Ep. 176-Dr. Wendy Trubo's Guide to a Healthier, Stress-Free Existence

All right, everybody. Welcome back to another awesome episode of You Winning Life. And as you know, we have Dr. Wendy Trubow, who is hanging out with us. Not only is she an MD, but she is a specialist in integrative and functional medicine. She's a certified practitioner and specializes in functional medicine gynecology. So as we talked about in the intro, you're going to hear that we're going to go all over into a bunch of different things, including environmental stuff as well as toxins. But right off the bat, number one, I want to just get into the idea of, of stress and the stress that we're facing all over in the world and how that affects us and how that actually affects our health. So as you said before, the 10,000-foot view, let's start off with with the 10,000-foot view of that.

Thanks for having me on, Jason Wasser. Sure. So I think you want— I think the first thing that's important to recognize is that stress is everywhere and it's in anything. So it can be, what are you thinking? What kind of thoughts are you having that are having a negative impact on your health because they occur as stressful? Uh, I'll give you an example in a moment. Or they could be something like the people around you or the fact that you're— if you're like me, it could be you're, you're overbooked and you're running around from place to place, and so you don't have the downtime you need. Or it could be some behaviors that you're engaging in. And I'm always very careful to say, like, you're not a bad person, you're a great person, and you might have behaviors that aren't working for you well and they're creating stress in the system. So there's a lot of different ways you can get to that. And really anything can be a stressor. So the food you're eating could be a stressor if it's not if it's not in your best interest. So I'm very quick to say, okay, that's a stressor, that's a stressor, that's a stressor. And people are like, wait, that's not a stressor. I'm like, that's a stressor. You don't feel good when it occurs. It creates a state of angst. That's a stressor. So it's a pretty broad, broad definition.

So when people are talking now about like trauma, right? And I know this way, and I kind of differentiate this as a therapist where you have two kinds of types of trauma. Your nervous system doesn't always distinguish between something that's really massive and something that's small, there's still going to be, you know, some type of biofeedback and biochemistry response that's going on. But is there a perspective from your insights as far as like, you know, capital T traumas and lowercase t traumas and how that affects us and, and what goes through the system? And how you would look at that as one, as a medical doctor, but also, you know, when it comes to the integrative health side, I'm going to tiptoe here, right?

Yeah. I'm not a trauma expert. But what I would say is that once the trauma mechanism or, or our system or motor gets activated, it doesn't really matter if it's a big or little T if you've activated the system. So it's like that saying, you can't walk a mile in anyone else's shoes. So what you experience as a little T, I experience as a big T. And, and so I would start there and say, okay, your experience is what's important, not what we think of your experience. So don't let anybody tell you, oh, 'Who cares?' Or, 'That's not a big deal.' No, to you it's a big deal. So you're experiencing it, it's still setting off your adrenal dysfunction and you're shutting down the liver and you're shutting down your detox. So it has the same impact whether it's big or little. Maybe if you experience it as a little tea, even if it's a big tea, it might have lesser of an impact on your adrenal, liver, and gut axis, but it's still having an impact.

Yeah. The way I think about it is, and this is kind of setting up for that next little segment, especially as it relates back to your to your book is, is the microbiome, right? And when we're talking about treatment or solving some medical-related, health-related stuff, this one-size-fits-all approach, um, right? Again, coming from the psychology world, it was, you know, you sit and you just talk and then the session's up versus what are the different approaches we can take to solve this? What are the different theories, methodologies, right? Different lenses we can take on and off. My understanding— and, and feel free to, you know, take this where you want to go with this— is that the linear approach to solving stress, the linear approach to solving how our body handles that. And what I'm including, like what you just said, is the idea of stress is what are you being exposed to, whether it's environmental stuff, whether it's food, whether it's, you know, bacterial, viral, you know, all these different things. It's not a one-size-fits-all journey, especially when it comes to healing. So two people can be exposed to the same toxin and have very different responses, and one can have a response and not— one cannot have a response. So I was wondering if you can talk a little bit more of what that means and what what that looks like, um, those misunderstandings of, uh, that approach, right, when it comes to this one-size-fits-all, and how does, you know, toxins and stress go hand in hand in affecting, uh, people differently.

