Doctor Nearly DIES, Then Discovers Spiritual Science of Healing

You're 18 and there's a crazy accident that probably would have killed most people.

It was March 29th of 1995. I was playing indoor soccer. I'm running and this athlete hits me and kind of lifts me up and I roll over the half wall. I was vomiting. I had severed my pancreas in half. It was the worst pain I could ever, ever imagine. I was having doctors say you're an insulin dependent type 1 diabetic.

When you have this model that essentially gives people pills for almost every ill, there's an arrested development of their healing.

That's revision quests, time in nature, mind medicine. It's a controversial thing. It will rewire your brain.

I've dealt with this. I used to be 280 pounds. If somebody would have taught me like in my mid-20s, I probably would have saved myself a lot of pain.

I mean, is medicine ultimately the body can heal itself. That's what we know. It has an innate wisdom to heal itself.

You've literally seen patients heal like a Hashimoto's.

Specifically, to answer your question, between you.

And me, What is the mindset that people have when they just simply refuse to heal?

I've thought about it for many years, for many decades, and I still think about it. There's a great quote and you maybe have heard about it, but I think it's appropriate to answer this way, which is when you're in the darkness, sometimes you feel like you've been buried, but you've actually been planted. And until I could wrap my head around what had happened to me and why it happened to me, it was victim and blame and anger and guilt. Until the epiphany went off. I realized it was happening for me. And so my whole life now is. Is living a life in alignment with all of those lessons in the darkness and then just bringing it to the light and then helping other people.

So it's not necessarily that things are happening to us, which you've heard from NLP for a long time. This reframe can be a bit jarring to people that are going through like a serious health journey. I don't know personally if it gets more serious than almost losing your life.

Yeah.

Before we recorded, you were sharing about your last name. I think this is a perfect time for you to share with people the meaning of your last name. And then I'm going to ask you about your story because it's like the etymology of our last name can carry significant weight. Can you share with people the meaning of your last name?

So my Last name is Lazarus. And for people that are familiar with the Bible, or maybe even not familiar with the Bible, Lazarus is raised from the dead from Jesus. And it's a pivotal story in Christianity. That remarkable symbolic rising. I think it finally dawned on me once I had processed what had happened to me. Yeah. That it was meaningful and how fat, how far it goes, I don't know. But when you have a near death experience and you come out of the darkness and you're into the light, you can't help but think, you know, what happened here? Where's the meaning? Where's the. The alignment with Lazarus? And so it's something I think about often.

It's significant because I was sharing with you in the podcast logo is the triangle. Feminine energy water. My last name is Trent, a river in England. God makes jokes is what I'm saying. You're 18, and there's a crazy accident that probably would have killed most people.

Yeah.

And you survived and it crushed a part of your body that then gave you this condition of type 1 diabetes. And it obviously led you in a huge way to do what you do now, you know, as a clinician, as a functional medicine practitioner. When it happened versus now. This is how many years has transpired between 18 and now? A significant amount of years.

30.

30 years.

30 years.

What is that? 30 years of wisdom taught you about looking back on that nde? It was a true nde. I mean, you could have left your physical form. Yeah. Has there been any new developments in your wisdom compared to the first 10 years or 20 years? Looking back with greater wisdom usually takes time.

Yeah. I would break. It's 30 years. So let's call it three decades. I would say, you know, darkness, like I said, anger, grief, victim. Why? Those are the first decade, then a transitional decade where, okay, I can do this. I became, you know, a board certified doctor and, you know, have all these great accreditations and designations and started to help people. And, you know, I kind of call the three decades like tragedy strategy, advocacy. So I would break those decades into that. So. And I'll get into, you know, the headspace that I was in and a lot of the barriers in the, in the first tragedy decade. The second one was let me figure this out and let me start helping people. Which brings me to where, kind of where we're at now, which is advocate what I learned and how I can share that with other people from a medical standpoint, from a holistic standpoint, from a mindset, from a spirit standpoint. So those are probably the three Most significant kind of milestones.

I mean, I can't even imagine what you were going through. And it essentially created this beautiful book, which is on the screen right now. So the Essential Health Playbook. This is not about just having a six pack. And I love that about you because, like, you're very fit. There's an image of you on the screen right now. You're super fit. And nobody would look at you and be like, this guy almost died. Or this guy's probably never had health issues. You had health issues for a long time. What was the accident? And. And how did the accident happen? And. And what were the first few years of, you know, I guess you could say the beginning of this playbook. How did that feel for you on a physical level and what were you going through mentally when it happened for you?

You know, it was March 29th of 1995, and I was graduating high school in 1995, in June. And so this was months before I was going to graduate high school. And I thought I had it all figured out, brother. I mean, I knew where I wanted to go. I was going to go play sports there. I was going to live in the dorm with my buddy. You know, I thought, okay, here we go. And it was a. It was a very scary, scary time. I mean, what basically happened was I was a soccer player and I was playing indoor soccer on a Sunday night. And routine play, just balls kind of just kicking along the wall. And in this arena, there wasn't plexiglass around the whole wall. There was a net. And so I'm running and this. This athlete hits me and kind of lifts me up and I roll over the half wall and kind of like just running into this and immediate pain, you know, broke my toes because I slammed my foot into the wall, but like, knocked the wind out of me to an extreme. Got up, was very, very dazed. They walked me off. I got in the car, my parents drove me home, and I started to be very, very sick. And they didn't know what was going on. They start calling the nurse and they said, give him some codeine. Anyways, they start giving this and the rejection starts to occur because I did not know that I had severed my pancreas in half. Usually that mechanism trend is like a. Well, a broken rib or a ruptured spleen. For some reason, you know, Spirit pushed me right into that wall at the wrong angle or the right angle, depending on how you look at it, and it severed it. And so rushed me into the hospital, did his CAT scan. I don't really remember much of this. I was vomiting. It was the worst pain I could ever, ever imagine. And I still think of it. It's. I mean, everybody kind of knows if you've had the wind knocked out of you, it's a scary moment.

Yeah.

Right. Where it was like that until I was. Basically had surgery. It was a very crampy, scary, traumatic time. The. The pain went away. I was being kind of rushed in to have the surgery. They kind of cut me from, you know, my chest into my belly button opening up. Took my spleen out too. So my pancreas in my spleen. I don't remember that, but I do remember not having pain. And so, yeah, there's the classic NDEs. Right. Which is maybe what we hear about and see in movies, which is walking in the light and flashing all of the. The memories and having no pain and dmt and, you know, I didn't have that. I just did not have pain and I was at peace and I was just kind of recalling memories of being younger.

Wow. And then was it like a Minority Report where all the scenes were in front of you? Did you have like.

I remember walking down the street when I was in elementary school and having a stick and just doing that. So it, it wasn't the. The flash. And there's many different types of experiences. I still don't know. And I've spe lot of time researching what are NDEs and, you know, what's occurring here. Neurotransmitters.

Fascinating.

It is really fascinating. It was just. It was, it was a calmness and it was peace. Yeah. And it was interrupted in. When they completed the surgery and I heard literally the. The bells. And I was in the icu and they said, you're okay. And I looked around and. And was completely dazed, but realized where I was and then out 12 hours later and then in my hospital bed recouping from there.

It's funny because the. Well, it's not funny. It's actually, it's tragic. But you've turned it into such a triumph for a better way to describe it.

Yeah.

When people get close to death, it grows them up really fast. So you didn't really get. Or did you get much of a childhood or an adolescence, per se?

I had my. I had my adolescence. I had my mistakes. You know, I was 18, so I had got out my. Out of my system what I thought I needed. It was the, the college experience in the 20s where I had the ramifications of being a type 1 diabetic and digestive failure and all of the problems that arose from that, that's, that's where the struggle came in, where I'm different and I realize I'm different. And I didn't really come to terms with it in the denial. And that's where, you know, I had a lot of issues, health issues, subsequent to that, where it finally the light bulb went off and I said, okay, I'm going to make a change. And so that didn't happen until that, you know, about five to six years after.

So in those five to six years, I can only imagine, like what you're going through. And by the way, the reason I'm only going into this is because someone's tragedy or someone's initiation, to quote Joseph Campbell, they can either attach to it and make an identity of who they are, or they can actually learn from it and do something amazing that actually helps other people.

You're exactly right.

