Video Transcript:

Dr. A: It’s 2026, not 2025. Boy, does time fly. Anyway, we’ll get started in a minute. I’ll give a chance for everybody to get settled in here, and then we will go. So, I hope everybody’s having — and by the way, if you notice that the screen is moving a little bit, it’s because I’m on my boat and we’re going to start off talking about that today. So, I’ll give about another 30 seconds for everybody to fully populate before we get going. Hope everybody’s having a great Tuesday. All right. Well, basically, this is the Conscious Forum. It’s done every Tuesday. The first Tuesday in the month. And a conscious forum, in essence, just to remind people, what I do is I take a thought or an idea, and I put it out there and do a little talk on it to kind of create some construct on what this subject’s about, some of the understanding of it, and then the practical application. As a conscious forum, the whole idea is for you guys to interact.

So once you’ve listened to it, take the thought you have, whether there’s a question, ideas, something you want to add, because that’s how everybody learns and we learn in this format. I am a scientist, and I’m based in science, but voiced in logic. Voiced in our natural understanding as fellow humans. So today we start, and the talk is: Your Relationship with Nature, and as you see, I’m Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, and I put, “as a fellow human.” I think it’s really important that, although I’m a scientist and a professional and a thought leader in the space of consciousness, I’m just like you. I experience life similar to how you do, and I learn from you guys as much as you learn from me. So this is a reciprocal mentorship we’re doing. So, it’s really important if you have any ideas, any thoughts, any concerns, anything you want to talk about about yourself or one of your patients or one of your clients, that’s what it’s for. But let’s get started.

So, good morning. Before we begin, I want you to imagine something with me, right now I’m not in an office. I’m basically sitting on my boat in the Exumas. Out here, there are no buildings, no noise, no constant stimulation, just water, wind, sunlight in space. I wake up in the morning. I don’t reach for my phone. I watch the sun come up over the horizon. This morning, we had a squall come in. It rained hard. Did some things to get the boat prepared for that. And then watch the beauty as the dynamics unfolded as nature, fully surrounded in 360. The water is shifting colors. It’s now light. You can see, you can look behind me and see one of the tropical islands. I’m relatively close, about as close as we get to civilization, because I had to drop one of my crewmates off at the airport, at the small airport. How do we get to the airport here? We take the dinghy, and then we just walk across the dinghy from the dock and they get on the plane and it’s that simple here. There’s no security, no customs, nothing like that.

So basically, during the day we’re moving all day, swimming, snorkeling, navigating as captain of the boat, completely engaged and completely present. At night we watch the sunset. Last two nights we spent over an hour watching a full red moon rise. Not a moment like, “Oh, look at the moon.” But literally spending that much time watching the beauty of something that happens every day, but most of the time in our lives we don’t spend any time completely present at night. We watch basically the stars after the moon came up and it reminds you of something that’s easy to forget, that is what we’re designed for. So basically, I’ve been doing this basically for 40 years. First, when I worked as a critical care physician, when I was working 80 hours a week, and now as a thought leader in health, coming back to nature, not as an escape, but as a return. Every time I do it, something happens. My body resets. My mind clears. My energy comes back online in a way that’s hard to fully describe, but impossible to ignore. And here’s what I’ve come to understand after decades of working with thousands of people, this isn’t just something I do. This is something we all need to do.

So, this is your wakeup call this morning. Something so simple but so deeply important. Your relationship with nature. Not nature as something out there, but nature as something you’re deeply connected to whether you realize it or not. Because the truth is your health, your energy, your emotional state, and all are directly influenced by that relationship. For most of human history, we’ve lived outside. We moved with the sun. We felt the air. We were connected with the rhythms of the earth. But today, as we become an indoor species, we live in a controlled environment, artificial light, constant stimulation. And slowly we’ve disconnected from the very system that created us: life. You can see here we’re in trouble. And here’s what we should wake up to. Children today spend about eight minutes a day outside. Eight minutes. Just think about that. And as adults, well, we’re not much better. We have become an indoor species.

This is not just a lifestyle issue. This is our biology. Nature regulates your brain, your hormones, your nervous system, your immune system. It’s not optional for us. It is foundational. One of the key things you’re going to find as we step into nature is that something shifts. Something’s already shifted. I’ve been here 5 days and something has dramatically shifted. My cortisol level has dropped. My heart rate is stabilized. I use a Y monitor and I can tell you my heart rate variability has gone up, indicating that my heart is operating at a healthier state. My mind clears. I feel differently. It’s not just psychological. It’s the biology that’s aligning, concert between my physiology, my emotional cognitive coherence. All that is moving into rhythm. You were designed for it. You were designed for sunlight in the morning, to wake you up and stimulate your circadian rhythm. Movement across real terrain, connection to the earth, living in rhythm instead of constantly being stimulated. But modern life has replaced all of that with convenience. The hidden cost, we’re disconnected and we are disregulated. And when we disconnect, we don’t just lose something, we become anxious, fatigued, depressed, metabolic dysfunction, and we’re trying to solve it with willpower and medication. Overmedicating, over drinking, it’s all part of the disconnection problem.

You know, one of the most powerful things you could do for your health was not something you add, but something you return to. Nature is medicine. Nature is not a luxury. So, let’s do a little closed eyes exercise. I love these because it’s an opportunity for us to suddenly put down all the things we’re doing, all the distractions, the internet, your phone, TVs, even listening to the radio. I want you to take a moment with me. You can close your eyes and take a slow, deep breath. Imagine yourself in a place in nature that you love. It’s easy for me. I just look outside and see the beautiful aquamarine, the clouds separating now that the front’s passed and there’s grays and blues. And I can just sense when I look at that just a calming effect. So maybe for you it’s not the ocean, maybe it’s mountains or maybe a quiet forest. It doesn’t cost a cent to walk outside. Feel the air, the space, the stillness. Now notice your body. Notice what happens to your breathing. Notice your mind. This is your natural state. And when you can’t get to it physically, you can still get to it mentally simply by meditating and thinking of that or taking music or taking a photograph or basically an online feature that shows, you know, Apple has some incredible things of nature. And just make sure we’re talking about going into nature, but the truth is you are nature.

Your body, your rhythms, your biology all mirror the natural world. You are part of this. And the good news is, reconnection doesn’t require a massive lifestyle change. It’s a practice. Small intentional movements done consistently. So different ways to reconnect. Start simple. Get sunlight early in the day. Take a walk outside. Sit in the stillness without your phone. Eat real whole foods. Just begin to reconnect in small ways to your body and to nature. And for those of you who have children, this matters even more. They won’t rediscover nature unless we model it. This is about the next generation learning how to be human again because they are clearly in a synthetic world of AI, world of phones, world of electronics. They’re on the electronic leash and they spend so little time, eight minutes a day or less outside with nature. You need to model that for them. So your invitation is: start working on returning to alignment there. It is the best medicine you can have. Encourage or invite yourself and the people around you, your clients, your patients basically not to do more but to return to, step outside to reconnect to remember. So in closing, because when you reconnect to nature, you don’t just feel better, you come back into alignment of who you truly are. And that is where real health begins. All right, Rachel, let’s open this up for questions. What do we got?

Rachel: All right, first up, we have Kevin. Kevin, can you come off mute? I can see you. Oh, you can’t. Hold on one second. Chris might have to do something.

Dr. A: Do something, Chris. [Rachel laughs].

Kevin: Hey, Dr. A. It’s good to see you again.

Chris: It worked. It worked!

Kevin: Yes. The magic of technology.

Dr. A: The magic of technology!

Kevin: Do you know of any established programs that I could take to my day job and advocate for that would help employees get outside during the day?

Dr. A: Wow. That’s not in my bandwidth, as far as programs. But I will tell you, individually, maybe creating a seminar. Maybe what you do is that — what position do you play at your work?

Kevin: I’m an employee development trainer at my job.

Dr. A: Okay. Yeah. So I would take something like, you know, maybe a story, maybe yourself, and just use stories are the most important part to create interest and create some advocacy for that so that people get excited and hopefully… you know, for you guys, I specifically picked this topic because I knew I was going to be on my boat in the islands and having visuals is so important and we’re we’re kind of disconnected from that. But no. I’m sure you could go, I mean chatGPT now has everything. I’m sure there’s some programs out there for it generally. The other thing you could do is take this, the first part of my talk here, it’s on my website and take it and maybe show it or you could take the amazing documentary we did in Galysia or in Copenhagen. They both basically show a lot about the importance of environment, in getting back to the environment and to healthy surroundings. So those would be my first suggestions.

Kevin: Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. You’re quite welcome. Okay. What else we got, Rach?

Rachel: All right. We’re still waiting for some more questions to come in.

Dr. A: Okay. Jennifer, I saw you on there. What questions do you have? I know you always have one.

Chris: Which Jennifer? I’ll bring her up.

Dr. A: Jennifer M. She’s raised her hand. I can see it.

Chris: There she is. There she is. She’s coming on. One second.

Dr. A: And I better have a lot of questions because that tells me if you’re not asking questions, then you’re far removed from nature. And that’s not what we want. Okay. Hey, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Hi, Dr. A. Well, you know that I’m a big lover of the water and it was so much fun for us to just be humans together on that boat and to go snorkeling together and literally, you know, like it was a blast. Like Dr. A and I definitely share the love for the water and to be able to go snorkeling and you know he was like, “Oh, come and see this fish and come and see that.” And he was teaching me things and I thought, “Yep, once a mentor, always a mentor.” But it was really cool because we had people who were wanting to experience nature, but who were very trepidacious because they had never gone snorkeling and we were not in shallow water, and you and I both went into the same mode, which was, I said, “I’ll teach you. I’ll stay with you the whole time. I’ve taught people before.” And you said the same. I heard you saying the same thing. And because of that, we had about three new snorkelers. And it was just great because we got out there you were teaching them about the mask, you were teaching them, and then once they got in there and through that anxious, like you know, the nerves and all of that because that does not feel good, right? Getting out of your comfort zone. But once they did, you could see them just relax and really start to just… really start to connect with a world and a space that they have never been in before.

And I just feel like it was such a good analogy for what we do in this business. And you’ve taught us the same thing at Sundance when we do that hike to Stewart Falls. You know, we take, what? Two hundred people up there and then we stop in the middle and you always point out that the people who have done this before are mentoring the people who’ve never done this before. And in the end we all are successful. Different paces, different skill sets, different levels, but together. That’s the way that we accomplish great things. And you know people, city people, city folks who’ve never seen a waterfall, never been on a hike before, they’re hiking to this incredible, powerful waterfall, and we get up there and you just have— there’s something to be said about those endorphins and what it does to calm you. So I just wanted to say thank you for teaching me that experience over and over and you’re really good at calling out what you see in people. So, thanks for also calling me out like when we were in Dallas, and you also spoke to some other people, and you know, so thanks for that. Thanks for being the ultimate mentor.

Dr. A: Well, thank you Jennifer. And you’ve gone from the student to being the master yourself, including snorkeling, by the way. Not to be a little bit risky, but sometimes there’s the rule breakers, that on the edge, and clearly you spent a lot of time snorkeling and underwater and particularly for the safety because there’s a lot of people there as you mentioned that had never had a snorkel on and it was kind of a rough day. It was beautiful sunshine, but it was — the waves were up and so snorkeling wasn’t as easy as it can be and for the first time. But yeah, you going down and snorkeling down to the bottom to check things out close hand. I just had a big smile on my face because that’s on the edge. You knew your own safety, you knew you could do it. But yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. And in nature, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the walk or hike up to Stewart Falls, being on the beach— two days ago my best friend and I, who’s on the trip because that’s what I do when I come. I bring people that I want to be with. I have long long-term relationships because as I talked about in the documentary in Galicia, community and friendships are so critical and we covet those and those connect us. And to connect us. His name’s Steve and he’s been snorkeling with me for, I mean, I can’t tell you, 40 plus years. And we were walking — it’s funny because we got off the boat and we swam over to the shore and the tide was going out and so there’s a long, like a sand flat and the sand flat goes up to the edge of what, at high tide. There’s now like the star and a little coral and some underwater vegetation and some sponges and little creatures and crustacea. And it’s funny because we both walked different ways but then we came back and and even in that little space, just the curiosity of going back and fascinated because this is an environment where at one time, one moment they’re under salinity of being underwater and then the next moment you know, within six hours, all the water’s gone and now they have to survive in the bright sunlight, drying and no water at all and just so curious of what creatures can withstand that and you know that kind of title and you know if you use that analogy to nature that’s kind of where we are now in the world.

The world’s chaotic. It’s on fire. People are in the Drama Triangle. People are pointing fingers at each other. The emotional chaos. Political, religious, war, geopolitical… there’s so many things and because we’re so connected now with TV and with satellites and with the internet that we’re being exposed to all the those things and if we let all that come into us and we don’t recenter ourselves in nature we’re going to be a mess and so just understanding that and the ability to come back and refocus, center yourselves and go back to nature, I know that I’m fortunate now, organizing my life what matters most. I live on the ocean and when I’ve had a day where things have been crazy and life gets in the way— life is intrinsically unstable. And to think it could be like, you know, that’s the fallacy when we’re little, we watch Disneyland and Disney World and we watch the cartoons where everybody, from Snow White, and everybody lives happily ever after. And the reality is life is full of ups and downs. 

It’s the events and how we respond to them that determine the outcome. And being able to reframe, being able to put ourselves in a position where we can fully feel those emotions all the way through and then move forward. These are skill sets that are going to become— that’s why, you know, I’m spending a lot of time focusing on human transformational technology because AI will continue to develop us. But the point is, we have more than enough information, but we haven’t learned how to adapt. And really nature, and that’s why I brought this up, nature is a great way to instantaneously connect. And everybody knows, you know, you might be in your car going home from being at work and you, let’s say you had a crazy crazy day, but if you all of a sudden coming across the water, across a bridge or see the sunset between the buildings, you take a moment, there’s that moment where all of a sudden you feel reconnected.

Well, we need to now build that into our lives. And that’s the whole thing is what is your relationship with nature? Because nature is who we are. I know growing up in college and medical school, I was a lifeguard on the beach. And I know people would come in the morning, they were frenetic. They’d have the kids and everybody was yelling at each other and kicking sand. And by the end of the day after being there for several hours, it is just the sense of calm. You’d see everybody was quiet, everybody was moving slower. And there was basically the adaptation where nature was infusing back into the souls of these people what the balance is because we are not something— nature is not something that we look at. It is something that we are and if we don’t reconnect to that— that’s one of the the easiest ways, you know, in Japan they have forest bathing and they literally have where they go into forests, coniferous, non-deciduous trees, and they go for walks and basically just the smell of the pine, the calmness that comes from it, and it’s tremendously soothing. So, you know, it’s hard, some people have a hard time meditating. So, a good way to start is get into nature and then all of a sudden you’ll start rebalancing. So, Jennifer, I always appreciate you. You’re not only an amazing student, you’re an amazing teacher yourself.

Jennifer: Thank you. I have one more thing to add that might be helpful for people. So you know, when we live this hectic life that we come from, I started doing this thing called “ordinary magic practice,” where I would seek out the ordinary magic around us and like you said, sometimes it’s a sunset maybe, and it’s you see a beautiful sunset and you just pull the car into the park and just watch it for five minutes. Or maybe when you’re walking, look for shapes in the leaves or you know, take your shoes off and stand in the grass. Things like that I call ordinary magic. It’s just something I made up. But I think that that was kind of early, as I was making this transformation of going from a reactive person to being more in a creative mindset. That was one of the first things that I did and I would take pictures of it and I would post it and I would hashtag “ordinary magic.” So, if that’s something that you’re like, “I don’t even know how to start,” that would be a great way to start. It just takes you into where you are in that moment. So, thanks for having me Dr. A.

Dr. A: Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, I remember as a kid, and it was funny because it just happened on that same walk on the beach, there was water flowing, and it wasn’t flowing very fast, so it was hard to tell. And I knew I could tell the tide was starting to come up. I mean, there was still just sand, but I could see where the water was starting to rise again. The tide, of course, goes up just like everything in life, it’s cyclical. But there was water still coming down. There was actually a pool above. And I reflected back. I remember as a kid and I hadn’t thought about it in years. But I used to love to make dams like when there would be rain and there was water and make dams and enjoy just the creative process of doing that, right? And you bring back those feelings. There’s so many things we have when we’re children. We’re open, curious, and we have childlike wonder, right? It’s this sense of we’re not… we haven’t gotten ourselves to the point where we’re always doing association comparison to everything else, and our brain does that naturally.  We do comparative reality so our brain doesn’t have to think every time on everything, but it also has all the things that are wrong with humans, you know, prejudice. These are all things that are, let me think, no that person’s like that and just getting back to being fully aware of the individual and individually knowing what we’re doing and I think the real message here for kids and one of the disturbing things is they’ve become so into their phones and so completely disassociated from nature. Eight minutes a day. That doesn’t bode well psychologically for our future and it also puts us in a position where we can easily be manipulated.

So you know, being present, being aware, getting out in nature, these are things that can help you be healthier. Not just the movement part, but also the psychological and the biological reconnecting, almost like getting back in concert. You know, we talk about metabolic dysfunction where the body’s out of rhythm. Well, that rhythm goes all the way back to nature, if you look in nature. And that’s the beauty of going out and, you know, we’ve seen all kinds of cool things. We saw a beautiful blacktip reef shark circling around our boat just meandering and watching how natural. We went to a little place last night and they have big nurse sharks like 12-14ft nurse sharks that just kind of sit on the bottom and hang out and there’s just so much awe when we’re kids, right? That wonder. You know, and wonder is something we need. Open. Curious. I always like to say that being open, curious, and wanting to learn and grow is what keeps us young and keeps us connected. So anyway Jennifer, thank you so much for all you do.

Jennifer: Thank you. Thank you for what you do.

Dr. A: Okay, awesome. So, Rachel.

Rachel: All right, next up we have Mary. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hello.

Dr. A: Hi, Mary.

Mary: Oh, there I am. Okay. Yes, I’ve got the background in because I just got back from a week in Mexico and in two weeks I’m taking my daughter, her husband, and six children to Hawaii. So, learning, helping those kids learn to snorkel and that kind of thing.

Dr. A: It’s so good.

Mary: So it’s wonderful to hear about and I really appreciate what Jennifer was saying about teaching people and in fact, I taught my daughter how to snorkel in Hawaii in 1991.

Dr. A: So much fun, isn’t it?

Mary: It is so wonderful. I just love being in the water and around and outside. I put in the chat earlier when people were talking about kids getting outside that my grandchildren came by on Sunday and spent four hours outside because it was a nice day here. We’re in the Pacific Northwest and like today it’s overcast and gloomy but it was wonderful then. What I wanted to ask was you’d mentioned your heart rate variability.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Mary: And I’ve just been seeing on trackers that I have, you know, changes in that, but I don’t really understand what it means. So you’re saying a higher heart rate variability is good.

Dr. A: Yes. Yes. Yes.Because your heart is demonstrating its adaptation. So your heart — so if you think about your cardiovascular system, it literally, its most important function is to carry oxygen to the cells, right? I mean obviously it carries nutrients too. You know energy, glucose, electrolytes, but the thing that’s the most critical is oxygen. That’s why if someone has a cardiac arrest, they have— you’ve got about four minutes, and if you haven’t resuscitated and got blood back to the brain it’s too late. So it absolutely has this adaptive mechanism and so the way it does that is through either changing your heart rate going up or down, it can go a little more forceful and the other is adapting your vessels and nitric oxide is the key element that vasodilates. When we get insulin resistance, our nitric oxide doesn’t work as well and that’s why all kinds of problems happen. But your heart rate ability, because it can do it instantaneously, being able to adapt like that and become, beat faster in order to make sure we’re maintaining the blood supply in time. So for instance, one of the key adaptive mechanisms is when, if you stand up too fast because your blood volume isn’t that your blood pressure goes down, you’ll immediately your heart rate goes up in response to that so that you can actually keep the blood going to the tissue. So yeah, so if it’s really constant, it doesn’t move, then you probably don’t— so there’s a balance in our— it’s called our autonomic nervous system and we have our parasympathetic and sympathetic and one parasympathetic slows down. It’s the vagal tone. It’s the natural resting state that we’re in. We have slower heart rate controlled non-anxious very calm state.

Actually our facial nerve comes from that. When we’re smiling we’re basically calm. When we’re stressed, we emit that the mirror neurons of people around us are stimulated. They get anxious and our heart rate goes up. Basically, our blood pressure goes up. And so these are all adaptive mechanisms. You want to be in a high sympathetic state where your heart rate’s low. When we get anxious— or traditionally 100,000 years ago, if a saber-tooth tiger was on the trail, you want to run and run fast, right? And it’s interesting. Someone said to me, they said, “Well, between the adaptive reflexes, which one’s the most important? Being able to fight, you know, be strong and fight or be able to run?” Well, the bottom line is, if you think about it, if you have your family there, I heard this like two weeks ago by a metabolic physiologist, but he was saying, “Well, the most important thing in my life is my family, right? So fight would be the way to go, not flee because it doesn’t help my family if I can run fast.” And I just thought that was interesting because you know today that is probably even more important because of, you know, obviously if you’re on the street or somewhere being able to be strong and take care of your family is important. The whole point is your heart rate’s ability to rapidly change its pace is really important and it indicates heart health.

Mary: So a higher number is better in that regard. I mean my heart rate is normally like 48.

Dr. A: It’s not a high heart rate. It’s not a high heart rate. It’s the ability to adapt rapidly. That’s, in other words, the variability. That’s why it’s called heart rate variability. It’s the variability. It’s not… no, a rapid heart rate is not a good state to be in. In fact, that’s not the state you want. Traditionally you want to have a sympathetic, I mean, parasympathetic, a lower heart rate. Calm and deep, slow breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing. That’s why I use breathing in almost every one of these conscious forums, because breathing is normally autonomic and you normally aren’t thinking about your breathing, but your breathing, first of all, is a sentinel that can tell you what your emotional state is. What is the level sympathetic outflow? And if you’re slow breathing, slow deep breathing, and you put your hands on your chest and your belly, and it’s coming from your belly, that’s ideal. That means you’re in a calm state. If you are breathing faster, and it’s coming more from your neck muscles in your upper chest, and it’s more rapid, that’s shallow breathing and that means you’re probably in a high sympathetic state. The beauty of you can take control. It’s normally involuntary. You can take control and take over your breathing. And as soon as you take three or four slow deep breaths, recentered breaths where you’re breathing from your belly again and reentering that, you will feel the release.

You’ll feel the tension release. You’ll feel the stress relief. Your jaw, if it’s clenching, may be in a state of your posture and all those things will slowly calm down. So you can actually, that’s why I talk about reconnecting with nature is a great way to let nature be the underlying structure that helps you with it. Because yeah, if you’re in the middle of a kindergarten room with 20 kids that are all going bananas off the walls, it’s pretty hard to calm down, right? If you’re in a loud facility and your hearing is not that great or you have hearing aids or something, it’s very hard and you become in an anxious state and so you want to leave that state. So it’s important to really be present and sense our body and how we’re responding. So yeah, your heart rate variability is and you can over time, your heart rate variability is like anything else, by exercising, by doing cardiovascular, by doing zone two, you know, slower. Zone two is where you’re able to do something where you can still talk. It’s a little difficult. And then using high intensity interval training where we’re actually going to almost failure, you know, rapid and then recovery is a great way to help. All those things help your heart rate variability. But of course, before you do any of those, you know, always check with your physician if it’s something you — or someone that’s listening — hasn’t done before. Does that make sense?

Mary: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember a time I went down to San Francisco and did a tour in the Mure Woods and just being able to stand there. It was just so calming, wonderful.

Dr. A: Yeah. Just gorgeous. I love it’s one of my favorite things. That’s where my best friend lives actually, right there and right near it. And just walking in that canopy of the redwoods and just the sound and the feeling. You can just sense this vegetation that’s been there for hundreds of years, you know? It’s really cool. So, sounds like you get around, girl.

Mary: I do. I do. Yep.

Dr. A: Well, have fun. Enjoy.

Mary: Okay. Thank you.

Chris: And we have a special, we have a special setup. I want to thank Jennifer Morris for sending this over to me. Jennifer, thank you for finding this picture of Dr. A during his college years. I know he said he was a lifeguard, so we found footage. Ladies and gentlemen, be sure to screenshot this. And I’ll probably be looking for a new job tomorrow. And there we go.

Dr. A: That is so bad Jennifer. That is so bad. I love it. God love it. Okay. 

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Britney. Hi, Britney.

Dr. A: Hi, Britney.

Britney: Hi. I’m losing my voice a little bit, but I did have a question and it was kind of more pertaining to— I guess I really struggle with finding peace in sitting in nature. I was looking for tips. I love Jennifer Morris’s tip about ordinary magic. I enjoy going outside now. Like I like to go out and I like to go and run, but I was just curious, is there a big difference? Would that still be something that would be okay or is it more about relaxing and like just taking it in and slowing down?

Dr. A: Well, they’re both okay. They’re both important. You know, obviously running is very good for your body. It’s great for your cardiovascular, improves your v.02. But we’re talking about something, and by the way, running because you do get endorphins released and you get rid of — you know, remember, traditionally, why we get in the sympathetic outflow was we would see a saber-tooth tiger and your body would immediately release epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol so you could run quick and fast and not get eaten. So when you go out, if you’re tense and you’re stressed, to go out and run is a good thing because you’re actually burning up the stuff that otherwise… most of the time now most threats are not real. They’re perceived threats. Some were mad at somebody because we thought they didn’t say, “Hi,” to us. And so we got all these chemicals inside of us. This chronic stress, which is very bad for us. And going out and running, yeah, eats up those chemicals and relaxes you. Releases endorphins. As I said, all those are good. 

What we’re talking about in nature is the other side… so that’s fine. The other side of connection is more the slow side of it. So when you say you have difficulty, a nice way of thinking about it is go into— go from the far out zoom of being out there in the forest or in a park and go into the closeup zoom. In other words, zoom in. That’s what I was doing. That’s what we were talking about when we were looking at the vegetation in the sand where the shallows were, right? And there and the water was out because of the tide and getting into that macro that micro world, right? Actually, looking we saw a couple small conchs, you know, turned them over, looked and you know, one of them had, one of them was dead, and actually ended up having a hermit crab in it and the other one was a live, really small little conch, and you can see the operculum and look at it and putting it back where it was. I actually helped a sponge that was basically in such low water it had more of a chance of desiccating and so I carved out where there was a little more water and because it was easy to move, moved it over. I mean that that’s not necessarily what you should do or not do, but I’m just saying, is get down into the micro world, right? Because that micro world is fascinating and it kind of slows you down.

We have a tendency, especially if you’re a high energy person, one thing that is a really important thing to think about is that we are so overstimulated. Our dopaminergic clicks are now so intense whether we’re going to a concert, an EDM concert, or watching Avatar, I mean things are so overstimulating now that it’s kind of attenuated our brain where we’re always looking for that adrenaline rush, right? And that’s why people are so much in the Drama Triangle. That’s why the different news stations are all blaming others. They’re trying, actually, to get us in a charged up state. Why people like that is because they actually feel alive, but it’s not really them feeling alive. It’s them being so overstimulated. They have a high sympathetic outflow and stress level, and it’s really unhealthy. So pick, you know, running’s a good one to start with, especially, you know, you’re obviously looking like you’re in great shape. So that’s a great one to start with, but you can be in great shape and have a high autonomic output, sympathetic outflow, and still have insulin resistance and be on your way to poor health. So that slowing down, getting time for your autonomic nervous system to rebalance and get into that vagal state, that parasympathetic state is really important.

So just find easy ways. The best way is to totally disconnect from the electrical world. It’s so important because it becomes so addictive and by the way, getting a good night’s sleep is also really important. Serotonin, we think of serotonin as being a mood enhancer, but more important today, is it actually helps disrupt the interruption cycle so in other words, it helps slow down the distraction action, you can actually much more easily stay focused when your serotonin level is high. When it’s lower, you’re very easily distracted. And obviously, every technologically advanced AI program as well as programs for promoting any kind of product, they’re all doing clickbait, right? They’re all doing high intensity clickbait to get your mind to go to them and be attracted and get stimulated to get into their world so they can sell you something. So, it requires that ability to disrupt and be able to resist those stimuli. Does that make sense?

Britney: Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I appreciate that. Yeah. So, I’m going to find the balance, I think, of finding the peace.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a balance. It’s a balance, but understand if you’re already… you look like you’re in great shape. If you’re already really active, moving all the time, then probably getting and using that. So, let’s say you go out and run and then you come back and do something, read a book or you know, stop at the end of your run and look at nature or look at a creek and look at the birds, watch the sun, just something and start working on on meditation because meditation is a beautiful way. And even if you’re using, you know, it’s okay to have thoughts. It’s not about getting rid of thoughts. It’s about recognizing you’re having thoughts and knowing that your thoughts aren’t you. You are separate from your thoughts. You’re separate from your emotions. And once you start to understand that… and I just got a little birdie, just told me you’re down over 200 lb.

Britney: Yeah.

Dr. A: How much do you weigh now?