And yeah, a lot to unpack there, Jason. That sounds like a really—

yeah, I know, right?

Like, you know, can you just discuss that? But that's one of those massive questions. Okay, okay, so let's, let's sort of take a step back.

Sure.

You're born and you have your genetics That is your book of life. You get it from both your parents. You can have mutations, you can have, you can have an enhancement, whatever, right? This is what you're born with. And then alongside your DNA is your epigenetics. Those are the methylation factors that will cause your DNA to either express, turn on, be active, or go dormant. So for example, uh, so I'm not gonna be able to say to you, okay, this happened and then this happened and then this caused that epigenetic change. But what I will say is that when you think about, and this is near and dear to my heart 'cause I have celiac, I'm the president of National Celiac Association, and a much greater percentage of people have celiac that and don't know it, but an even greater number of people are gluten sensitive and don't realize it. So my goal is, okay, how do we, how do we prevent people from getting celiac? 'Cause nobody should be as restricted as I am around gluten in terms of eating out. So, okay, 40% of the population has the, the gene for celiac. But only 1% of the population has celiac, approximately. That's epigenetics. So the fact that you have that gene, but it hasn't been expressed or it hasn't turned on versus where I have that gene and it has been turned on and I have that autoimmune disease as a result, that's the impact of the epigenetics. And the epigenetics are the stressors that occur to your ancestors. And really cool, Jason, really cool. Like my fa— I remember driving home. From being in Western Mass. I live in Massachusetts. We're driving from Western Mass and this report comes on, on NPR about this, these epigeneticists in Sweden, pretty sure it was Sweden. And they looked back, this, there was this very small town in Sweden and they kept very, very meticulous records on their, on their people who lived in the town. And what they found was when they looked back, excuse me, was that if your grandfather, okay, so we're talking 2 generations down back, if your grandfather had a feast when you, when he was going through puberty, it's more the grandfathers than the grandmother in this case, then his offspring were significantly more likely to have diabetes, heart disease, and died on average 6 years earlier than the general population. Then they looked at the opposite and said, okay, well, what happens if your ancestor went through a famine? And they found that if your grandfather went through a famine as he was going through puberty, His offspring were significantly more likely to live 25 years longer than the general population and significantly less likely to have diabetes, heart disease, or die early. So we have a 31-year spread in the lifespan based on something that's totally out of your control. Okay. And, and so that's the impact of epigenetics. Now I've forgotten, hold on. You asked me something and I was like, that's a lot to unpack, but, but I went off on the epigenetics because some of this is out of our control and some of it's in our control. All stress is not bad. Too much stress is bad, right? So, so the, the thing that causes your genes to express or not express can impact how you respond to a stressor in your lifetime or a toxin in your lifetime. So, okay, you've got your genetics, then you've got your, how you were born. Were you born via a vaginal birth or were you born via cesarean delivery? Because those give you very different microbiomes. Microbiomes. You get nothing if you're born by a C-section. You gotta— you basically, you leave the monkeys in charge of the zoo because at that point what you get is just what you get. You don't— there's no rhyme or reason. Or you get what your mom had as you come through her vaginal canal, good or bad, right?

Right.

So there's your early life where you breast or bottle fed. That alters your microbiome. Then what kind of childhood did you have? Did you have parents who were available emotionally? Did you have parents who were distant? Did you move around a lot? Did you feel connected? Did you— the big or little T traumas that stayed with you and impacted your risk of, of developing a disease. Were you sick as a kid? I was sick all the time. I had strep throat, ear infections. I had pneumonia when I was a 6-month-old. I was sick a lot as a baby and got antibiotics because I'm a child of the '70s. So we did antibiotics all the time, right? So all these things start to pile on and then, and then it comes into what are the choices you're making? Are you— so, so I use myself as an example because I made all the wrong decisions, right? I went to med school when I should not have gone to med school because I'm strong like a mouse. I'm not strong like a bull. I can't take a lot of, you know, insults and stress. But I went to med school. That was stressful. And then I went to OB-GYN because, you know, I had to do the hardest thing. So my, my desire to be productive and my innate constitution, huge mismatch, right? So the choices you make make a difference. And then within that, what are you eating? What are you choosing to eat? Are you choosing to sleep, not sleep? Do you drink alcohol? Do you eat sugar? All of these choices, it's not a moral discussion. Okay. You can drink alcohol all the time. You're not a bad human. You just might not be a healthy human.