And the bridge between that is the one that I'm most interested in. Because we all have things that occur and sometimes they're life threatening, but yet there's a soul contract or there's something about you that made you interested in medicine. Was it the fact that you knew it was your responsibility to heal yourself? Were you getting misdiagnosed and mislabeled by medical practitioners at that time?

Great question. It's label theory. I put it in the book. Label theory is real.

Label theory.

It is. So we, there's, I mean, I've been working with patients, thousands of patients, for the last 20 years and I've seen this. And one of my advantages of, of helping them heal is helping them identify that there are labels that we put on ourselves and all of a sudden we can start to manifest that. So for, for me, I was having doctors say you're an insulin dependent type 1 diabetic. You, you're not producing digestive enzymes, you don't have a spleen, your immune system's compromised, your digestion is compromised. You're, I don't know, man, you're, you're just going to have to see what you can do. Life isn't going to be the same for you. And all of a sudden I became a type one diabetic. A label. I'm a type one diabetic.

Yeah.

And so I started to manifest that, meaning I'm different. I have to do these shots. I, you know, I wear a CGM now. The technology is completely different than when it happened back in the day. But, you know, you used to have to check your finger and, and then, you know, administer insulin. And it was, it was a really hard transition when that happened. And it just kind of became me. Well, that also happens with people every day. They're some doc, they go to a doctor going to conventional doc, he says you have depression. And then they label themselves depression. All of a sudden every. When they wake up and they feel a little sad, it's my depression. Or somebody has an autoimmune condition and they're diagnosed with lupus, and all of a sudden, you know, they have a skin rash and their joints hurt. Oh, that's, that's my lupus. You name it. I mean, almost every single diagnosis, there is some kind of acceptance that people will have that, say who I am. And if you can't differentiate that and separate it, sometimes you're just walking through your day saying, oh, this is just my add. I've just, I have add. And so differentiating that and showing people that there is a label theory and you can break through that and you are not your diagnosis is really important. Shedding that label.

Yeah. It's hard though, because I think these physicians are really well meaning. I don't think inherently like a physician, meaning to give somebody a label that's going to tear them down for life. They're actually just. The medical system is really interesting and I know you can speak to this. One of the first things that you go through in your training is the oath of do no harm.

Yeah.

But yet unconsciously, when you have this model that essentially gives people pills for almost every ill, you can put a label on someone that may just accost their healing. There's an arrested development of their healing. Like, in other words, they can't because of the mental seed that's been planted, they can't move forward from that regardless of the resources and the alternative practices that are available. And I wonder how you feel about this. As a physician. You took an oath to do no harm, yet there's no real emotional intelligence training. They call it bedside manner in, in your wing.

Yep.

But there's really no emotional intelligence about how to speak to a patient or how to speak to someone in a way that empowers them, regardless of what ails them.

Yeah.

What do you feel about that?

It is what separates me. I make sure every interaction I have with a patient from the very first patient and will always be this way, is give them hope. So we have to diagnose because diagnosing is literally writing down a code. Right. I mean, that's just a CPT code. It's a. It's a code.

Yeah.

Right. And to your point, you know, many physicians will give that code. This is the way it is, and this is the solution. You need to do this, and this is the way it's going to be. And they mean. They mean well. It's. It's the standard of care, and I still do that, but I'm very careful with my words. I want to give hope, and I want to heal. And so here's a pattern of symptoms that are going on. We can call it this. Here is the natural plan that we're going to work together as partners, and you're going to be better. You're going to. You're going to heal. And it starts in here and here. Don't worry about all the complications. Don't worry about all the specifics. I'm going to give you the plan, and you're going to get better. And so that's what was lacking from my experiences, and that's why part of my mission and, you know, my strategy and advocacy is just pouring that into them.

Did you have that from the beginning because you said you worked in PB doing rounds? I used to live in Pacific Beach, California. That's when I was, like, really deep in my own addiction and womanizing. Not the best place to be, by the way. Pacific Beach, California, if you're working on treating women with respect and being whole within yourself. Did the mindset really come on for you when you were doing your rounds? Or how did you break away from just doing rounds in PB to now being close to San Jose, having your own practice, being a clinician? What was the evolution of the way you spoke to patients from the start till now?

From the moment I started working with patients, I always gave them that hope. So it was just 20 years of when I am actually helping and healing people. This is what I'm going to do. This is the practitioner that I'm going to be. So it started right away. What I've learned with thousands and thousands of patients is. Is reading each individual and personalizing my message. So the delivery and the healing has evolved to be very personal and read the person and give them what they need. And that's what experience of, you know, many, many years of working with people, is that it? It's a personalized approach. The message, not only, you know, the protocol, but how I communicate with them. So it's always been like that. It's just a little bit more strategic now.

There's been so many women I'm blanking on who the name was. But she sat on my podcast and she said, the doctor said that I'll never have children. How someone could, could almost be the hand of God in a way, the ego that exists in western medicine. But it's a duality because western medicine does really help people. If I have a broken leg or if I'm going through something where I need surgery, like it, it's very helpful. It's life changing, life saving. But on the other side of it, if the person is bringing down really the dogma of their own ego and saying, you'll never have children, you'll never walk again, you'll never be able to play sports, like you can't do that. The heaviness of this is, is the part in medicine that I think people wish wasn't there.

Yeah, I'm a, I was angry. I'm still angry. I can, as you're explaining it to me, I'm kind of listening and it evokes the emotion. I had a guy, I had a physician that said, no matter what you do, nothing is going to change. You're just going to be a diabetic, I mean, and just straight faced like that. And you know, whether that's what you call a bad seed, you could call it a curse. So you're never going to have children anymore. You cannot, you cannot say that to a human being. It, you just, you just don't know what's going on in their head. And that, I think that's unacceptable is to, to put in a curse like that, to plant a seed in somebody's head that, that is not possible. That's not, that's not acceptable.

So, so in the playbook, it's so good. It's on the screen right now. You talk about energy levels and fat and all the things that, let's be honest, modernity wants. I want a six pack. I want to be healthy, I want to have energy. But I love, and I remember when we were even chatting in person, the mindset of this is really the whole thing. Because if somebody's made a decision that they can't heal or that they're not worthy of healing, nothing that you do as a clinician will ever seep in. It'll never actually get in there. How did you structure the mental piece of the essential health playbook so that people can even have the awareness and the self love to go on the journey? Because let's be real, the journey is gonna be hard, it's gonna be challenging. There's gonna be like major lifestyle modifications and and diet and movement and breathing and posture, you name it. But the mental piece that you start with in your playbook and also in your metaphysical wheel, that's on the screen right now.

Yeah.

How do you even begin that? Do you start with the mental first, or do you start somewhere else?

Most of us have blocks somewhere. An emotional block, a spiritual block, a physiological block that prevents us from really going deep and understanding our true potential. And so the framework that I created, the Lazarus Method, is different health elements. And let me just talk about them really quick, and then I'll talk about how I constructed it.

There's synergy between you and I because I have the Pentagon. 100 personal, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. I like how you've put yours together, though. I'm not a physician, nor will I ever be.

Yeah.

But I can see how, you know, multiple decades of you helping people, supporting people, really.

Yeah.

Brings in these other elements. But you start with the mental first. Is that the beginning point?

Not every time.

Okay.

No, it's different. I gather information, I start to understand the person, and the biggest vulnerability that I uncover, that's where I start.

Wherever they have the most blockage, the most limiting beliefs, whatever it is.

Yeah. It could be physiological. It could be physical, too. There. So the mental and emotional and spiritual part, of course. Right. That. That has to be addressed. But sometimes there's physical problems, sometimes there's physiological problems. So kind of meet them where they're at and address that first. Yeah. Health is. It's complicated now, brother. I. I mean, there is so much noise.

Yeah.

I mean, if you ask 100 people what their definition of health is, you'll get 100 different definitions. I mean, it's. It's a very vague term. And so, first of all, what I want to do is, like, explain, you know, their definition of health. Like, what does that represent? Why? And so that's. That's a part of it, too, but I always kind of start there. What are their beliefs? What are their values? You know, what are their goals?

It's so different than a traditional M.D.

Oh, yeah.

In every way.

Yes. But this is healing, right? This is. You know what I'm. There's a lot of shiny stuff, like I said. Right.

It's.