Britney: That was weird [a celebration effect occurred on screen]. I weigh…

Dr. A: That was Chris. The guy that made me in Baywatch. He’s absolutely… he’s really good at technical stuff, but he’s a twisted sister.

Britney: Okay. I love that. I weigh about 172. I started at about 375 on our program and lost the weight and yeah and now I run marathons.

Dr. A: You run marathons!

Britney: So I wasn’t previously in nature a lot. I just didn’t move around a lot. I didn’t enjoy going outside. I was… I have a fear of falling and so I like to run and it really does help, like you said. It releases the endorphins. It gets those things in my brain and gets me going. But I just… I still struggle to find the peace and so I’m working on it and I’m slowing down, and I’m enjoying the process and I love to go to new cities. Like I was just, you know, in Dallas and did a run there and was in Sundance and went on a hike with you guys and so I love enjoying it. I just still struggle, I guess, to find the peace in it. I’m like okay this is awesome. And I take my phone, of course, and I am taking pictures. And so I love… I think I need to do some naked runs where I just don’t take any technology and I just go.

Dr. A: Or it’s okay to take pictures, but just turn it off, put it in airplane mode, you know? And that is one of the problems. We’ve developed a device that does everything so well and we forget that we can use it for one thing and not for the other. So, you know, it’s okay if you’re going to nature, but it’s really important and you’re working on all these skill sets— and what’s happening, by the way, your identity is shifting. Okay? You’re down two thirds of your total body weight. And so, when you basically, now look at yourself, you’re adapting to things. And before you use, as excuses, your overweight and how overweight you were so that you didn’t do stuff. And as you become smaller, part of that is readapting your psychology, right? So that you can now relax and be content and be happy in your own skin. And by the way, there’s a, in My Prescription for Life, there’s a great section in the healthy mind part, in part five, on basically all that, that I just talked about, that you should read through and there’s some great exercises in there that can help you with that.

Britney: Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you.

Dr. A: Yep. All right. Okay, Rach.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Emily. Hey, Emily.

Dr. A: Hi, Emily.

Emily: Hey, Dr. A. Great to see you.

Dr. A: Great to see you.

Emily: Congratulations, Britney, by the way.

Dr. A: It’s amazing, isn’t it?

Emily: I know. I’m trying to find the button to do the, you know, the celebrate button on the technology and I couldn’t find it. So, anyway…

Dr. A: No, please. We don’t need any more Chris’s. Chris took care of that for us. 

Emily: There we go. Anyway, it’s great to see you. I’m sitting here and I’m watching your boat in the background and watching how you’re floating like this and I’m taking myself there, you know, just the relaxing on the water.

Dr. A: It is. It is. In fact, my crew is asleep.

Emily: Oh, I would be sleeping too.

Dr. A: Yeah. It rocks you. Yeah. Well, that’s what you know, if you want to just look at the parallels before we get so much stuff up in our brain, what do you do? What do you do with an infant? Now, I’m a granddad now. So, what do you do with an infant that can’t sleep? Some people found that they take them for a ride in the car, a ride in the carriage, or just sit there and rock them, you know, all those things. That motion, that gentle motion is an important part of us. So, basically, give someone just said, “give them back to their parents.” [Dr. A laughs]. I love it.

Emily: Wow. Yeah. What you… as everyone was sharing and as you were sharing it was reminding me of the last time I got a chance to talk with you was about the full body yes. And it was like when I get myself in nature and sometimes that looks like I just have to open my windows. You know, I had to shut my windows because they’re cutting the grass right now. They just started. So, the noise, but I get to smell the fresh grass.

Dr. A: Exactly. I was just gonna say that. Yep.

Emily: Yeah. Or when it rains, there’s a different aroma in the air, a different texture, moisture. So, but it was reminding me about the last time we talked about the full body yes, and how much that impacted me the last time we spoke. And then about building my life around what matters most and I feel like that becomes more clear when I let myself, when I allow myself to detach and go out in nature. My question was about grounding. I watched a documentary not too long ago about grounding mats. It was called, Down to Earth, and about grounding mats. And what was fascinating was there, they had case studies and there was actually a woman there that she couldn’t get her child to eat or to have a bottle or to stop crying unless she was outside standing barefoot and then the minute she went inside the child would, the infant would start crying. And there was another case study about these children who were like autistic and they would call them runners. They were in the classroom and they would just run outside and they couldn’t figure out why they would run and they would all run to the same place and it was this little bitty patch of grass by a tree and they would just sit there calmly like they couldn’t find them and then finally they found them.

Dr. A: Wow.

Emily: So, anyway, they had different case studies, but it was about grounding and gettin— So, I bought a couple grounding mats and how that helps with inflammation and different things, but I didn’t quite understand the science behind it, like when you plug it into the wall, how all of that works. So, I was just curious what you know about it.

Dr. A: Okay. So basically all heavenly bodies have magnetic fields and the magnetic— so it’s interesting, by the way, because Artemis, if you follow the… our space that we just went around the moon, when they’re out of gravity they don’t have that and so they’re weightless and so everything they do they have to be attached putting on their clothes, you know, using the bathroom, everything. So they don’t have the gravitational pull that brings them to the earth and connects them. Right? We know this. We know that electromagnetic energy is 5,000 more powerful. The impulses coming out of your heart are 5,000, basically, more powerful than the electrical activity in your brain. So when we look at coherence, coherence is when your physiology, your physiological activities in your body, your emotional activities, your emotional coherence, and your cognitive coherence, which is your prefrontal cortex, are all in symphony.

And we’ve all had times like that, you know, when we’re in, kind of the zone, where all three of those are in resonance. When they’re not in resonance, like, you know, a good example of that would be someone that, you know, they say, “I get seasick.” Well, seasick is totally psychological. There’s no— the physiologic response comes from the psychological response. What happens is we have three ways that we sense balance. One is our eyes. Second is our semicircular canals in our middle ear. And then the other is the proprioception, the gamma receptors in our muscles. And normally when you’re on land like that, everything is balanced.

When you go into the water or even people will say, “Oh, I get… if I look down at my phone while I’m driving,” or hopefully not you’re driving, you’re the passenger, you start feeling that feeling. So that feeling is now the brain is sensing two different signals coming in that are not coherent with each other and so it feels a little— you feel a little bit of dysfunction. You feel a weird feeling, and then what ends up happening is then the person starts getting anxious about it and then when they get anxious then it activates the whole mechanism that creates nausea and then eventually vomiting. So what I know is this. I know when I go across the ocean I know that my crew is, if they’re out there, they’re not going out there for two hours and they can come back. They’re going to be out there for when we go to Tortol, like seven or eight days. So I actually use Meclizine, which is an anxiolytic, which means it decreases worry as well an antiemetic and so as long as you put that on first, even if they see this, start feeling that sensation, it’s ablated and they don’t get that reflex and so they’re fine. Does that make sense? So grounding, basically you’re putting yourself back in the electromagnetic energy. You’re touching the earth or touching some reflection of the earth and it allows you to now come back into balance and it’s a very soothing feeling. It’s like going to the water, you know, just the lapping of the ocean or on the beach listening to the waves or watching the waves and just feeling all of a sudden kind of that rhythm of nature which is so important.

Emily: Nice. Okay. Thanks, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Cool. Yep. You’re welcome.

Emily: You’re quite welcome. Awesome. All right, Rachel, we got anybody else?

Chris: Real quick, Dr. A. Actually Jennifer Morris sent me this photo of Britney who was on earlier who lost 203 pounds.

Dr. A: Wow.

Chris: Simply incredible.

Dr. A: Amazing. Just amazing. Gosh, congratulations.

Chris: And up next, we have Betsy.

Dr. A: Hi, Betsy. I see you’re out in nature. You’re muted.

Betsy: Yeah. There we are. Actually, I was just walking through the arboretum that is right next to my house and getting a little time in the forest and the trees. I live in the Northwest and so we have access to the mountains and the trees and the water. So it’s all great. I don’t know if I’m… hopefully I’m not cutting out, but I was wondering if you could just review for us the importance of that early morning side and what it does to our hormones and how that balances it out.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. No, great. Yeah. So, we have circadian rhythm. We know this. We know adenosine is released in our brain and we know during the day the adaptation is that bright sunlight stimulates. It’s really important. So, if you think of the circadian rhythm, it’s not just the melatonin release at night. It’s actually, equally, the bright sunlight. And you want to get— you don’t have to be outside. It’s better if you’re outside, but as long as you’re in bright sunlight without filtered windows and glass, you want to get woken up in a relatively quick fashion. So, another, I don’t mean startled. I mean, you could take five minutes, 10 minutes, but then go outside or be outside, put the blinds up. And if you’re in an environment like this, you know, the Northwest, like Seattle, and you don’t have a lot of bright sunlight, then you can use— there’s specific lights you can buy that emulate sunlight. And so, you can get one of those to have in your, I’d say put it in your bathroom. It’s a nice way to wake up in the morning.

They actually have alarm clocks that are actually a light and they do that for you. But yeah, by starting that you actually start the cycle of sleep when you wake up in the morning and then when you wake up it shuts these receptors down and then you wake up your reticular activating system activates and then you stay awake. And the other thing is you don’t want to take naps. You want to create, we call it sleep deficit, or the latency. So by the time you get ready for sleep, your melatonin starts being released. That’s why normally kids, if you notice, kids can go all day. Like little kids, and then the next thing you know, you see the parents carrying, the dad usually, carrying them and they’re out cold, right? That’s because they have the normal cycle and they can release melatonin. We, unfortunately, as grown-ups, have a bunch of rituals and things that we don’t do that are important for the sleep cycle. So I call it the model morning. In the morning, getting in bright sunlight, making sure you now spend time for yourself to decide what is most important so you’re organizing your life what’s most important and then the opposite in the evening is to basically take a hot bath you know, cool off, make sure you have an hour before you go to bed that you’re eliminating anything that can keep you from releasing melatonin. So, cooling off to 68° or lower, 65° your bedroom, making sure it’s fully dark, that it’s fully quiet, taking a hot bath, so you raise your core temperature because melatonin, as your core temperature drops, melatonin’s released. So, that’s the end point of the cycle. But sleep, sleep power is designed by getting up in the morning, being active, minimizing the need for a nap, and then allowing your body to then go back in.

So the sooner you can get up and use sunlight— like today, when I got up this morning there was a storm coming through, a front coming through. So it wasn’t very— I came outside specifically, I had to make sure everything was put away as far as they could get wet. But just coming outside and standing and it took a little longer. I could feel the difference. Takes a little longer to fully wake up. But making sure you get to a state where you’re not groggy, you’re feeling well, that’s the start of how to get a great night’s sleep, actually.

Betsy: I had heard that the sunlight activates cells on the back of your retina that kind of helps your body release some of the cortisol hormones like the blue light of the wavelength and then that kind of starts that hormone cycle.

Dr. A: Well, it actually starts the cortisol. Yeah. No, the cortisol cycle… if you wear, and I can tell you because I wear… when I was writing My Prescription for Life, and I still use a glucometer, a glucose monitoring device, and it usually happens, your glucose starts going up which means your cortisol is going up usually a couple hours before you get up. So your cortisol is already going up. Yeah, the sunlight helps activate acetylcholine and all the other things and it helps amplify cortisol. But if you think about it, you want to make sure, because if you’re in the proper state, it’s called the fed state and the fasting state, right? That’s why you don’t want to eat anything big after dinner, right? After 6:00, 7:00, you don’t want to really, because you want to get in what we call the fasting state where your insulin level drops, your glucose, as a result, stabilizes and drops and stays low throughout the night. And then around four, it depends on what time you get up, but around… I usually get up on average around eight or so. So when you’re about two hours before, you’ll actually see the glucometer, your glucose will start going up because the natural circadian rhythm is for cortisol. Cortisol is not a bad thing. It’s actually a critical hormone for balance, for stability, for us making sure all our systems, and also for regulating our blood sugar so that our blood sugar in the morning rises before you get up and have to go to work.

So it’s the natural response. And when you eat a high glucose meal before you go to bed, you totally trash your insulin and your glucose and you look and you start getting abnormalities. And that’s probably one of the main reasons we don’t sleep well. Along with stress and you know rumination because we’re not creating proper latency when we lay down and go to sleep and so we have higher levels of thought. And you know here’s the deal. If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, the best thing to do is not sit there. Your bed is for just a couple things and one of them is sleep. The other’s for kissing. Other than that, you shouldn’t be doing anything else in your bed, right? And if you’re in there and you’re ruminating and have this thought process, you should get up. Don’t turn on the lights. Obviously, make sure it’s safe, but then go get out of the bed, go sit somewhere in the dark for a little while and then go back and restart the cycle because once you’re ruminating and in that cycle, it becomes very hard for your brain to shut down. And once you get emotionally in the cycle, then you, basically, your prefrontal cortex isn’t even working properly. So, it’s really really important. Does that make sense? I see you’re kissing your dog. So, you’re walking, you got your dog, you got all the basic things that help improve our overall emotional and our brain health. So, congratulations.

Betsy: Thank you, Dr. A.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay, we’re out of time. Is there anybody that had anything they really needed, that was urgent before we close? Rach?

Rachel: We did just have one quick question from Kayla. Kayla?

Dr. A: Hey, Kayla.

Kayla? Hey, how’s it going?

Dr. A: Great.

Kayla: I just have a quick question. And so with your CGM, I know you’ve worn it for a while and that’s how you know the beautiful book you wrote, but I’m curious, the tie in of nature before bed in regulation of your glucose, like pre-glucose, overnight stability and or fasting. Have you found any correlation of being in nature two hours prior to sleep in correlation with glucose levels?

Dr. A: I have not studied that, but I can tell you, almost for sure, if you go into nature and you’re more relaxed, you’re going to sleep better. I know this. I know when I’m out on the boat, I usually go to bed earlier. I sleep better. So there’s a direct correlate from that. And the opposite is true. If you’re stressed out, if something happens, you know, like things happening, like with my girls or something, my glucose would go up. The other thing which is really interesting and I really don’t get sick very often but I’ve heard a lot of people, if all of a sudden they’re having more trouble keeping their glucose down, a lot of times that’s a cogenitor that they’re getting ready to have a cold or a flu or something because inflammation raises your glucose as well. So really really really important. So yeah, the more things you can do, Kayla, to relax and get yourself ready, you know, an hour, you should always give yourself an hour before you go to bed to downregulate. You know, be by yourself. Have time. Put away either the chaos on your phone, because you’re bringing in new stimulus or worrying about work or whatever, or the blue light part. Both of them probably are something you want to remove. But yeah, the more you can get out in nature, I know that when you’re outside, like on the beach and stuff, obviously I always sleep better when I’m in nature, more than when I’m in it less. Yeah. So, great question.

Kayla: Thank you.
Dr. A: All right. All right, guys. Well, thank you. Great questions. Thanks for all the interaction and I hope you all have a great week. Take a moment and ask yourself, during today, how much were you out in nature and really kind of dialogue with yourself and say where can I go out? If I’m at the office, can I go out now that it’s getting to be spring? Can I go outside for a walk? You know, all these things can help us, and by the way, just doing even as little as 15 to 20 minutes outside, if you can go out for a walk in the park, obviously take your lunch. Make a—rather than eating prefix lunch, fix something for yourself and take it out in the park, you know, but get outside more. Enjoy it. Obviously, you know, if your environment isn’t as conducive, if you live in the middle of a city, then find other ways, you know, other ways to get outside. Like, you know, one of the beautiful things about some of the largest cities in the world, I was in Madrid when we were in Galacia, they have a beautiful park, a gorgeous park in Central Park in New York City. I mean, if the forefathers, the founders of New York hadn’t been so insightful, that Central Park would be skyscrapers. And so, they had the foresight to know that for the people of New York to have this incredible park to walk through. And if you’ve ever walked through it, it’s incredible. And so even in places where it’s harder, take the time to make sure you get out in nature and do that this week and add it and incorporate it into your life and it’ll be another step toward the Habits of Health that’ll move you to Optimal Health and Wellbeing. So God bless you guys. Have a great week.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: …Live from Manchester, England. So, you know, we talk about with the Conscious Forum that life will have its up and downs. It’ll have different things happen to it. And I’m currently in Manchester, England, here for the delivery of my daughter’s first baby. And so, oh my gosh, Chris, you are a piece of work, but thank you very much [Chris uses a celebration effect on screen]. It hasn’t happened yet. We’re still anticipating, but we’re working in the right direction. And so, hopefully today, it’ll happen later this evening. So, I came back to my hotel to do this presentation, and then I’ll head back to the hospital. So, hopefully, I’m going to become a grandfather tonight. And I’m pretty excited about that.

So today we’re going to talk about something that’s near and dear to all of us. It’s something we have. It’s our thoughts and our emotions. And you know, over the last 30, 40 years, being a physician and watching, you know, as people have become unhealthy and eventually sick. And as a critical care physician, I’ve taken care of the sickest people in the intensive care unit. And people don’t get that way overnight. It’s a long, drawn-out process. And as I look at all the reasons why we get sick, you know, obviously there’s a small amount that are our genetics, you know, we’d love to pick our parents, but we can’t. In whole, about 30% of what happens to us in terms of our health is our genetics, but 70% are our choices, and they’re choices that are made in an environment that’s not conducive to creating optimal health.

One of the things I’ve noted over the years is, yeah, unhealthy food and unhealthy processed food is not good for us, and a sedentary lifestyle, and certainly not sleeping well, but all those things are exacerbated by our thoughts and our feelings. It’s our emotions and things that really create the stress in our life that causes emotional eating, causes us not to sleep well at night, and so one of the things, you know, I’ve addressed many times, but I’ll think of many different ways to approach it and different aspects sometimes work better for other people, for some different people. So I’m going to talk today about your thoughts and your emotions and how we can help you become healthier, stay healthy, because very clearly your ability to — what it says at the bottom — create internal stability within your mind and external equilibrium within your friends and your relationships, your family people in your community, the people you work with, all those things are critical.

So basically, I want to start by talking about if you ever noticed that the same situation, on two different days, can really create two completely different experiences. One day it rolls right off of you. The next day, it completely takes you out. I mean completely. Same situation, different experience. You know, why is that? Well, many years ago, early in my career, after working with thousands of people, studying health, metabolism, and behavior, I had one of those life-changing moments. Everything was objectively fine, but my mind was not. I was running all these scenarios, creating stress, realizing that I was reacting emotionally, even though nothing had actually happened. I was creating scenarios one through 100. I think it was while I was trying to get to sleep one night, while being on call, and that’s when it hit me. Basically, it wasn’t my life creating the stress. It was my thinking about my life that was creating the stress. And at that moment, I realized something very profound: If we don’t learn how to manage our thoughts and lead our emotions, we’re always going to be at the mercy of our own mind.

Now, if you think about that, you’ve got to carry that thing around with you for your whole life. No one else has it. You have it. You’re in control of it. So, basically, that brings me to what we’re going to be talking about today. You know, after more than 25 years of helping people create health, I can tell you with certainty, this is one of the most overlooked parts of our health and our relationships, and it’s by far the most important. So, basically, I want to show you something powerful: how your thoughts and your emotions change your health every single day, and more importantly, how to take control of them.

So your biology follows your physiology and your psychology. Every thought sends chemistry through your brain and through your body. And as many times as you have one of those moments, if you don’t change those experiences by changing the outcome — your response to the outcome, nothing will change. And we have these patterns. We have basically patterns that control our life and certain stimuli that do certain things. And if we don’t break that, we’re going to be stuck. And we really don’t want that. Because autopilot — thoughts create reactive emotions, and when the mind runs on default, the body pays the price.

So this is really important, and this is what, you know, everything you’ve read about or heard about meditation, about awareness, about presence, I talk a lot about it — stopping in the moment — but basically being present is the only way you get out of those automatic cycles and get out of that automatic response. So stress is not only the event, it’s also the meaning your mind assigns to that event. So I think that’s really, really critical. So with that, thoughts create emotion, release hormones, which determine what happens to your health. That’s why when you’re in a good mood, things are happening great, you feel coherent, you feel like life is really going well, you feel like you’re in the zone. It creates a concert feeling within you. Your physiology, your emotions, and your cognitive ability all become concert. They work together. It’s what we call coherence or being in the zone. It’s really, really important for us. And basically, we’ve got those moments when you’re watching a brilliant sunset or a moment with a loved one where you’re holding hands and expressing — you know, I’ve been sensing that a lot. You know, my new son-in-law and my daughter, myself, like we’ve been in this process of waiting for this baby to come. And it’s been a really beautiful experience, and it’s been coherent, and all of a sudden, all the other things don’t matter. This becomes the primary event that’s going on. And they’re beautiful moments.

But the opposite is also true. If you have thoughts that are negative and you’re creating negative emotions, you’re going to release all the hormones that are there. It becomes a perceived threat. Your mind, your thoughts think, “Wow, I’m being threatened here.” And as a result of that, your body has defense mechanisms and it releases cortisol and epinephrine, norepinephrine. It was designed to, you know, the the four “F’s” either to fight, to flight, to faint or basically to freeze. And those were mechanisms to protect you from dying. Those threats that were so real 100,000 years ago are mostly perceived now. And unless we really take the moment, that repetition turns into [unintelligible 00:07:30] with rumination into what I like to call metabolic burden.

That metabolic burden affects our metabolic health. 90% of us, basically, as many of us now know, are creating metabolic dysfunction as a result of that and so our body is not working as a well-oiled machine. It’s actually stressed out and as a result of that all kinds of chemicals are being released which decrease our health. So a steadier mind creates a steadier body. Lower internal noise supports recovery, energy and resilience. That’s why it’s so important, like when I came back from the hospital, I wanted to be here, out of that environment so I could really focus on talking with you fine folks and making sure that we’re in position, where we’re coherent, where I’m not distracted. It also makes me feel a sense of calm where I can basically educate it at a higher level and I can really listen to you and people always say, you know it always seems that I’m the only person in the room when you’re talking to me and that’s by intention because there’s a lot of distractions, a lot of things that the mind can be doing and including, what am I having for dinner or what’s what’s going on next? What’s my schedule? And all those things. By learning, we want to have external equilibrium with the people in our lives, we need to truly understand them and be compassionate with them and be empathetic.

Those are the things that build in that relational health that’s so critical because when we have external equilibrium, it’s much easier to be internally stable. Hopefully, this is making sense for you guys. So, external equilibrium is that inner calm — improves your relationships. Just as we mentioned, you can literally change the emotions of a room and the climate, the emotional climate of a room. You can tell when a leader comes in. Basically, they bring a sense of calm to the room. The room becomes less chaotic. People are listening. You know, you have the old — I think it was a commercial for financial EF Hutton, you know, when he talks, people listen. So, that’s an important, valuable tool for you to be able to work and work with your family, your friends, and certainly in your occupation.

[00:09:33] So, awareness creates choice. What you notice, you can interrupt and redirect. If you’re starting to feel, you know, we talk about how events happen, like every four or five seconds in our life. So as events happen, we start to drift. And if we’re not careful, it will drift down into what we call the Drama Triangle. And at that point, then it becomes like what most of the world’s doing, all you have to do is turn on the news right now. Everybody’s pointing their finger. They’re either blaming, they’re basically, you know, blaming on someone else, they’re feeling they’re a victim, or they’re trying to be a hero and save someone. And none of those things are advantageous to help us work in a highly effective way. That creates emotional turmoil, and certainly is not good for our health.

So the pause between trigger and response, that is the key. That gap between stimulus and response. So we’re not going to that automatic behavior. That’s the pause where wisdom returns. Where, you know, I’ve written many of my books, I’ve written about the limbic area of your brain. We have the lower area, the reptilian brain. We have the labrador brain, which is the emotional brain. And then we have the prefrontal cortex which is the human brain. This up here, prefrontal cortex, is the executive centers where we make wise decisions. Where we don’t do stupid things. When we basically don’t allow ourselves to get that far because our emotional brain has been activated, and we’ve now gone down into that emotional Drama Triangle. At that point, we no longer make the smart decisions. That’s when we go, well, why didn’t I just pause?

You know, there are people on death row who wish they had stopped, challenged, and chosen, which is my iconic way of actually creating that pause and creating the gap between stimulus and response, which is so critical. And basically, the practice is: Stop. Challenge. Choose. Stop the reaction. Stop the automatic response. Challenge the story. What story am I telling here? What am I actually saying? And then choose the next response, one that actually moves forward. So, in our relationships, it’s so critical that we do that so that we don’t get emotional. You know, a lot of times when I’m in a meeting that might be emotionally charged, I always like to have a bottle of water and I’ll have the cap on it, and before I respond, I’ll take the cap off, take a couple big swigs, and then check myself. You know, there’s a— in Veil, where I ski, there’s a train park, and at the beginning of the train park, there’s a little sign that says, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.” And that’s so important in our lives because so many of us— we end up doing bonehead stuff. Saying stuff we wish we regret right after we do it.

And simply when we start feeling that— what I like to call the “icky sauce,”—and you know that— you know the feeling, you get it, a clenching in your jaw, tightness in your throat, a like a lump in your throat or a tightness in your chest or this kind of feeling of butterflies or something in your stomach. All those things are telling you there’s something going on emotionally inside of me. Make sure you stop, challenge, why am I feeling that? And if you’re feeling emotion, make sure you feel it all the way through before you respond. So important. And so it’s about reframing, changing the story, changing the change of the state. I mean, I came over here a week, I’ve been here a week, and I came over for Savannah’s birthday. Thought she was going to deliver. That was her due date— was like the day after that. We have not had a baby for over a week. And rather than say, “Oh gosh, I should have come over later. I’ve got so much going on and here I am hanging out.” Bottom line is no. It’s been an amazing week right before delivery of spending time with her and bonding with her and her husband and having them show me some of the things here in Manchester, going for long walks every day to help her move along.

Also, keep me from making sure I’m getting enough movement to maintain and optimize my metabolic health. We went for a beautiful walk yesterday afternoon in an incredible garden in a little town called Digsby and then sat outside and had a cappuccino before deciding that, you know, what we really better start back before Savannah delivers. She actually went in last night and started the labor process. But it’s been beautiful. The week has been beautiful. Rather than, “Oh, no. I’m wasting time.” No, this is some of the most important times in my life. And now I know changing the story, reframing it, you know, it’s happening to me because I can create an amazing experience without the rush, because once the baby comes, the focus goes on the baby. So it’s been a great opportunity to spend time, catch up on their lives and really get into where they’re being in their little apartment and spending time there playing cards with them and just enjoying. Those things are so important. Those are the things that matter in our lives. It’s not the other stuff.

So emotional mastery is about feeling those emotions. I was just talking about that. Feeling the emotions without becoming them. You want to feel the emotions all the way through, but don’t let them take you over. When emotions take us over, they’re just signals that we should work with. They’re not identities to wear like, oh, I’m mad now. Well, you know, what does that mean? What does that mean? Being mad or being angry is usually a symptom that something needs to change. So be curious about it. Why am I angry about this? And then realizing that emotion, and then moving beyond it. So so important versus, “Oh, I’m mad,” you know, or “I’m hangry.” Well, okay, get some food, but in the meantime, don’t let it define you. I mean, it’s so important for us to realize that we are not our thoughts and we are not our emotions.

So we’re going to practice. I’ve done this quite a bit lately. I can’t tell you how important your breathing is. You know, our breathing is part of the autonomic nervous system. It’s under parasympathetic control normally, which allows us to breathe slow and deep. But for most of us, we’re basically in a high sympathetic outflow because of the fear of things going on in the world, the stress of life, and our ability to not manage it correctly. Most of us, if you really sense, and I always like— we’re going to do this little exercise now. But what I’d love you to do, and hopefully my voice, and just sitting here and calming down and listening, you’ve changed. But it’s good to check yourself during the day. Where am I breathing from? Am I breathing deep from my diaphragm? Is it slow? And can I feel— if you put your hand on your chest and your belly, you should feel the breathing. You’re actually, when you breathe in, your belly should expand out. And that shows you that you’re breathing diaphragmatically, which is healthy. Allows you to fill your lungs much more as well as relax you and it makes you feel more centered.

So it’s always good to assess that and then say, “Okay, well, I’m breathing a little shallow from up here, so I need to take control of that.” The beautiful thing about your breathing, normally you don’t think about it, but you can think about it. And when you do think about it, you now put yourself in position to be able to take that over and actually change the conditioning of it. So you can first observe that breathing. You can allow it and then you can choose and one thing to do is breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds and wait four seconds before — we call box breathing. That’s a nice easy one to remember. But just by taking control of that. 

So let do that because it— let’s just spend two minutes right now doing that. First, sense, where is your breathing right now? So if I sense mine… it’s actually pretty calm, and it’s pretty relaxed. I’m feeling very centered. I feel so blessed to be over here, getting to participate in my daughter bringing a new human being into the world, which is really cool. And I reflected on that, you know, my wife passed away eight years ago. Basically, our anniversary was a couple days ago, or yesterday, actually, on the 6th, and thinking how cool it is that we’re now bringing another beautiful young lady into the world. So, you know, that gratitude, all those things are centering and you all of a sudden you feel really grateful for the things in your life.