Right.

Right. So, so all of these things start to pile on and now you have yourself and, and when you start, when you start to look at how do we untangle the impact of, of some big or little T trauma. You have to take all of that other thing into effect, into, into the causality of how you feel. Yeah, it's a lot to unpack, right? Right.

The way I streamline it with my clients through the world of neuro-emotional technique is it was Dr. Walker came up with the home run formula. And you put whatever issue we're dealing with primarily at that moment on the pitcher's mound, and we run the bases. Is there an emotional stressor that's connected to it? Which would be first base. Second base would be toxicities. Is there toxicities that you've been exposed to that we need to help remove from your body, right, in any way, shape, or form.

You live on this Earth, right, right, right, whatever it is.

Yeah, as we're sitting here in front of technology and EMFs, right? So those type of things, as I'm doing Zoom all day, um, right? And then third base would be nutritional deficiencies, and then home plate is structural. And, and, and, and, you know, coming out from that world, he found that, you know, when he would do an adjustment, it wouldn't heal. Oh, right. And, and, but it should, right? The body should have this innate healing when you get rid of the thing. But then he found out, okay, well, maybe there is an emotional stressor. We knew the toxin thing already. The chiropractic is very built on that, right? Knew that there was toxic loads and, you know, the other thing in the nutritional components, but they never thought about the emotional side of things. And that's where NET started getting formulated. Um, so now when I'm working with clients, it's not just like— someone called me yesterday based exactly what you're saying. This person has anxiety, they're having panic attacks. Great. What's their diet like? Oh, well, he drinks a lot and has a lot of sugar. Are they willing to stop doing that? Because I can help you, but it's going to come back, or it's not going to get as good as you need it to get. Well, I don't think they'll stop doing that. Well, then I'm not going to take them on as a client. I think people need to realize, and as you're listening to this, listeners, right, there's those, those different layers of— while you're listening to this during a time of stress in the world, there's things that we have control over. There's also things, like you said, from multiple generations. And I even heard a study that said with mice, 6 generations back, that they were exposed to a toxin. I'm not sure if this famous study or not, that they were exposed to a toxin that that might have killed the generation that drank it, that were exposed to the poison, they licked the poison, they died. But the mice that were the next generation that saw it and that had children, up to 6 generations later when that poison was put in front of that, the mice from the 6 generations later, and they did a blood draw from those mice, it still had a fight or— it still had a biochemical response to that. So we're talking about epigenetics in that regards, right? So, so stress is massive. So we're talking about microbiome. Walk— just give— if you can give a quick understanding of what the microbiome is, just so the listeners know what that means. And two, when you're talking about stress loads, because I know, right, the name of your book is Dirty Girl and How to Ditch the Toxins, Look Great and Feel Freaking Amazing. Let's, let's just pivot into that a little bit. But, you know, I think understanding a little bit of what the microbiome is really doing and responsible for and what that means will help everybody understand that.

Sure. And I think to do that, we should talk about what I'll consider— I call it the Holy Triad. Okay. Didn't call it the Holy Trinity because I didn't want to. It's not religious.

It's already taken.