It's. There's information overload right now on social media and AI. I mean, people are plugging in algorithms and saying, know, what's this lab show? And what do I need to do? We. We have an information overload problem right now where it's. It creates paralysis by analysis. I have so many patients that come in that do not know what to do. It's. I, I explain it like a Rubik's cube. You play with the Rubik cube before. Okay. I was.

I can never get the colors to line up.

No, I, I was terrible at it. But I, I literally see people with all of these health recommendations and trends and lab tests and this protocol, and they're. They're like, trying to switch all of these colors to line them up, and then the colors are changing, and they're just looking at this, and they're. They're. It's paralysis. And they're like, screw this, because change is hard. And there's just so much information, and there's conflicting information, and there's. And so, you know, the average person, many, many of your listeners are just trying to, like, figure out what do I need to do? And so I want to, you know, give them one and say we, we turn one, and then we sit on it, and then we turn another, and we take the pressure off this thing. And so simplicity is better. But back to your question. I, you know, the health elements, where I start, there's seven of them on the bottom. We can all agree these are the foundations. These are the anchors of kind of human health. And that's nourish, rest, and move. And there's. We can quantify every one of those. Right? I mean, your, your VO2 max, and how fast you can run and your PRs, and how much you can squat and. Right. And then rest. Right. Hrv, and your. Your time in deep sleep and REM sleep and. And then nourish. Right. I can run biomarkers and labs and all kinds of labs that I do in my functional medicine clinic. And I can give you grades on those, and we can quantify that. But the top is a little different. The top is like growth, mindset, performance. In the, in the book and in my program, it's called Connect, Learn, and challenge. And learning is being curious, gathering information, challenging conventional wisdom, but being open, being open to new experiences and new information, because that just drives perspective. And when we don't do that and we're kind of stale and stuck, we kind of get in a loop. And that does play a role in our health and our wellness. Connect. I mean, connect is what you're great at. Connect is connection to nature, connection to self. Listen to that roommate in your head. And connection to tribe. I mean, we're hardwired to be part of a tribe. We. We have a sense of belonging that is a necessity. And so that needs to be addressed or understood. And then the top is challenge. Having a challenge, something that we look forward to. It provides inspiration and motivation. And. And so that's the top, and then boom, right in the middle. That's where you started with. I mean, that's what I call spark. And the spark is it's your passion, it's your potential, it's your purpose. And all of these feed into the spark, and the spark feeds into all of them. And so my goal is to understand each person that I work with, their strengths and their vulnerabilities in that. And I, again, I run labs and I do exams, and I can quantify the bottom, but it's hard to quantify the top.

Yeah.

Their connection with themselves, you know, mental fitness, all of that. And so that's what I've eventually done. Yeah.

I came across some research when I was preparing for us, and it was being lonely is like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And there's been many studies on this, like what happens with CHD and just the rumination that occurs when we're perceived lonely. But you and I know that loneliness is actually illusionary bifurcation. Like, we're not lonely. At any moment in time, we can pick up the phone and call a friend. We can go see people. What do you see and what have you learned in your own journey that prevents us from, I guess, really being vulnerable? To reach out, because nourishment from community. I love that you have nourish in there. If we're not nourished by community, then we're gonna essentially be smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

Yes.

It's actually harder on men. That's what the. The study in our show notes was, was providing that men have a tendency to withdraw and be even less and be even more vulnerable than women. Which makes sense because, you know, look at ego and Gary Cooper and John Wayne and the strong, silent people that would never really show weakness. But the question I'm getting at here is what have you found in our psychology as men and also in your patients, that really stops people, that prevents people from being vulnerable, which then begets curiosity and everything else. What is that in our psyche that blocks us from being vulnerable, especially when we're going through a health concern?

Yeah, isolation kills. Connection heals. Right, okay. You know, it comes down to what many believe is, like, the ultimate requirement of a human being. And it's a feeling of purpose and belonging. Like, if you start stripping things down. And love. Like, all we really want is to be Recognized, loved, have a feeling that we're making a difference. There's purpose.

Yeah.

And that we belong and people like us and we can relate to people and we can connect with people. I mean, really. I mean, look at all the commercials. Look at all. Everything is basically stripping down to these basic human necessities.

Yeah, yeah.

And you had a great question is, you know, what is isolation? It doesn't have to literally be isolation. It could be a spiritual isolation. It could be a emotional isolation where you're going through your day and you're saying hi to all your people at work and, you know, you're talking to your family, but there's an internal struggle in there and you feel isolated and you're not open and discussing this with the people that you trust. And so you lack that spiritual tribe. I mean, that's the real pandemic, brother. Especially, Especially men. Especially in, you know, 2025. Why does that happen? You know, the ego is a. It's a powerful thing. And I think it's just. I think it's. I don't want to say it's hardwired, but I think it's very normal in our culture that we don't show vulnerability, especially as men. You know, we got to all figure out, how you doing? Doing great. Crushing it, killing it. And then he turns around and he's, you know, crying and, you know, scrolling and looking for the next shiny thing.

What I heard from you is honesty is actually the medicine, because whether it's like, Brian Tracy, there's all these personal development guys that have been quoted as like, never show weakness. I think it was Brian Tracy in an old school black and white clip on Social. And he said, if you're having a bad day and somebody asks, you say, I feel great. Never been better. It's almost like forcing positivity. It's toxic positivity. And what's so funny, I wonder how you feel about this. When we start practicing toxic positivity, it actually makes us sick because we're not feeling anything that's really going on in our neural tree and our somatic system. Have you found this to be the case? And what's your thoughts on toxic positivity? Driving illness, driving disease.

I find myself doing it right. I mean, there's one thing about setting an intention and, you know, fighting through the. The. The roommate in our head that gives us the messages that I'm not doing the right thing and I'm not good enough. I mean, I have these conversations with myself every single day. I think we all do. And an inability to listen and not judge, but just observe. And that's where meditation comes in. And mental fitness is just to be able to listen and give yourself grace on that is a. That is a requirement right now. I think that it's a. It's a protection mechanism that we have. I think we live in a very competitive culture and that competition drives, you know, having this armor and we're scrolling through and we're seeing other people and they're doing great things. And so. So one of the, I guess, solutions is, you know, fake it till you make it to your point, which is, I'm just. I'm going to continue to crush it and I'm just going to ignore that. And if this thing comes in, you don't even listen to that. Right.

I've always hated that phrase, fake it till you make it.

Yeah.

I just can't stand that. A mentor of mine, a friend, Dr. Jade Tita, he said it's not about faking it till you make it. It's about believing it until you see it.

Yeah.

And a lot of what we chatted about in person was around the power of language. Even our last names. We're talking about the media meaning of our last names.

Yeah.

How deep have you gone as a clinician into the power of language? You talked about. You meet a patient where they are and you know what to say to them based on your intake process. But the power of language for yourself and the way that you talk to yourself. This is. I think what's really missing in medicine is emotional intelligence training for physicians, for clinicians. How deep have you gone into NLP and the meaning of language?

I call it mental fitness in the book. Just because once you start saying the M word to people, meditation, mindfulness, it's kind of like diet and exercise. You say diet and exercise and meditation, which we all know is some of the biggest healing strategies to it a person, they will turn off. That sounds like torture. I don't. Right.

It sounds like too much work.

Yes. I don't want to do that stuff. Yeah. So I call it mental finish, which is basically you train your brain and your mind just like you train a muscle. And an untrained mind is unable to respond how they want. They just react. And so that is my goal with my patients and in my book, which is train this thing to be a witness and an observer of this dialogue in your head. And that will allow you, the buffer, to respond how you want and not react. Because there is a difference between reaction in response and if you, you know, pair an intention in there and some visualizations and some mantras, you can reset that. You got to recognize, you got to release, and then you can reset. But that, you know, everyone has a different way of approaching listening into, into this psyche, and it, it trying to push you where you need to be for protection. I mean, that's what your ego is. It's there for a reason. It's to protect us.

Yeah.