So, anyway, go ahead and do this. Just go ahead and spend a moment and do the deep breathing and really get used to— this can be such a game changer for you and for your health, just by doing this like once an hour or so. The other thing along with it, I’m just going to tell you because metabolic health is becoming center-focused and a lot of the things that we’re doing to help people create Optimal Health and Wellbeing is also movement. So, if you’ve been sitting, working, get up, take those breaths, and then do some motion. You know, walk up and down the stairs. Do some, you know, depending on your health and your underlying physical ability, do some lunges or whatever, or just walk to the water fountain if you’re at work. Making sure you’re combining those two can really reset everything. And in real time, it’s actually doing it right now, which is really cool. It’s not a theoretical thing.

[00:18:30] One of the things that I’m spending more time working with people is to pick all the moments in your life to work on your movement and your breathing. Don’t just wait, “Oh, I’m going to do that later,” because when you put that off, you’re not allowing yourself to fully enjoy all these wonderful things that can help you impact and improve the quality of your life. So basically, the impact is calmer thoughts, lower stress, and clearly better metabolism. The mind can either tax the body or support it. So, so really important. So, in closing, you may not control everything, but you can control what controls you and basically that is so important for us to realize because we can make all the difference. So, with that, let’s open it up for questions. Rachel, what questions do we have?

Rachel: All right, first up we have Deanna. Deanna, can you come off mute? There you are.

Deanna: Hello. Thank you. Good morning, Dr. A. And thank you for being here on such a fabulous occasion because that’s a big step.

Dr. A: That is a big step.

Deanna: It is a big step. And happy belated anniversary.

Dr. A: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Deanna: That means so much for you being here and your presence. And I want to just say, because my question stems from last month, but it continues into this month, sort of speakingly, and… I know where I’m at. I know the tools, the resources, that are available to me, and it’s still like, you know, we always…with this shift of focusing on metabolic health, your mind’s still stuck in a I’m looking at that number, or I’m looking at that metabolic age, and I’m looking at this, I’m looking at that, and why doesn’t it change? So my question was basically, what is it called when you’re stuck, yet if one stops focusing on what it’s not moving or wrong and then you stop focusing on that and it works out. I don’t think it’s necessarily what it’s called, is what I’m looking for, but why or, you know, because, again… awareness. Stop. Challenge. Choose. Breathe. Whatever your outlet is. Sometimes it takes that shift to shut that mind down and stop focusing on that particular item. You set a primary goal. You do steps that you’re going to reach it. You don’t reach it. So then you start going backwards.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, the bottom line is you’re talking about emotional manipulation. It’s called conflict manipulation. You’re basically… that motivation doesn’t work. Emotional motivation does not work. Okay. It may work for a short period of time to get you to do something, but it’s not long lasting. The creative process is a very different thing. So if you’re focusing on a goal, something you want to accomplish and you didn’t reach it, you know, to then reflect on that and say, “Oh, I didn’t reach the goal, you know, what was either feeling sorry for yourself or judging yourself like, yep, once again, I failed.” That serves no purpose. That’s emotional where you’re now letting your emotions control you versus what you really want. Organizing your life around what matters most is figuring out what are the things you want and focusing on that. If, you know, right now— are you standing up? Looks like you’re standing up.

Deanna: I am.

Dr. A: Okay. Are you outside?

Deanna: I am.

Dr. A: Okay. All right. So what is some — let’s be really simple here. I’m going to make this as simple as I can and hopefully it’ll help. So what is something that you really really really want to accomplish right now in your health?

Deanna: Well, it’s a combination of things, but, my question is not just about me. I’ts about others…

Dr. A: No, no, no, no, no. I’m in charge now.

Deanna: Okay.

Dr. A: You did your part. Now I’m in charge. I have one specific question for you… What is one thing…?

Deanna: But…

Dr. A: Not, “But.” Not “Oh, I have many things.” What is one thing? I’m not asking you for 10 things. What is one thing you would like to improve in your health right now? 

Deanna: Bring that visceral fat down.

Dr. A: Okay. So, you want to get rid of your visceral adipose. Okay. And the reason why you want to get rid of it is because now you understand that it’s not healthy for you, right?

Deanna: Well, I’m a type one. Diabetic.

Dr. A: Yeah. But here’s the point. The point is it is not healthy for you. So rather than focus on what you’re trying to get rid of, what are you focusing on doing? You’re focusing on becoming more, becoming healthier. Correct?

Deanna: Yes.

Dr. A: Okay. That’s what you focus on. You don’t focus on, “Oh, I only lost a quarter of a pound.” You focus on what you want to create. And then you look and see if that doesn’t happen, then what else can I do? What didn’t I do? What can I do better? In other words, what are the secondary choices that things I may not want to do, but they lead me to what I want. Here’s the other part of that. So, look up and see yourself. Look up at the sky. Is it sunny up there? Looks a little sunny. Yeah. Well, I mean, don’t look at the sun, but just look up at the sky. Okay. So…

Deanna: I’ll turn around, but yes.

Dr. A: Okay, good. Yeah. Look up and visualize that your waist now basically is at a healthy waist, less than, you’re, as a female, less than 35 inches. Your waist circumference is now less than 35 in. Right. How does that make you feel?

Deanna: I don’t know because…

Dr. A: I don’t look down. Look up. How would that make you feel?

Deanna: Well, how would that make me feel?

Dr. A: Yeah.

Deanna: I don’t know because I’ve never really been there.

Dr. A: Okay. You haven’t been there. But you know specifically that your metabolic… if you lose your visceral adipose, your health is going to be better. You’re probably going to have more energy. But you got to visualize this. I could tell you what it’s going to be like because I’ve helped tens of thousands of people do it. But you’ve got to realize why you’re doing it. Okay? You’re doing it because as you create your health, you’ll have more energy. You’ll fit better in your clothes. You’ll basically look better and be more attractive. You’ll basically sleep better. You’ll breathe better. If you have underlying cardiovascular disease, those things will improve. Your blood pressure will improve. Your cholesterol will improve. All these things are going to get better while you’re looking up. Okay? So, are those all things that you would love to have come into your life?

Deanna: 100%. Well, actually, to infinity. Yes. 100%.

Dr. A: To infinity. Exactly. Okay. Now, I want you to look down. Look down at the ground. Look down at the ground. That’s it. Keep those glasses on. Look down the ground. At the ground. All the way down. At the ground. Okay. What is one thing that’s going to keep you from doing that?

Deanna: The six inches between my ears.

Dr. A: Okay. Okay. So, when you do that, when you do that and look down at that, if that’s going to keep you from doing it, do you think you could, right now, can you even visualize all the great feelings you were starting to feel when we were looking up? Can you visualize any of when you’re looking down?

Deanna: Yes. Because I am… 

Dr. A: No. No, you can’t. When you look down, all you see are the bad things. You see the things why you can’t do it. Because of my mind. Because I’m not strong enough. Because I get stuck. It goes on and on and on. Every time you’re looking down you can’t look up at what you want.

Deanna: I see.

Dr. A: Okay. That is the essence of why you’re stuck, because you’re looking for huge wins, which you’re never going to have. You don’t win by major breakthroughs. You win by incremental improvement in your standards. Small little changes where you avoid the sugar that you used to put in your coffee. You move more and you don’t sit on the couch, you stand up or you use a ball if you’re going to be in. You turn off the TV and you get out and enjoy nature like you are today. You make those choices, and in small increments, all those things will start to improve. See, the difference is the gain in the gap is that you’re only looking— you only need to have small incremental improvements to reinforce and build your self-efficacy. But if you’re looking for major wins, like everything, you know, Rocky went from being a bum to being a hero in two hours. Life doesn’t work like that. Life is a series of small choices that together amplify over time. And as you learn the Habits of Health, and you learn in the different areas through the “halo effect,” you’ll start to gain more traction, and you’ll gain more momentum. But the reality is life is a continual movement in a direction towards better health and wellbeing. It’s not an oscillating structure where you judge how you feel in the day and then say, “Well, today I’m going to get healthier. Tomorrow I don’t feel so good because I didn’t do so good today.” You get out get the emotions out, and you focus on the creative process, and you stop letting conflict manipulation, which is beating yourself up, be your judge.

Deanna: Which is odd because, and I thank you for that because I didn’t feel it was an emotional thing and then when I looked down I think— so my first thought to myself was, “Wow. I can actually look down at the ground and not fall over.”

Dr. A: Okay. Well, there you go. But then you weren’t doing, you weren’t following the directions. The directions were to look down and think of something that you don’t like, why you can’t do it, not something positive. So, first of all, you’ve got to listen to directions in order to experience the lesson. It’s important. And that’s one of the things is you’re creating health. Health is specific. It’s a set of data points that you measure and you look for incremental improvement. If the data points aren’t improving, then you’re not doing what’s necessary to make them improve. It’s as simple as that.

Deanna: Okay.

Dr. A: And the world, by the way, the environment, you’re a victim of the process of living in an obesogenic society. Your intentions have to be you need to become your own professional, your own expert in order to get out. Now get the help, the support, the skills, the strategy, the things that— the tools, all those things can help you. But know that you’re the chief executor of your health. Period. Right? And don’t even bother…

Deanna: Absolutely.

Dr. A: Don’t even share that. Don’t even, you know, “Oh, I was doing good.” No. Share that with your coach, but the rest of it, leave them out of the equation. The bottom line is, you’re in charge and so make the choices that support what you really want. And if you really want health, then go do it. And you do it through having the community, the tools, the coaching, help, the system. All those things together are necessary because the odds are against you living in the society if you don’t intentionally make the decision, the desired outcome to move forward and lower your waist circumference. Okay?

Deanna: Yes. Thank you. I appreciate this.

Dr. A: Now go do it.

Deanna: Yeah. I will. Thank you.

Dr. A: Good. Good. Awesome. All right. Who else do we got?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Mary. Hi, Mary.

Dr. A: Hey, Mary.

Mary: Hello. Good morning and congratulations on the impending arrival. 

Dr. A: Thank you. Thank you.

Mary: I have eight grandchildren, and they’re my why.

Dr. A: Wow. I got a long way to catch up.

Mary: Yeah. My question was, I was listening to My Prescription for Life, and several times, and in other things you’ve written, you talk about getting up in the morning, getting out in the sun, getting… well I live in Olympia, Washington, and we rarely have sun in the mornings. It’s often raining, overcast, and in the winter the sun’s not up till like 8:30. So, do you have a recommendation for those of us in terms of…

Dr. A: Yeah, there’s actually, you can go online to Amazon and there are actually — to wake you up in the morning — there are actually different types of sun lamps that are that are designed so you can put them by your nightstand, put them somewhere in your room, and they actually can wake you up. They brighten. They have all the necessary ultraviolet light. They simulate natural sunlight. And they’re a great way to help with that and make sure you get an adequate dose of it because again, here’s a variation on the same thing I was just talking about, that is your underlying structure. That’s why — well, I’m the same way in here right where I am now, Manchester, England has got the same issue and there’s a coffee shop on every corner and the reason why is because they use caffeine, and caffeine, actually we’re finding more and more is healthy, but the point is, use what your body wants to use and that is natural sunlight as well, and so you can get that through the special lamps and they’re not expensive. You can get them through Amazon, and that would be a great way to help you with that.

Mary: Okay. Yeah, I’ve had one for a lot of years and what I find is it tends to dry out my eyes, you know, they say to look at it.

Dr. A: Well, you don’t have to look at it. You don’t have to look at it. You just have to have it on in the room. You don’t have to look directly at the light. I wouldn’t look directly at the light. I would just have it on in the room and then obviously if you need, you know, you can use lubricating eye drops that are just plain water with a little salt in them, you know, to take care of that as well.

Mary: Okay. Okay. Thank you very much.

Dr. A: Great. And by the way, are you enjoying My Prescription for Life?

Mary: Oh, I loved it. I mean, I’m not on the GLP1s, but I have a client who is. So, it was like, I’m trying to help her understand a little better how to use them and so I thought I would listen to it myself first. So it was a great— it’s very easy to listen to and apply.

Dr. A: Good. Good. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Mary: Thank you.

Dr. A: Okay. Who else we got?

Rachel: All right. Next up we have Michelle. Hi Michelle. Oh, you’re still muted.

Michelle: Okay. Can you hear me now?

Dr. A: Yep.

Chris: Hang on one second. Hang on one second. Trying to get Michelle on camera. Otherwise, you’re just going to stare at Mary for a second.

Dr. A: I see both of them.

Chris: There we go. There we go.

Dr. A: All right.

Michelle: Hi, Dr. Andersen, and congratulations. Grandbabies are the best. The best gift from God.

Dr. A: I’ve heard that many times. I’m looking forward to it.

Michelle: It is wonderful. We have eight…

Dr. A: Wow! You guys are killing me here.

Michelle: Well, we had five kids, so that makes a difference. So, and also, I just want you to know, I love your wife, Lori. Love her so much.

Dr. A: Appreciate that.

Michelle: Yes. Praying for you. My question is, how do I help people that are addicted to sugar like I was 10, it’s been 10 years ago now that I was able to, you know, lose 100 pounds and stay healthy. But how do I help people and tell them and share with them and help them to stay healthy or get healthy when they’re addicted to sugar? Because that’s a hard one. It’s really hard. I see that.

Dr. A: No, it is hard. It’s a— in fact, you know, lab rats, they basically, if they had a chance between heroin and sugar, they would take the sugar. I mean, that’s how powerful— it’s a very powerful addiction. And you know, it has a lot to do with the dopamine reward centers and the nucleus incumbent in our brain. And so when you’re addicted to it, it’s kind of like cigarette smoking. You have to basically have some way of removing it in order to sense the difference. And that’s one of the wonderful things about using fuelings, because they’re low glycemic, is that within three or four days of using them your insulin— the whole deal is you’ve got to break the cycle of insulin secretion and what ends up happening is we have very high insulin levels and when the insulin levels are high, basically, when we have sugar, the glucose goes up. The insulin goes up. Then the blood sugar goes down. As soon as it goes down, the brain you know can’t stand to be low on energy. It’s a very high consumption organ. So basically it needs energy. So it will cause these cravings. These ridiculous cravings. So, and so the couple one is if people are having to use the GLP-1’s that’s a great time to learn because basically it inhibits the dopamine reward system. It also stimulates brain derived neurotrophic factors. So that’s a great time, or if you’re using the fuelings, are like-minded and suddenly someone is not using, and using a substitute that doesn’t have sugar in it, over three or four days their insulin level will start coming down and then their cravings for sugar will go away during both those periods of time it’s really important.

[00:36:33] And then in the LifeBook I have the addiction to processed food in Element 16, which is some really good information that you can use and if they’re highly susceptible— basically the population falls into three three sectors. One is highly susceptible to glucose and addictiveology and especially addictive type foods, ultraprocessed foods. Some are medium, some are low. If they’re highly addictive, and have struggled many times trying to lose weight before and dieted, and yo-yoed, for those, actually a small dose of GLP is probably to help them in the beginning is probably helpful for them, knowing that their the goal is for them to work with you, learn the Habits of Health so eventually they won’t need it anymore but either way you could use the fuelings, by going on specifically, like the Five in One, in about three or four days they’ll lose those cravings and what ends up happening is they go into a mild fat burning state and that the brain uses ketones as a wonderful energy source. During that period, their addiction will be much lower and that’s a great time for them to start learning to dump and understand not to eat processed food and how to avoid that in the future.

Michelle: Yeah. And I was going to say, I should have added I guess, what happens is, what I’ve noticed is that when a holiday or the weekend hits and they’re with family that are not following that plan, or any plan for that matter, that’s when they go off and then it starts to cycle all over again. So I have seen it sometimes, it literally, it just happens for years.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, it’s not… it’s just like cigarette smoking. There’s a physical addiction and there’s a mental addiction, right? They’re both there. They’re part of the same process. One is the reward system where when they do that, they get stimulated. You know, people, as simple as co-workers going outside and smoking together creates a— this bonding that occurs, and even if they start taking something that, you know, nicotine tablets, they still need that bonding. So, you’ve got to break both cycles. But a great way, the physiologic addiction, the actual chemical addiction, is usually where you want to start because that’s harder. And then when you get them away from it for a while, especially in the case of sugar, once their insulin level comes down and they stop having those wild peaks— and that’s why for people, you know, one of the things I found very helpful over the last couple years, and I actually wore one, and I wear it sometimes even now, is a glucose monitor because basically I’m very very aware. If I get any spikes and I figure out what caused that and then avoid eating that in the future. So that’s a great way to help them as well.

Michelle: Thank you. Yes, I’ve been sharing that since you shared that with us at Mini Sundance in Utah. I’ve been sharing that. So thank you.

Dr. A: Awesome. Great. 

Michelle: Thank you so much. 

Dr. A: You’re so welcome.

Michelle: Appreciate you. Bye.

Dr. A: Bye. Bye.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Karen. Oh…

Chris: Hopefully Karen will be back in just a moment.

Dr. A: She’s got some really interesting pastels in the background.

Karen: I’m here. I don’t know. I’m on my laptop, so I don’t know what that’s showing. I apologize.

Dr. A: Well, it’s very pretty. It looks like a bedspread or something.

Chris: It’s your phone. It’s your phone. Pick up your phone and point your phone at you. Other direction. Turn it around.

Dr. A: Hi! I see me.

Chris: There you go.

Karen: So, how do I disconnect my phone from my computer?

Chris: Click. Click on the little arrow. You got it? On Zoom. Click on the little arrow next to “video,” and then choose your laptop webcam instead of your iPhone. There you go!

Karen: There we go! Gosh, I’m glad I’m dressed. Okay. So my question, Dr. A…

Dr. A: Chris, excuse me one second. Chris, you are not right [Chris used a celebration feature on screen].

Karen: I know. This is my very first laptop ever and my only second time to use it. So…

Dr. A: That’s okay. Congratulations.

Karen: I know. And so I feel like a little kid at Christmas. My question is, we talk about the sun because I do like to go out and walk in my grass and do the grounding, but I’ve been told by two different doctors now. My vitamin D is too high. I haven’t been taking supplements. I’m not using all the essential vitamins because I use more the Ascend or not essential fuelings, I use more of the Ascend. I actually had to stop taking our Ascend vitamins because of the everything that had D in it because I’m at a 10 on my D. And so what is, when you ask the doctors, they’ll just say stop taking the D vitamin, stop doing this. And it’s like, well, I I’m not taking any. What would create a high vitamin D in a person?

Dr. A: Do you eat any unusual foods? Foods that are full of like, do you eat liver? Do you eat, you know, do you have any specific thing that in your diet that you have more than most people would that’s unique to your diet?

Karen: Not that I know of.

Dr. A: Where do you, first of all, let’s back up. Where do you live?

Karen: In Utah.

Dr. A: Okay. So, are you out in the sun a lot?

Karen: No. I mean, I’m out in the sun. Not like a ton, though. Especially with it being winter, I haven’t been out much.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. So, that’s — and why did you get that checked?

Karen: Because I’ve been having some health issues for the last few years. And that’s just something they’ve told me about the last year is my D’s too high. And so, what am I eating? I don’t eat the liver. I don’t eat a lot of leafy greens. So I’ve really limited the foods I’m eating and the vitamins I’m taking, but I can’t get my D to come down. And so…

Dr. A: Well, I would actually go to chatGPT. Okay. Now that you’ve got a computer or you could do it on your phone— doesn’t matter.

Karen: Well, I did chat and they said the same thing the doctors did to stop eating these things and stop taking the vitamins. So, I can’t figure out what else to do.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, it’s very unusual to have high vitamin D. Very unusual. So, how many times have they checked it?

Karen: I’ve had it checked three times.

Dr. A: And all three times it was high?

Karen: Yes, and that’s been like a six-month window. A six-month window. A six-month window.

Dr. A: You tried avoiding the things that are higher in vitamin D? It’s not come down at all?

Karen: No. And I hear the same thing. That’s really unusual. Most people don’t have enough vitamin D. So that’s why I’m like…

Dr. A: Yeah.

Karen: And I do like to walk, and I, but I only do that like three days a week outside. So I’m just curious if you had any…

Dr. A: Yeah. No, I’ve never, you’re the first person I’ve ever met that said that. So, what I would do, that’s why I’m saying go to, you know, the one thing about AI is that it’s a great repository of information and I would just really get into it and have it pull up everything. You know, obviously, is there, you know, are you using a tanning booth?

Karen: So I do tan a month out of the whole year…

Dr. A: One time a month out of the whole year?

Karen: No, I go one month like an unlimited month because, just to get started, and then I don’t.

Dr. A: Well, you know, obviously you could eliminate that. But, I just, it’s very hard for me to imagine that that would elevate your — what’s your descent? Are you from North Scandinavia or England or do you burn easily?

Karen: No. No.

Dr. A: No. Your complexion doesn’t look like it. I’m very, it’s very unusual. I usually I have the answer for most things. I do not have the answer for that. I can just tell you that obviously what you consume in your diet, well actually the number one cause for vitamin D to be high is excessive consumption through supplements. So, you’re not taking any supplements at all?

Karen: I was just using the Ascend vitamins and minerals. So, I do the fish oil, but I don’t do the vitamin mineral. And then, I don’t eat the liver and I don’t eat a lot of greens because that’s something my body hasn’t been able to handle for years. So, that’s what so— I hear the same thing. And I even put all my lab work into chatGPT for the last three year, the last three tests, and they say the same thing, most people don’t have this problem. And that’s why I’m like, I don’t know what to do to make it come down.

Dr. A: Yeah. I’ll tell you what, send me, get my information from Rachel, and let me do some research on, see if I can find any more information to help you. Okay?

Karen: Okay. I appreciate that.

Dr. A: You’re more than welcome.

Karen: And I have one other quick question. I was using the Trespatide and my doctor kept me on it for my cholesterol. What is your take on that? When I’m listening to your, My Prescription for Life, I know you say, there’s sometimes, it’s a good thing, but I’ve been on it for over a year now. And I would like to get off of it. He has me on the low dose because I have high cholesterol. I guess it’s just a DNA snag, but…. 

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, no, but there’s other medications, statins, and different things you can use.

Karen: He doesn’t want — I prefer not to take a statin. So, what would be the least of the two?

Dr. A: Well, I mean, using a micro dose, I mean long-term use of GLP-1’s, we don’t know, we don’t have long-term on, we have it on diabetics, we don’t have it on people that are non-diabetics, but, as a whole if you can go down to a lower dose, but the main reason why it lowers your cholesterol is because it helps with your biomarkers by reducing your — degradating your visceral atyposity. Is your waist circumference down to normal size now?

Karen: It’s still bigger than I would like, but it’s below the 35.

Dr. A: Well, then basically…

Karen: My mom did have type 2 diabetes and she had heart issues and that’s why he and she had cholesterol. So that’s why he’s…

Dr. A: Yeah. But most of that— remember, the primary cause of most of that is visceral atyposity. It’s metabolic dysfunction. Once you get your insulin level, have you stopped eating all sugars?

Karen: Well, just the sugars in our fuelings.

Dr. A: Yeah. But I mean, as far as you don’t take any added sugar?

Karen: No.

Dr. A: And you’re not eating any ultra-processed foods?

Karen: No. And I don’t eat out much because of the different things I’ve had to find with my body and stuff.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, the bottom line is, you know, a lower dose of GLP, getting down to a micro dose, the main thing is get your waist circumference, get your BMI down under 25. Get your body composition as a female probably somewhere under 18% body fat. Get your visceral adipose down and hopefully you’ll be able to come off of it. You won’t need it anymore.

Karen: Okay. Because I am taking bergamot and there’s another natural herb I’m taking instead of the statins. Okay. Yeah, I’ll get that from Rachel.

Dr. A: Yeah. You get that information and let me see if I can find any more information for you on that. Okay?

Karen: Thank you.

Dr. A: All right. Yep. You’re welcome. Okay. Who else do we have?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Kayla. There’s Kayla.

Dr. A: Hey, Kayla.

Kayla: Hi. Good morning. How are you?

Dr. A: How are you?

Kayla: I’m fantastic. I’m doing well.

Dr. A: Awesome. I love to hear that.

Kayla: So, I have a question for you today. Walking through, speaking of parenting, parenting a 12 and 14 year-old and wanting your guidance on helping them understand the Drama and Empowerment Triangle. We have some extended drama going on that we can’t control, but I would love your guidance on some simple questions that could walk them through the process of allowing them to be creators and not live in the drama of it all.

Dr. A: Okay. Well, the questions I found the most effective are basically derived from what’s called “upset technology.” And it’s really just simply re-engaging — you know, in Element 4, and also in the Habits of Health, I talk a lot — and in My Prescription for Life as well — I talk about, the three progressive levels and actually I talked about it earlier today, about people getting caught in the limbic area of their brain. So teenagers are going through a process of developing independence. You know when they’re born, through their early— before they go into adolescence, it’s very important their primary mechanism is to belong. Be part of the clan. That’s important for security. It’s important for being in control, but control kind of usurps that once they get to be teenagers. So control is more important for them, and actually that independence that they’re doing and because their limbic area in their brain is really well developed, but the prefrontal cortex hasn’t totally developed yet — it doesn’t really even start even starting to develop till like they’re five or so. But then after that, in adolescence, the teenage brain is a very confused brain where they’re looking to create a new association with their friends and colleagues for support and for recognition because now they’re moving into a different area where they’re going to move into their reproductive years.

[00:50:30] So with that, mom, who was so smart earlier, and you will be just as smart when they’re in their 20s, right now is not considered. So you have to ask them questions and the most important one is to get them out of it, because you can’t discuss with them when they’re in drama, emotionally charged. There’s no rational part of their brain that’s working. So the best way to do that is reestablish the prefrontal cortex working. So very simple questions and you’ve heard these before but I think they’re really important. Is when they come in and they’re all jazzed up, is to ask first, what happened? And then listen completely without intervening. You might be able to fix it almost immediately. They don’t even want to be fixed. They want to know that you’re listening to them. So what happened, and let them go through the whole thing.

Okay. What was missing? That’s a good one, right? What’s missing? What was missing there? Why did that happen? What’s what’s missing? You can also ask them as an ancillary one if they need more time in there, what was your expectation? What did you want to have happen? And then after they’ve done that and they’ve gone through that, you’ll see a progression and you’ll watch them switch from the limbic area to the prefrontal cortex because to answer the questions what happened, what was missing, it requires them to re-engage the intelligent area of their brain, the executive areas. So as that happens, you’re turning off the limbic area, you’re turning off the emotional areas, and you’re turning on the rational areas. And then the last is what’s next? So what do we need to do? And certainly, you know, don’t be the hero. It’s not your responsibility to say, “Oh, I’m totally at fault there.” That’s not the answer. The answer is not to totally blame them. And the answer isn’t to blame it on someone else. It’s to look at the situation and say, “Okay, how do we improve this and move you from the Drama to the Empowerment Triangle?” And it’s as simple as doing this. 

It’s exactly what the talk was today. Once you can build internal stability and external equilibrium, everything in their life will improve as well. Once they realize by them being the rational one in the room, when they’re around, you know, their friends or colleagues, then they’ll be the one that’s respected and more listened to. That’s a great way, because kids want to be liked. They want to be liked by their peers. So to be liked by their peers, traditionally, what they do is, “Me too,” and they just agree with everything and it becomes one big Drama Triangle. So not by disagreeing with the peers but by just being there and listening and asking questions and teaching them to use that same technology that starts giving them tremendous power and ability because communication can only occur when the rational part of the brain— because the emotional part of the brain doesn’t have any language. There’s no way you could describe love. You know poets try to do it, but there’s no emotional way to describe it. And so basically, we have to use words to articulate what we’re feeling, but it doesn’t work. So by communicating with them and getting them so that they know that you’re there, you’re listening, you’re not judging them, you’re simply there to be a conduit to help them work through it for themselves. And if there’s some things that they ask out to reach there, and know that you love them unconditionally, those are all components. And to do it in very very small little increments. So it’s not like, “Oh, mom suddenly became the most wonderful person.” No, just do it in small increments and allow them to realize that it’s this. If they come in and it becomes this, it stays that way. But if they come in and it’s like this, and you’re here, and they’re doing this, eventually they’ll realize, “Whoa. I’m not getting any emotional. I’m not getting any adrenaline here.” Right? Because that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for purpose for meaning. The adrenaline awakens them up, allows them to be alive, and they feel charged by it. So, they like that feeling, and it’s an important feeling for them. For you, not so much. Is that helpful?

Kayla: Super helpful. Thank you.

Dr. A: Good. Awesome. Cool.

Kayla: See you soon. Thanks.

Dr. A: All right. Can’t wait to see you. All right. We got any last ones before we call it…?

Rachel: We have one more.

Dr. A: Okay. Great.

Rache: We have TJ.

Dr. A: Hey, TJ.

TJ: I am so excited about you becoming a grandparent. I just, Oh! So, but I do have a question about that before I ask my question. What are you going to be called? 

Dr. A: Grampy.

TJ: Grampy, oh, I love it. Okay, thank you.

Dr. A: That’s what, you know, that’s a tradition. That’s what, my grandfather was one of my favorite people, and he was called Grampy, and so out of honor to him that’s what I’m going to be called.