Yeah. No, it took my term. So the Holy Triad. So, and, and because it matters because a healthy, uh, so the microbiome is the term that we're using to discuss the bacteria and the balance of bacteria, parasites, yeast, whatever you have in your gut. That's your microbiome. Micro, small, biome. I don't know what biome stands for actually. So that's your microbiome. That's what's in your gut. However, what happens there is directly dependent on what are you eating. Excuse me, I keep hitting my mic. Sorry about that. Directly, directly linked to what are you eating, how are you born, how do you live, what's the stress level you have, and then what toxins are you exposed to? Because what's happening upstream, why I call it the holy triad, is you have the adrenal glands, or these like walnut pecan-sized glands on top of your kidneys in your back, and they are responsible for your fight, flight, or freeze response. They're responsible for maintaining your blood pressure. They're responsible for when you're in menopause, if you're female, for producing your estradiol and your testosterone. And so if your adrenals— and your adrenals are amazing organs, but relatively dumb, right? So they're, they're not necessarily— this is why I said to you, the big T and the little t don't really matter because your adrenals are either on or off, right? If they're on, you're putting out cortisol. If they're off, they're not. So if you have a stressor, you may create higher levels of cortisol, but you're gonna put out cortisol. And when you put out cortisol, if it's in high enough amounts, that signals the liver, which is the third stool or third part of the holy triad, to either do detox and be healthy or put out stores of sugar because you have to run from a lion that's about to eat you. We're super primitive. We have not evolved past that fight, flight, or flight, fight, flight, or fright response, or freeze. We haven't evolved past that, even though we're thousands of years past that. We're still in that pattern. So we have not kept on. Yeah, right. So even though you're like, oh, it's just my stupid boss, or, oh, it's just, you know, it's when I was driving, there were a lot of crazy people on the road today. And I was like, oh, people are out of their minds today. But my adrenals don't know that it's just some idiot in a car next to me. They just know that I feel stressed. Right? So, so the, the gut matters, but also what's happening in the adrenals and the liver matters because if your adrenals say to your liver, oh guys, you know, a lion's coming, it also says to the gut, let's not focus on detox right now. Let's focus on survival. And in survival, we don't digest. We do get sugar from the liver so that we can run quickly. We have cortisol coursing through our bodies. And so the food that you just ate in a meal, and now you're stressed about for some other reason is sitting there rotting in your gut. Then the bacteria that digest you when you die are like, oh, school, we're psyched. We're, we're ready to go because they're waiting. They're anaerobic. They're waiting for when there's no activity and they kick in. So then you go, why am I so gassy and bloated? Right? And that's because you've thrown off the balance of gut just by having a stressful thought or having a stressful experience.

So people should not be going on CNN or Fox News while they're eating, whether it's on their laptop or on their TV.

No, no.

Look at that. Is that what you're saying? Is that what I'm picking up here?

But I mean, here's the thing, Jason Wasser. So many of us are suffering from a lack of connection. So the last thing you want to do when you're eating is be in front of a screen. What you want to do is be in front of a human and have a conversation if possible. So you sort of compounded it doubly, right? Not only are you not— mealtimes are a time of connection, an opportunity for connection. Now you're not a bad person if you, again, this is not a moral conversation. This is a what works for your body conversation. So if you sit in front of the screen, you're more likely to overeat. You're more likely to put cortisol out. You're more likely to shut down your detox. If you sit with a human, well, as long as they're not a toxic human and you know, you sit down with them and they start in on you, that's not any better, right? You're better off being alone than, than with someone who's toxic for you. And I was laughing when you said you wouldn't take someone on if they, if they weren't willing to alter their behavior, basically. And because I would say about twice a year I get someone who I say to them, I can't help you because you're, for me, I can't help someone if they're in a toxic relationship that is either their marriage or their, their, their significant other, or they're in a job that is absolutely toxic because it's so much much more powerful than any of the supplements I can give or any of the lifestyle. Like, you can't— you can't polish a pig, right? Like, or you can try, but it's not going to be effective, right?

And I thought it was a reverse for me, or it's like, would you be willing— would this person be willing to see a functional medicine practitioner? Because again, it's that hand in hand for me of I have the stuff that I can get into within my scope of practice, and here's the stuff that I can kind of lean into a little bit that's technically within my scope of practice or not outside of my scope of practice. And then there's the stuff that's not my scope of practice but I know will work work, but those things have to go hand in hand. So it does become a clear line, one, as a business professional, but two, as like just the values, the core values of the people that I want to work with also, right? In that regard, talk about like, I don't want to be blamed for you're not getting anywhere. Now I'm the 8th practitioner you worked with.