But it can go out of control sometimes. And so it's really important that people learn how to practice mental fitness. And I do it and I advocate it in a way that does not feel overwhelming in. And there's simple ways, like literally simple ways, and I can share them with you. That can have the, you know, the average person just have that epiphany right there where they're not their thoughts, they're. They're witnessing all of that. They're not their emotions. It's a pattern of energy. You're observing it. And then can you strengthen that buffer? And then when you can do that, brother, I mean, that's when you know, that's what many people call enlightened. And, and, and then you are moving through your day and, and your, Your life, listening and not trying to control, but just feeling and then navigating through this kind of internal compass of like spiritual and wisdom. And it happens. And, you know, and maybe many of the listeners know when that happens, it. It will rewire your brain. There's new synapses that are created, and you start looking through a different lens. And when you start looking through a different lens, you start to see all the immense possibilities and gratitude.

I love that you said that, because for like three years now, people go, what's your podcast about? And I'll typically say the short, short version, which is we just allow you to live your life by seeing it through a different lens.

Yeah.

The nourishment of ourself. And we really bond on the nourishment part in your model. Yeah, because if I'm nourishing my mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial. Financial is huge. Then I'm going to meet myself, right? I'm going to meet myself in the nourishment of these sides of myself. And then guess what's going to come up. There's going to be stories about why I can't do it, or my grandpa told me I couldn't do it, or my parents or society told me that I can't nourish this part because if I do, I'm selfish. You Know, insert Italian grandmother guilt. Right. In other words, there's so many stories that we must meet as we start looking through your model or my model in a through line with all your patients. I know this is kind of a challenging question, but I really want to give somebody who's struggling right now a thread or a guidepost. When people start to nourish themselves through your model, what is a consistent story that you see pop up with most patients? Not all, but most. A story of why they can't heal.

Blocks, huh? Change is really, really hard. We have an operating system. Each one of us has an operating system, right? You start getting into what we call habits and rituals, which are basically things that we. We're really not even conscious about. You know, by the time we wake up and, you know, leave the house, we've gone through, you know, 30 different rituals or habits where we're not even present. We're just going through the motions, right? So that's. There's this kind of like default operating system that we have. And it's, you know, neuro rigidity, which is the opposite of neuroplasticity, which is. It's kind of the same loop. This trigger creates this thought and then that evokes that emotion. And that can happen with ourself, with our family, with colleagues, with strangers, commuting. It doesn't matter, right? It's. It's this kind of hardwired operating system. When we go to change something, it's uncomfortable. Change is very, very uncomfortable. I know it. I've spent, you know, the majority of my life trying to do it and still trying to do it. It's identifying why they are resistant to change. And if you start asking questions, you usually. And if they're honest with you or honest with themselves or. And it doesn't need to be in a history or a conversation. It could be a journal or something like that. But like being vulnerable, being honest and authentic and really start to answer the whys, you can identify those blocks and then once you have that, you can a recognize it and then release the guilt of it, which is always there, or the story or the narrative that you have of it, and then you can like reset it. And it just takes. It takes consistency, it takes determination. But to answer your question, I would say that it. Change is very, very hard for everybody. But being willing to go through a process and understand their operating system, understand the blocks, don't judge yourself one day at a time. You can see amazing things happen. And I'm really right now, like in my Third decade, you know, I'm still in the trenches, I'm still learning. I don't have this thing figured out. I'm still healing myself and I'm still healing other people. But where I'm at right now at, you know, age 48 in my career is really trying to understand what you ask, which is why people can't change. And, and so it's like turtles all the way down. Have you ever heard of that quote?

No, what is that?

It's, man, it's so interesting. Turtles all the way down is, it's like a, it's a metaphor, like a philosophical metaphor. And actually I started to look it up and it was, you know, an astrology teacher that said, you know, this is how the universe works. And someone says, no, the universe doesn't work, it's flat. And you know, and they said, no, it's not you. It's the universe that just sits right on top of a turtle. And the, the professor says, well, what's under the turtle? And the student says, it's another turtle. And he says, well, what's under that turtle? He goes, it's turtles all the way down. And what it is, is it's a metaphor for infinite regression, which is if you start asking true questions about why and you're the person or yourself is answering it honestly, you're eventually going to get to the meaning of life. Crazy. So I'm not saying, okay, patient, we're playing turtles all the way down. Now, I'm not doing that. But if you start asking or give them an opportunity to start asking, okay, well where, what happens here? Well, why do I want six pack abs? I mean, who doesn't, right? Because I want to look strong. Well, why do you want to look strong? Because I, I, I've had self esteem problems or you know, that that is what is looked at as strength in our society, then I'll be enough. Yep. And you start going down and down and eventually comes down to like a block where, you know, I, I need acceptance, I need belonging, I need love. It's, it's real. And then, you know, there's, there's other opportunities to go deeper than that. That's where breath work comes in. That's where vision quests, time in nature, mind medicine, psychedelics. I mean you can, you can cross that barrier and go into another form of consciousness that can help kind of shape or reveal that why. But long answer, but I don't, I would say it's the inability for people to change and, and the awareness of where they're at. And their willingness is a game changer once they start.

Oh, I love that you said willingness. Here's the thing. I wonder how you feel about this. Willing something to happen is different than being inspired by loving yourself in order to do so. Because one of the fuel substrates is like, I'm going to crush my workouts. I'm going to be the best dad. I'm going to live life at the edges and I'm going to do it all. It's like this is just short term motivation. But real inspiration comes from a much deeper, really spiritually earned place. So the spiritually earned place cannot be there without joy. You live in a very serious world. There's lots of sick people that are coming to you. They're already feeling really heavy is what I'm saying. By the time they get to you, they don't need more heaviness from you. They need lightness and playfulness. Almost like a, like an Alan Watts. If Alan Watts didn't drink and didn't smoke and he chose to be an md, that would have been a great model for a physician. How do you bring playfulness and joy into the healing process?

I love it. Gamification. I call it habit formation through gamification. Which is, let's make this fun. Let's set together fun little milestones that don't feel like you have to fix everything. You don't have to have all the perfect labs and have the perfect body composition. Right. And eat perfectly and track every single macro. I mean, I love all of that stuff. I do it, I help it.

It could be a black hole though.

It's, it's, it's overwhelming.

It can be self limiting.

And so let's, let's, let's create a micro challenge today. You know, let's, let's identify where you're vulnerable and learn and let's, let's just wake up and do this. It's just like, have fun. Set an intention, reflect on it and then that creates momentum. And once they realize that the operating system that they're working in there is adjustable opportunities for different behaviors. That's where the reflection, the confidence comes in. This feels good. And you know, I mean when we start making good decisions, it doesn't need to be perfect. It gives us self confidence and we start, it rolls into another aspect of our life and another aspect of our life. And that's what in the book and in my program I call offense. Offense is, I mean we. So there's offense and defense in almost every sport or Every game.

Right. Even life, too. I feel like life is a game in that way.

That's exactly what my. That is why I give people the essential health playbook. I give them a game plan and say, would you ever go into a game not knowing who your opponent is?

Of course not. No. Yeah.

So whether you have, like, a really robust playbook that you're looking at or you've already thought about it, you're going in with some strategy. I, over the years, have seen patients and individuals that have no health game plan at all. And my argument is we should have an offensive and a defensive playbook. And offense is order, structure, routine, got the goals, hitting the goals, leaning forward feels good. Creating momentum, scoring. Defense is different. Defense is reactive, on your heels, chaos problems, barriers don't feel good. Sick child, emails that you can't get to, and this is what you wanted to do. In fact, my argument is that more people are on defense than they are on offense. And they. Many of them only have an offensive game plan. And so it feels like they're not hitting their goals. It feels like failure, where if they can realize and be aware, oh, I'm on defense, okay. It's part of the game. It's part of life. I'm going to shift a little bit and use my defensive game plan. That means just sometimes it's the minimal amount of effort to just stay consistent and not judge yourself. Right. When that takes the pressure off, trying to do all of these health things so much. And so the offense and the defense make it fun. Here's your offensive game plan, here's your defensive game plan. Let's talk about it, and then let's reflect. Did. What did you do? Well, what. What did you learn that you didn't do? And how do we apply it the next day, and all of a sudden, Josh, it's like every day they're getting healthier and they're having fun with it and they're reflecting on it, and it doesn't take long. I mean, it's. It's weeks and months, and all of a sudden that operating system is different. Then we got momentum. And I believe you can have momentum on defense.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yes.

How do you get momentum on defense?

