heart be content. Please allow me to enjoy the time that I have with my family and not be worried about business during that time, right? So you ask for three things and then you go about your day, right?

Sometimes I add one piece to it to certain people. I have them do a emotional check in. I tell them to take a look. There's some these things called emotion wheels and they can pull up. If you just Google Emotion Wheel, you pull it up and you take a look and you figure out what emotion you're feeling right now, and you hold it, and then you do the three, three deep breaths and then you ask for three thing. So you mentioned, three things you're grateful for, three positive affirmations. You ask for three or pray for three people ask for three things.

Why the emotion? Well, many times we only see what we're looking for right? Many times what will happen is, is that our brain is looking for what can hurt us so that when when we feel, when we are feeling that negative emotion, we feel like we've always had. We remember every time we've had that negative emotion, does that make sense? And so what happens is, is yeah, I remember I, I'm always depressed. But you might not always be depressed. Your moods probably going up and down. It's not okay. It's not normal for you to always be excited and happy all the time.

Hopefully more than most, right? But not all that. But. But not all the time. So what you want to do is you want to take note of your positive feelings and also the negative feelings and actually get good at describe the feeling. And that's where the emotion wheels can help. So what I'll have them do is sit. And maybe I'm feeling joyful and and that's good. Hold that thought too. Because next time I'm depressed and I feel like I'm always depressed, I can remember, no, that's not actually true, because I remember I took note of the fact that I was joyful this morning or two days ago or whatnot.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Makes sense. So I'll add that emotional check into it. But but real quick emotional check in maybe. Right? Yes. Plus or minus. We we mentioned three things we're grateful for. We say three positive affirmations. We pray for three people ask for three things. Amazing. We can also do that on a daily basis. A lot of things will be a whole lot better. Just, this is for like the, Yeah. And so, this this reminds me of trying to battle a lot of the social media algorithms. It's very easy of these YouTube algorithms.

Instagram algorithms that can predict what you're rating on based on the things that you click on and behavior. And they feed you more of that. Right. And so, like my, my, my Instagram feed looks way different than my sister's Instagram feed. Right. So so it's like the reality that we, that we live in, you know, from this firm and stuff from this phone, we really have to really take a step away. And we start with these habits with the three affirmations, you know, three, three people want to place.

I pray for, emotional check ins and stuff like that. It really grounds us to, hey, let's just disconnect and then reconnect based on the things that I get to engineer, for my life. Right. And I'll tell you, it's just just from my personal standpoint, this is something I started doing in 2000 and, 18. And had I not, had I not do a lot of the stuff that you just said, I'm not I'm not sure I'll be I'm sure it would have been. And so it's it's definitely grateful for this conversation today. I'm really grateful that you and I both, create our own vulnerabilities and really share with the public.

It's pretty rare for doctors to do that. You know, for the record, and I'm so grateful to to talk to you on on this. So, I mean, I can't wait for everyone to hear. So thank you so much. My pleasure.