Right? No, I've said to people, look, I can count on one hand the number of times I've said this this year. But until you leave your— and fill in the blank— your toxic job, marriage, relationship, whatever that is, That's more powerful than any intervention as a functional medicine doctor I can bring. So, so that's going to override the supplements, the acupuncture, the hyperbaric oxygen, the IVs. That's so much more powerful. We can't go anywhere. It's just a roadblock. And I say that maybe twice a year. It's not that often, right? Because most people can go, oh, right, I need to get out of there. And they will. But some people are stuck or feel like they're stuck. And that becomes a roadblock.

Are there any tips or tricks just from your perspective, right? Not psychology, but you're a medical professional and you are dealing with pervasive— a lot of times pervasive toxins. Are there just some mindset tips and tricks that you do give when people are helping navigate these toxic situations, these toxic— whether it's people or environments? I mean, I know the environments can be a totally different set of standards, but just helping them from, you know, the lifestyle overall and/or people? Is there, is there any insights on that?

Yeah, totally. I'm a huge fan of, I think it was a Verizon statement, make progress every day. It's like the silliest little thing, but I'm a huge fan of Rome wasn't built overnight. You're not going to be perfect overnight. This is actually not even about perfection. This is about improvement. And so when you stand at the base of the mountain and you look up, you go, Oh wow, that looks really insurmountable, but you just need to start climbing and don't worry about how far you need to go cuz it's gonna evolve as you go. So my first thing that I talk to people about is this is not a perfection mindset. This is not a, I'm gonna be finished with this mindset. This is how can I make an improvement? So when we're looking at, I have a couple patients and it's not like I fire people generally. I only fire you if you're a jerk, right? If you're a jerk and you're mean to my staff, then you can't see me. You can't be mean to my staff. So I'll fire people for that. But otherwise I'm like, okay, look, you can pay me and I'm not gonna be able to help you, but you can keep paying me and I'll keep coaching you until you have a breakthrough, right? And that'll come when it comes. So what I usually say to people is, okay, you're stuck in this job or you're stuck in this marriage. How do we make the best of a terrible situation? What is a boundary we can set? Can you discuss with your, with your boss or your colleague or whatever it is that you're gonna set some boundaries? So you're not gonna work at 6 in the morning and you're not gonna work at 10 o'clock at night. Instead of working 14 hours, maybe you work 10 or even 13. Go make some improvement. You don't have to go from 14 hours to 8. Go from 14 to 13.

Yeah.

Get used to it. Make sure you tell people what you're up to. Then go to 12. Make consistent, chip away at it. Make consistent improvement so that when you look back or after 6 months, you go, oh yeah, 6 months ago I was working 14 hours a day and every month I decreased it by an hour and now I'm working 8 hours a day. So I look for where, what are ways that we can set some boundaries that will work for you that will be maybe not like jumping into a cold plunge, but will just be consistent and measured so that at the end of it, you look back and you go, oh, I made an improvement.

Yeah.

Uh, I owe a huge fan of labeling behaviors, not people. In fact, you know, I know I don't like, we don't call each other names in our family, like you're lazy or you're stupid. No, that was a It's a dumb thing to do, but that's a behavior as opposed to you're not intrinsically dumb. But you know, I have teenagers and they have terrible frontal cortex control. So what I'm always saying to them is, you know what, just don't make a really unsafe choice that will cause you not to be around. Because if, you know, if you just can live to like 25 to 30, you're gonna outgrow this behavior. Just don't make any permanent choices here. So, you know, like one of my kids got a tattoo and I was like, I'm like, mm-hmm, okay, well, let's see if you're still happy with that in 50 years, right? Or even in 10 years. But it's not my body, it's not my problem, right? So, so I'm just working with people to make consistent improvement, label behaviors, not personalities. And then don't take stuff personally that's not yours. Don't pick it up, right? If there's trash on the ground, unless you're gonna throw it in the trash, do not pick it up and carry it around with you. Meaning someone around you is like nasty and grumpy and blah, blah, blah. You either don't spend time with them or reframe it. Like, oh, it sounds like, you know, someone who was complaining. I was like, it sounds like you have a request. What's your request? And they're like, I do have a request. I was like, great. What's your request? Because I can't help your complaint, but I can make you help you with your request. So try to hear the request in the complaining so that you can hear behind, you know, there, there's always a request. They just don't know how to say it well.