TJ: I love that. Okay. Okay. Back to reality. So my question is, could you direct me on maybe getting — Chris… So could you direct me on maybe creating a deeper why in the area of identity? I really want to be a leader of leaders. I really want to be somebody who just knows that I’m a healthy person. But I think that when I start looking for my why, I mean, the biggest why that I have in my life is to be able to dance vivaceiously at my grandchildren’s wedding, and they’re like eight, nine and six. So, I have that drawing course, but I know that I need to go a little bit deeper. I’m wondering if you could just give me some tips on how to go deeper in who I want to be.

Dr. A: Yeah. So, let’s be clear on identity because I wrote a book with Robert Fritz on identity. You are not a grandmother. You are not a wife. You are not a coach. Those are titles that you’ve been given for areas that you are designated because they’re things that, in essence, in reality you’re part of. Your identity is not the key part. Your standards are the part — the standards are more important than your identity. You become something different because you change your standards. That’s why, like you know, I love the admiral that talks about making the bed in the morning, right? Because the bottom line is that’s something that if you do it then it becomes kind of your standard. It’s your standard. And what’s great about it, you’re creating order, which is a form of discipline, which is a form of being able to negotiate and not just be spontaneous to everything. It’s okay to be spontaneous about some things, but there’s certain things, you know, healthy people are basically disciplined in that they don’t do. It’s not that they’re restricting themselves. They’re becoming a healthy person. They make those choices because they support what’s most important. So the two things I always talk about is organize your life around what matters most to you. So figure out what those things are and then become the Dominant Force in your life. And that’s what I was talking about to the very first guest today, is that decide what you want, why you want it, why it’s important, and then become it. And you’re becoming it because that’s what you do.

So if you are a healthy person, you don’t smoke cigarettes, you don’t drink yourself to death on the weekends, you certainly don’t do drugs, you basically, because those are choices that do not allow you to be healthy. And those are pretty radical examples, but the little subtleties are, you know, just small incremental improvement. So pick out — the most important thing to guide us in our lives is what do you value most? And I’m not talking about moral, ethical values. I’m talking about things we actually value. What’s most important to us? Like this week, for me being, I mean, I’ve got a million things… I really need to get back to the States, but I value this time with my daughter more than anything. So basically that becomes something where my motivation is to stay here until she delivers, and for a few days be here with them, because that’s very important. And then, because of that, that strengthens me, and rearranging flight schedules, transportation, services, car services, hotel reservations. I had to do quite a few things. None of those things I wanted to do and they cost money. The little sweetheart has already cost me money. I haven’t even seen her yet, you know. So, and we are kidding around about that, but the point is, when you’re putting the things you don’t need much value, when you’re highly — and you’re, I’m sorry, you don’t need much motivation when you’re highly value something it becomes a natural thing and I always use the analogy of the parents stuck in a burning hotel room with their kids on the other side. Forty stories up, you wouldn’t think twice going across the ledge because you value your children that much. It’s that important to you.

So it’s really important that we organize our life around what matters most. Many things that you may theoretically think, well I want to be a great leader but what does that mean? What does a great leader mean? What does that — because I want people to say how good I am. So you have to really go all the way down to what is the purpose? And the things you value the most. The hierarchy of those things. The thing you value the most of all when you keep asking, well why do I want that? Why do I want that? That then becomes your purpose. So for me, my purpose and why I continue to do this, I mean, I don’t have to do this anymore, but I do it specifically because I value helping people. This, you know, I’m in, it’s 5 hours. It’s, what time is it? Six o’clock at night and I’m having to get ready to go back to a hospital, you know, but I’m doing this forum because I value the people’s lives I can touch and it’s important to me and and so that’s what you want to do. You want to make sure you’re not, that’s why material things, if you look at the hierarchy of motivation, the lowest level is fear. The next level is extrinsic motivation like wealth and cars and stuff. The next is intrinsic motivation. The next is fun. We love to have fun. It goes back to our childhood. And then the highest is agape love where we’re doing something — we feel this deep spiritual connection to another. You know, agape love, so to speak. All those things are critical, but what’s more critical are the ones that are the most important to you.

So rather than just say, well, I want to be great at this and great at that, figure out, what do you really value? And then and then use that to organize, and then those principles will become easier for you to do. Okay.

TJ: So that definitely created something within me because one of the things that I really want to be as a leader of leaders, but why do I want to be that? It’s because I really want to impact other people’s lives by being able to help them become leaders of themselves, leaders of leaders. And so I guess impact is kind of….

Dr. A: Well, so have to figure out what… okay. When you say leaders of leaders, you know, obviously, I have created a lot of leaders and I mentor a lot of people. But I want to make sure you’re realizing what’s most important to you. And so I would never say I want to become leaders of leaders. I want to help people organize their life around what matters most. In your case, if you want to be a leader of leaders, you need to be really clear on what that means because you said several different things when you said that. You said, “I want to help people improve their health.” Well, you don’t have to be a leader of leaders to help someone help their health. So, you’ve got to figure out what specifically do you mean by that. We have a tendency to say stuff, but if it’s unclear, what it really means, then we’re not going to get it. Because, you know, again, the creative process, one of the most powerful forces on the planet. The creative process is desired outcome, current reality within what that is I’m looking at in my life. Then the secondary choices are the things that move you forward. But if you’re not clear what the desired outcome is, then your tactics will be blurry and your action steps will also be blurry because it’s very different helping an individual create health.

So right now I’m creating a talk for for Go Global and it’s about the the creating the new standard of health for the world and in that, one of the most important things for people to understand is the mechanism between what I just said, conflict manipulation, which is what the first guest was talking about and what you’re saying is, what are the things that I want to create? And then specifically, and the reason why we set goals is to, actually more than anything, become a filter for our daily activity because our lives — you know, it’s interesting because I went to a, my son-in-law took me to a 15th century library here, it was incredible with these huge texts and you looked at how they were made and the small presses they used to make them, they were, once Gutenberg developed the press we were able to communicate, but if you looked in terms of a person would work 40 years on one document, come in every day, open it up and write and work on it. You know, you in a process of one hour by going online or on your phone, you’ve touched 70,000 touch points that are small little cognitive stimulates in your brain. We’re in the most distracted time of the whole planet. So until you become specifically clear and focused, focusing psychological flexibility in order to be adaptable and reframe and focus, specific laser focus, on what you actually want is necessary in order to actually create anything.

So the goals you set, the primary choice, those are simply ways to filter what you should do during the day and what you shouldn’t do and be able to know the difference, whether it’s leading to what you want or not. So you’re going to become much more focused on becoming what you mean by becoming a leader of leaders.

TJ: Okay. I need to focus on clarity and I can’t wait to see you at Go Global.
Dr. A: All right. Sounds great. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Well, Rachel, we are done for today. Chris, thanks as usual for all your side effects. You are one big piece of work. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. And everyone, have an amazing week. And let’s go out and let’s pray for a healthier, safer world. God bless. Thanks.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: …Fire, and I think we’ve all, over the weekend, have seen things happen that just almost ill-defined reality, and so today specifically I wanted to talk about Stop. Challenge. and Choose., this is a technology I developed, literally over 20 years ago, and I found it really helpful. It kind of helps us regain control over our prefrontal cortex. It also helps us, really, in the moment, start to refine, change our identity to who we want to become. So you know, so if you think in general, when we think about the future, because our future self is calmer. It’s able to get stuff done from a rational level. It decreases the Drama Triangle and gets us in position to truly make a difference.

So today we’re going to go over this in a little more detail. Some nuances I’m going to talk about when I developed it, and things I’ve learned over using it with helping people regain control of their rational mind. And we’re going to start basically with Stop. Challenge. Choose. Your best friend. So really, it’s a simple practice that can dramatically elevate your life. You know, most people believe that transformation requires something really complex, but in reality, it begins with one small interruption. Just interrupting our patterns, our behavior, our thoughts, our emotions. Because most of our life we live on autopilot, and that’s not failure. It’s efficiency. But efficiency without awareness can move us in the wrong direction. So today I want to introduce you in a little more detail to a practice that becomes your inner ally: Stop. Challenge. Choose. 

So autopilot is a necessity in life. It’s unconscious efficiency. It allows us to drive, walk, speak, operate without draining our energy. The problem is not that we run on autopilot, but the problem is that we do it unconsciously. We are unaware of our old conditioning that we’ve had for many, many years. We’re unaware of the fear and habit patterns that quietly make our decisions. We’ve kind of got our story, our shtick, and we kind of go with it, and we stay with it, and we think it’s authoritative. We think it is actually the truth, when the reality is, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

So, we’re going to do some exercises today, and then we’re going to open this up for questions because I know you guys are going to have some. So, the question isn’t whether we’re efficient. The question is, are we aligned? Are we aligned in what we do with our behavior? An example is, you’re in the office, and you’re working, and somebody comes by and as they go by they say something to you, and it just strikes you wrong and right then – boom. You’re now having this rumination and thought about all these things that are happening and you’re making up a story and your ego is helping support that story and pretty soon you’re really pissed off at the person that said that and you may even go up and confront them when the reality is most of it just isn’t true, if we really use the rational part of our brain.

So “Stop” is a sacred interruption. It is having you rather than boom automatically, go into a mode, right? Usually, it’s defensive because our ego is there and our limbic system is there to basically protect us. Protect us against danger, real danger, not perceived threats that actually may not even be true. So basically, stopping isn’t quitting. It’s not weakness. It’s a moment you reclaim your authorship over your behavior. Between stimulus and response, there’s a space, and in that space lies your freedom. Even one breath is enough to change the trajectory. So, this is something we’re going to practice today with some examples, and then we’ll talk more about that.

So, when you stop, you move from reacting to observing. All of a sudden, you’re going from that mode. It’s actually why I left critical care to go get people healthy, was to be able to go upstream and help, have people understand, why am I getting sick, and what are the things I can do to avoid that? So, you know, we’re now very much in a period of time where metabolic health is becoming in the forefront of everything most people are thinking about, and metabolic health is the forerunner. If you’re healthy metabolically, you put yourself in position to remain healthy for the rest of your life. And your health span and your lifespan stay like this. But when we react, when we wait till we do the wrong things, like eating the wrong food, I mean, it’s as simple as that. If you eat ultra-processed, unhealthy food, you will build, almost surely, metabolic syndrome. Metabolic dysfunction is where it’ll start. Your insulin levels will go up, and then eventually you’ll start getting the disease states, cardiovascular, diabetes, all these things will happen later on. So what we want to do is we want to be able to stop, and challenge, and now observe, what am I getting ready to eat? Am I going to go into this fast food store, or should I stop and get a salad, or should I go somewhere else? Just by understanding and observing, we can start to break these patterns. Because if you go in the morning, buy a Dunkin’ Donut, and bottom line is, you didn’t sleep well the night before, and you want a little sugar rush and a little caffeine, you’re going to stop there. And even though it’s unhealthy for you, you’ll do it because you’re not actually observing what you’re getting ready to do. So instead of going in, stop while you’re still in your car and say, “You know what, I’m going to shift my emotional reflex to my conscious presence and I’m going to say, ‘Hey, my prefrontal cortex knows that I shouldn’t go into this store because there’s nothing in that store, that particular store, that’s going to help me be healthy.’”

I mean, that’s how it works. It’s that powerful. You become the center of discernment and wisdom. Awareness is the interruption that makes all growth possible. If we’re not aware, if we’re on autopilot, we keep doing the same things over and over and over. And basically, defining insanity is expecting a different result. So once you stop, you challenge — our thoughts feel true because they’re familiar to us. Familiarity does not equal accuracy. The mind’s primary job is protection, not truth. Challenge invites curiosity, and curiosity dissolves distorted narratives – things that we say that just aren’t true. So, if you think about it, there are common scripts. We probably all use them when we’re on autopilot thinking. Notice how absolute they sound. Always, never, can’t, should. When examined, most of these beliefs weaken after limiting beliefs survives by avoiding examination. So the things — “This always happens to me.” Think about how many times you say that, or “I don’t have a choice,” or “That’s just who I am.” “Now isn’t the right time.” These are all things that we use in our minds. Our ego says to us, and they’re just not true. They’re basically distorted reality. So after you stop and challenge, you choose. Choice is not about perfection. It’s about our identity. It’s who we want to become. Each decision is a vote for the type of person you are becoming. Small conscious choices compound your destiny. So over time, by incorporating stop, challenge, and choose into your daily life, you can basically move to the identity. Our identity is changed. Becoming. Going from an unhealthy person, 90% of us have metabolic dysfunction. And that means specifically, we’re not in our optimum state. And even though you may not know it yet, your insulin level may be up. And bottom line is that’s because of the choices we make.

So basically, by making a different choice, we’re starting — it’s a choice or a vote. If you eat a salad for lunch rather than the cheeseburger, that’s a specific choice, a decision that I’m choosing to be a healthy person. Not, oh, I can’t eat a chocolate chip cookie because I’m going to get fat, or I’ve got to lose weight. No, you don’t eat a chocolate chip cookie because you’re choosing to be healthy versus being unhealthy. It’s as simple as that. And each of these micro choices that you make — so really, the purpose of this talk today is to really have you bring Stop. Challenge. Choose. – I know people use that, and I’ve heard lots of people say it’s really helped them, but I want to make sure that everybody, this is such a simple tool, but it can start moving you, and remember, you move from an unhealthy identity to a healthy identity or a healthy person by changing your standards. Each week, by changing your standards and raising your standards, you become healthier.

I make my bed every day and I’ve been doing it for years now because, you know, years ago, I read about an admiral that did a video and talked about what a great thing to start your day, specifically something so that with the end of the day, when you go back, and you go back to your bed, your bed is made and it’s ready. You’re ready to get in it. I mean, it kind of frames, what I talk about in the Habits of Health about your twilight hour in the evening and your model morning. So all these things are possible for us. So basically, the defining question is what would my future self thank me for right now? In other words, we all know the times when you’ve decided to make a choice, like rather than sit on the couch and watch Netflix, you ended up going for a walk and taking the dog out for a walk or walked with your spouse and had a great conversation. And as you come in, that choice says, you know what, this is good. This is really good. And you can collapse time by asking this question because it pulls you out of that short-term emotional relief where, oh, I’m tired. I’m going to put my feet up on the couch, to you know what, if I go out for a nice, I’ve been inside all day. I’ve been trapped inside. If I go out for a walk right now, God, it’s going to feel good. And it starts creating long-term alignment. 

You’re starting to now make choices that move you forward and align you for what you want for your future. You don’t choose outcomes directly. You choose your identities, and then identity generates outcomes. Your future self is wiser, calmer, and more integrated. Borrow from that wisdom. So, this is a repeatable loop. I use it all the time. It’s, you know, there’s points — I had a problem with the AV part of my Savant, intelligent house, so to speak. It wasn’t working right. And I was starting to sense, boy, I’m getting a little irritated. I want to watch what’s going on in the world. And it doesn’t want to let me move forward. But I stopped. I challenged, and I just said, you know, take your time. So if you have to sit here and hit the thing 10 times to get it to move to where you want, so what? Right? It’s 15 seconds. God, I remember when I was a little kid — you had no remote. You had to go back, and you had to bang on the TV and take the rabbit ear antennas and move them around just to get the fuzz to go away. Right? So I mean, we’re so advanced, and we expect everything; we expect a room with a front window in it. We expect everything, and simply by retaking, using this loop, it’s about self-leadership. It’s about taking control, not getting emotional, because when you get emotional or get upset, whether it’s the person ahead of you that’s driving slow or my TV remote, the only person that gets hurt there is you because you’re going to release frustrations, cortisol, epinephrine, and all those things have a negative — especially if you’re sitting on the couch and not running from a saber-tooth tiger. Basically, it’s going to have a negative effect on — it’s going to raise your blood sugar. It’s going to help create metabolic dysfunction.

[00:11:53] This is really about befriending yourself. Let me be kind to myself. Let me stop. Let me have the courage to stop, basically challenge and to choose an outcome that leads me in the kind of behavior I want to see for my future. Basically, your best friend tells you the truth, holds you accountable, and wants you to grow. So, we’re going to do an exercise here. I think this is really important. So, I want you to spend a moment and think about a recent reactive moment. Okay? So, kind of find that where that is. Could be something that happened today. Something in your morning that might have irritated you. Your coffee was too hot, or the kids weren’t behaving. They were late to get on the bus. They were late to get to school. Your dog couldn’t hold it and pooped. It doesn’t matter what it is, but think of something that bothered you, and you reacted to it, and you felt that icky sauce coming on. So, we’re going to do this embodiment now. So, I want you to close your eyes. Everybody, close your eyes. I want you to take some breaths and kind of — even for myself — because I’m giving this presentation. I’m going to take some nice, slow, deep breaths and kind of feel everything. Kind of clear and think of that moment today or yesterday or over the weekend when you found out what was going on in the Middle East. I don’t care what it is, but something that upset you. Okay, where could I have stopped? Where did I go with it? Could I stop sooner rather than react to it? Because once you’re in the Drama Triangle, once you’re, you know, pointing out who the villain is or who the victim is or basically, who the hero is, any of those modelings, then you’re down in the Drama Triangle. And once you’re there, you’re emotional. Your limbic system is churned up. Your amygdala is running at high octane. And at that point, it’s too late. And so I want you to think about recreating whatever it was, and then basically, when could I have stopped? Where could I have stopped, and then what story could I have challenged of what was going on and what different choice was available?

So take a screenshot of that because I think it’s really important if you could use this modality. You know, a similar thing we talk about is upset technology is, what happened? What was missing? What’s next? What we’re doing there that’s just like Stop. Challenge. Choose. It’s allowing us to basically take control, calm down, and create another scenario where, rather than letting the natural tendency of our story, our pattern get us upset, react to it, instead, you’re stopping, you’re stopping that pattern, and then you’re basically challenging. Challenging what story could I have challenged? What in there is something that got me upset? And then what different choice could I make? So, take that down, and I’d love to have you start using that.

So, consciousness is relationship. It’s not about perfection. It’s about being present. Being present, whether you’re using your breath to do it or you’re just stopping your behavior when you feel something. You know, I call it the “icky sauce” because it’s your autonomic nervous system getting you ready for a potential threat. Again, 10,000 years ago, you either did one of four things. You either fought, turned around and fought, you ran the hell out of there, you froze, or you fell. Any one of those four. All of them were defense mechanisms. Some of them more effective than others. And now we’re using variations of that. The difference is, back then, if you were getting ready to fight, your body prepared you for battle. It made you stronger. It released cortisol to make you feel stronger, to epinephrine to actually be stronger. We’ve all heard about people that, you know, could lift a car or something heavy off of someone that fell in that moment. But when you’re every day, doing it multiple times during the day, while you’re sitting on the couch, epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol are being released, but you’re not eating them up. You’re not using them to run like hell or to fight. So what ends up happening is it’s in your body, and it’s circulating, and it’s causing stress, and it’s causing your insulin to go up, and it’s causing all this dysfunction, and your blood sugar goes up, and it’s having over time, an extremely deleterious effect.

In fact, 10 plus years ago, I started saying emotional mismanagement is the leading cause of death in the world. So, if that’s true, would you not want to use these mechanisms? Because they can basically — it’s about turning toward yourself instead of away. It’s about being present. Okay. Stop is courage because it interrupts that unconscious momentum. If you start getting into that, by stopping, even if you’re starting to drift down. Stop. Time out. Stop. I’m stopping. I’m using the breath to regather myself. I’m challenging. Why am I feeling like this? And then I’m choosing an outcome that allows me to move forward from an observation that allows me to do something that helps maintain my health. So if you’re frustrated with somebody, go for a walk. I always talk about, you know, basically taking some water. If I’m in some type of meeting that’s kind of, there’s some arguments going on and there’s something that I can feel, I’m starting to sense a little bit of tension and before I speak I’ll always take my water bottle, open it up, take a drink of water, sense, okay, am I ready to talk? Am I talking from here, or am I talking from my emotions from my limbic brain? If I’m about ready to talk from my limbic brain, I take another water. There’s no hurry. People are gonna go, “Oh, hurry up and yell at me or hurry up and argue with me.” No, they’re basically what they’re about. They’re in the same state in the drama. And so they’re basically wanting to accelerate it. And what you want to do is stop, slow it down, regain control of here, and decide an outcome where you’re not ruining relationships, you’re not eating a bag of M&M’s, you’re not drinking a bottle of vodka. You’re actually now taking control of your health and your life.

So there’s courage involved. Especially for long-term patterns or long-term behaviors or patterns. We want to get pattern recognition. And the way to do that is by stopping, because once you get into it, you’re not going to recognize you’re in a pattern. You’re going to think this is my reality. So challenge is the truth. Because it requires honesty about the stories we carry. If you really think about it, most of the stories we make up. They’re stories based on past circumstances. They’re based on past observations. They’re based on things that have happened to us when we’re growing up, and we kind of say, “Okay, this is just more of the same.” Because our brain likes to do comparative reality because comparative reality doesn’t think a lot of thinking. That’s what stereotypes, that’s what prejudice is. It’s that, “Oh, that kind of person does that.” And so we standardize that and say, “Okay, that explains that behavior.” When the reality it’s not us being curious, observing, and really trying to separate what is the truth here versus what I think because this story is, just like a story I saw last week, or when I was 5 years old, same thing happened. So, so important.

Choose is love and action because every conscious choice is a declaration of who you’re becoming and no judgment. We don’t want judgment here. Judgment is basically part of that stereotype of that comparative reality that of us what we know happens here, and, oh, this person is not a good person or this person is a great person, because basically that’s what we think from our past. Choosing a new reality, choosing to dissect your story and actually create an entity or identity that allows you to move forward, is the secret to really creating a vibrant, healthy, non-emotional, full life because you’re not stuck. These are your old reactions, and every one of them can be changed. But not if you’re on autopilot. You have to be conscious. You have to be aware. You have to sense. And that’s why meditation, just sensing, you know, all that. People say, “Well, I meditate, but I keep hearing that noise.” Good. Good. You’re hearing the noise. But you’re not the noise. That voice in your head is not you. That is actually your ego, your personal mind trying to reach in there and protect you from the bad, wanting to be the hero to keep you in a certain way because, oh, that’s just who they are and what they do, and I don’t need to worry about that because that’s just the way it is or I can’t change because this is who I am or this is how I was brought up. No, those are your old patterns, and pattern disruption is the key to truly becoming and evolving, to be the Dominant Force in your own life and then to allow you to organize your life around what matters most.

[00:21:22] So, you’re one pause away from a different future. So, so important. So practice in the smallest moments in traffic, in conversations, in moments of frustration. This is where your identity is forged. Bottom line is, this practice repeated daily becomes your inner compass. And when you learn to befriend that compass, you learn to befriend yourself, and you become a kinder, more open, more curious, more fulfilled and happier person. There’s no question about it. So, that’s it. Let’s, Rach, let’s get into it. 

Rachel: All right. First up, we have Jennifer. Hey, Jennifer.

Jennifer: Hi, everyone. Dr. A, thank you so very much for your time and for providing these gifts.

Dr. A: You’re welcome.

Jennifer: Shortly before this call, I got a text message from someone with a picture of my estranged adult son in a hospital bed, and he’s okay; however, there’s back history. There’s trauma. There’s mom guilt, and mama bear feelings because even though he’s grown, he’s still my baby, and I want to be there to fix him and going back to trauma. And I’m sure people can relate to something I’ve said already. So before the class started, I started journaling and started saying, “I’m hurt. I’m angry. I’m sad.” And what I’ve learned from you, Dr. A, is I am not those things. I am feeling those things. I am not my thoughts. I am experiencing my thoughts. And so I wrote in my little journal, nope, rewire the brain. I’m feeling these things, and then I said, you know, oh, my 12:00 started. I’m going to hop into there. And then I started making notes. And I realized I’m rather new in my journey, but I keep coming around, and I stay plugged in with my coach and the team that’s, you know, within my little area. And I struggled with Stop. Challenge. Choose. But I realized I literally just did that while I was journaling. I stopped and noticed myself starting to go down that destructive thought pattern, that habit I have of, “Woe is me,” and I should have done this in the past, and I should have done that. And I challenged that and chose differently. So, I just had to share my experience with everyone and give you your flowers while you’re here, Dr. A, because what you’ve provided to us, the gifts and knowledge that you share with us, is truly making a difference for people in so many different ways. So, thank you. If you’re new around here and you’re struggling, keep sticking around because I guarantee you, you will hear stop, challenge, choose enough that you’re going to one day be like, I just stopped. Now, what do I do? Now you get to: Stop. Challenge. Choose.

Dr. A: Well, Jennifer, thank you for sharing that. That’s great. And, you know, it’s not about perfection. We’re all doing it. You know, we all have it happen to us. It’s a matter of really starting to become the author of your life. And leading from the future, you know, our goals, our thoughts for what the future holds are there because we live in the most distracted time ever. If we allow us, in our primordial state, you know, with our limbic system fully activated, we’re going to be miserable. You’re going to be miserable because most of the time, the world is not going to be the way you want it to be. So the whole deal, what determines the outcome, is how you respond to that world. And for most of the things, you know, we take it, you know, the world, there’s 8 billion people in the world. There are a lot of different scenarios going on, but we somehow think that everything revolves just around us. And I think it’s really important. It’s like a clock, you know, it’s a broken clock. It’s correct two times a day. So, you know, our ego may have perfect circumstances a couple times a day for us, but most of the other times, it isn’t. And if we’re reacting, going down into that Drama Triangle, our lives become miserable. So, you are taking those moments and understanding your identity. You are becoming a person who has psychological flexibility, that can take something like that. Yeah. Innately, you’re a mom, and you’re going to have those deep tendencies, and they’re going to be there. But you now, have a full grown man, and the reality is if you Stop. Challenge. Choose., you know, I have very little or no control. I am not in charge. They’ve left the house. I had my job to do years and years and years ago, whether I did the best I could at the time, right? [00:26:14 – crosstalk] and that’s why, really, I think it’s important when we think about our parents, and we’ve got a dysfunctional relationship, they were doing the best they could do. They didn’t know any different. They didn’t know any better.

And so this technology, like Stop. Challenge. Choose., are just ways so that you become, you’re starting to become the Dominant Force in your life, and you’re becoming a person that can handle anything. And I love the saying, “water on a duck’s back,” because that’s what it becomes. Where, rather than letting it, you know, get soaking drenching wet, you just let it roll off and then you — not that you’re putting your head in the sand. You’re addressing if there’s something you have to do, but you’re now doing it in a non-toxic way, where you’re not destroying your body. And if you’re in a dysfunctional relationship, sometimes we have to look and say, “Okay, I can do all I can do, but it at this point, does it make more sense to actually abandon that relationship?” Because we have a tendency to become codependent, where we stay in a relationship because it satisfies the hole that we have in ourselves. What you’re looking for are co-committed relationships where people build strong — and sometimes you have to get away from the people that you’ve been as you change. I mean it just requires that because we are highly influenced by the underlying structure and if we’re working on our health and every Friday the gang goes to a bar, on Friday afternoon after work, well then that’s not going to be an environment that you can overcome. So it’s better to stop and challenge. You know what? Today I’ve got some other plans today and then do it and that works in everything in our life. So, thank you Jennifer for sharing. That was awesome.

Jennifer: Yes. Thank you.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Cool.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Georgia. Hi, Georgia.

Dr. A: Hi, Georgia.

Georgia: Hi. Okay, so I did not plan on doing this today at all, and I have pink hair!

Dr. A: Well, this is courage. This is courage.

Georgia: So, this is huge. Oh my god. Okay. I’m going to try not to get emotional and take too much time.

Dr. A: No, get emotional. I don’t care. No, no, no, no. You’re here to state, communicate. If you get emotional, that is fine. You’re not trying to just be something. You’re trying to be exactly who you are. Okay?

Georgia: Okay. Remember that. You asked for it.

Dr. A: I got big shoulders.

Georgia: I’m coming up on my five-year health-aversary. I lost 110 pounds on program. God changed my life through this program, rescued my marriage. Stop. Challenge. Choose., literally saved my marriage. It still does because I have to think every time I respond to my husband, who can be very sarcastic and very defensive, and Stop. Challenge. Choose., helps me to not be as reactive. Right? So, it’s not just food. Like in the beginning when I was losing my 100 pounds, it was food, right? Stop. Do I really need this, or can I go have my brownie? Right. 

Dr. A: Right. Yep.

Georgia: And it was great, but it changed everything in my entire life. And I’ve got like the chill, if you know what I mean, because it literally saved my life. Then God prepared me. He retired me from teaching for 16 years. He had brought me my Optavia business and replaced my school income. Insert income disclosure, and I didn’t know what he was preparing me for, but he retired me in June and in November, I got diagnosed with endometrial cancer. I had just finished the 75 Hard Challenge on October 11th. I was 60 years old. I just turned 60 years old, and I finished the 75 Hard. I had abs for like the first time in my adult life. I was obese for 35 years, and that’s what brought the cancer. I know. And I was like so fit and so pumped and so on fire for life. And the cancer came. I had surgery, double surgery. Turned out I ended up having a cancer – a kidney tumor also. I figured out that I could get a double surgery because it was the same robot. Had a double on Christmas Eve of 2024. Kidney tumor, hysterctomy, radiation after that, rang the bell on March 10th, and then last July, I got hit with stage four recurrence. Inoperable. Scattered in the lymph nodes. So, I had to start chemo, and I went through so much stuff, and like I went from being a workout beast for 75 Hard, doing an hour and a half of working out every single day, rain or shine. It was hurricane season and I was out on my line in the hurricane getting my 45 minutes of outdoor through the hurricane, you know. At convention, at different things, Ignite Dallas, all the things. And I had to stop. I couldn’t work out anymore. I couldn’t do the things. Now, it turns out I have a surgical hernia with two tumors in it that is an umbilical hernia in my abdomen, and I can’t do ab exercises anymore.