There is so I. There is failing backwards where you didn't accomplish what you needed. Right. You failed, and you're harsh on yourself and you're angry and you didn't receive the wisdom or learning to be able to apply it. Then there's failing forward where you didn't accomplish what you set out to do. And this happens all the time. But then there is the ability to learn and take that lesson and. And still move forward. And so, yes, when we think about sports or playing, we think about, oh, there's crazy momentum in basketball. I mean, you can feel it. It's a palpable thing. It's an amazing thing, momentum. And so, yeah, whether it's real or not, I don't know. I believe that if you're on defense, but you're still checking boxes and still making different decisions that are different than the previous day, you can create momentum even though it's not at the same. Same speed as offense. And you know what? People are on defense in their life. There are defensive seasons. People feel like they're defense all the time. So just kind of reframing that. You don't need to be on offense all the time and, you know, hitting all these ceiling goals. Sometimes it's just hitting floor goals and continuing to move and learn and knowing you're doing the best you can.

I mean, I can say that when I became a dad, and I know you're a dad as well, the defense is just a part of life because I could have my calendar and my spreadsheet and my team meetings and everything. And then my son will get sick or there'll be something like my daughter will throw up on me, or I'll have poop under my fingernail. Like, this is real shit that happens. Real shit. Literally and literally real shit. And then I'll just watch myself get angry that I'm not accomplishing what I. What I set out to do. I guess you could say offense, but there's so much beauty. I've never thought about this before. This is why I love podcasting. I've never thought about the beauty in fluid defense, you know, because if I have occipital rigidity, like you said, if I'm so rigid about something having to be a certain way, then I could see how that would go into every area of my life. So it's really about what I'm getting from you. If I'm hearing it right. It's about having fluidity to know when to be on offense and when to be on defense. That, I think, is maturity. I don't think there's a PDF guide for that. You know, the book is a great starting place, but eventually, all roads lead home to the truth, which is balance, homeostasis, being in the middle. But it's really elusive, Ryan. Like, being in the middle as a parent is fucking hard. It's really hard to be in the middle and know when to do what. Is it really boiling down to the knowledge of when to play defense and offense from a place of maturity and life experience, or is there something else? It feels like maturity to me. We just know by experience. We know by doing it, by living it.

That is, that's wisdom and maturity and experiences. And the more we practice this, the more we fail forward, the more we can have confidence and we could do it again. And, you know, we think we have it figured out. Then we have kids. That's a, that's a phase in our life where we are, we are on seasonal defense. Yeah, right. Like, if we were about to sit down and do this and, you know, your son fell and broke his leg. Guess what? We're. We're not doing this. And you got to reschedule and you didn't get to your emails and you didn't go pick up whatever you need to run the errands and all of this, and boom, you're, you're on defense. And you wouldn't even think twice about it. Right? The. There's seasonal defense with work. There's seasonal defense with our health. You get a diagnosis all of a sudden, you know, you just feel like it's happening to you, and you're just, you're. You're trying to improvise and adapt. You said a great point. My ultimate goal is to teach people to be consistent, and that allows them to work on offense and defense, allow them to be flexible. You got to be flexible because your inability to be flexible creates rigidity. And then that's where you can have emotional anguish from imbalance. So if you're balanced in. My balance is in within your kind of pentagon too. Right. So you got balances in all these different aspects of your health. And in my essential health elements, I would rather have people be balanced in like a 7 or 8 out of 10 in all of them than a 2 or a 3 and a 10. That, that's imbalanced. You might be able to eat perfectly and work out every day. And I have many friends and many patients that are like this. But if you're disconnected and your sleep sucks, that is, that is not a holistic recipe for optimal performance. Can you be balanced in all of those and be then flexible and know when to pivot and then just stay consistent and when you can hit those three things? Now you have a formula, a formula for optimal health.

Can we actually heal using food? Like, can food be a healer that can circumvent and definitely delay or even completely heal someone's dementia, Parkinson's, things like that.

Oh, man. A great question. I, like, I go the wormhole on nutrition. Yes. I mean, food is medicine ultimately we want to use as preventative medicine. It's also, as many people have heard, the slowest form of poison. Yeah, right. And so the goal is, is that you, you nourish your body with the right foods and you avoid the toxic stuff as soon as possible. Might be a stomachache, it might be diarrhea, it might be a rash, but the, the manifestation of inflammation and disease doesn't show up when you know you have a bad meal. It's. It's the aggregate of all of that that starts to show up. And then, you know, not to geek out, but, you know, nutrigenomics is the study of how nutrition affects our genetic expression. And you want to start understanding how it all kind of works. Epigenetics is, you know, your environment, your lifestyle and your headspace and all of that plays a role on our genes, and then the nutrition plays a role on our genes. And our genes are the blue, are the blueprint, but they are not fixed. That's what epigenetics has shown is that, you know, our lifestyle and what we put into our mouth is that. That's data, brother. That is, it's zeros and ones. And if you're putting in good data, your body says, I know what this is. I know how to heal, I know how to make neurotransmitters, I know how to make hormones, I know how to recover, I know how to heal my DNA. If it's data that your body does not understand, it's defend and repair it's inflammation. And if that continues and continues, you're eventually going to turn on a gene that is in the code that starts to express itself for some type of dysfunction. So, yes, you can absolutely help with nourishment. The goal is you, you do it early. You can still do it when there is a condition or a symptom or a disease. But the longer you wait, the harder it is to, to have that nourishment be the one thing that changes the course. Look, there are some amazing antidotes and stories of people that realized after a diagnosis that they were eating the wrong things and detox their body and prioritize it to a T and had a remarkable reversal. I've seen it. There's all kinds of countless stories it can happen.

What's one of, what's one of the most amazing cases that you've worked with. I know you can't say their name, but oh yeah, what's something where you knew wholeheartedly that a nutritional approach, the nutrigenomics that you prescribed, essentially. Have you had a case that, that flutters up for you right now where you knew that it was the food.

A lot of autoimmune, I mean, that's a real epidemic right now. I mean, autoimmunity is, you know, your immune system, adaptive immune system cannot differentiate, differentiate self versus non self. And almost every tissue, gland or organ in the body has been shown that the immune system can attack. And it's, it is rampant right now. And it has to do with a confused immune system. And it's confused for many, many reasons.

What are some of the top ones? Is it plastics? Microplastics, emf? Toxins? What is it?

It's, it's toxins. It's a microbiome that is, is imbalanced and disturbed. So all the bacteria, I mean 80% of your immune system is in your gut. And our guts are very, very unhealthy. And if the microbiome is disturbed and you have glyphosate and atrazine and a lot of the toxic, you know, roundup that can alter this microbiome and, and kind of mitigate your ability to defend and repair, that's an issue. But yeah, I mean, you can talk about all the different toxins, but like, back to your point, like foods, artificial sweeteners, dyes, seed oils, franken foods, foods that are not foods that they're just there to light up our brain and addict us. You know, it's the combination of that, it's a combination of stress and cortisol and hormone imbalances and inability to sleep. I mean, you, you talk about it, it is the, the accumulation of so many imbalances. But by clearing the, healing the gut, removing as many toxins as possible, balancing hormones, optimizing the food detox, responsibly, remove toxins from the body, meet them where they're at, understand what's going on in their mind. And you do this, you can start to see antibodies go lower, you can start to improve the microbiome, you can start to see inflammatory markers change. This is one of the most promising, best parts of my job is healing people. And I can see it in a spiritual, I can see it when their body starts to change. But it's crazy when you start seeing quantifiable data change and you start seeing blood chemistry start to change, which just validates how they're feeling. So it's, it's neuro, it's adrenals, it's got, it's autoimmune, it's metabolic. I mean, I, I know diabetes very well. I'm an expert in treating metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, which is, yes, it's absolutely healable, which is different than my type 1 diabetes. So many stories about just identifying the main vulnerability because there's never one. There's a lot of little things and then just chipping away at it. Some of the most rewarding aspects of my job. Yeah.

So you've seen, you've literally seen patients heal like a Hashimoto's, specifically with food and other things.

So you. I'm very careful when you say heal. I've seen the requirement for level thyroxine go down. I've seen the thyroproxidase antibodies and antithyroglobulin antibodies go down through an optimal diet. I'm very careful at the word heal.

Why is that?

I think it's probably a liability.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, like a practitioner liability. You just got to be really careful with what you say. But to answer your question, between you and me. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

From food specifically, as the starting point in the gut dysbiosis.