So I, yeah, I love those examples, especially the mental request thing. I remember I had a client years ago and everything in their life was just chaos, and they were just like this like artsy hippie-ish, you know, just wanted to like be at peace and listen to music. And I'm like, well, tell me about the people in your life. Well, this one has this going on, and this one is this going on, and my neighbor has this one going on. And I'm like, okay, well, how did, how did those things become your problem? Well, you know, this one time, right? And they're all the stories, and I took a big gamble with this client. It was a new client. I knew that they were like, what I was about to say was like clean enough for me to get away with their personality. I'm like, can you take your, can you take your finger and put it under your nose? And they're like, okay. And they do that and they're in my office. I'm like, yeah, there you go. I'm like, does it smell like crap? Like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, you're sticking your finger in everybody's butt and now your life smells like shit. And she rolled off my couch onto my floor, cracking up hysterically. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm sticking my finger in everybody's butts. I'm like, I didn't know you're a gastroenterologist and you're not getting paid to do that and you're not wearing your glove. And right. And that metaphor started changing the boundary. I was also like, oh crap, am I going to lose my license? But it was the right person. So but that changed the paradigm of like I'm willingly doing this and I'm willingly setting myself up for these type of things, but yet I'm blaming everything else around me.

But you just brought up a really good point, Jason, that I'd like to highlight, which is people are driven by something, and that's always a future, even if they haven't articulated it. We're always living into a future. Why should I exercise? I want to feel good now and in 10 years. Why do you take care of yourself? I don't want to be a burden on my children. Why are you working so hard? I wanna retire well. There's always something in the future we're living forward into. And most people aren't really clear what their future is. Right. And so even just working with them, what I do is I'm like, okay, well, why are you doing that? Like, what future are you living into? If we go back to that toxic relationship, the toxic job, the toxic marriage, what are you getting by staying in a relationship that's not working for you? And maybe we need to look at the future that you're, that you are living for to see if we can. Alter that future so that your present alters. Yeah, right. Agree. And, and getting the future clear makes such a big difference for people because then they go, oh well, this isn't consistent with that. I'm out, right?

So the rules of engagement that people create— I had someone that I saw at one of my conferences and we were working, you know, one of the beautiful things about the NET community is when we have a workshop, we then do breakout groups and we work on something for like 30 minutes swap back and forth. And then we go back into the next, you know, thing that they teach us. And I was talking to someone and they were telling me about their relationship. And I'm like, you guys seen like couples counselor before? No, like, tell me more, right? I'm just curious. And give me some examples of how they would consistently treat you, not the one-offs. And I'm like, kind of, kind of, this kind of sounds a little bit like emotional abuse. And let me pull up the chart of, you know, the emotional abuse, you know, with verbal and emotional abuse looks like from, you know, the wheel of the wheel of abuse. And let me tell me if any of these things are happening. And And person said, oh my God, yeah, these things are happening. I'm like, well, have you ever put a name to these things versus like, I'm being treated like crap, or I don't like how I'm being treated. And I'm like, well, what would it be like if you started, you know, if this person's not going to go to therapy with you, what would it be like to just start identifying that, which is I'm being abused? Now doesn't mean you have to be a victim, means that you can start taking, you know, but you have to recalibrate your framework of what's going on versus like, I'm in a stressful relationship.

Yeah. And I'm even thinking like, okay, that you're, you're on the receiving end of abuse. Not that you're being, right? Right. Your beingness isn't that you're—

No, no. Your essence is not, right?

You're experiencing something. And, you know, I have 4 kids and a husband who, and we have a whole bunch of businesses. And so we're always on the go. But my favorite thing to say, and I'll give this to all the listeners, my favorite thing to say in response to something that I think is cockamamie or isn't gonna work is, that doesn't work for me.

Mm-hmm.

Just like that. I'm never nasty. I'm like, no, that doesn't work for me.

Love it.

No, we're not gonna stay up until 11:30. That doesn't work for me.

Yeah.