I tried to, about a month ago, and I ended up fully inflamed and now I’m watching my body change, and I feel like I’m never going to get back to where I was. Like I’m not going to – and I know I’m supposed to be thinking about moving forward. This isn’t about going back to who I was. I know. I do the mindset work. I know this is Georgia. Actually, I’m working on 4.0, not 3.0. And I know that I’m going to change moving forward. So, every day I make the choice. I do Stop. Challenge. Choose. All day, every day. Every morning I wake up, I have a bald head and I’ve been bald since September, and I just got eyebrows back. Like, that’s a miracle. I finished chemo in December, and every day I have to wake up. And today I went on a Zoom meeting with my team and shared my pink hair that I got brave enough to get this for Go Global, and to be like my friend Sarah, who is known for her pink hair. And I made the choice, I’m going to go make myself not feel like a cancer patient. I wake up every day determined I am not going to look like a cancer patient. I am a cancer warrior. That is just a little part of who I am, and I’m going to do this, but I can’t seem to get back into a workout routine. I can’t – I’m turning into this flabby thing. I feel like a big marshmallow. I’ve gained a little bit of my weight back, and I’m also struggling with nighttime binge eating. Now, the good news, I don’t binge eat on, you know, Hershey bars, Lays potato chips, and Häagen-Dazs, like I did five years ago. But I’ll have too many sugar-free Jell-Os and too many sugar-free ice pops and, you know, too much Optivia popcorn, and I can’t figure out what my problem is. Like, I’m stuck. I can’t get back into a routine. I had it, and I can’t get there.

Dr. A: So, first of all, you’re incredibly brave. Incredibly brave. And you’re doing underneath circumstances because life is intrinsically unstable. We are all born, we all die. Some of us get two years. I worked in a pediatric oncology clinic in one of my rotations, and those kids who didn’t make it past two. So bottom line is you have taken adversity, and you’ve done a beautiful job of having the courage to stop, challenge, and choose what your reality is. Okay? And you’ve done an amazing job of it. Don’t beat yourself up. You’re right now, if I looked at everybody that has the same disease process that you have, which you didn’t ask for. You didn’t ask for any of that. I would say that you’re in the top 1% of how you’re handling it. Okay? So, that’s the first part. So, you need to stop being unkind to yourself in any way, shape, or form because you’re doing it. You look amazing. You have a beautiful smile on your face. I know you’re hurting inside because you’ve achieved so much. You went up to the mountaintop. You got in the most incredible shape in your life. And you’ve learned how to control everything from your relationships to your relationship with food. So, you’ve done an incredible job. So I don’t want you to beat yourself up, and in case of what you can and can’t do. Okay. So yeah, you’ve got some hernias, you can’t do setups, those things will all pass. I mean there — none of those things are, you know, and possibly surgically you could have that done, you know, done and repaired because those are not major operations. But the point being is that you’re getting up every day and asking what can I do today to maintain my health, my fitness. And the most important thing you do seems like you have a really good handle is, in here. You really have the psychological flexibility to take a lot of adversity and deal through it and maintain a positive outlook.

[00:35:37] And by the way, in terms of your longevity and the quality of your life, what you’re doing in that area is the most important thing because again, life is intrinsically unstable. But you’re taking your circumstances, and you’re responding in a way that’s determining an outcome that’s allowing you to maintain, do the things that are important to you. And I’m really proud of you, and you should be really proud of yourself. So that’s it. Couple things that you can work on is that you want to make sure that, because you can’t exercise the same way, you could before that you’re looking at the other MacroHabits. Right? So in other words, in terms of you can still walk. You can basically stand versus sit. You can…

Georgia: I got my ball.

Dr. A: Yeah, you got your ball! There you go. You’re on a ball! Right? So, you’re using the NEAT, non-exercise activity. So, you’re doing the things, and you’re — you know, we’re all – listen, we’re all born, we all die. That’s our inevitable. We all have that in common. I don’t care how rich you are, what’s going on. But you decided to have the courage to become the Dominant Force in your life and then organize your life around what matters most. So, you’re doing an amazing job. What I would make sure is that you are staying away from any sugars at all, anything, because not only is it bad for your metabolic health and your insulin resistance, it also feeds cancer, right? And we know that. So, you have a double, like you say, you had a double operation. You got two for one. You actually know that sugar is a no-no in every way, shape, or form. And Jell-O, even though it doesn’t have sugar in it, it loads your pancreas. Your pancreas, when it tastes that sweet, your body tastes that sweetness, it will pre-load and raise your insulin, get your insulin level. So when you do have something that — you’re boom, it will release it. And we know that. So basically, make sure you’re eating healthy proteins, lots of healthy fats, and if you do carbohydrates, make sure they’re complex, like in their natural construct. You know, like natural fruits, like apples. Stay away from, obviously, bananas and things that are full of sugar, but you know that fiber is good for you. It’s got phenolic compounds in it, which are antioxidants, and they help your body’s immune system respond. Making sure you’re taking you know nice herbal teas, things that actually boost your immune system, green tea and stuff.

So just focus on the things — because that’s important to you. And when you’re ruminating, like you say, when you can’t get over, and you’re doing more, you’re actually letting yourself go, slide back, because you’re frustrated and you’re trying to do this on your own. The other thing is, use your friends. Make sure you’re in robust conversations with people that love you and care about you because those are the things that can really fuel your soul and put you in position. Listen, Deepak Chopra, years and years and years ago, did a study, and they looked at people with cardiovascular disease and some of them had what we call the widowmaker left main lesions were almost totally occluded and those people lived to be 80 and 90 because they had the right attitude in here. And then there’s people in their 40s that died of a massive myocardial infection with no sign of structural change in their arteries, but because of dysfunction in here. So fuel your mind. You can do that. Fuel it with this beautiful — that you’re a warrior. You’re a warrior, and you’re going to go for every moment of life that you can, and you’re going to stay functionally healthy so you can do the things that are important to you and keep doing that and be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. Does that make sense?

Georgia: It does. I mean, I didn’t include the part that I’m getting immunotherapy for the next 19 months also. So…

Dr. A: Well, this is part of this; life is intrinsically unstable. You got, you know what? You got lots of stuff – and by the way, when I say, you know, become Stop. Challenge. Choose., not let yourself get dysfunctional, your emotions, okay? You have damn good reason to be emotional about things like that. So have a good cry. You know, let it feel it all the way through. Don’t try to deny the natural sense of your mind needing a good cry. There’s nothing wrong with a good cry. 

Georgia: I try to be the tough guy.

Dr. A: No, no, but that’s not helpful because if your conscious and your subconscious are in this constant battle with each other, and if you try to repress it or suppress it, it will go down there and it will come up. So when you feel it, you know, go have a good cry and have a cry with friends. It’s okay. Cool?

Georgia: Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much, sir.

Dr. A: You have a lot of courage. Really. Courage.

Georgia: Thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah. It’s good stuff. Okay. Who else do we have?

Rachel: All right, next up, we have Emily.

Emily: Hi, Dr. A. I’m kind of with Georgia. I really wasn’t expecting this, and thank you, Georgia, for everything that you shared. You’re an inspiration to me, and you’ve inspired me to go get my ball out sitting in my closet, blown up, and I’m like, I could be sitting on this thing right now. So, I don’t know where my question is, and it’s not on the screen, so it wasn’t really a question for myself — oh, there it is — about identity shifting and about how you went from doctor to coach to visionary, overcame the fears and the griefs. Was there a pivotal moment that you noticed? I notice that I’m changing slowly, but the old identity still comes in, and like what you talked about, uncertainty, mostly with financial. I know that I’m a nurse, and I know that being a nurse, I’m always going to have stability there, but stepping into the identity of the visionary and actually seeing it for me, it’s like having, like actually seeing it and what I want, but also practicing gratitude with what I already have. Like I’m content and happy, and I know at the end of the day I have everything I need, but having that — the actual vision pulling me and seeing it. I don’t know if this is making sense, but…

Chris: We lost Dr. A. Hang on one second. There we go. Now you can, Dr. A… It was the Zoom guy’s fault. Now you can unmute.

Emily: Hi, Chris!

Chris: There you go.

Dr. A: All right. Can you hear me now?

Emily: Yeah.

Dr. A: Yeah. It wouldn’t let – Chris wouldn’t let me unmute. I don’t think he wanted to hear me talk anymore. So these are really good questions, Emily. And I would say, remember we act on emotion, not on rational thought. So you’re having a rational thought decision, and I’d rather have you have an emotional one. And you think, wait a minute, you’re just talking to me about how you have to control my emotions – not control your emotions. Observe your emotions. Find out what they’re telling you and then go for that. So here’s the most important thing. When we value something, when it is of high value to us, and I’m not talking about moral, ethical value. I’m talking about something that’s very important to us. It’s a high-value item, then you don’t need much motivation. So, it’s really about — and visionary, you know, I’ve been called that, and probably I am because I always think of what can be, right? Not what is, what can be. And you know the human being — we see, well, just over the weekend, we see the best and the worst of what humans can do, right? I mean we are a very complex species we have learned to master our environment and so we can, and with technology advancing, especially now with AI, bottom line is, this Human Transformational Technology, the ability for us to now help optimize us as human beings in a time when machines are taking over everything is really important and it really comes down to what’s most important to you. So you say, “Well, I’m a nurse,” so you help people. And I know it’s a tough job. Being a nurse is a tough job. It’s not an easy job. But you do it because you love people.

[00:44:33]  So underneath, and it may be eventually that you may end up not being a nurse anymore, because you ask me, what happened to me? I always – I have an insatiable hunger to learn and grow. I love to learn and grow, and critical care looked to me, as I took care of sick people, being able to take care of the whole person as an integrated person, and take care of their kidneys, their lungs, their heart, everything together made a lot more sense than having five specialists. And in my books, I talk about the story of the three blind men touching the elephant, right? One of them touches the side and says, “Oh, it’s a wall.” One of them is touching the trunk and says, “Oh, it’s a hose.” And one of them is touching one of the legs and says, “Oh, it’s a tree.” Because they can’t see the whole vision. The whole vision for your life, and why I’ve moved upstream to where I am now. And why now, really focusing on even targeting into metabolic health is so important as a whole, is because I know now if we can get rid of people eating ultra-processed food, help reduce stress, maximize gut health, and put people in position, and why I spend so much time on consciousness now, is because Stop. Challenge. Choose., is more powerful than going to the gym. I can tell you that right now.

The gym’s great because, especially if we go to the gym, because we’ve just had a frustrating day and we can go feel better. That’s great. But imagine if we don’t have that frustrating day because we’ve gone upstream and in our mind, like water on the duck’s back? We can handle anything. That’s moving upstream. So kind of thematically, it’s just that I think — you know, when the world’s going one way, I usually go the other way because that’s where the answer is, because if everybody’s trying to convince themselves that this is the way to do it, it probably isn’t the way. It’s not being contrary — it’s really in search of, what do we really want to have happen here? And what I want to have happen here is not me being great at having to put a thousand Swan-Ganz catheters into someone’s pulmonary artery, but instead helping that same thousand people make the choices upstream, so they never need this in the first place, right? I mean, it’s kind of like, just intuitive logic. So, for you individually, it is so key to not try to figure out what people want me to be or what I see on TV or what my images of success are or health, but what’s the reality? What do I value most? Is it my relationships? Is it my health? Is it my religion? Is it my time – freedom? Is it my ability to travel? And then start there, and that will help fuel you and allow you to go into what I call “pursuit.” And pursuit means that you’re now moving towards something you want.

And why people get so stuck is because we live in the most distracted time, and our brains want to be comfortable. So easy to turn on a Netflix series. So easy to have that hot fudge Sunday because you can get it anywhere and it’s cheap, right? You can go buy a Dunkin’ Donut for, I mean, I don’t know how much — I don’t go to Dunkin’ Donut, but you can go buy whatever it is you want pretty cheap now, and food, ultra-processed food is cheap. You know, there was a time not that long ago where the world was starving, and now the world is obese, and we have diabetes and Ddiabesity, where there are more people that are overweight or obese in the world and have insulin resistance than are starving. I mean, we forgot to tell the food industry not just to make food less expensive, but to make it healthy. So all those things start with you organizing your life, and that’s why the two tenants, I’ve been saying for a quarter of a century, organize your life on what matters most and how you do that has become the Dominant Force in your life. Decide what you want, and you know my dear friend Jim Dethmer talks about, “A full body yes.” Figure out what you want. What do you want? What’s your healthy identity? What’s your successful identity? What do you want to do as far as financially, if that’s a concern? Because the lack of finances is really, not really true. It’s never really true. There’s always the abundancy living in this country. There are other countries where it’s ridiculous. But in our country, you have enough finances. The lack of it is a sense we have because we want to have wholeness in those areas. That security, belonging, and finances, and control are basic entities that we want to have because we think it’s somehow going to give us control over, right? We want to belong and so we can survive. And 10,000 years ago, you needed to belong. You needed to fit into your tribe because if you weren’t in your tribe, you were outside, and you were dead, right? And you would do that through either belonging, through acceptance, or you would do it through control. One of those two mechanisms.

So these are primordial things we have that aren’t really what we want. We sense that we need – and if we have these things, we’ll be better. If we have that corner office, we’ll be better. If I have that shiny new car, I’ll be better. Reality is, material things, extrinsic motivation, do not create long-term fulfillment or success. That comes from within, and that comes from really getting real with yourself. And how you do that is through the topic today: Stop. Challenge. Choose., because what that will allow you to do is now become your authentic self. Get you away from the patterns of preconceived notions. So when you asked me, you know, being a traditional physician, being the chairman of my department, and a director of critical care is an identity issue. When I realized that I was taking care of the people, sometimes the same people that were, you know, it’s like getting to the point where they didn’t die, putting them back on the streets, but at home they’re watching Netflix and eating yo-yos, right? That’s not the best use of my time or their time. And you make the decision, and that inspiration to do that. And in my own family, you know, working 80 hours a week, not seeing my little girls, I made all the difference. My daughter Erica is in vet school right now, and she’s home, and we’re just having such a great time, just being together. We love and care about each other so much, and it’s just that they’ve learned what really matters the most, and I know that as well. So you — I’m taking an hour out to do this, and then basically we’re going to hang out this afternoon and talk about stuff, talk about, she’s going to a couple of clinics this summer. She’s going to go to Africa, and she went a few years ago with me and now she’s going back as a veterinary student and get to work with the animals. That was one of her dreams, and so she stayed to that dream. She didn’t get to in her first year. She went and worked in a clinic, just like I didn’t get in my first year in medical school. I basically didn’t get into my second year, but I knew what I wanted to be, and basically, I became it.

[00:51:37] The same thing for you. Don’t think that it’s suddenly going to appear. Go into your inner self and figure out what you value most and then organize your time around making sure that you’re saying yes the things that move you towards that goal, and if they’re not moving you towards the goal, because we’re in the most distracted time ever — I mean you turn on any of the stuff, someone is trying to get you to do something that they want, not what you need or you want. And what happens is because the human brain likes comfort, likes soothing, dopamine-ergic activity, likes those clicks, we go down this path. And there’s someone that’s mastered how to use the internet, you know, baiting, it goes on and on and on. So the only way is for you, our goals, what we want, what you value most and moving towards that basically is decided by you focusing on that and then using that. Your goals are — not that the goals are something you have to think about every day, but what your goals do, they act as a filter so that every day you’re only doing the things that are taking you to become the things that you want to become, and you’re saying no to the things that don’t. Does that make sense? Is that helpful?

Emily: Oh, yes.

Dr. A: Okay. So, anything from that that you want to ask?

Emily: The goals as a filter. [00:53:01 crosstalk]. There’s just so much.

Dr. A: Okay, but there’s not so much. There’s really, there’s a million things, but what’s most important to you? I think what you need to do is take the key areas of your life, your vocation, your family, your faith, your health, your mental health, take the key areas of your life and on each one of them ask first, of those seven things — there’s seven of them — of those, which one do I value the most? So, here’s an interesting thing. So, wellbeing, the Gallup, not the Gallup, but this group did a poll and looked at people that lose their occupation are decimated, psychologically, more than if they lost their spouse. Okay. Yeah. Because of being involved. Now that’ll be different for different people, and right, and also towards the end of life, obviously if it’s a couple, usually if one of them passes, then the other one passes because they’ve now — that’s all they have, and without that, they have a big hole in their life. Okay. But what I’m saying is take those key areas and figure out, of those areas, whether it’s your family — all those things we talked about, which are the most important, and put them in descending order. Put the most important first, down through the least important, and then basically when you find the most important, then say, “Okay. In the next five years, how would I like that to evolve?” I value — well, so give me one – let’s just do one for practice. What’s one of the things you value the most in your life?

Emily: My spirituality and my mental health.

Dr. A: Okay. That’s okay. So right now, obviously, we’re on today, and you’re asking the questions, you’re a little frustrated about where you are and getting stuck and stuff. So if those are the — your spirituality, and the sense of being, whatever that means…

Emily: Who I am.

Dr. A: Who you are. Okay. Who you are. [Unintelligible]. Tell me what you mean by that.

Emily: Like what my what God wants me to be.

Dr. A: Okay.

Emily: What I want to leave behind, I guess my legacy. I don’t have a husband or children. So it’s a little different place to tap into.

Dr. A: Well, if it’s a little different place to tap into and it’s the thing you value most, then clearly you’re spending too much time being distracted by other things. Does that make sense?

Emily: Yeah.

Dr. A: Yeah. It’s okay. You can get emotional. I cry all the time. I cry all the time. Okay. So what I want you to really think about Emily is if that brings – these things aren’t sayings. They’re actually the essence of life. Organize your life around what matters most to you. What matters most to you is different than what matters most to me. It’s different – like snowflakes. What matters most to you is the thing that you should pursue. And what I mean by pursue, pursue means, it’s a verb, means I’m going towards something that is one of the things I value most, and I’m in pursuit. Because a goal by itself is static. You know, you can say, “Well, I want to work on my mental and my spiritual health,” but if you’re not actually, actively, doing things to move forward and improve that, then you’re going to be more frustrated than ever because it’s something that’s important to you. So, it’s sometimes having to stop doing — Stop. Challenge. Choose. Stop the things that aren’t important to you and get better at it, and you’ll know it because if — you know, listen, it’s happened to me before and I just don’t do it anymore. I basically would do things for other people because people would ask me to.

My job in this point in my life is to help people become aware and give them the tools, the counseling and the guidance so that they can become the Dominant Force in their life. And the other part is taking the time to categorize and organize your life around what matters most to you. That is what’s most important to you. And when you’re in search of that, and you’re moving towards that, and you’re in pursuit of that, then you will feel fulfilled because you’ll be moving forward with that. But the discipline requires you to basically start saying no to a whole bunch of other things. No to dysfunctional friends. No to dysfunctional TV shows. No to dysfunctional internet things. No to a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t really matter to me, that I do to occupy time to make to kind of make me numb, right? About how I’m missing the things that I really want. You got to focus on the things you want. You got to do the work to move towards those. And you need to know the difference. It’s like the Serenity Prayer. You got to know what you can do and what you can’t do. Does that make sense?

Emily: Oh yeah. Absolutely. That all makes sense.

Dr. A: So that’s what I want you to do. I want you to sit down, really focused. If your spirituality and your mental health is the most important thing to you, then you need to focus. You know, basically, you can go to any of my books and read about it. There’s a whole section in my new book, My Prescription for Life, on your mind. In part five. The one towards the back of part five. And use some of those constructs to help guide you. And one of the best ones you can do, the halo effect, is when we identify something in our brain, and we start working on a habit change, we’re actually reprogramming, programming our neuropathways, because we have plasticity. And as you start reprogramming and saying no to what you don’t want and yes to habits, new choices that you do want, you’re improving your identity towards what you want. And as you do that, you have the halo effect. And the halo effect means that other areas in your mind, other areas and habits you have, will start changing as well, because your brain likes it when it’s fulfilled and doing something that brings satisfaction. Not pleasure, satisfaction.

So pleasure is when you eat a bowl of Häagen-Dazs, and you keep eating it because the only time you have pleasure is when you’re actually eating it, right? That’s the taste. That’s why everything’s supersized because the only time people are really enjoying it is while they’re in the process of eating it. When they stop it, the pleasure goes away. Satisfaction is a very different sense. That’s the satisfaction is that you basically went out for an hour walk with friends, bonded with a friend, got some physical activity, were out walking through the trees and like the forest bathing that the Japanese use, you’re out in these beautiful pine forests, if that happens to be what you have, or just walking, and you’re now doing things that create satisfaction. When you go home, and you get home to your house, and you’re taking a shower or a bath, and you smile and say, “What a good day that was.” Because you organize around what mattered most to you. Each one of those increments is you giving yourself love. It’s the “Choose” part of Stop. Challenge. Choose. Where you’re making a choice that helps build your self-efficacy, your fulfillment, your happiness, your connection with yourself and with others, that moves you forward into a different space.

That’s satisfaction. And you want more of that and less pleasure because pleasure is instantaneous and then it’s gone — I’m not saying — I mean, growing up playing football, my girlfriend was a cheerleader, and she made me warm chocolate chip cookies, and I’ve got a weakness for them. My girls know if they want something, I don’t do it anymore, but I used to, you know, the smell of them would be enough, and they’d stimulate my, you know, that part of my brain, and, you know, I would be done. And the problem was just like Ruffles has ridges, I couldn’t eat just one. So I don’t do that anymore. I don’t bring them into the house. I don’t have any. And now I’m at a point where that doesn’t interest me because I built the choices that I’m a healthy person, and that’s what I want to maintain. What I do love is taking my daughter that I’ve been talking about and taking her heli-skiing when I’m basically, you know, 50 years older than her and skiing at the same level, jumping out of a helicopter. That brings me incredible pleasure. We talk about it all the time. It’s one of the highlights of our life. 

We’re going to be going sailing out in the ocean together in another month or so with some of her dear friends. Those are the things that really matter, and those are the things we can all have. I came from a very poor family, lived in a tenement, not a tenement, but like a three-story little house in Queens Heights, New York, and always had the desire to be more. We all have that by breaking our patterns, stopping, challenging previous behaviors, and moving forward, loving on ourselves, and making choices that move us in the direction we want. Cool?

Emily: Yeah.

Dr. A: Wonderful. Awesome.

Emily: Thank you.

Dr. A: All right. Well, we’re out of time. I apologize if we didn’t get to you. Make sure you come on the first Tuesday of the month, and we’ll continue to move forward. Have a great week. Please use Stop. Challenge. Choose. Use it a bunch of times. You’ll be so excited when things that you were doing, you’ve disrupted those patterns. You’re now becoming that Dominant Force. It’s not going to happen — it’s not about being perfect. It’s about starting to change the trajectory. And over time, it’ll get easier and easier. So, God bless. Love you, guys. Let’s keep the world safe, and let’s help get the world healthy. God bless.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: As everybody is joining us, I want to welcome you. I hope everything’s going well. Hope you had a nice weekend and kept warm. It’s pretty cold all over the country. You can see I’m up here in Colorado and keeping warm by the fire. And speaking of that, holding the fire, is going to be the theme today. So we’ll get into that in a minute. But just for those of you who are just joining us for the first time, the Conscious Forum is designed, basically, as an interactive piece for people to get together, humans being more, so to speak, in terms of getting together and sharing things that have to do with our level of psychological flexibility, our awareness, our presence. And we know that psychological flexibility is our superpower. It’s so critical. So a forum, just for review, is a place, meeting, or a medium where ideas and views on particular issue can be exchanged, and so I’m going to do a little overview here and then we’ll open it up for questions and that’s my favorite part, and that’s the part where we all learn, where we share our thoughts, our concerns, things we’re struggling with, things we’ve created success with, and just really interact at a level of humans really looking, how can we help bring more joy, more abundancy, into our own lives. And we’ll talk now about our subject, which is holding the fire. So, you know, again, welcome everyone.

You know, this isn’t about learning something new. It’s really about remembering something that’s ancient, and it’s so ancient. It’s like 100,000 years ago. And if you’ve read any of my books, my new book, My Prescription for Life, just came out last month, but I always go back to where we started, like 100,000 years ago. How were we designed over all those eons and what are the parts and how did they work today? I mean, I just came back from being in Spain and looking at people that lived to be over a hundred and, you know, asking the questions, being curious, what do people do that allow them to live longer in a healthier state? And as we talk about that, living longer only makes sense if you have health span. And health span means basically your longevity or your biological age, your chronological age and the quality of your life are equal almost to the point where you die. And unfortunately, in our country, because of the food we eat, you know, ultrarocessed, unhealthy, ultrarocessed food, way too much stress and inflammation, many of us have — 90% plus — have metabolic dysfunction as a result of that, and a lot of that, by the way, has living in the world we are now because there’s so much stress for us that that’s kind of why we’re going to talk about this today.

So holding the fire really is about every meaningful transformation in your health, in leadership, in relationships or your identity requires one thing and that’s the willingness to stay present when things get uncomfortable. We grow through discomfort. When we ignore that and we try to move away from discomfort, we don’t grow. We get closed. We get defensive and we get kind of fixed. So I like to call this today, “Holding the fire.” And what I mean by that is, you know, fire transforms, it forges, it illuminates, and conscious humans don’t avoid discomfort, they learn to work with it. And we think about that in many different ways. You know, the obstacles the way from the Stoics, we talk about psychological flexibility, being able to know that things are going to happen, events are going to happen, how you respond to them determines the outcome. And all these are part of the growth mechanism, and knowing that life isn’t always going to be comfortable, but it’s in those uncomfortable moments where we learn and grow. So, I think that’s really important for us to keep that in mind as we basically go through the talk today.

So, why is change so hard? Most people don’t fail because they don’t know what to do. They fail because they leave the moment when discomfort shows up. They basically — change always comes with instability. You know, it’s our nervous system. It reads instability as discomfort. It whispers, “Go back to the familiar. This is too hard. Do it tomorrow.” That’s biology. That’s not weakness. Your nervous system seeks safety, not fulfillment. And living in the world we are now, because most of the threats we have are perceived threats, they’re not real threats, learning how to feel that discomfort, stay within that discomfort, is so critical. So people go, “Well why would I want to be in discomfort?” Because discomfort, basically, when we are discomforted we basically soothe ourselves, we distract ourselves, and we quit. You know, we use food, scrolling, busyness, blame. Your nervous system seeks comfort, not fulfillment, and I can’t repeat that too many times because it’s during those moments where you really learn. Where you really grow. You know I’m up here and I happen to be skiing and I have an instructor that I go out with many times, and we’re working on something right now which is not easy for me. It’s a difficult thing. I ski really well, but I want to get to the next level. I want to get better. So, it basically is having me do something that’s very uncomfortable for me to do, but I do it. And as I do it, and then by the end of the day — and then we put it together, then I learn from it. But during that discomfort, I could go back to what we normally do as humans, we go back to what we’re comfortable with. That’s why when people basically get in discomfort, they go back to their old habits. That’s why something happens in their life. They stop being healthy. They go back to the way they were before.

So basically, every time we exit our discomfort, we teach our nervous system that the moment is dangerous. So next time it gets louder. We’re actually reinforcing the wrong thing. We’re saying, “Oh, okay. You know, this is discomfort. I need to get away from it.” And that was really important 10,000 years ago when you were on a trail and there was a snake there or a poisonous, you know, spider or something. Your brain, your neurological development, your emotional management was all about the limbic system getting away from those things. Yet, it’s that discomfort where you can learn and grow, especially when things are perceived. You know, it’s like the thing you think about the discomfort when you’re younger and you’re, you know, going to the sock hop or the dance for the first time and you’re uncomfortable. You know, as a young adolescent, male or female, you’re uncomfortable talking to the other sex. It just doesn’t feel comfortable to you. So, what do you do? You go sit in the corner like a wallflower. That doesn’t work. That’s not how you grow. You grow by being able to hold that discomfort and really learn from it and grow.

So understand, the more we avoid the things — and I’m talking about things that are important for us to learn, one of those is becoming a healthier person. So let me define strength. Strength is presence. Power is not control. Power is staying. Basically staying with cravings, staying with uncertainty, staying with hard conversations. This is emotional fitness. It’s what allows us to go through and forge under the fire stronger relationships. I mean, I’m watching, there’s a dialogue in one of the series on TV, and the dialogue is about having really strong conversations with each other. Not disrespectful, but ones that basically open up the possibility to learning more about each other and being true and not avoidance. We have a tendency with discomfort to avoid those difficult conversations. And as long as we avoid them, we’re going to become more fearful as I mentioned earlier. And if that happens, that’s how we end up getting so that we don’t, you know, we have a discussion at Thanksgiving dinner and it turns into two family members not talking to each other for the rest of their life because it becomes more uncomfortable versus having the real conversations. So basically, staying with cravings, staying with uncertainty, all these things help you move forward.

