Peter
My pleasure Miles.
Dr. Miles Nichols
So can you help paint the picture for where you were at before beginning the Shenzhen meditation movement practices and before doing the functional medicine process. Where was your life at physically, mentally and emotionally?
Peter
I came to change in 2005 and I was able to be involved in a teacher training with Master Lee and learn the practice of Shenzhen and that really started my transformation. So I was 62 and I was not in great shape. I was overweight. I was taking steroids every day Because I had asked, my, had asked me, I had taken it every day for 10 years. I was, had CPD was chronic, I had sarcoidosis is way a long time ago, who knows whether that was in effect or not, but these are all autoimmune diseases and and and inflammatory diseases. And so anyway, that’s my situation. In 2015 I had them and I really went far in my practices of meditation in Shenzhen. And it took me to places I never thought in my wildest imagination, I would go. So that by January 2019, I was already to work with Miles. And that was when the big changes started.
Dr. Miles Nichols
So there was a lot, there was in your heart, there was a lot of emotional turmoil, there was this sense of a struggle in your life and there was this physical being overweight, being on steroids every day, having multiple autoimmune diseases and diagnoses, having a lot of chronic pain. That was a part of your experience. There was still there were still several things that were going on when we connected for a for when you sought out the functional medicine process. So what happened through your transformation is we uncovered that we had this environmental microbial toxin exposure, creating chronic inflammation and this internal imbalance in microbial bacteria that was contributing to inflammation for you systemically.
Peter
The process was amazingly fast. It was difficult, definitely. You didn’t, you had a lot of willpower and one of the good things was having the shank in practice gave me the willpower. So I changed my attitude towards my what I was putting in my body. That happened. We did a real cleanse for the month of March. I toned it down and started in generate toned it down in February. So we hit March running, did it all the way through March by end of March in April. We continued adding little bits back in every one thing at a time, Back in to this very, very strict diet so that we’d see what was the problem. And I easily saw that it was a problem. I never tried to eat it again and dairy and yeah, so I changed my diet and then by May I had lost I’ve lost 35 pounds since January and continue to lose. I lost in the end about 40 pounds. I went from being 205 to down to about 65. So I was, you know, my lowest, but you know, I I didn’t say there, I’m now, I’m now proud to say I’m stayed the whole time. I’m now about in the low one seventies, which is a perfectly fine place for me to be. And I feel great,
Dr. Miles Nichols
That’s amazing. And you were taking steroid medications every day when we started as well for your lung function. How did that change the experience?
Peter
We again toned it down. We went down gradually and I started stopping the steroids in probably again in February and by April 30 no more. And I’d already I had absolutely no need for my medical inhaler that albuterol stuff, folks. I didn’t have that all. I had to have that because if I had a problem I needed and I haven’t used it since January of 2019. And the Prednisone I was taking actually wasn’t Prednisone, it was Symbicort took Symbicort every day at the end of April. Never took it again. I don’t have any problems in my lungs are totally clean. My doctor says I’m absolutely fine, no problem.
Dr. Miles Nichols
And we’re not talking just right at the end of the process. This was several years ago. So this isn’t something that it was temporary,
Peter
Just fine, just fine. I feel absolutely if anything Miles. And this is the honest truth. If anything, I’m even better than I was then because without the baggage of those problems, my body is healing itself up more. Some of these changes seem to keep going and they and they build, they don’t go backwards, which is very nice.
Dr. Miles Nichols
And how about before we began the functional medicine process your body and the pain in your body. And how has that transformed through doing this process?
Peter
Well, that was very interesting too. That was, that was, I don’t know what exactly to make of all this ship. But surprisingly, one of the first things that happened to me on my path of Shenzhen is I became what I called pain free. So all of 2018 I was pain free from December to November. Almost 12 months of being what I considered at that age. Pain free, which was late 60’s guys, that’s pretty amazing. And then I took a fall down the stairs so I heard and since then I’ve been working it back, I’ve had remember I told you, I was thankful for working and gotten my body to loosen up enough so that some of the pains that had been carrying forever are now gone. But with practice and being an active participant in your healing by doing meditation and working with a practitioner like miles so that you’re a team so that your energy and his energy, her energy meld together and you don’t know what you can accomplish. There are so many things. We have absolutely not tapped this power anywhere near enough.
Dr. Miles Nichols
And how about your brain function, your cognition? What have you noticed? I mean you’re getting to the age where many people struggle with certain memory issues and cognitive decline. Where are you at with your cognitive function at this time and how has it changed?
Peter
Most of all? I think it’s clearly seeing the connections in your body, understanding your own health. I think that’s where the connections lie, is understanding the connection between this and all of this, that it’s one unit and it works all together and your brain when it is functioning properly and you give it the right respect and help will guide the rest of it and the rest of it will guide the brain to help each other so that you act as one unit.
Dr. Miles Nichols
So how does, how you feel now compared to earlier times in your life? Some people, they, you know, felt great in through their twenties and thirties and forties and then they declined a little bit. And how does it compare where you’re at now? Two previous times in your life
Peter
When the transformation happened to me after being with Miles in 20, I’m going to tell you, I think it was in the summer of 2019. Remember started in January Summer 2019, maybe the fall I wrote I have, I feel better than I’ve felt since I was a teenager. I feel better than I’ve felt since I was a teenager the whole time, ridiculous thing to say, but I believe it then, and I believe it now. How cool is that?
Dr. Miles Nichols
It’s absolutely amazing and very inspiring for someone who is in your 70th year to feel that way. So, what would you like to just summarize and wrap up until the audience? Who you know, maybe they’re struggling with mental health concerns, maybe they’re uh maybe they began to become interested in trying to transform their heart, their mind, their body, and what would you tell them? What would you like to leave them with?
Peter
Believe in yourself, you have the power, it’s your power, everybody’s got it, no doubt in my mind, you have it no doubt, believe in yourself, believe in your power, believe in your power to heal yourself, believe in your power to do good to yourself, leave in your power to love yourself and love yourself. You’re wonderful. I know you are, and if you love yourself and I love myself, look at how great a world we’re gonna have together, let’s do that, wouldn’t that be a lot more fun place to be. And all you have to do is open that heart of yours.
Dr. Miles Nichols
Thank you so much, Peter for sharing your story of transformation and for the audience. I want to emphasis a few things that transformation it’s mind and body both for many of the people who I’ve seen, who have transformed so fully and profoundly from a deep level that usually what I find for myself to that I went in to meditation practice deep meditation and movement um I found a practice that resonated with me, shenzhen meditation resonated with me and I did that meditation that movement practice and that really helped me to come to a place internally where I no longer had resistance to what my struggles were. I believe truly that by integrating together a mind body based approach by looking at microbes and the impact of microbes physiologically mentally emotionally while also addressing through meditation through brain retraining through mindfulness practices through movement practices through breathwork practice, as many of the practices were covering in the summit as well, that the two together come and I call it mind body functional medicine because I believe that this is really the future for helping people to transform and there is hope I’ve seen amazing and incredible transformations. Peter is just one example.
So there’s hope please do empower yourself to not give up. Even if people are telling you there’s nothing that you can do or if you’ve tried several things and you’ve not yet seen results step on the journey. It’s a long journey in some cases and I really want to encourage you to continue to look at ways in which you can work on yourself to transform your inner experience, to let go of the resistance to what is in lean into it, and then to work on finding the underlying root cause issues and transform them. So thank you everyone so much for watching. This has been an episode in the Microbes and Mental Health Summit. I’m your host, Dr. Miles. Thank you, Peter and thank you audience.