No, we're not gonna eat sugar for dinner. That doesn't work for me. Right. No, we're not gonna, whatever, fill in the blank because I have 4 kids. They come up with all kinds of wacko stuff. And then I have a husband who, you know, that Y chromosome, Jason, is like, so the 5, the 5 kids. Yeah. I have 4 and a half and he's an adult, but yeah, he would come. I'm like, what? No, we're not gonna— that doesn't work for me, honey. Yeah, no.

Well, that boundary standard, right, that phrase, and I've shared that with, with people when I learned that a bunch of years ago for myself. Um, it's actually— I got it from Parenting with Love and Logic. I don't know if you've ever seen those books, right? So that's one of the— like, I'll let you know what works for me. That's like, uh, one of the great— that's like, they have a list of like one-liners that you can say to a kid. Um, but they also have for couples as well. And I'm like, oh, that's so great. I'll let you know, which is exactly what you're saying. I'll let you know what works for me is really such a powerful— and people are afraid to do that because one, we don't want to hurt anybody. Two, we don't want offend anybody. 3, it's the unconscious belief that we're responsible for someone else's feelings and well-being when we're not. Don't be a dick.

But my 14-year-old son, I'm kind of this free-range parent. I'm like, don't get lost or stolen and do your work and we're gonna be fine. I'm not a helicopter parent at all.

Here's an AirTag, go on, I'll see you later.

Yeah, like, just, just do your thing. So my first 2 kids did very well with that parenting approach. My first 2 kids, they did their work. One's, you know, one's in college, the next one is applying to college. I'm like, do you need help? I'm like, no, I'm good. Okay. I get to my third kid and my third kid is not doing well with this parenting approach because my third kid is a boy who is now addicted to Minecraft. And so we, we were like, wait, not only, I really don't care how much Minecraft you play as long as you sleep, eat, move your body and do your damn homework.

Right. Take a shower once in a while.

Yeah. He drives that. That's not something I have to argue with him about. He's like, oh, I'm like, okay, have at it. Go shower. Okay, good.

He's fine.

But, but it was so interesting because he's, he, we, we, after we figured out you're not doing your work, you're not, you're just not, you're totally thrown off by this Minecraft thing. We put in controls that we never had to do with our other kids. So first we started with screen time, blew through, right, right, right through that. And then we ultimately landed on a software that allows us to literally turn on or off access to every specific thing, a website, an app, screen time. We can shut the computer down. It's, it's fantastic. But it's like a tyrant, right? We're— you're gonna do what we say. So he said to me, you're dominating me, you're making me do this, and I'm a victim. I'm like, hold on, I get that you don't like this control. I don't blame you. I wouldn't like it either. But we instituted this in reaction to your behavior, right? So we, we weren't just like, let's torture our 14-year-old boy and restrict his Minecraft. No, our 14-year-old stopped doing his work and stopped being a functioning member of our family. And so we instituted these controls. These controls caused by you. We did not cause them. You caused them. And he still believes and maintains that he's a victim. And I'm like, hmm. So I'll keep you posted on that.

But he's— Yeah. Well, it's like, what can he do? And I would turn it on him if I'm like, so how do we get your parents off your back? What do you need to be doing? What do you need to take accountability and ownership over so you're— so mom and dad don't have to spend their time thinking about you in that way anymore?

Yeah. I actually offered him a tutor like a month and a half ago. He's like, no, I'm good. I'm good. So two nights ago I said to him, look, I love you to pieces. I really value our relationship. And my role as your parent, the way I see my role is I am your guru. I'm the person you should go to with questions. I'm your cheerleader. I am not your time guardian and your taskmaster. Are you doing your work? That's not my role. So I said, you're getting a tutor and that tutor is going to do your work with you because I can't even do your math. You're doing college-level math in high school. That's not my thing. So I said, you're going to get a tutor and when you are mastering it, you can get rid of your tutor. And if the tutor doesn't work, we're going to keep the tutor and then we're going out on a therapist. So how this goes is totally up to you. And he was like, the only thing he got from that was like, how long do I have to have the tutor for? And I said, as long as it takes for you to do your work, do an impeccable job and be amazing. And, and then I said, I really don't care if you have a half hour to an hour of Minecraft a day. I don't care. But right now you're not doing your work.

So yeah.

So we'll see. I mean, it's a work in progress.