So really we’re talking about what we call the capacity loop. We want to feel what’s here. That’s presence. And we talked about it last month. Being aware, being present, holding that moment, really understanding in that moment what’s going on. Getting out of your head of all the thoughts of, “Oh, I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking this.” No, you don’t know what they’re thinking. Only they know what they’re thinking. But feel in the moment where you are. I’m right here. Stay, instead of escaping. Stay in that moment. Even if it’s discomforting, you know, unless it’s something again, if obviously, you know, a typical response would be we learn when we’re little, don’t touch a hot stove because it hurts. So boom, we avoid that. That’s the limbic system working the right way, keeping you — having the feeling, the discomfort in that. That’s very different than the discomfort of moving from eating unhealthy food that you’re addicted to to being able to move in to start eating healthier food. And you want to choose for your future self. One of the leadership habits I built for our leaders years ago was basically, “Lead from the future, act in the now.” Decide what you want for your future. What does your identity look like? What does your health look like moving forward? What does your success look like in your business? What are you doing in terms of your relationships with your family? And from that place, stay, feel, be in the moment and basically expand your capacity. So, choose the outcome that allows you to grow as a person.

[00:10:04] Thematically, this is similar to what we talked about last month, which you can go back, by the way, and review the videos on my website, drwayneandersen.com. But, bottom line is learning to stay in the discomfort — the obstacles are the way. These are the areas that help forge in the fire, basically allowing you to grow and learn, and it grows through presence. So, identity is built here, in this moment. You don’t grow by thinking differently. You grow by staying with the hard moments. That’s how you learn. That’s how you grow. That’s like, you know, that discomfort of working out. You know, you go to the gym and you work out. The growth in your muscles occurs in the discomfort. It occurs during that period when it’s a little tough. If it’s really easy to lift the weight, you’re not going to grow from that. Your muscles aren’t going to grow. The same way is with your presence. You don’t grow by thinking differently. You basically grow by staying in those moments. An identity is built when you’re willing to feel. Leaders hold uncertainties. Healers hold presence. Conscious humans hold emotional waves. This is where your 3.0 self gets developed. This is where you learn to grow and build that capacity.

So, I want to do an exercise right now. Just a couple minute exercise. To do this, hopefully you’re present, and really paying attention. But in this exercise I’m going to have you close your eyes, breathe slowly. Notice the discomfort. Stay with yourself. Feel your body and choose presence. Okay? So we’re going to do this together. I want you to start off, get yourself comfortable. Make sure you’re not distracted. Hopefully you’re in a quiet space where you’re fully present for this talk. And make sure that anybody needs any help, the dog needs water or whatever, that you’ve taken care of that. And I want you to close your eyes. So, we’re going to get fully present, in the moment. When you take the visual away, the other senses are accentuated. So, what we want to do is close our eyes. And I want you to start breathing slowly. Actually, check where your breath is right now. You know, do you have some you anxious about something that’s going to be going on a little bit? Are you running short on time or are you fully present, fully breathing slow? Because your breath will tell you what state your autonomic nervous system is in. And you want to be in what we call the parasympathetic state, which is where you have high vagal tone and you’re relaxed, your heart rate’s slow, you’re breathing slow, you’re breathing from your belly. So, bottom line is, let’s go ahead and do this. Take the breaths and notice any discomfort you’re having. And I want you to do this. I’m setting you up for this, but I want you to start doing this during the day.

So notice discomfort, any discomfort you have. It can be anything. It could be that, oh, um, my legs are sore. I’m feeling anxious about something. I have a funny feeling in my belly. My jaw is clenched. It doesn’t matter what it is, but feel that and stay with it. Stay with it for a minute. And feel your body. Your body, your mind body connection, which you’ve been hearing now for decades is critical. And yet we spend so little time really understanding, you know, unless our body sends out huge warning signals like we have a bad headache or we hurt ourselves and it hurts when we walk, but other than that, most of the time we’re not paying that much attention to our body and our body will help us really sense where we are. So hopefully you’re feeling that. And do this exercise again. So take a screenshot of this. And what you want to do is you want to choose presence. Presence allows you to be in that moment. And if you do have discomfort, why do you have discomfort? Is it because you’ve been at your desk for an hour and a half and your legs are, you know, they’re kind of cramping. All these things are ways for you to now improve. That discomfort is a good way to learn. You know, one of the things I do when I’m writing or basically on Zooms, too many Zooms or doing lectures, I’ll get up and as soon as I feel discomfort, I’ll get up, you know, go up and down the stairs, go for a walk, do something like every hour to make sure I’m sensing, because if we don’t sense those things, then we’re not practicing how we’re present, and being present, holding that discomfort, and realizing that how to work through it makes a lot of sense.

Okay, so there’s a 90 second rule. Basically, once per day, we’ve talked about this before, but this is a really good practice, and I actually do it more than that. But notice discomfort, any discomfort you’re having, whether you physical discomfort, mental discomfort, anxious thoughts, breathe. Stay for 90 seconds within that. Don’t try to fix it. Just basically teach your nervous system it’s survivable. In other words, rather than every time some little thing — you know, one of the things I did as a kid, and I didn’t even realize it — it probably wasn’t the best thing, but I would note that if I was thirsty, you know, rather than get up, like if I was on my bike or something, rather — and it’s probably not the best example because we do want to stay hydrated — but it taught me how to stay with discomfort and, you know, rather than running immediately when I was hungry or immediately when I was thirsty, I would sense that, stay with it, you know, for a little while, and then of course, you know, drink or get something to eat. And I did that naturally, and it built a resilience, and a resilience that basically allows you to start building emotional fitness, where you can handle anything. And that’s the goal. The goal is, hey, life is intrinsically unstable. There are things that are going to happen in your life. We’re going to have loved ones get sick, loved ones die. We’re going to have things happen financially that are up and down. Our health may suffer in some way, but most of those things if you stay with them and understand how to be present, you can fix them. You can actually fix them over time. You’re not fixing them in the moment, but you’re actually building that resiliency so that rather than moving away from it as soon as it happens, which we have a tendency — now, with a hot stove, absolutely, you want to use that nervous system. You never want to forget and you never want to touch a hot stove again. And for most of us that’s very true and we could probably even remember that when that happened when we were really little, and you see it happen all the time with kids. But bottom line is, understand that as you build resilience in your nervous system, it makes all the difference.

So, your future isn’t created by big moments. It’s created by small uncomfortable ones you stop running from. Okay? You don’t need to become someone else. You need to stay present long enough to become who you already are. When the fire shows up, hold it. That’s where your power lives. It’s building the psychological flexibility that whatever happens, all these slight little discomforts, that you can handle them that you know that you don’t have to stop — and here’s one biologically, we have a hold where our bladder reaches a certain level and there’s a threshold and it’s sending signals saying, “Oh, I have to urinate.” Yet you have 300 to 400 cc’s more volume that you can handle before you really really have to go and when your bladder gets too big and is really expanded. So, that’s another thing, you know, rather than every time, you know, I’m talking with some that have obviously a normal prostate and normal physiology, but there’s an example where you can literally hold and not respond to it immediately. And in that discomfort, you’re building some resilience and the ability to wait for a while. So, that’s really important. You probably know people that anytime they need anything, they stop what they’re doing and do it. Okay? That’s not a recipe for building that emotional fitness, that ability to handle anything. Stay with it. So, with that, hopefully that was helpful. Rachel, let’s take this down and answer any questions.

Rachel: All right. We don’t have any questions quite yet, but Chris does have a question and then I think we just had one pop in.

Dr. A: Okay, great. Awesome.

Chris: Bear with me just a second. Chris is having difficulties. Here’s Chris. Hi! So, Dr. A, I have a question. Speaking of growing through discomfort, I do Ninja Warrior a couple days a week. And, I don’t know if you can see this growth on my shoulder right now, but I have a red light therapy device on because I tore my rotator cuff. It’s kind of a vital component in the Ninja Warrior journey because I’m hanging from stuff. And so I’m trying to figure out how this is for me, as opposed to, you know, something I can hopefully resolve. I don’t want to get surgery. I know you’re not a medical professional in this respect, but I’m curious, what would you recommend? How can I get through this without losing my freedom?

Dr. A: Yeah. Okay. And you know, again, discomfort pain is the body signaling that there’s something off, right? So I’ll just use my own personal experience because I basically tore my meniscus and my median collateral ligament. Now it’s been about three months. And so in the beginning, that pain is splitting you for a reason, and that’s to get — so when it first happened for you, right, it gets the swelling down, immobilizes it. But here’s two things, and specifically the shoulder joint is more important than anything. Maintaining your range of motion. We have a tendency to — and they used to put you in a sling and the sling was to immobilize you so it could heal. The problem with the shoulder specifically is you get this thing called adhesive capsulitis and the shoulder is one of the most mobile joints. It doesn’t have a lot of protection, unlike, let’s take the hip joint, right? The ball and socket. It’s inside a ball and socket. That’s why when people get hip replacements, they recover almost right away because it’s a really well protected, functional system that rotates inside a ball and socket. So, it doesn’t have a lot of instability except for one area, but I’m not going to get into that. But the point is, you want to first immediately splint the stuff you did initially. Use ibuprofen or something to decrease inflammation. In you’re rehabilitation, and I’ll tell you what I do, I’d use red light therapy, which is good. It helps with deep healing. I alternate ice and heat. And basically I’m up skiing. I’m doing some, you know, traditionally they would have made you sit out the year, but instead I’m up skiing.

[00:21:10] And what happens is — and I have physical therapists that I go to after skiing, like a couple days a week. But the range of motion, increasing it, there is some discomfort when I ski, but it’s not like it’s not excruciating. It’s not my body telling, it’s telling me that, yeah, you’re sore, but by moving it more, the body functions in a much more brilliant way because the lymphatics work better. The range of motion starts building stability. It starts reconnecting the fibers that have been torn. They start reproducing. Fiber blasts come in. So basically, movement, and going to the threshold of discomfort again in that case is something you want to do and avoiding surgery most of the time is a good thing. They wanted to work on my meniscus, and I basically said, “Hey, my meniscus is in there, and yeah it’s torn, but bottom line, that meniscus is a cushion that I want to keep.” I don’t want them taking that out. And I’m at a point now where I’m increasing the strength in the leg and the leg’s working well and meniscus is doing fine in there and it it doesn’t heal like regular because it doesn’t have the vascularity but the muscles around it are compensating keeping the balance there and allowing the feedback mechanism so that you maintain and I have full use. When I went for a walk last night, and I can walk fine, and it used to hurt and it doesn’t hurt when I do that. When I get done skiing, it is discomforting, but basically, put ice on it and go through it.

I want to apply that to life in general because discomfort in a relationship, we have a tendency to do avoidance. So rather than, and it’s what gossip is. All those things are, you know, you should basically not say something that you wouldn’t say if the person isn’t in the room. We have a tendency with other people because it makes us feel good that we communicate. But basically, gossip is us now saying something that we don’t even know to be true. We’re just doing something that we’re not even sure is true. So if you have an issue with somebody like in a relationship, staying with the discomfort and doing it in a respectful way. The other part of this is we’re building our relationships, because relationships — internal stability inside, that we can handle anything. External equilibrium, which means in our relationships we can grow. Most people live in the Drama Triangle. One person attacks, you know, either the villain, the victim, or the hero, and they kind of are doing something, attacking, blaming — all you have to do is go on TV and then the other person responds through being the victim and now nothing. There’s no growth. The victim moves away and basically the villain blames it on someone else. The hero tries to come in and save the day because they don’t want to be around that discomfort, rather than actually being fully present and having a discussion where, “Hey, you know, I’ve noticed in this situation, this is what happens. I would love to— can we can we talk about that,” and so then you move beyond because if you don’t, when you avoid, avoidance creates more avoidance and then the nervous system is saying, “Hey, you’re uncomfortable now in this conversation,” and then you just move away from it. And there’s times if you’re upset, yes, that’s not the time to get in a discussion.

But in those calm areas, where you haven’t you haven’t triggered the emotional part of your brain and you can sit down and have a discussion. I had a discussion with my daughter who’s here over the weekend skiing with me. She’s in vet school. And we had a discussion about finances. You know, she’s going to be a professional and she’ll have, but right now she doesn’t have her own money. And basically I said, “Hey, I’d love to just sit and talk to you about, you know, understanding the value of certain things.” And we were cool. And then she sat and she got I could tell she was getting— I said, “Now Erica, let’s just basically go over, you know, what are you concerned about? Why are you starting to feel that way?” And we just talked about it. And when we left — when she left, basically we were closer than we’ve ever been. That’s what we want to do. We want to learn to stay in that discomfort so we can grow. All our growth occurs when we’re open, curious, and we want to grow. And when we’re holding the discomfort and not letting it trigger us so that we move away from it. That’s how we build dialogue. That’s how we have great conversations. That’s how we work through. That’s where we build resilience, where you’re not, every time you go, “Oh, I want something to drink.” You know, that’s what happens, by the way, with food. You know, we’re a little upset— “Oh, I need to eat something. I need to…” you know, and that is us trying to avoid or we get on the internet, right? And we go to TikTok or we do whatever we can to avoid whatever it is that’s actually triggering and creating this discomfort when we really want to learn to manage it. And the best analogy, and almost all of us have gone through it, is exercising. You know. Whether it’s exercising cardiovascular or it’s doing weight resistance training or even stretching and things, all those things. When you stretch, there is some discomfort.

I mean, you want to make sure you know the difference between dynamic and static stretching, and I go through that in My Prescription for Life, but bottom line is, you want to use discomfort to grow as an individual because when you grow, you build fulfillment, if you avoid discomfort you don’t grow. You stay the same. And what happens, is over time, you’ll find you come very fixed, very close-minded. And that’s one of the issues going on in the world right now is people, they don’t like discomfort. So they point to the other person, blame them, say it’s all on them versus everything. We’re all humans sharing the same planet together and we better be kinder to each other or we’re going to find out we’re going to be like the dinosaurs. So anyway, was that helpful?

Chris: Yeah, it doesn’t fix my shoulder. My shoulder still hurts, but I’ll try and use my hips more.

Dr. A: Your shoulder. Well, no. Well, the point is your shoulder hurts. But the one thing you I hope you learn is you want to make sure you as soon as possible, you get back to full range of motion.

Chris: Yeah.

Dr. A: That’s the key part. Range of motion, because as long as you have that, over time, as the discomfort goes down, you’ll be able to slowly add more weight resistance training and it’ll be fine. If you have adhesive capsulitis because of the discomfort, you said, “No, I’m not going to work through that. I’m not gonna work on my stretching.” Then you’re gonna find out you’re gonna have a decreased range of motion and you’re going to be terrible at ninja.

Chris: Well, I’m already pretty bad, but it’s working out okay. But thanks Dr. A. I appreciate that.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Rach, we got anybody?

Rachel: Yes, we have a bunch. We have Melanie up next. Hi, Melanie.

Dr. A: Melanie!

Melanie: Hi, Dr. A. Good morning.

Dr. A: Good morning.

Melanie: So mine is kind of a mindset question, at least I think it is. So I have great difficulty in finding the balance between using data, like from the recent Metabolic Reset Challenge, and see right away, I see, okay there’s areas that I need to focus on and improve on so I can become better versus being satisfied with, for instance, my renfro numbers are all green. Okay, I found out you can get some darker green and you know being satisfied where I’m at. I’m always looking at that little measurement. You know, when I would get a 98 on a test, I’d look at, what did I miss and how can I get better. And my coach is working with me, bless her heart, on looking at this and trying to find some satisfaction and reframing that. And you know, I hear you say things, you heliski and you know, you’re still taking lessons, still trying to get better, but where do you find those times of satisfaction?

Dr. A: That’s a good question. I really like that question. First of all, you used a word that I would like to have you eliminate from your language, and that is: trying.

Melaine: Okay.

Dr. A: It’s either you’re doing or you’re not doing. Trying is the most demoralizing word in the English language. It means, “Oh, I’m giving it an attempt.” You either do it or you don’t do it. And if you’re going to do it, you go to — and that’s where discomfort, working through the discomfort to get the goal you want. So let talk about one thing to make sure this is not what I’m saying. Perfectionism. You know, John Wooden, one of the all-time UCLA basketball coaches used to say, “We practice to be perfect, but we never reach that goal.” They, in fact, they practice harder than — their games were easier than their practice. He made sure they practiced to become as good as they could be. Not to be perfect. Perfect is actually a fault. It’s being obsessive about something trying to reach a level of it and you’re making it all about you. Okay? So bottom line is, you don’t want to be perfect. You want to continue to grow, because that’s — and in health, which is what you’re talking about in terms of your metabolic health, the key thing to understand is that we have this thing called father time and we all are subjected to it.

[00:30:34] We have a birth date and we have a death date and in between, as they say, is the dash on your tombstone. The dash is where you live life. The key thing in life is to understand that as we get older, our body’s ability to recuperate, to recover, the hearing capacity to heal itself starts diminishing. And so, it’s really important. It’s that, if you’re in the green now, great. You want to continue that growth because you’re getting older. We’re all getting older. I know that that’s why I’m learning some new moves in skiing because I know I’m getting older and as you get older, you need to be abl— I ski with my 25-year-old daughter and I ski as fast, and is all the same stuff as her. But I’m smarter than her. She’s 25 years old and she wiggles her little pelvis like, you know, all over the place. And that’s not where I am in life, right? I’m almost three times older, but I ski as good because I’ve learned the techniques necessary to be able to do that. The key part here is health span versus lifespan. So basically health span is to stay as good as you can be for as long as you can be. So I’ll give you an example. You know, I travel a lot and I can tell you that more and more younger, mostly women, but also some men, older men that can’t do it, but they can’t take their bag and put it in the overhead. So, I end up helping them. But basically, some of these people are in their 40s. They’re not that old. You want to make sure that whatever you want to do, that’s why functional exercise is so critical. Make sure that you’re doing things that assimilate real life because you know there’s a lot of people now in their se 60s,70s, and certainly by the 80s, they can’t get up without their arms. They can’t stand up without their arms. If they fall on the floor — and as soon as you start losing your strength, your flexibility and your balance, you put yourself at risk. So a lot of the things we’re doing, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about making sure I have enough strength to be able to do the things that are critical so I can do them as long as I can, because if you happen to see the Galicia film that we did in Spain, I interviewed a 102 year old lady and she basically doesn’t use a walker. She has two canes, now she’s 102, those hips, she’s done a lot of walking. She worked on a farm so she’s been active her whole life. So she, you know, the human body wasn’t designed to live 100 plus years. So, yeah, she’s got some probably some worn out hips and stuff, but the point is she uses two canes and she does it herself. She’s self-reliant, okay? Versus what happens, I mean, I see people, you know, at Walmart and different places, they’re in their 30s and they’re basically already using the little carts, right? The little electric carts. So, it’s really important to understand it’s not about being perfect. It’s about making sure you’re staying in the range. So the most important of all the things you can check is your V.O2 max. In other words, what’s the maximum oxygen consumption that you can make and this is the thing, you can go to a spa or a gym. You can go to, as long — for anybody that’s listening — you want to make sure your cardiovascular health, you always want to make sure you’re checked out by your physician, your health care professional. But basically, you can increase your V.O2. I know that I’m at 8,000 ft here and I can ski non-stop all the way down. I didn’t used to be able to do that, but I’ve increased my cardiovascular endurance, decreased my visceral adiposity down to my same waist as I was when I was in college. Basically, I feel great and those things will allow me to be more capable of living longer in that state because the goal is and I’ve been saying this you know Louise Calment lived to be 122, and I always kid around, I want to be 123 and jump sideways into my grave when they’re putting the dirt on it. The message there is health span equal lifespan. You want to biologically and chronologically become as healthy— there’s different scales now that it’ll actually measure your biological, your metabolic health and you can look and see where we are compared to — but you want to always make sure that you’re continuing in those areas. So in all the key parts all the six MacroHabits. Does that make sense?

Melanie: It does. You know, I’m hearing you say keep working to be better, but focus less on perfection, more on health span. You know, I’m on a mission to show what we can do as we age. [00:35:18 crosstalk].

Dr. A: Well, no, for yourself. But here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I want to make sure— it’s not a mental game. The mental game is involved in it. It’s actually that you want to be as healthy as you can be for as long as you can be because when we have and part of that, why I spend time with a conscious forum is this part, emotional management and mismanagement is the leading cause of death in the world, because when you suddenly say — like going back to Chris for a minute, and he’s a pain in the butt, you know, I’ve known him for years and I love him to death but he’s a pain in the butt, I mean, “Well, it didn’t make my shoulder better.” No! You don’t to come back on! [The video changes to Chris] You don’t get to come back. You had your chance. Bottom line is, yeah, “It didn’t make my shoulder feel better.” Yeah. What I did tell him though was, I gave him the most important piece of advice from seeing, if you basically want to stay athletic, and he’s an athletic guy and he’s doing sports and everything, but you want to make sure that you work through. That you’re making sure your first priority is getting your full range of motion. Not to the point, you know, and in physical therapies, I know with my knee, don’t work to the point where you have severe sharp pain. Soreness, and a little bit of discomfort is okay because your body’s now — and it doesn’t want, because if our mind, we haven’t worked and avoided, “Oh, I don’t need to go get up and go to the bathroom right that second. I don’t need to drink water right that second. I can wait five minutes.” That’s not going to make a difference. Bottom line is, those little exercises, what I’m saying is, staying with the discomfort, that’s what the theme is today, same thing with working out.

Yeah, you want to work out. Not to lift the most weight ever lifted by your age. You want to do just a little more because a little more means you’re stretching the muscles. You’re allowing them to break down the fibers and then they’re rebuilding. And that process means you’re involved. Happiness in life comes from involvement. Soon as we let discomfort take over, our body, our neurological surveillance system will basically start having us do less and less and less and less. People start staying home and doing nothing because they don’t want to go out into the world. And so we have to build this human transformational technology because technology, machine-based technology, AI, now all these things basically make it easier to do nothing. And if we do nothing, we are going to have a huge decrease in our health span. And we’re going to find out that, you know, there was a Star Trek episode a long time ago, and I always thought it was kinda funny, it showed these people on the planet, they had huge heads, right? They developed their intelligence but their bodies were so frail that someone from a different planet came that was not very smart and killed them all because they made themselves fully vulnerable. So to keep yourself from being vulnerable, you want to look at your scores. You want to look at your metabolic dysfunction. You want to minimize, get yourself in the greens. Stay in the greens, because if you look over time, as aging occurs, if you don’t stay that active, you’re going to deteriorate faster and you’re going to, your health span will then start deteriorating and you won’t live in a healthy state.

Living to 100 is an awesome thing if you got your mind, you’ve got your physicality, you can move, you can do all the things because a lot of cool things are going to happen in the next 25 years and I don’t want to miss any of them and I want to be able to interact with them. So yeah. It’s not a narcissistic thing about making yourself look pretty. It’s about making sure you keep your body in shape. You know, it cracks me up. I’ll see people stop at the 7-Eleven. They’ll put only high test, you know, premium 94% gas in their car and then I’m watching them eating a yo-yo. So, you’re making sure you’re spending extra to make sure your Porsche runs right, but you’re eating pure garbage, right? Same thing with our emotion. Motion, sleep, stress, all the things. Being able to handle discomfort, being not totally reactive to everything around us is a really good thing.

Melanie: Well, thank you. I love being on this health journey. I appreciate your insight.

Dr. A: Awesome. Okay.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Blake. Hi, Blake.

Blake: Hey. Hi, Dr. A.

Dr. A: How are you?

Blake: I’m always so excited to learn from you because when I listen and implement it, my life gets better.

Dr. A: I love that. I love that, you’ve got to send me an email and we’ll put that up on the website. I love that. And you know what? That’s the joy I get right because you know being a student and learning to share that with others and do it in a way where I rather than, even though I know, like with Chris I was kidding around with him, but I know the anatomy, I know the physiology, I know the structure, but doing it in a way that makes sense — common sense, right? Versus just acting like, you know, I’m standing in an ivory tower talking about it. I love to share. So what do we want to do today?

Blake: Yeah. So I’ve worked a lot on mindset in the past couple of years and also mental fitness. But last year I realized there was a component I didn’t understand which was the nervous system. And I couldn’t outthink my body. I kept thinking I could change how I think, but that didn’t — I kept hitting a wall. I kept hitting resistance, that there was some kind of internal set point I couldn’t move past. And then I figured out, “Oh, my nervous system is hijacked.” So when you are bringing people like we did back to presence, when you put in the pause, I’m trying to figure out how all this works together because people teach separate components, but how is it working together? Is it the pause that is bringing people back to the present? that we’re not spinning the past, we’re not spinning the imagined future, we’re here, that allows us to feel our emotions and be in the discomfort that also regulates the nervous system and I guess it gets a little jumbled up in my brain, and I just, I want to hear you say it so I understand it more.

Dr. A: I got it and it’s a really great question, Blake. So understand, the brain— the kidneys, the brain, the heart, but the brain specifically, the CMRO2, which is the consumption of oxygen and fuel, glucose or ketones, or whatever the brain is using at the moment, depending on what our fasting state is really high. And what, over the eons, we’ve learned is that by blocking events into chains, we can avoid having to think all the time. So let me give you— an easy example is driving your car. When you first learned, bottom line is, it was tough. There’s a lot of stuff going on, right? And you’d never done it before. And that’s why, you know, I always use that as an analogy about, you know, helping people create health in their life. You got to put them in the driver’s seat because you can’t teach an adolescent to drive by driving them. You can show them in the beginning. You got to put them in the driver’s seat, right? Okay.

[00:42:43] So, your brain is designed, your mind is designed to basically create habits, chains of events that happen automatically. So, you know now, you don’t even think about it when you drive your car anymore, right? You’re just basically driving. Next thing you know, you’re home, you have to open the garage door, right? Because how did I get here? So as a whole, the brain wants to do— and by the way, stereotypes, why we categorize, it’s a natural mechanism the body uses because it wants to say, “Oh, that’s comparative. That’s just, ah, I know what that is,” that way I don’t have to think because thinking requires energy and oxygen consumption. So the mechanism is designed for specific reasons, but what’s happened is we’re on autopilot. Autopilot is good for mundane things, right? But it’s not good for things that require interaction. So if you’re creating a threat and it’s a perceived threat, if it’s a real threat, yeah, just like the, you know, the analogy I was using about discomfort, the first time you touched a hot anything, a curling iron, it doesn’t matter. You learned your lesson. And that’s your brain working the right way. It’s discomfort, threat, boom, you learn it and you don’t you avoid it. Okay, that’s good. In relationships, what happens is we perceive threats because our personal mind, we are the sum of our life’s experiences. You, your personality, who you are, the things you think, the things you prefer are all decided as you grow up. So, when you’re really little, when you’re 5 years old or so, your prefrontal cortex is not developed yet. That’s why little kids do dumb things. They just don’t know. But the emotional part is there. And so that’s why, you know, when I was growing up, I can’t tell you how many times I was probably told I was stupid, because our parents didn’t know. I mean they only know what they know. And so, fortunately, I didn’t get scarred by it and I didn’t really care. And maybe that was my resilience. I don’t know. But bottom line is, a lot of people, we have these things, and there’s this thing called ideal, belief, reality. I wrote a book called Identity with Robert Fritz. And in that book we talk about it.

If you basically think inside that you are a stupid person what you have a tendency to do is to compensate for that and try really hard and you will work really hard and you can you know, let’s say you get all A’s and you get the National Honor Society, you may even win the Nobel Prize, but none of it is good enough if you think you’re stupid.

Blake: Mhm.

Dr. A: The idea is to understand and recognize that, “Oh, I think I’m stupid. So what? Now, let me go on and build the life I want.” Right? Because it’s not real. It’s a stored energy of something, a negative experience that happened to us and it’s down inside of us. The key thing is, when it starts coming up is not to repress it, not to suppress it. Let it actually come up. Identify it. And this is where Stop. Challenge. Choose., and “the gap” comes in, because typically, it’s painful. You immediately avoid it. And so your neurological system stays the same. And here it is. Oh, I’ve got this stored energy of I think I’m stupid and someone just made me look bad in public in a conversation or said, “What are you thinking about?” Or da da da da. And what you do is immediately avoid it and suppress it back down, rather than focus on it. When the reality is, everything is about presence. Take in the breath. Let it come up. Sense what it is, and don’t even do anything about it. Just sense it. Say, “Oh, okay. This is another example where I think I’m stupid.” Right? Okay. Does that make sense? [oo:46:36 crosstalk]. Yeah. And so the gap that we create, in other words, stimulus response is that we don’t want discomfort. It served you. You don’t want to burn your finger on a stove. So, you want to take it off, and that we’re pretty good at that. If you think about it, you’re pretty good. If the water’s scalding hot or whatever, boom, you’re like this. You’re not, you know, in the shower, right? Boom. You’re like this. And then people on the other side with cold plunges are basically letting their nervous system have this huge adrenaline rush and they’re getting off on it and they’re actually tolerating. I don’t have any desire to ever do that. And you could say what you want, while it’s healthy, there’s many other ways to create health and they can be really— including the other side, using a sauna. Being in a sauna. Raising your temperature does very similar things physiologically.