From all of it. Yeah. That's where the functional medicine matrix comes in, which is. It's the mitochondria, it's the detoxification. Right. It's the hormones, it's the neurotransmitters. My goal is just like in the, the essential health elements. There's a protocol that I've been taught that you identify, you know, the main underlying issue. And if we can start to fix and remedy that, then the, and we start to address these other variables. The body can heal itself. That's what we know. It has an innate wisdom to heal itself.

It's funny because, like, you know, the CGM that you wear on your arm allows you to function at an amazing level. It's technology. And there's this mindset in the. Especially in the holistic health world, Ryan, where people, and especially some of the checkies, even though now Paul Check has gone on record saying that a lot of these technologies are good, but there's such this focus in the holistic world of like, if it doesn't grow out of the ground or if it doesn't come from a tree, or if it doesn't crawl around, I'm never putting a CGM on my body. I'm never using oura ring. I'm Never getting my whatever tested. What do you say to that? Because, I mean, it allows you to function at a high level. Do you use CGMs with patients that are either diabetic, pre diabetic? And if so, doesn't that allow you to figure out the foods that are jacking their insulin and their blood sugar in the first place?

Yeah, CGMs have exploded.

It's such a powerful tool.

It is a powerful tool. I was on the beta testing portion of Dexcom before it was even really available. This was, this was 16 years ago where again it was old school. Being a diabetic 30 years ago is a completely different experience than now. They have these omnipods now. I mean it's, it's amazing. Technology is amazing for, for, well, many different things. But for being a type 1 diabetic, I have a love hate with CGMs. Really, truly do because I've worn one for so long where it would fail, it would beep, it would wake me up in the middle of the night and it wouldn't be right. I would have to carry it with me all the time it was attached. It would remind me all the time that my blood sugar is high or low. So I've, I took it off for years and I said screw this thing and then realized my blood sugar management was not good. And I, I do really do well with it and put it back on. I do, I give them to almost every person in my program and it's a great program where I can see it. So they, they put it on and they grant me access and I, I experiment with them, we gamify it. So let's skip one meal, see what happens. Let's take this supplement, let's see what happens. Let's, let's carb load, let's see, let's see how your body responds. Let's pair these foods together so it, it allows the individual and the patient data. And so, you know, it is a biohacking device for people that aren't diabetics. But it does provide valuable data and it allows me and my patient to then construct a personalized plan about what we do after that.

What have you seen with berberine specifically? Our mutual friend Sean Wells has played around with this a lot also. Chris Gethin, when it comes to berberine, do you feel like berberine can really help to level out blood sugar when taken with meals?

Yes.

Have you seen that through the CGM, the data 100. How so?

Like is I, it's a wonder herb. It's, it's a bitter plant alkaloid. It has, it's pleotropic. It has so many different benefits. I mean it really works on ampkins, which is through the liver. It's kind of like nature's metformin, which is. Metformin is a drug that is given to type 2 diabetics. It's called glucophage, which really modulates liver dumping glycogen. That's how it works. That's the mechanism of action. Berberine has very similar properties to that, but it is also depending on the type because there's many different types of these bitter plant alkaloids but they, they can change the microbiome. They have antimicrobial properties. It, it helps so many different things. You want to dose the right amount, right? But with proper dosage and the proper form, you could. I have seen some great benefits. Berberine alone you can see improvement. But I personally believe you can't supplement it. A bad diet and a shitty lifestyle and so it's a great compliment of when you are constructing a well thought out food plan and moving. So it's, it's a great amplifier of those things. But to answer your question, by itself, an amazing herb.

Do you feel like there's ever a place for smart peptides in weight loss and in modification of lifestyle?

Yes.

How so?

Peptide therapy. Oral and injectable. Yes. The thing with peptides is, you know, they were removed by the FDA because, you know, there's no clinical validation. And so it, it's a controversial thing there.

I love how you're just choosing your words carefully.

I mean, semaglutide, right? I mean semaglutide is. These are peptides, these are GLP1 agonist, glucagon, like peptide 1 agonist, that's Wegavi. I mean, that's ozempic. That where I live in California, it is all over the place.

It's on billboards.

It's. It's all over.

Yeah.

GLP1, I mean we learned about this many, many years ago. There's natural ways to stimulate. I have a program, it's a metabolic program that stimulates, it facilitates GLP1 to work in a way that modulates the liver and it helps with blood sugar management because those were originally type 2 diabetes medications that now people lose weight because it slows gastric emptying. It slow and people don't eat as much. I mean, that's really the mechanism of GLP1. There's semi glutide that, that you can do a natural one There's a peptide. Terzapeptide is another one. There are peptides that mimic the mechanism of action of GLP1 and GIP that I have seen benefits from. So the answer is yes. Peptide therapy with proper nutrition and the right type of exercise and sleep are powerful combos. Yes.

It can be a really shitty band aid though if somebody doesn't address their emotional eating habits.

You cannot take a peptide and, and be inflamed and not get sleep. And so I mean every responsible functional doc or restorative or regenerative doc is it realizes stem cells and exosomes and peptides. You gotta clean, you gotta clean up the physiology to allow those to work very well.

The way that I heard it from Dr. Craig Conover when he came on the show is that there's essentially messengers and that's what peptides are, they're chemical messengers. It's funny, much like the epigenome, the chemical messengers that play the piano keys on the DNA.

Yep.

But what I find really like a double edged sword and kind of a slippery slope with peptides is that unless you can figure out what is driving you to eat the ice cream at 2am and like the pizza when you wake up in the morning. And I've dealt with this. I used to be 280 pounds. Like I've, I've had a journey with food, man. And my relationship to the food has to be there first.

Yeah.

Then I can entertain and play around with peptides. But it's the opposite way right now that we're seeing in the public. And that's why there's even. Have you seen the ozempic face?

No. What is this?

That's where the face is all sunken in because there's so much atrophy. Oh, they're losing so much muscle mass so quickly.

Yeah. You know, I went on CBS Morning News live and they asked me live what, how is this working? Is it healthier? And I had to be very careful with my words on this one. Losing weight is not the goal. It's optimal body composition. Right. And people will lose weight fast on this. They're not eating, they're malnourished and you're, it's going to change the collagen there. It's, the water's going to go down and muscle mass, it's called sarcopenia, is going to go down. That's not the goal. The goal is, is maintain or even grow or improve lean body mass and muscle, maintain water and lose fat. And there is a formula for that. I Have the formula, I use it and I. I promote it with everybody. That is not the formula. Doing that, using just semaglutide to lose weight. Now, I will say this. I have allowed people to take it while I retrain the mechanism in their head about responsible eating. And you want to talk about. That's. That's a hard thing. I mean, food is addicting and. But it. It can provide them momentum and provide them a feeling of, okay, I'm just losing weight. I'm losing weight, but concurrently, I'm with them, talking about, okay, let's go through what happens. What is the trigger? Why are you doing this? And so I. I've used it with therapeutic lifestyle therapy and then say, okay, it's time to get off, and now let's move on to this. And then you can replace it with other things, but there's a time and a place for those things. Yeah.

Do you feel like microdosing would ever be substantial when it comes to, like, the GLP one? Could you ever microdose people do this?

People microdose small injections?

Yeah.

I don't know enough about. I don't have enough to make an opinion. I know people do this because they don't want to take the full dose.

Yeah.

I don't advocate that. I don't know enough to make an opinion on it.

Got it. So you're just taking people back home to not do the shortcut. I like that. Because the shortcut really turns into a long cut. It's in every phase of my life.

Yes.

No matter if it's like emotional intelligence, relationship, my body, work, revenue, every shortcut for me has turned into a long cut. Have you seen this play out the same.

That will always.

It's literally every time.

It's. That is. That's the human experience. Right. We. We want things and we want it quick. And there's a lot that goes into what we want in a career and as a parenthood and as a friend and with our health and all of this. And there's just so much. And yeah. If there was a shortcut and I. And I could focus on these other things. Yeah, I don't think that will ever change, my friend. I really. I don't. Yeah.

I remember I was interviewing Rob Wolfe, and this is like, three years ago, and he told me this story when he was first starting out. I don't know if you followed Rob.

Wolf. Wolf.