Well, that's why I love that Love and Logic theory. It's like, well, you can play as much Minecraft as you want and you have to do all these things. Which ones do you want to do first? But if you don't accomplish all those things, things, then there will be a consequence paradigm, right? And, and I love that.

Or no reward.

Or no reward, right, right. There's no reward, which is right. That's the— that— but, but it's, oh well, you chose for the— for there to be no reward, child, because you made the decisions for the reward not to exist by you not doing what you said you're gonna do. So I love that, that, that, that setting up of personal accountability and, and consequence. But just want to tie back into that last story of that person who I saw recently who I had that conversation with, because again, this This is the— no, no, no, the one with the, with the abuse, right? And, and again, going into like stress and toxins, like not realize, oh, it's okay if I have my pumpkin spice latte once a week. Maybe, I don't know. But we also like, what's the sugar content and what's the rate and all the food chemicals and all the other stuff that like, you know, and the plastic leaching in all of our cups and all those, which, you know, read the book, right? Um, I don't need to get into that right now, but read her book. So, um, But the idea— but then I saw this person again and it was 6 to 8 months later, they got divorced and I was blown away. I'm like, wow, that's like— but it was like just this like mind-shifting thing of like what you said of like if you don't realize that like you have all these things going on over here, but yet you don't even realize this because we're just programmed, right? Society, like you talk, like we talk about in the functional medicine world, like we're predisposed to purchasing things and buying things. And now it's right, we're, we're not in the middle of flu season. What do we— what you and I know, it's not flu season, it's sugar season.

It's always sugar season.

It's always— well, even more, right?

I said sugar's the devil. I'm waiting for the meme to come. Sugar's the devil.

That's your next book, right?

Sugar is the devil. It's terrible. So it's— but it's always sugar season, right? Because we get through that and then we're like, oh, it's Valentine's Day. Oh, it's Memorial Day. Oh, Oh, it's 4th of July. So it just never ends. Yeah, it's nonstop.

So I know we have to be mindful with time, but I know that you have an offer for our listeners. So why don't you share that with us? And also, it's also where they can come and find you.

Yes, it is. So I am on all the socials @wendytruboMD. And then we have a gift for the listeners. If you're not sure you want to read the book, or if we have a quiz to figure out how toxic you are, which is a little bit— we haven't talked about exactly toxicity as much as we've talked about just that small part of stress and, and emotionals. But there's that whole world of toxicity, what you put in you, what you put on you, what's around you. So we have a quiz that you can help figure out how toxic am I? How big of a deal is this? We have a non-toxic guide to healthy living so you can start leveling up. That has all the things, right? I did all the mistakes so you don't have to. I know what you should use so that you can clean it up. And then it's chapter 1 of the book. So you can see, do I like the style? Do I like how it reads? Can I communicate with this human? And so that's all at drwendy.com/gift.

I love it. And just as a, as a, just as a side note with, with learning toxicities and we were talking about adrenals, but also, you know, another time maybe in the future we can talk about the thyroid and right, all this stuff that's going on and, you know, Hashimoto's and everybody has thyroid stuff going on. And especially when it comes to women's health, which is right there, you know, your side of OB-GYN where with pregnancies and how many people are having miscarriages and how many things are going back to that and the toxic loads and then Hashimoto's or, you know, thyroid, um, what's the antibodies, how going up after pregnancy and stuff like that. I have someone I know that had that, and then we're like working with a functional medicine person and they're like, well, we checking out mold as the precursor to all these things going on. And guess what? Mold, mold is one of those big things, especially with mental health and all that. We don't even know what to look into. So everybody, please, please, please go check out the website at drwendy.com/gift. Check out her book, Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great and Feel Freaking Amazing. It's available everywhere. And if you like more of this, obviously go, you know, you've been on a bunch of other interviews. So please, if you want more of all the different topics she talks about, check out any of her other podcast interviews and just go right to her site. And Wendy, again, thank you so much. And hopefully in the future, we'll go into some of those other things as uh, you know, I always like more and more functional medicine stuff in front of my community.

Yeah, thank you, Jason Wasser. Thanks for having me on.

My absolute pleasure.