So the point I’m making is that your nervous system has an emotional component, the limbic system, which is designed to have you react. Think of energy. Emotions— E=energy. There’s energetics involved in it because it was designed to avoid things that could hurt you, right? Right now. Right now, and so anymore perceived threats are almost all our threats. I mean even to the point now, where in a car, unless you get in a horrific car accident, we’ve got everything is — you look at an old car, the steering wheels were hard plastic. The dashes were metal. There were no seat belts, no restraint system, no airbags. And so you had to really pay— and no seat belts! So if you got projected, you were going to hit something hard and you were going to get hurt pretty bad, right? So what we’ve done is we’ve taken about 90% of that away where most of the things between the airbags and all the stuff that’s happening, the collapsible front end, all the things we’ve learned, we’ve made pretty much most things pretty safe. So the real perceived — I mean, obviously you have to pay attention, and that’s why we don’t want you hands-free. We don’t want you driving and holding onto a cell phone and certainly not texting, right? Because then you’re missing the key components. But the point is that most things in our life are perceived threats. So we need to learn to be able to have that moment of presence, where we’re feeling a little bit of discomfort and staying with it. So you’re telling your nervous system, “Hey, it’s okay. I can handle this.”

Blake: So the moment, the pause is what helps you create the inner safety, because it is the perceived threat, the neutralizing…

Dr. A: Yes.

Blake: Creates the space where you have the capacity to deal with the discomfort.

Dr. A: Yes. This is all about capacity. That’s what I was showing in the slide. It’s all about feeling it. Feeling it all, and feeling your feelings all the way through.

Blake: Mhm.

Dr. A: You know, typical example is in high school playing football. You know, I remember, you know, guys don’t cry. I mean, it’s ridiculous stuff. If you ever see me on stage and talking, I cry all the time. You know why? Because I’m fully feeling the expression and the gratitude and the emotions which make us human. You know, those aren’t things you want to avoid. Now, on the other hand, there’s a difference between feeling discomfort and rage. Okay? A little bit of feeling a little bit of anger is telling you something. There’s a need for change there. But going into a rage and sitting there the rest of the day with your jaw clenched is just messing up your body. You’re creating massive cortisol release, epinephrine, nor epinephrine, and you are what was designed 10,000 years ago to let you get the heck out of there, right? 

[00:50:26] Those things being released, basically your clotting system, all those things getting prepared for if we were damaged. The human body is incredible. The human mind is incredible. I mean, there’s more neuron connections than there are galaxies. I mean, that’s how brilliant our bodies and our minds are. But we have a tendency to totally take them sideways and use them improperly. So, the whole idea of that moment, of presence in space, is to regain control because your limbic system has hijacked you and you’re not thinking straight. That’s why with little kids, you do not want them, you know, you’re sitting there. I remember with my girls, they would be reading, learning to read, and they were doing fine, and then they’d make a mistake. And one mistake would be okay, but then they’d make another one, and I’d see them getting frustrated. So rather than say, “No, no, you’re doing great. Keep going.” No, let me give them a big hug, tuck them in, say, “You’re really doing awesome.” And let it go. Because once their limbic system — and you know how emotional kids can get — once that’s activated, they’re not listening to anything up here. Nothing. Same thing with us as adults. Things are going to happen. For us to be able to stop, challenge, why am I feeling? What am I feeling? And then choose the outcome you want.

And typically, food addictions, and food, you know, having emotional eating is all about that, and all you really need to do is stay in the moment and that moment will pass. And that’s how you train. Just like you train your muscles to be stronger, you train your mind to be stronger, to be able to be present and feel that emotion. It’s telling you something. It could be telling you something real that this person and I need to work on a relationship because this is the third time we’ve gotten into an argument. And then when you walk away from it and your emotions are back to normal, you think that was a ridiculous discussion. I got upset about that? Right? But the whole idea is if you’re using this technology of Stop. Challenge. Choose., in the moment, it’ll avoid you from doing things. In an extreme, I can guarantee the people on death row wish they knew Stop. Challenge. Choose., because in a moment of emotion, of rage, of passion, anger, they did something really bonehead. They totally let this go away — and here’s the thing, when they interviewed them, they actually knew they were doing something wrong, but they had lost — it’s like this storm of response that they weren’t able to overcome. If they had just stopped, took a moment, they would have been able to avoid it. And I mean, that’s the ultimate because people, now you’re going to die or be in jail for the rest of your life because of some bonehead thing that you did in a moment of not controlling yourself.

And that’s why, as an example, and I want to make sure I say this correctly, because obviously we want to stay well hydrated. So I’m not saying avoid drinking for hours at a time. What I’m saying though, is in the moment, you don’t have to, if you’re in the car going somewhere, I’m starting to feel a little thirsty. You can say to your spouse or to whoever you’re with, hey — if you’re going to be, most of the time we’re going to be — and you can wait. So rather than say, “No, no, I got to stop and get some water.” Right? Or you can have your water with you all the time. But rather than that, learning just that little, it creates your ability to navigate through the world so much better when you have resilience. That 102 year old lady, one thing she was, she was independent, dramatically resilient, and we can all learn that. There’s nothing — we’re not different, like, “Oh, I’m just thirsty all the time.” Yeah. You know, I mean, what, you have different physiology? No. Okay.

Blake: Okay. Thanks, Dr. A. Appreciate the clarity.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Brooke.

Dr. A: Hey, Brooke!

Brooke: Dr. A, how are you today?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Brooke: Well, all of this already has helped answer a good chunk of my initial question, but it leads to me— I’m aware that I am— I’m creatively avoiding, and I heard you say avoidance creates more avoidance, but kind of where I’m leading to is, really my question about, I’m avoiding even committing to specifically with my business, I’m avoiding committing to a higher level. I’m doing the work. I am growing and my business is growing and things are going great, but I’m not committing to be all in to the next level. And I know that there is some fear, discomfort like you were talking about, that is holding me back. But how do I shift it to truly committing and to be able to embrace the resilience that I know I have, that I’ve experienced, but yet, I can’t get myself to commit?

Dr. A: Yeah. So, it’s — yeah, and so it’s again, it’s holding the fire. I mean, I made that up but what I mean by that it’s basically within — okay, so a good example is just take any aspect of your business, right? You know what the standards are. You know where your current reality — by the way, commitment — I use commitment, I learned this from Jim Dethmer actually, the use of the commitment. Commitment is what you’re actually doing. So if you’re 50 pounds overweight, you’re committed to being 50 pounds overweight. That’s what you’re committed to. If you’re, let’s say you’re at a junior level in your business. That’s what you’re committed to. It’s not saying, “Okay, I’m basically going to do more.” It’s you actually doing more. It’s not saying anything. It’s actually what you’re doing. Okay? So, think of it this way: your identity. Your identity in your health, in your relationships, the kind of person you are, your business, your identity is determined by your standards. Your standards determine your identity. So if you want to change your identity and become a healthier — I’ll just use health because it’s a really easy one. If you’re an unhealthy person and you say, “I’m going to go on a diet and I’m going to avoid eating pizza.” And every time you go to the mall or whatever and you go by and say, “Yep, I’m avoiding eating pizza. I just really want that pizza, but I’m not going to have a piece.” Eventually, you’re going to have a piece because you’re an unhealthy person that’s doing something that’s restrictive, but you’re not actually changing your identity. You’re not becoming a healthy person. It’s actually conflict resolution.

So, normally what happens is people are overweight, they go to the doctor, they say you’re pre-diabetic, they say that you’re going to need to go on blood pressure meds — it doesn’t matter what it is — you see a picture on vacation and you don’t recognize yourself in your swimsuit and so you create this emotional response. And so what you do is you decide to act on it. The emotions create actions, and you feel bad. Let’s say you just don’t feel good. Let’s say, I’m going to lose 50 pounds. So you start losing. You lose 10 pounds and you feel better. You look a little better. People say, “Wow, you look better.” And so you don’t have that intense emotion anymore. So then you stop doing it. And so that’s why people yo-yo. That’s why — doesn’t matter whether you’re using GLP-1 drugs, whatever it is. If you’re dieting, if you’re not learning to create health, that’s why the Habits of Health system, all the stuff I write is about you becoming the Dominant Force in your own life, taking responsibility, and then becoming everything you want for yourself. We’re each going to be different. We have different priorities. We have different values. But if you pick the things you value the most and you focus on those, you don’t need as much motivation because you do them because you want to do them.

We have primary-secondary choices. You know, for me, I heliski in the spring. So, I know, starting in the fall that I need to put my gym shoes on. I mean, I work, I stay very active and I work out, but I know that when I jump out of that helicopter, if I’m not in top shape, I’m going to hold up other people and I could get hurt or I could go off a cliff or something. So, I make sure it’s not at that moment. And I don’t really like to exercise. I do it because it supports the things that are most important. And now, as I’m chronologically getting older, I’m upping — I put a gym in my new house and I’m doing things more intentionally because I want to maintain. I don’t want to lose any ground and I want to maintain for as long as I can. And that’s secondary choice. So what do I value? I value what I just did two days ago with my daughter, my 25-year-old. She started skiing when she was in diapers and I can still ski with her. And I wrote, when I wrote the first Habits of Health in 2008, I actually, that’s one of the things I mentioned. I want to make sure by the time they’re grown up, they’re not just asking me for the credit card and seeing me at dinner, but actually we’re skiing together. And that, you know, profound prophecy is true because I’ve done those things and I didn’t want to do those things. I did them because they support me.

So, in terms of your business, you have to say, what do I really want? Okay? What does that entail? What’s the strategy I need to take? What are the tactics? What are the actions? And how do I need to work with myself, my team, with my mentors? And how do I make that work? And then specifically stay to that and stop saying, “Oh, you know, I really want to do it. I’m trying to do it.” No, that’s not what you do. You specifically know. And then what you do is in an iterative process, you increase your standards. A great example of that is, I make my — and I didn’t used to do this. You know, years ago, I saw the video on the admiral that was talking. I think it was at either — it was probably at the Naval Academy. I think it was at the Naval Academy. He was talking about: make your bed. Every morning. Make your bed. Now does it really matter that I make my bed? No. I live alone. But I know I make my bed and if I don’t do it something comes up and I can’t, I go back and I make my bed every morning. Why? Because that’s the standard. That’s the standard I’ve set. Becoming a healthy person, you don’t want pizza. You may have it occasionally. I had a piece of pizza over the holidays because of my girls, over during Christmas. Basically, I had a piece of pizza, and it was okay. It tasted okay. It was good, but I haven’t had one since. Don’t need it because I’m a healthy person.

A healthy person doesn’t choose to eat one of the most unhealthy things you could eat. Why? Because I choose to be healthy. I choose to be able to not be out of breath when I ski. I choose to be able to fit in bibs, in a ski outfit, because basically, I feel better, and I ski better because those are the things that really matter. So for your business, figure out, okay, what is the next strategic level I need to go in my business? What does that look like? What does that entail? And also, how much money will I be making when I do that? Because then you — and then how does that translate? So, you know, I’m not a big, I mean, I love nice things, but I never have done anything in my life, in medicine, or certainly in anything else I’ve done, I’ve never made money the priority. That’s always been, bring value to the marketplace and get paid well. So that’s not my priority. My priority is doing exactly what we’re doing today. I love to help people and I love to — people have such potential, but I’m I’m I only want to help the people that raise their hands. I’m not here to — I’m not a hero. I’m not here to enable someone and hey, oh yeah, let me do it for you. No. I’m here to help you understand how your business becomes more successful. And it does by knowing what that entails. What will that bring in my life? What are the results leading from that future? What will my life look like? So your projection, your vision because most people if they do CAT scans — do MRIs, functional scans, they light up the brain for the present. They don’t light up, if you have them, think five years from now, they light up the same area that they are now. That’s because most people don’t think that the things I do today determine what happens to me later.

That’s why I’m talking so much about health span now and metabolic health, switching that because by improving your metabolic health, you help everything. And that’s an ongoing process. You know, if tonight I go out and have pizza, a whole piece of pizza and a hot fudge sundae, my metabolic health tonight, I won’t sleep as well, So that hurts your metabolic — and by morning I won’t be functioning as high. And you do that for a couple weeks and you’ll start undoing everything you’ve done. It is an ongoing process because your identity is that I’m increasing my standards where I’m a successful businesswoman and every week, okay, I did 10 calls this week, I’m going to do 12 next week. It’s not these monumental breakthroughs where you jump stages. It’s simply being able to hold through the discomfort. It’s just like if you can lift 50 pounds, do a bench press with 50 pounds right now. Oh, see, you can go do 50 pounds all you want, right? But I’m going to do next week or my next workout, I’m going to do 55 pounds and then you do 55, and it’s going to be discomforting. It’s going to hurt. Going from 10 to 12 calls in a week is going to be a little discomfort. You won’t be able to watch the Netflix show you want because you had to do the two extra calls. But all those things incrementally will increase your standards. You increase your standards, you increase your identity, and you will become a successful businesswoman to the level you decide to become. Does that make sense?

Brooke: Yes. Thank you very much.

Dr. A: It’s not — remember in the one slide I showed. It’s not about intelligence. It’s actually about going through, being comfortable in your discomfort so you can then make the strides to break through to the next level. You know, I mean, the stupid little things you see in gyms or in football, “No pain, no gain.” In essence, that’s what that’s saying. Same thing in your business, same thing in your relationships. Sit there, you know, sit there when your loved one, someone says something and sit there in that discomfort. Don’t quip back at them right away. Sit in the discomfort and say, “Let me just sit here for a minute in this.” And then basically let’s say you say something nice to them or something that I’m not talking about enable them, but I’m saying, “Hey, in that reflection I could see where you could have thought that way.” You just improved your relationship with somebody versus needing to be right. That works in every area of our life. Believe me. It’s the most — psychological flexibility, which in essence means stuff’s going to happen. When it happens, hold the moment. Reframe, one of the other ladies was talking about that. Everything is about reframing. So rather than think, oh god, I’m just stuck and I can’t be as successful, but I’m doing okay… but. No. Reframe it. Reframe as, you know what? Bottom line is I need to increase my standard.

I need to increase my standard in what I’m eating, how much I’m sleeping, how many calls I’m doing, am I spending time really acknowledging — by the way, acknowledging what someone says is different than agreeing with them. We need to acknowledge that we hear what someone else says. We don’t have to agree. That’s one of the major reasons of what’s wrong right now in our society. Everybody you know, basically, aren’t listening to each other at all. They have their position and they’re just yelling at the other side. What we need to do is listen to the other side and find out, how do we make this work because we’re more similar than we are different. Cool?

Brooke: Yes. Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. And we ran over. Sorry about that, guys. So that’s the end for today. I hope you guys have a great week. Hopefully — remember when something’s a little discomforting, unless it’s something dangerous, I mean, you know, if you got a prick, a sticker in your hand, yeah, get it out. But in your relationships, in the things you’re doing, sit with a little bit of discomfort so that you let your brain know that I’m not going to die cuz the person over there, who I don’t even know, cut in front of me in traffic. It’s not worth getting killed and going into rage. See you guys. Bye.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: All right, everybody. Congratulations on making it to the next year. You know, this is our next rotation around the planet. I like to think that way because it really kind of puts the magnitude that, you know, it takes 365 days for us to circle the sun. And so, we’re now on our next rotation. We’re on the sixth day of our next rotation around the sun. So what I want to do today in this conscious forum is really focus on moving ourselves from autopilot to awareness. That’s the moment that everything changes for you. And it’s really important. It’s something, sometimes we hear, we kind of understand it, but we don’t actually act on it. And it’s a new year. It’s an opportunity to change the dynamics and really lead from the future that you want for your own health, your own life.

And so in the conscious forum, just to kind of get everybody up to speed that’s coming for the first time — and welcome! This forum is really designed around increasing our consciousness, our awareness, our presence, our ability to really negotiate through the world, minimize suffering, and optimize thriving in our lives. And a lot of us have been in patterns and routines that have not served us. And so this is kind of an opportunity for me to give you kind of an overview of some of the things you can start thinking about, and then as you think about it, start to act on it. And so in a forum like this I’ll do a little talking in the beginning here to kind of set up the flow and then if you want to dive in, let Rach know that you want to ask a question or make a comment. And so that’s how this really works.

It’s about humans being more together and starting to explore we’re more common, we’re more the same than we are different and how we can maybe use some of the wisdom and experience that I’ve had working with people over the last, you know, last 30 plus years and helping it apply to you and also everybody learns when we when we work together. So let’s go ahead and get started. The question is: feeling overwhelmed. You know, I mean, do you think about it? A new year. The Christmas presents or the Hanukkah presents are now the bills are there. You’re having to pay for them. It’s the start of a new year. How is it going to be different? You know, do you feel kind of overwhelmed with thinking AI is coming on more and more — ChatGPT?

People just absolutely have so much going on and so many distractions that it’s hard to really focus on our own life. So, you know, are you having those feelings of feeling a little lost or even powerless? You know those are all things that people, when I talk to them, mention that that’s how they feel. So autopilot, which we mentioned is kind of what the title is, moving from autopilot to awareness. Autopilot is not a failure. It’s an unconscious efficiency. It’s basically what we do in order to not have to think about everything in our day. You know when you first learned how to drive a car, you had to know where the blinkers were. You had to know how to go from the accelerator to the brake, the windshield wipers, the headlights, all this stuff going on. Rear view mirrors, side mirrors, and you used to have to work and focus on it to make all that work. And in the beginning, you weren’t really good at it, and you had to be more cautious. Now, you drive your car, you don’t even think about it. You are on autopilot. And unfortunately, sometimes when we’re on our phone, our heads hopefully are on a hands-free inside your car, but we’ll go all the way from the place we started to the place we were finishing, like going home, and all of a sudden we realize in the conversation, how did we even get here?

Because autopilot is really unconscious efficiency, and it works. It’s about biology and how we work. And so it’s nothing that I want you to blame yourself about. We want you to normalize that it’s part of life. But what ends up happening, the cost of autopilot can actually be things as important as your health, your relationships, and your purpose. Because basically, when you’re on autopilot, you’re just kind of going through the routine, the pattern, and you’re not sensing the urgency of any situation. So, it can make a great cost. And so, we’re going to talk about that. So, awareness is the interruption. It creates the space. And what I mean by that, it’s not it’s not a force. It’s actually a space. It’s one moment can change the direction of everything. You know, it could be something as simple as one of the things I learned, you know, as I was building this mission to help get the world healthy. When my girls, I’ve been doing it for 25 years now, when my girls were really young, I would be on a phone call or a Zoom or something and they would come home from school and they would come down and want to see me.

And what I did was actually become aware of them and if I was on a call or something, unless it was critical, I would say, “Hey, can I call you back?” And I would greet them, listen to them, and they only wanted about five minutes of dad’s time, right? And then they’re bored with me and then they’re off to doing their own thing. But that awareness, that creating that space where I was there for them, interacting from their whole day and then allowing to interface was critical. And you know, even I just came back from being out in Vail and skiing with with my daughters. Well, my older daughter’s pregnant, but she was there, and we had an amazing time together. And that time is because all the way growing up, I was always there. They know how much they matter to me and how important it is what their world’s full of — and their world obviously has gotten more complex, but my older one is now living in Manchester, England, and is getting ready to have her first baby. And it’s an exciting time. Very, very different than when she was five. And then my younger one is in vet school. And so lots of lots to talk about, since I’m a physician, she likes to talk about physiology and anatomy. And so we have a lot of space by being aware, basically hanging out.

It’s so important in your relationships, in your occupation, if you’re a coach, listening to others. All these things are so critical because it allows us to change the direction, momentum, of our relationships, our health, pretty much everything. So, step one. It’s about interrupting the pattern. You know, autopilot breaks when momentum pauses. So, when we’re on autopilot and everything’s just kind of going along throughout the day and you’re like that hamster on the wheel, which is why you may feel overwhelmed. You don’t really have much of a say. You’re just going through the routines. By pausing that momentum, by breaking that pattern, by not letting stimulus create direct response, you can start to change that. So name what is happening. You know, give a language to the experience by naming creates separation from reaction. I’m reacting, not choosing. And then when you basically realize that, then you can use something that I developed, you know, now 20 plus years ago. Stop. Challenge. Choose. You’re creating a gap. You’re putting things into perspective. And I like this. I picked this photo because it shows and it’s out, you know, if you look at this out in a sand flat, in the middle of the islands, and I know places that I would go with my girls, and you know, you can see the moon up above. And all of a sudden that little thing that you are in this expansive space, looking up at the moon, it changes everything for you.

All of a sudden all those things that were so important, all those micro things are so important, aren’t that important. And what you see — the expansiveness. And so having that puts everything into perspective that we’re this little dot, you know, there’s now we know there’s over, you know, there’s millions and millions of galaxies. Our Milky Way is just our galaxy, but there’s, you know, with the new telescopes, they can look out and see like a trillion different galaxies. And it’s just crazy how the magnitude of our universe and then we’re just this little dot in the middle of almost nowhere. This blue, green beautiful planet where life, so many different types of life, and you know, the other day, a magpie, when I was in Vail, just came up and sat on my rail and just sat there and we kind of, I was working on my computer and I just kind of saw distracted by the the focus and I kind of looked at him and he looked back — or she — and looked back at me and just kind of sat there and then made this little like squawking sound. It was like talking to me and I don’t know what I was being told but basically that moment, that connection, there is a bird sitting there talking to me. I mean are you kidding me? Where else in the universe can you do that? So it’s important to put things into perspective like that.

So step two is to regulate your body. You want to slow the nervous system shift to your body. Awareness starts physiologically, not up here. So you don’t build awareness by [Dr. A gestures with his hands], you become aware of your presence, of your body, how you’re sitting, and you want to slow your nervous system because when you’re on autopilot, you’re just running at full speed. One of the things that we’re going to talk about in a second here, but what I found is your breath is critical for that. And so we’ll talk about that. One breath changes your chemistry. Physiology drives psychology basically. So invite taking one slow effect. Do it right now. Take a nice deep breath, pause, and kind of let the room feel that pause. And it changes everything for you. It really does.

And so, normally, you know, the autonomic nervous system, putting on my doctor’s hat for a second, controls our heart rate, our breathing rate, all those things are part of the autonomic nervous system, which means they are being controlled without you being conscious of it. But the cool thing is you can become conscious of your breath. In fact, you can use it as a diagnostic and then a therapeutic agent. And what I mean by that is diagnostically if you suddenly become aware of your breath and ask yourself where am I breathing from? Am I breathing from up here shallow, fast, or am I breathing slow from my belly? And a good way to tell is put your one hand on your chest and one on your belly and take a deep breath. And where you should be feeling the expansion is actually in your belly because your diaphragm comes down and it pushes your organs out. So your belly goes out a little bit and that’s that’s deep breathing. And by first being aware if you’re shallow breathing then you’re probably anxious, you’re stressed out about stuff. And that breath, by taking a slow deep breath, which we just did, and we can do another one now, you’re taking control of your physiology.

And when you do that, it drives your psychology. It allows you to calm, become slower, pause and repeat. And now you can change. And by doing that, it’s a great thing you can do like once an hour or something. Just catch yourself. It can really help you start changing your physiologic state, which is critical for your long-term health. So step three is: ask a better question. You know, better questions shape better identities, not what should I do? Could I? Should I? Need to? Those are not words. You want: what I desire, what I want, what I love. That language says something that is important to you. And so you want to ask, what do I love? What would I love to do? What is important? What gives me foundationally this feeling of involvement and fulfillment? So there’s always a different road you can take. And a lot of the roads that we take every day, the well-beaten path as you can see are not the ones that take us really where we want to go. Asking the question where do we want to go?

And so that is the next question. Who do I want to be right now? What do I want to represent? This is basically the heart of everything I’m talking about today. It’s like that awareness and how do we make modifications. You know, what do I want to be right now? Well, I wanted to come on this call today. I met with Rachel and Chris before and I love doing this call because if this helps you move the dial it does help your relationships. It helps your health, helps all the key areas in your life. And we want to know that you are the pilot and it’s not autopilot — only autopilot for the things that are mundane, driving your car, but the things that really matter. Our relationships, how we interact, how we focus on what we’re eating, how we’re relieving stress, how we are sleeping, all those things are things you have control over. And we know intuitively, we’ve heard it till we’re blue in the face that this is what I should do to be healthy. But awareness is important. You know, I just finished writing my new book, My Prescription for Life, which sold out. It was picked by Amazon as number one in the new releases in the health sector.

While I wrote that book, I wore a glucose monitor the whole time. And that gave me instant presence and feedback to everything I ate. I knew what it was doing to my body. I could see whether my blood sugar stayed normal or whether it went up. If it went up and spiked, that was something that was stimulating insulin. We know now that the chief metabolic dysfunction that we have comes from insulin resistance and building metabolic dysfunction. So, that awareness of wearing that monitor changed everything. I’ve lost 15 pounds. My I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. My metabolic age is 20 years less than my chronological age. You don’t have any control over when you were born, but you do have control over how you live. So, you should be asking that question in all the key areas of your life. Hopefully, that’s helpful.

And then four is choose the next small act. Basically, it’s small act. It’s not big overhauls. It’s just directional change. Direction beats intensity. So you can see this guy’s looking at which, you know, which choice should they make, which ladder should they go up? And that’s all in your control. And it’s not like you’re going to have these breakthroughs where all of a sudden everything’s going to change overnight. That’s not how it works. It works by making small new choices that move you towards where you want to be. So these are tiny conscious actions, but they rewrite your identity over time. It’s kind of like your standards. I know that every morning I — no matter what, and I got in late last night traveling from the mountains, but every morning when I get up I make my bed. It’s a habit I have. It kind of starts the day in the right way and it changes your identity of who you are. And it sounds so impatismal but it makes all the difference. And I have to tell you in the evening I also have a mattress cover that’s refrigerated. It’s actually a hydro mattress that cools off and keeps my core temperature cool. I can tell you when I go to bed and my bed’s made and I pull down the sheet, the covers, and basically I get in that bed, that bed is comfortable. It’s ready. It’s different than if I went into a messy bed that didn’t have the pillows and everything in order. So all these things may seem like they’re small, and they are, but they make such a big difference.

So, your awareness, getting off autopilot, thinking about what you’re going to be doing today, this morning, thinking about now as you finish this, maybe taking notes, maybe asking a question when I finish in a couple minutes here. But awareness basically reinforces a very simple pathway. This is the model to remember. Awareness allows you to make different choices. Choices change the direction. Direction changes your identity. And as you raise your standards, you become — you know one of the things, obviously, that I’m always helping people with is becoming a healthy person — when you’re a healthy person and now your identity has changed your direction and your standards have now increased like making your bed. You no longer feel like you’re sacrificing when, “Oh, I can’t have that piece of pizza.” No. You could have that piece of pizza, but you’ve chosen to be a healthy person and a healthy person doesn’t want that pizza because they know how they’re going to feel afterwards. And occasionally, you know, when I was in Vail, we went out to dinner and we shared — and I don’t eat desserts anymore, just don’t really care for them, but you know, we go to our favorite restaurant, where I used to have the sand pie, and rather than order one for myself, basically, order one for the table and I’ll go ahead and have a couple bites of it, have some hot tea with it, and it’s a pleasurable experience, the taste, but it’s no longer this thing I do. I don’t desire it. I want just a taste of it. And 95% of our taste satisfaction comes in the first three bites. So, this is about taking control. It’s about becoming aware, by slowing the momentum.

This is your life. Basically, bring ownership to yourself. This is about authorship of your own life. This is your future. Make it yours, not someone else’s. Not someone on TV that says you need to have that — again, the pizza — from whatever that’s sitting there with the cheese dripping off. They’re doing everything to get the addictive dopamine centers in your brain. And that’s serving them because they’re selling you something that they want to sell you, but it’s not serving you. It’s not the future you want. So, you have to make those decisions for yourself. So, practice this. Every day, a micro practice is simply this. Pause. Breathe. And then choose. So, it’s in essence Stop. Challenge. Choose. Right? You basically, when you start to feel that icky sauce, you know, I shouldn’t be eating that or I should get off the couch. I’ve been watching the fourth episode in a row. These things I know aren’t good for me. So, pause, breathe, and then choose. Turn off the TV, go for a walk, play a game with your family. Do something with that means something that really matters.