Okay. And he had this client, and he really needed the money. He was this wealthy guy, and he was, like, just eating ice Cream every day. And Rob couldn't figure it out. He's like, why? Why do you continue to eat ice cream every day? Like, what's the emotional reason for this?

This?

They had his sleep dialed in. They had his training dialed in. His food was dialed in, but he still kept eating the ice cream. And it came to this memory that he had that he shared when he was young. He had his parents that were gone all the time, and his nanny would always give him a bowl of ice cream. And so he associated love and affection and safety with eating the ice cream.

Yes.

It's this traumatic experience that we go through where we feel like we're not loved. And then as adults, we search for the BioHacks and the GLP1s, and we try to get all the shortcut because we really are enabled to feel. And that's what I feel like. My gift here in the world is with emotional epigenetics, and this podcast is like the water of the Trent River. How do I feel? How do I feel the things that I'm avoiding feeling? Because that's where all the change can really happen. And I know you talk about this in your playbook. Have you had an experience like that? The one that I shared with Rob, with a patient, where when you really broke it down, it wasn't about the red light therapy or doing more weight in the gym or even a GLP one. It was about some emotional pattern that they had that they just didn't have the courage to look at yet.

Almost everybody, almost every single per the association, the nostalgic association we have, whether it's conscious or unconscious, whether it's observed or we have no idea. I mean, this is where a lot of, like, addiction come from. There is food addiction. I mean, you could call that person that was eating ice cream in addiction, an inability to stop something and all the logic in the world. Okay, we got our game plan. You know, you can't eat this and have these goals. But I can't stop. Well, why can't you stop? Well, there's unres. There's something is unresolved. There is happiness there. There is this loop. There is this feedback loop. There is this programming that I have. You ice cream, you could call it whatever you want with addiction. That's where I'm super interested in this, where this change comes from. I call it, like, the habit loop. Habit loop, habit and hangover. Like, there is a whisper. I want that. Right? I really want that. Or I can't wait to get home and do that. Or have this. Right. And then there is the itch. It's like, oh, you know, I. I really want this. And then there's. Then there's the scratch, which is I. I'm doing it. I don't care what it is. I'm doing this. Right. And then there is like the reward, which is, oh, that felt so good. I knew I wanted that. That feels good. And then there's the hangover, which is why did I do that? And like how if. If we understand this kind of cycle or loop, where can we go in there and just intervene? And it just. Somebody just needs to be aware and open. And then from that point, can we change this? And I use like these R's. Recognize. You could a. Just recognize where you are in this. Right. And then release. Get rid of the judgment, the guilt, the shame with it. Don't that. That's where part of the problem comes from. So just release it. Take. Take that away. And then. And then reset. And that's. That's the hard part. But there are some strategies I use every single day with the reset portion. Another one of them is like reflect. If I continued to eat ice cream every day like I am, how would I feel in a week and in a year and in five years? Just, just. And how would I. How would I look? And just kind of like visualize that path. And then what happens if I stop just removing that ice cream? What does it look like in a week? What does it look like in a year? What does it look like in five years? That. That, I guess outward visualization of a future potential and reflecting on that is super important because there needs to be incentive. There needs to be. Why just stop doing that when we're programmed? That hard is very hard. It's really, really hard.

And actually I. It probably feeds into. Well, I know it does. It feeds into the shame. And then the shame comes in and locks in the emotion that really. The part of us that wants the love or wants. We're asking for some reward like Gabor Marte talks about this. Right. Addiction is the opposite of connection either to self or to others.

Yeah.

So if we can get in there and really be a neuroscientist and unconscious surgeon.

Yes.

And this is why I think parts work is so powerful and inner child work is so powerful. And it really can produce massive results. Results. No discounting of your work when it comes to nutrigenomics and nutrition.

Yeah.

But I would be suffice to say in my own healing, if somebody would have taught me parts work like in my mid-20s and I went super deep into my emotional body, my somatic intelligence, and just like understanding my nervous system, my neural tree and knowing how it works, I probably would have saved myself a lot of pain.

That's wisdom.

Do you feel the same?

Oh, absolutely. If you knew what you knew now with.

So that's why y' all need to listen.

Yeah.

I mean this is your 20s. Like play this back again.

Yes. I mean that's our, that's our goal. This is our, our common mission you and I have is the different lens and, and speaking about these lessons, these experiences and trying to share with others and say, hey, join us, please join us. I still deal with this. You still deal with the change is hard. There's a great quote. Change is when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of making the change. How can I create that epiphany where if I stay the same, that pain is going to be greater than making the change. It's. And it all comes down to kind of like Buddhists and suffering too. Right. I mean we could, I could jam about so much of this too.

Yes.

But you know what? You're not changing, you're choosing. And it's just looking at all the decisions that we make every single day. Not in a super hyper analytical. But if you align that with your goals and you're just aware of it, you can start to kind of change that operating system.

This question perfectly dovetails into what we're talking about right now. As a physician, what do we still not know about trauma?

It's stored. It's stored in our nervous system and in our DNA and it's generational. And so what happened 300 years ago in my family epigenetic wise shows up in some aspect of my life, be it soul, spirit, epigenetic tags. I mean that's what shamans do very, very well is there is an energy that is passed through us and so it's stored. We aren't, we aren't responsible for what we got, but we are responsible for meeting it where it's at and taking the leap and having the confidence and integrity encourage to sit with it and, and alter it and improve it and pass it on.

And when we pass it on, the hope is that our kids don't have to live out our projections.

Yes.

Like that's the greatest gift I could ever give to my children.

Yep. That. That is your role.

That is a wrong gift. Go ahead. What were you saying?

That is your. That's our role. Right. Is that we're given this blueprint, we're giving these cards. It's not the cards you're dealt, it's how you play them. So you want to play them in a way that is better than how it was given. And that is. I mean, that is, that's our goal as parents and as humans.

It's everything. From a medical perspective, how deep have you gone into the epigenome and how it turns on and off the keys of our DNA, specifically when it comes to trauma, because downstream from the event, which is inherently neutral. This took me a long time to actually see that as truth events are neutral. It's the meaning I place upon it.

Yes.

That really keeps the emotional pattern or the energy in motion locked in, which then turns on some of these parts of my DNA that are wired for trauma instead of trust. How deep have you gone into that? And from a medical perspective, how does that actually work?

Yeah, the genome and the phenotype, so it's the genotype and the phenotype. So I mean, that's really just the genetic term for, you know, the, the cards that were dealt and then how we play them. And so that's really what we call genetic expression.

Yeah.

And then you can get into a really interesting aspect, which is snips. Have you ever talked about these things? They're called single nucleotide polymorphisms. And we could run genetic tests and I do. I run these with patients in my programs and I see their genetic vulnerabilities. It's not. You're. You're prone to this and you're diagnosed with this. But, but I see how catechol O methyltransferase, which. It helps with dopamine and epinephrine. Do they have a genetic variant in there where if they are stressed and they produce cortisol and epinephrine, is it slower for them to detox it and clear it out of their body? And then everybody knows about the mthfr? I don't want to say everybody, but sure.

I mean, I think we've talked about it a bunch here.

Yeah, I mean, it's very, very common. You know, the people come in out.

Of the M. 40% of the population that has the SNP, the MTHFR.

Yes. Heterozygous. There's, there's different types of methylation variants. This is where it's a little bit more nuanced than you got to have methylation. You got to take supplements. No, I mean, the methylation is a very complex biochemical reaction and it's, it Triggers a little nerve with me. When it happens, it will, it will never change. But you need to run a methylation panel, and this is what it means. And this is just going to tell you exactly what you need to do. And you just take the supplement and it goes away. That's not quite accurate. The accurate about methylation is it is your lifestyle, it is exactly what you eat. And there are supplements that supplement or complement or provide methyl donors that allow for optimization of methylation, which is, you know, genetic protection, detoxification, inflammation, brain chemistry, all of that. It is important. Everybody should know it, but it's not that, you know, it's not your genetic destiny. And yes, there is a lot of people that have the genetic variant, but there's different variants and there's homozygous and heterozygous, and I won't geek out on that. But. But I guess back to the question is that I could actually look at your blueprint and see where you're genetically vulnerable. And then I have the information as a funnel to say, this is how I'm going to support you. Because there's never a genetic panel that is the same. It might be detoxification, inflammation, collagen injury, methylation, how you, you know, there's the apoes and like cardiovascular risk and how you metabolize cholesterol and. But that's really great to look at and say, okay, now we have a, we have a true prevention program. Like, I can give you a prescription to prevent you from having problems. That's. That's super powerful. And that's, I mean, that's where we're going. We're going where we can run your microbiome, we can run blood chemistries, we can gather data on you, we can look at genetic panels. And you're different than every single other person. And so there's all this information and I am a funnel. And I'm saying, okay, here's, here's Josh, right, right here. These are the things that you want to focus on. Then if I tie it into some other spiritual aspects and where you're kind of lacking, now you have a personalized prescription for performance. That's exciting. That is what gets me up every morning. And I've seen some incredible things with that.

I love this. It's a yes. And for me, because if we were living in harmony with nature and in your model, right in your wheel, we were just nourishing everything. We would just keep the genes that are wired for trauma at rest, they would never turn on, is what I'm saying, but they turn on because of the amalgamation of allostatic load that just crushes us. We are living in a very sick world. Krishnamurti said this. It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Yes.

And it's so true. So, in other words, what I'm asking you is, yes, we have science that shows us which genes are turned on and which genes are turned off, and we can look at someone's panel and say, okay, you're more at risk for this. But at the end of the day, all roads lead back to the center of just maturity and living in the harmony of nature again. It is a catch and a pull, though, because on one side of it, if you can educate somebody that they have these dispositions or these proclivities because of their genetic coding, then you could help to steer the ship.

Yes.

How do you see that work out? Both on the spiritual and the medical? It seems like they're one in the same.

This is the beauty of a holistic model. That's what you're explaining, that it's a holistic. It's understanding that every single one of those elements plays a role in the individual's thriving health and performance. None should be neglected. That's why Spark is in the middle. That's why connect and challenge and learn is expansion and mindset. My goal is meet them where they're at, find out through some great health audits, talking to them, data where they're vulnerable in there. Their biggest vulnerability is what I want to address first and. And then share with them a fun, gamified way of creating a health game plan that allows them to just create energy, move some bandwidth over here where it's been neglected. That. That's the formula. That is the formula that has worked for me and, and for my patients, and that's what I'm trying to share with the world.

I think you're doing an amazing job of it. Y' all go out and get this book. Okay? It's on Amazon. It's got a bunch of reviews, by the way.

Yeah, I. I'm very grateful that patients, friends, family, everybody. Yeah, I. That was. That was a challenge. That was a challenge.

What was the hardest thing about writing that? Just sitting down and doing it, or synthesizing multiple decades of medical knowledge and putting it into a book? Yeah.

I felt like I was a perfectionist. I felt like I. I never was really done. And I'm. And there's. I'm writing another one. Right. I was never really done. And so, like, where do I just stop? Right? I mean, look, it's thick, but it's a. It's a great read. It's a choose your own adventure, by the way, for anyone that wants to get it, like you. By the time you're on a chapter three, it's super interesting. Then it's like, okay, where are your vulnerabilities? If you want to learn neuroplasticity, go here. If you want to learn how to heal, if you want to learn how to optimize your body, go here. And then, you know, it's chapters, you know, 4 through 10, where you just go through and you pick. Just like, I work with my people and I work with my patients. It's. Let's just. It's not a rigid prescription. It's flexible. You go where you want to go. So my. I would say it was. I have a lot going on in a practice and a family, and. And it was the discipline of sitting down and the frustration of finding myself in a flow state and then having to stop. I learned a lot about myself, and, you know, my biggest regret is that I didn't write it using GPT. Holy moly. It was right at the end, where now, I mean, you could literally write a book.

Yeah. But you still have to go through it and personalize it.

Oh, yeah.

There are people, there are scammers that are just writing books through GPT, though. I think that's kind of whack.

It's crazy.

I'm not down with that.

It's crazy that we haven't even talked about it, but with we are in 20 in the middle of this AI evolution right now, and wow, how it's going to change our world.

Well, we had Nate from Jevy, a really great lab, by the way, and they come to your house, they draw your blood. It's AI driven. You get your biological age versus your chronological age. It's amazing. And he said, don't ever upload your blood work to GPT, because when you do that, like, you're essentially just giving away the codes to yourself.

It's incredible what people are putting in.

The most personal things. What do you think? That they're not going to use that? That they're not going to put that in your file somewhere?

There's a lot of trust. There are a lot of inherited trust with these things. I was having a conversation last night, and a guy was just saying, you know, I work at a functional doctor. Didn't really work for me. Plus, I have. I have AI Now. So I just plug everything in and tells me what it is. And you know what? There is value. If you don't know what that biomarker is and you put it in, it's going to explain it. Right. And it's going to be accurate. We don't need more AI. We. You know what we need. Let me rephrase that. For health and healing, AI can give us information. The true. The true transformation is the application of it. It's integrating this with so many shiny things we talked about. So much noise, so many protocols, so many hacks. You put it in, you throw your information, it says, okay, here's what you need to do. How many people can do that and be consistent with it? That's the juice, that's the goal. And I think that humans working as partnerships with another human is probably an important way to continue to heal.

Well, also, how could you ever have the nuance that you would with a clinician, with a robot? I mean, we're essentially talking to a robot. And really the model of the robot, it only learns what people feed it. And so if people are feeding it garbage, it's going to give garbage back. It might be a great starting place, is what I'm saying. But there's. I don't believe. And I think we're going to continue to see this more and more and more. Everything's going to be AI assisted.

Yes.

So it's like having AI in your office and having AI to help save time for you is good. But I don't believe that we will ever see an AI doctor that could perform at the level of a doctor with nuance and experience. Now people might say, no way, Josh, it's going to happen. I just personally would want somebody that cares about me because AI doesn't have a heart. Yeah, there's. There's no soul to AI. It's just a LLM, a language model, a learning machine. So in an age of information where, really, man, there's so much distortion. I feel like all roads are leading us back to devotion, and this is where we can end.

I. I love it. I agree.

The devotion that you have and the devotion you have to your family and to your wife and to yourself and to your patients, like, that can't be faked. What is it about your devotion to a higher power, to your family that allows you to be above the distortion? Because we're in a lot of distortion.

Yeah, It's a trust that what has happened to me in my life all happened as experiences that has brought Me here right now with you to discuss this. And I have experiences and I have knowledge, and I have a willingness and a mission to share with my friends, my family, my colleagues, and everybody who's willing to receive it. I feel like that that is the. The legacy of why I am here, and that is my sole purpose, and it makes waking up every day an absolute blessing. And. And that's my devotion is. Is sharing that with as many people that are willing to receive it and apply it.

Well, thank you for going in that direction. You could have gone in the other direction.

I did for a couple of years.

Just became part of the distortion. So I always celebrate a soul like yours on the podcast, man, because you could have chosen something so different. You could have taken a life route where you'd really never been of service to other people, and you could have just labeled yourself. You could have just been a victim and been sick and been angry, but you had the courage, man. You had the courage to pull yourself up and out and now be of service to others, which is not everyone's path. So I totally honor you for that regard and so many more things. You also have a bright light. You have a spark. The spark is within you, man. So thank you for being my guest. Thanks for coming out to Austin, being on the podcast. Absolutely appreciate you so much.

Thank you. It's an honor. I love your mission. We are aligned. We're on the same frequency. We saw that when we met. And I love your podcast. I love your message, and I can't wait to share that with other people, too. So thank you, brother.

You're so welcome. Y' all share this podcast with somebody who deserves nourishment, which is all of us, right? Yeah. We all deserve nourishment. And the stories that we tell ourselves that are learned, which is part of emotional epigenetics, these things can be unlearned. We are not genetically determined to suffer for so long. I believe with Ryan's help and your own willingness, your own courage to look at the parts of yourself that are really scary but are so healing and so powerful. I truly believe that we have the power to change. It's not just lip service for me. I really know it. I'm living proof. You're living proof. Y' all share this podcast with somebody who's suffering, that does not have to suffer so much. So until we see you again on another podcast, I'm wishing you love, wellness. But most, most importantly, the most special thing is that you cannot have power unless it comes from peace. So I'M wishing you that. I'm wishing you true power to change and have transformation from a place of peace. Because if you try to force it, and I did it for a long time, you can't have real power. All right. We'll talk to you soon.