So in conclusion in essence presence is about slowing down. Silence is a big part of this message. You know one of the things about pausing and taking the breath and just creating the space the silence they have retreats where people go for a 10 day silent retreat where you don’t say you’re a group of people but you don’t say anything for 10 days, now I haven’t got to the point where I’m ready to do that yet. I don’t know if I could go that long without talking, but I do know that those quiet moments, I’m fortunate now, I live on the ocean, and in the morning when I wake up, I’ll go sit outside and look out at the pelicans. Usually they’re out working. They’re having breakfast, you know. We see dolphins here a lot. And there’s the tranquility of looking out in the expansiveness of the ocean, just like the one I showed you, the lady looking out on the sand flats. Those moments, those silent moments, allow you to kind of put in perspective that you’re not just on a hamster wheel. You’re not on autopilot just getting through every day, and at the end of the day being exhausted and feeling this frustration, this powerlessness to change that. You have full fundamental control over that. And it’s about taking the locus of control, becoming fully responsible self, and then moving forward and building relationships with others. So all right. Well, basically, let’s go to the questions. Rachel, who we got?

Rachel: All right. First up, we have Rhaena. Hi, Rhaena. If you come off mute. There you go.

Rhaena: Hi. Hey, Dr. A. So, I’ve made some big decisions in the last two weeks. One is resigning as a nurse at the hospital I’ve worked at for 29 and a half years to commit fully to helping others with Opativa. And so what would, if my — going forward I need to believe more in myself. I right now, I feel like I’m at 100% believing in myself but just adding 10% more I think would — because it’s scary, you know, I’m depending on myself. So any advice on that?

Dr. A: Yeah. That’s — first of all, congratulations, that’s great. Second of all, Rhaena, bottom line, is I’m going to say something that’s going to sound a little controversial about belief, but belief isn’t the critical part. The belief in the things you do, in other words, why you’re doing them, that’s critical, but belief in yourself is something that comes by self-efficacy. It comes by growth. It comes by, you know, we talk about the gain in the gap. You know, the gain is what’s happened as you’re now moving into this full-time occupation as you’re changing. And as you build more, as you build your team, then that will build you the self-efficacy or the confidence. Right now, know this, that the benefits that you have by basically focusing and organizing your life around what matters most is what fuels your growth, because now your response — it’s a little scary, because basically, now you’re responsible. Before you were in the system. You were in a system where you were a nurse. You provided a medical, but you weren’t working for yourself. You were working within a system as an employee.

And here’s the big difference. Once you’re over the fear, and the fear really is that you just never been fully, it’s kind of like, you know, when I lived in Annapolis, we had an osprey pole out off our dock. And every spring, we watch the osprey come. They’d mate. They’d build a nest. They’d have their eggs. The eggs would turn into little hatchlings. The hatchlings would start to grow. At first, the mom and the dad would basically bring the fish, eat the fish, and regurgitate it and give it to the babies or open their mouth. Then they would tear off little strips and feed it to the babies. Then they would just throw the whole fish in. And then eventually they would sit up in the trees and the babies would have to get off the nest and go feed themselves. Right?

So you’re moving to that point now where you’re fully responsible for your life. But here’s the coolest thing. Everything you do now benefits the things that you love. You organize your life around what matters most. You pick the times of the day. You can add your exercise. You can add other things you like to do, travel, and yet you can do something which is what you really set up when you became a nurse, which was to help people create health, not react to disease. So you’ve got yourself now in a coordinated position where just, do the work, and bury yourself in the work and then we’ll tell you when to look up. But if you just stay focused on the work and the work is to help people and to find the people that want to join you because, you know, now that we move into this age of metabolic health — I mean everything, I sat on a plane last night on the way home next to a gentleman who was considerably overweight. I was watching, you know, we had our meals served to us and I watched him eat every morsel, including, you know, there was a cookie that came in the plastic. I looked down, it was like 320 calories, right? It was just this thick sugary chocolate thing. And I watched him eat all that. And then I watched him fall asleep and he was snoring. He obviously has sleep apnea — he would love me to tell you all this. I didn’t know I didn’t really even know his name. I said hi to him, but he was in his own little, he was on autopilot, right? And he was doing, and he was watching a movie on TV, which I don’t need to get into. But the point is he was making several choices in that time period that was worsening his metabolic health. He had to go up and go to the bathroom like 10 times. So he is on autopilot and has no idea. He’s probably, you would have seen him in the hospital, you know, getting another operation or sick or diabetes out of control or whatever. And now in the world I live in and what I teach now is that what we’re doing is actually combating the world we live in, but doing it in a way where it becomes doable, where it’s part of a group working together. There’s an underlying structure of health, taking The Habits of Health, now with My Prescription for Life, if people want to use it.

I talked to a few people when I was in Vail that are on the drugs, and they’re scared because they don’t they know if they come off they’re going to gain their weight back, and so basically I had a great talk with them and they — fortunately the book is back, it was out of stock — it’s back, and they bought it and one of them already text me they got it like last week and they said this book has changed my life and actually there’s a book club of 1.2 two million people that say this is everybody that’s going to be using it. They need to have My Prescription for Life, because they need to understand why — it’s not just an injection. There’s nothing that’s going to change your life completely by itself outside of you. It’s an inside job. Now, that’s a very valuable tool and for people that are addicted to processed food, unhealthy processed food, it’s a great opportunity.

The point I’m making is that you’re now in the sweet spot of why you became a nurse, which is to help people. You have the ability, and I can tell you the physicians that use our program and our mission, their happiest time of the week is when their patients come in that are now creating health for themselves because they’re getting off medicines. And you know, that’s what I always ask doctors, when was the last time you lowered or eliminated a medicine? This doesn’t happen. What this is about is helping people take command and control. And I can just see the smile on your face. You’re now resonating. And if you do the work and you realize that beyond this work is to build partners, people that want to join you and become a coach with you, that’s how we leverage and that’s how we get this country healthy. So, I have no question in my mind. You’re going to do great. You just need to do the work and don’t worry about the individual feedback of each individual thing you do, that it has no reflection on you. You are the creator. The creation is you creating a huge successful team of people actually health coaches versus nurses or doctors that want to help other people get healthy and then in that case they help themselves because they’re doing it, teaching it, living it, and becoming it. So you’re in the sweet spot. This is what you’ve always wanted. It’s a little scary because you’re out on your own, but the benefits are you’re your own boss. That’s the key part now is to become your own boss. Does that make sense?

Rhaena: Absolutely. Yes.

Dr. A: Awesome.

Rhaena: And I have this great community, too.

Dr. A: Great. Awesome. So, let’s go get the world healthy.

Rhaena: You got it.

Dr. A: All right. Sounds good. Okay. Who else do we have, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Rick. Hi, Rick.

Dr. A: Hey, Rick. How are you?

Rachel: Where’d you go?

Dr. A: I saw him for a second.

Rachel: There he is.

Dr. A: There he is. You’re just going for a walk on this crisp day.

Rick: Yeah, it’s kind of mild here in Salt Lake this winter. So, it’s nice.

Dr. A: Good. Well, good, but you need the snow.

Rick: Yeah, we do need the snow. Need to go skiing, too.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Rick: You mentioned about wearing the glucose monitor. I was curious about that. How long did you wear it? And is that beneficial for somebody to try as a do-it-yourself or just for self-awareness?

Dr. A: The answer is, you know, I obviously, I have no financial reason. So, I want to make sure I’m saying this totally as a physician, talking to you for potential benefit. The answer is absolutely yes. Now, it’s not cheap. They cost about, you can do it for a month for about a little under $100. I think the cost is coming down, and you get two, they last 14 days and then you switch out. So you would get enough for a month. The answer is, I think it’s highly valuable because it gives you, you know, feedback is the breakfast of champions. You know people that really want to improve themselves, whatever it is, feedback is critical. The beauty of the glucose monitor, I wore mine all the way through — in fact, I still wear one. Because I really — like when I went to Vail, I had one on because I want to make sure that, I mean, obviously, I’m very active even though the snow’s not great, out skiing pretty much every day. I want to make sure that, you know, things that I am eating that I’m maintaining a normal metabolic rate and glucose and all those things. So I use it and it’s kind of, I treat myself to it. But the answer is, yes.

Especially in the beginning, for anybody. It’s very simple. It comes with, you download an app., it actually follows and tracks your blood sugar throughout the day. There’s even a journal where you can write down things you’re eating so you can look and see if something spikes. You can look back and see what you ate and start eliminating that stuff. It gives you real time feedback. So rather than the theoretically — so I wrote The Habits of Health, the first one in 2008, and at that time I used a gentleman out of Canada, an MD that did a lot of work on glycemic index, and so I used the charts that were produced from their laboratory, where they studied people eating stuff and seeing how much it raised their blood sugar. This time I wanted to make sure, in the new book, My Prescription for Life, I wanted to make sure that I was totally aware of what does and what doesn’t affect your blood sugar.

So, I wore it and I lost almost 20 pounds and metabolically, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. Actually skiing this time, you know, my daughter’s 25 and keeping up with her, like she’s amazed that I can still do that and I can actually feel my cardiovascular fitness is greater because I’m metabolically very very optimized. So the answer is yes. It’s really easy to use. It will show you stuff and you can do it for a month or longer if you want. You can find out in one month, you can find out — if cost isn’t an issue — you can find out in one month the things that are currently in your pattern. So what I just talked about this talk, about your life and your patterns and your autopilot, It takes you off autopilot because you see immediately what’s going on with what you’re eating. So yes, I think it’s, I think it can be, you know, Rick, it can be really really valuable and I’d love to see you try it and let me know how it works for you.

Rick: Yeah, I’m going to try it. Thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah, good. You’re welcome. Cool. Awesome. And by the way, in My Prescription for Life, not that I’m trying to pander the book, but I have a whole section on it because I talk about how valuable I found it and about the little insights it can give you and it’s really cool because we’re all a little different and we metabolize things differently and so you can individualize for yourself.

Rick: Yeah.

Dr. A: And I mean I’ve been teaching health and Optimal Health and Wellbeing for 25 years and I thought I was pretty healthy, but by wearing that during that time period, it dramatically improved my health. So I do recommend it.

Rick: Very cool.

Dr. A: Awesome. Okay. Who else we got, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up we have Teva.

Dr. A: Wow! Teva looks like she’s cold.

Teva: I’m a dog walker [crosstalk 00:33:10]. I used to be a sales rep and Covid happened and I started walking dogs. And I was like, I like this a lot more than sales, and I love dogs more than people and I made a very late life change and I never thought I’d be one of those people who could say, “I do what I love and I love what I do.” That’s me now! So very grateful for that. I wanted to initially, just come on and make a comment, but I’ll follow my comment with a question. First of all, I want to thank you personally. As a dog walker, I had a tree branch fall across my head at the end of October and at the urging of a friend who kept saying, “Natasha Richardson. Natasha Richardson.” I went and got a scan. I wasn’t going to. I was going to go home. I felt fine. And they found — I knew I had a meningioma like 20 years before, but I stopped following it. Like 2013 to 2015 was my last comparison scan and it was teeny tiny. And the doctor’s like, “Oh, they hardly ever grow. They’re always benign.” So, I forgot about it.

Well, when they did the scan after the tree branch hit me, she said, “We found something in your brain and it’s squishing your brain. We want to transport you to, you know, another hospital where there’s a neurosurgeon on staff.” And I was like, “What the hell are you talking about?” Anyway, long story short, sometimes a tree branch falls and kills you, and sometimes it saves your life. And in my case, it saved my life. I met the neurosurgeon at Columbia Presbyterian in Manhattan on a Friday. I said, “I’m your mom. When are you taking this thing out of my head?” He said, “I’d like to see you next week.” So, it was a big deal. I had a lot of swelling from the growth, and it was very vascular, and I was probably this close from a major seizure and possibly stroke. So, my thank you is because of this program and my phenomenal coach, Coach Dibs, I was able to make it through that surgery without any complications. I went in at 227 pounds with no metabolic, I’m type 2 diabetic, fully controlled and as opposed to 215 pounds, morbidly obese, with fluctuating, controlled diabetes. And I absolutely, for anyone who’s new to this program, I absolutely, you know, what’s the word? I’m still losing words, but I really give credit to this program and thank you. Thank you for helping me to save my life. 

So, I wanted to say that to you. I’m doing great. The only issue that I’m having right now is they have me on these anti-seizure medications which are really kicking my tuchus, right? They’re — I am going, like emotional, and have all this neuropathy, and I have a lot of — my poor husband and son, and I know that’ll pass when I get off the meds and I’m thankfully have like the tools of the program, I’m doing box breathing, I’m trying to like use a lot of the Habits of Health to try to remember that you know this will pass, you know, not to get into the fear, really to try to take it like a day at a time and what I just wanted to know, as a medical doctor, do you have any suggestions? I got off Keppra, because I had Keppra rage, and now I’m on something else, but it’s still got a lot of the same symptoms. Any suggestions on just getting through this until I get to the other side? Because I don’t want to derail. If it wasn’t for the dogs, I would have checked out over the last two years. I thought I had like mental issues and you know, it was bad. It was really bad, but it’s getting so much better every day. So, just wanted to put that out to you, if you have any feedback for me.

Dr. A: Yeah. No, no. I think that’s great. First of all, the most important thing is your attitude, which I love. You know, you looked at things and you looked in the right perspective. You got hit by a branch. Saved your life. Bottom line is, and there’s a place, you know, I’m a critical care physician by trade, cardiac anesthesiologist. I trained at Cleveland. There’s a time and a place. Like for instance, I slipped a few months ago. I slipped and torn my median collateral ligament and, you know, but and I was going skiing, right? In seven weeks, and so I’m going [Dr. A gestures with his hands]. So basically, physical therapy working with the ski team, the physical therapist that does the ski team for Michaela Schiffer and all the Olympic skiers. So I went and used that as therapy and actually even got an MRI and saw there was a meniscal damage too. But the point is, by putting it in the right function and skiing and actually just going slow and then going up to full speed, my knee is better now than it was before. So why I’m saying that your body has an inherent capacity to heal itself and over time it will.

Now obviously you had a space occupying lesion that needed modern medicine to get rid of. The medicines that they’re giving you now are just as the healing occurs and as you get better and they all have side effects. That’s that’s the problem with medicines and that’s why over time the things you’re doing, getting out, being active, exercising, taking the dogs for a walk, doing something like you said you love, and keeping this in control, drinking lots of water, making sure your body is functioning through all that, making sure you’re eating healthy, nothing that’s high glycemic so that you’re maintaining, because high blood sugar can create the potential for seizures as well. So there’s all these things that you’re already doing. I would just continue doing those. And you know, drinking a lot of water, eating a lot of healthy foods will help your body heal itself and over time you’ll be able to come off them. And and the most important thing is here, during the period, if you start sensing that, remove yourselves from that stimulus. Kind of what this talk was today, right?

Teva: Right. Right.

Dr. A: Where you’re not getting triggered. You’re getting off autopilot and you’re taking control. If you start to feel a little off, then make sure you’re hydrated, getting yourself extra hydrated, you know, making sure you’re eating, you’re not going too long so that your blood sugar drops, especially with, you know, type two diabetes. You know, eventually you should be able to get off your medicines completely, you know, over time, you know, if you continue to work on yourself, and it’ll happen. And that’s the great thing about it. But I think as a whole, I think the most important thing you have going for you is you have the right attitude and you’re grateful, appreciative. And just be really, again, going back to awareness, be so aware and control your breathing, making sure you’re not getting anxious about stuff. The reason why you love animals, because animals don’t give you any negative feedback, right?

Teva: Right.

Dr. A: I mean, think about it, a dog, you could be gone all day long, right? And you come home, you open the door and they’re sitting there and their tails wagging and they’re, you know, just so happy to see you.

Teva: They’re all love. Absolutely.

Dr. A: Yeah. And so I think, you know, fall into the things you love doing and control the things when you sense that with your breathing and just use that and eventually you’ll be able to come off these medicines because the medicines by themselves have side effects and you know, they don’t belong in your body. They’re there to treat a symptom you have related to your, basically, your lesion that they’ve now removed and they want to make sure they keep you safe in the meantime. But as that heals, you’ll be able to come off those things working with your doctor.

Teva: Thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Teva: And thank you again. I don’t know if I’d be here if it wasn’t for this wonderful program, and for you, ultimately, because you put it together. So, I just personally wanted to say thank you.

Dr. A: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Have a great one. Happy New Year. Okay.

Rachel: We have Rosalie.

Dr. A: Hi, Rosalie.

Rachel: Did I say that right? Oh, we can’t hear you. You’ll just need to come off mute. 

Rosalie: There we go.

Rachel: Okay.

Rosalie: All right. Thanks so much for everything. I wasn’t planning on asking a question live, so excuse my appearance. But I really wanted to ask you this question. I actually, ironically, did a post this morning about a morning routine, and that’s something I’ve been rocking for a few years now, thanks to you. Love it. But I struggle so much with an evening routine and I know how beneficial it is. This morning somehow I magically woke up like at 4:30 and I couldn’t sleep anymore, and I woke up and it was awesome, because I had so much time. That’s my goal is to wake up at 5 or you know 5:30 every morning. But I juggle two things. I’ve come out of a tricky relationship and kind of navigating a few different things and so I teach violin, which I love, that goes kind of late into the evening and then I’ve got client calls and things like that. Then I have a lot more things to do. So, I love what I’ve read from you about the evening routine, but it’s so hard for me mentally to give myself permission to stop working because I’ve got this big list of things that, I hate to go to sleep, because I know that means they’re not done yet. So, a lot of times, it’s a little vulnerable, but I end up just falling asleep in midwork and it’s not a great way to do it, but I struggle to give myself that permission to stop.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, no. And that’s, you know, you’re obviously, you enjoy what you’re doing. You like to get things done. You’re a semi-perfectionist and you want to make sure everything gets done. That’s not the purpose of life. The purpose of life is to basically, first of all maintain your physical health at the optimum. The more optimal your physical health, the more effective you are at every moment in your day, right? You’re more aware, you’re more present, you’re able to think arithmetically at higher numbers as long as you’re getting your eight hours of sleep. So, it’s fine if you get up at four, but that means you got to be in bed by nine. Okay? So, you got to pay attention to that and you’re waking up ready to go. And if you’re fully rested, that’s awesome, but make sure you’re still getting your seven to eight hours of sleep. Eight hours is ideal. And then, the thing in the routine in the evening, you’ve got to give yourself that hour, that twilight hour, right, where your body is now going to its repairative mode. Because with that, if you’re cognitively fully alert, your RAZ or your reticular activating system is hyped up and you’re just going and you basically stay up later than you should, that stuff will all be there tomorrow. The whole thing is about what’s the one thing. I always like to go down to what’s the one thing. What are the key things that are important in your life? And you know, Jim Dethmer, a dear friend of mine, that wrote the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, talks about a full body yes.

It’s really important that you’re saying yes to the things that you feel in your mind, in your heart, and in your gut. If it’s not a full body yes, you have to stop because you’re basically obligated to things that aren’t critical. And if they’re not critical and you’re trying to get them all done and they’re not critical, so you need to look and kind of prioritize what one of the things that I like is that to keep a journal and like the 12 main things that you do — like this is one of the things today I’m doing. I’m doing the Conscious Forum. This is one of the things today to me, this is one of the high item things that I look forward to. I actually put this presentation together on the plane coming back from Vail yesterday. I wanted to make sure that it was fresh, that I just created it, and that it was visually in a fashion that could help. And so that was the priority for me. So on the plane, rather than what everybody else was doing was watching some ridiculous movie, drinking and not doing anything because they worked so hard while they were out skiing in Vail, I guess. I don’t know. But the bottom line is, I worked on being productive. So I use that time period because there’s no phones, nothing. I can just work on it and that was a priority.

So depending, you’ve got the morning figured out and you get up you have this list of things make sure there are the three main areas that are critical to move you forward to what you want for your your goals and I’m talking about your health goals, your optimal mental health goals, and then obviously your your business goals. You want to make sure that you have the priorities of what is actually creating value there. Right? So that’s a really important thing for you. And then make sure you’re shutting it down. You got to shut it down because if you don’t — your mind cannot go from fully on to fully off. And so and if you’re passing out, just falling asleep, then that’s not good either because you’ve got to have that buffer because if you pass out because you’re exhausted, and you’re not in the right mindset and your mind’s there, you’re going to have dreams. You’re going to have all these things and your ability for your brain to refrag and organize those things and make order to them doesn’t happen and so it just builds up that anxiety level and that stress and then pretty soon you think, “God. I just can’t get everything done and I want to get more done.” So, you’ve got to be responsible and you’re the one that’s critical when you lay your head down.

And that hour before should be the gift you’re giving yourself. That gift of relaxing, taking, you know, I love for people to take like a hot bath because, you know, cool, you know, the routine I have. I have a cooling mattress, as well I turn my temperature down about an hour. I cool off the room. I pull the sheets down so the sheets get cooler even though there’s a thermal mattress as well. I basically take a hot bath or a hot shower, and then I go into the room and the room is totally black. It’s basically sound. You can’t, you know, I hear the ocean and that’s it, which is beautiful. I don’t need a sound machine. And then I lay down and I’m asleep in, I don’t know 10, 15 minutes. I sleep throughout the night and I wake up totally refreshed, right? And naturally. And actually my mattress has a vibratory component to it where it’ll pulse in the morning, which is kind of neat. It’s a nice way of waking up versus an alarm. I’m off a little bit right now because of the two hour time difference between Mountain Time and Eastern Time. So this morning it actually woke me up. But I can tell you that making sure you’re in control of that evening time period is critical. It’s like, you know, making sure your brain is getting the opportunity — and one of the things I talk about in My Prescription for Life, my new book, is it’s kind of like you have a street washer. We didn’t realize this until recently, but in the middle of the night, your brain actually shrinks a little bit more. And it allows the CSF, the cerebral spinal fluid, to bathe over your brain because there’s more, because the brain’s a little smaller. It allows us to — it’s like a street washer, right? It allows us to clean the street. It gets rid of amyloid and these different protein byproducts that are made by the brain, which are great cognitive decline over time.

So it allows — and things like ambient don’t allow that process to happen. That’s why people think, “Well, I’m getting to sleep better,” but actually, medication, sleep medications, hypnotics, over time are not anywhere near as healthy as making sure you’re getting a good night’s sleep naturally. So yeah, that part is really important for you and you’ll find it’ll be more effective — and if you go through and do — Oh, so one last thing about the journal. So write down the things you’ve done during the day and then basically ask yourself, each one of these things, did it lead — Oh, first of all, the most important thing is to organize your life around what matters most. What’s most important? Obviously your health, your mental health, your financial health, whatever is important to you. Those are your goals, right? And then that informs you of what you do during the day. So then if you have 12 things you’ve written down that you did, then take a, I like to take a green, an orange, and a red marker, and ask each one. Look at each thing you spent time doing and look to see, is this something that is leading me to what I want in my life? And then put a green by that. Is it something that’s neutral, not having an effect one way or the other? And use a yellow or an orange. And then this is something that’s leading me away from what I want. Put a red. And then, so if you do that every day and look at it, you want to see as you go, kind of like how I designed the LifeBook, you’re adding more colors, more things, you’re adding more substance that are the Habits of Health to your life. Same thing here. You’re looking to see and progress through the days of your journal. They should be going more green. Does that make sense?

Rosalie: Yeah, it’s a great idea.

Dr. A: Yeah. And the first thing you can do is, the most important thing you do is, try to, every day, add a green and remove a red. If you do that, that quantum shift is like in football when someone intercepts on the one yard line and there’s a 14 point change in the game, right? In other words, those — maybe… it didn’t seem like that resonated with you, but being a guy football [Dr. A and Rosalie laugh], but the point is, the point is, when you add a green and remove a red, that’s a dramatic shift. Those are the small little incremental improvements you make that change everything.

Rosalie: Okay, I thought you’d be good to ask. Those are great ideas. I’ve tried to furiously type some notes on my computer and I’ll rewatch this.

Dr. A: Well yeah, you can rewatch this is, you know ,you can go to my site: drwayneandersen.com, and you can watch this as many times as you want.

Rosalie: Okay.

Dr. A: Yeah. And then share with people too. This forum is designed for anybody that wants to improve their health and their life. I mean I enjoy this. This is my way of giving back. I really love to help people and everybody is capable of improving their health in their life.

Rosalie: Yeah. I feel like for me, that nighttime is the one thing that’ll change everything and I’ve just really struggled and I thought you’d be great because you’re clearly busy and but I would imagine, you know, you might have a day or two or some days where you’ve got a pile of things to do but I guess because you know the benefit firsthand of having that nighttime routine even if you’re tempted, you don’t stay up past your — is that how you operate? You just don’t?

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. No, I don’t. I don’t, and actually for me, in the evenings, I mean, I don’t watch TV during the day. I don’t watch the news — it’s not that I ignore the news. I go online and get a little overview of what’s going on in the world, but I don’t, it’s like the serenity prayer. Most of the stuff there’s very little you can do and if you bring that input in and you start ruminating over it, there’s no positive value. It’s all cost and no benefit. That’s why this talk today, about practice daily, becoming aware, getting off of autopilot and really being aware in the present moment, especially just like this like, I mean, I think you can tell I’m not looking anywhere, looking at the time, I’m focused totally on you, right? And that’s the level of presence and awareness that you want in everything you do. That’s what creates excellence. That’s what — there’s less talking in your actions are really supporting that. And you know, people spend so much time talking about stuff, it’s actually what you do that matters. And so for yourself, one of the things you need to do for yourself is make sure you’re treating this precious thing called your brain in a way that you’re getting high quality sleep and turning it off. Turn it off. Turn it on in the morning, turn it off at night, and then allow your body to have that recovery period. That’s — I would say this the secret to me,  being biologically 20 years younger than my chronological age is sleep. It’s more important than anything. Sleep is not a luxury. It is the critical ingredient that most people ignore and there’s nothing more important.

Rosalie: Well, that was the other question I was going to ask because I’m 59 and I thought I felt so young. I thought, “Oh, my new scale is going to tell me that I’m 40 or 45.” It says I’m 62. So…

Dr. A: Okay, there’s a message there. And you know what? And that’s not to beat yourself up. That’s to give you the reality. Rick asked me about using a glucose monitor.

Rosalie: Yeah.

Dr. A: Reality is an acquired taste. But Robert Fritz, a dear friend of mine, who does a lot of work on the creative process said that. And that’s desired outcome and current reality, knowing where you are — and I can tell you that I didn’t get the new monitor that does this until like the last couple weeks, but I can tell you that two years ago before I started writing the book, wearing the monitor, losing that weight, getting my waist circumference down to what it was in high school, my biological age would have not been close to that. And so that’s the biggest gift you can give yourself. And I tell you, your sleep is critical. It’s critical for everything because here’s the other thing. What happens mentally, what’s happening, is you’re defragging, organizing your brain. It’s putting order to things. It’s resolving any internal conflict. But physiologically, that’s the time where you go into a fasted state. And in a fasted state, that’s why you don’t want to have a, certainly don’t want to have a sugar starch meal before dinner, before sleep, but also you want to hopefully not have that at any time. And what ends up happening is when you go to sleep, your body goes into what we call a fasting state. Your blood sugar is low, which lowers your insulin, and you go into a fat burning. And that’s the normal metabolic flexibility is when you have the opportunity, while you’re sleeping is to burn preferentially fat. And that’s great because your brain loves it. It goes into a little bit of mild fat burning or ketones. That uses that as a great energy source. It allows you to sleep better. And then when you wake up, you’re refreshed and ready to go.

Rosalie: Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re so welcome.

Rosalie: That was so helpful.

Dr. A: All right. Good. I love to hear that. All right. Well, we have time, I think, Rach, for — we got about six, four or five minutes. One more.

Rachel: Yes, we have one more from Jan. Hey, Jan.

Dr. A: Okay, there’s one of my favorite people. Hi, Jan.

Jan: Hi, Dr. A. Hey. I just had to follow Rosalie, because I have the privilege of working with her and I brought it up as you were finishing with her about how that helps to keep us young when we sleep and I know that that’s important to her. So that’s all I was going to bring up was that it helps to keep you young Ricky. Oh, her nickname is Ricky. So that’s why that’s the biggest reason why you want to sleep. And then also, I know for me, I want to keep that brain healthy. And when that cerebral spinal fluid is like washing over and everything, I’m like trying to use my brain so that it stays sharp for all of my life. And I think if you could tell us, if not giving it that chance, is it kind of predisposing us to problems down the road, right?

Dr. A: Yeah. No, absolutely. In fact, this Saturday, we’re releasing the new documentary on Galacia, Spain. And I went over there a couple months ago, and really looked at Spain’s, that area is going to be Spain’s first blue zone. And 12% of the population lives to be over 100. And I interviewed a 102 year old lady, and she’s just as sharp and active. Her body, you know, she needs to use a cane, but she refuses to use a walker, so she uses a couple canes. But she’s moving along. She goes to a community area every day, meets association, all the key things that we teach in the Habits of Health about community and basically learning to eat healthy and move more. All those things are critical. And so, you know, one of the things that excites me is that people that naturally have done those things and have kind of protected themselves against ultra-processed, unhealthy food, sedentary lifestyle, being isolated from each other, having that community. All those things are so critical and that’s, you know, that’s kind of a little bit what we’re doing here is a microcosm for people to come on and realize that, you know, people can help each other create health and it’s a critical part of longevity. So Jan, again, thanks for everything you do and looks like you’re well on the way to having a great partner there.

Jan: Oh, yeah. She’s amazing and I just appreciate these forums so much and you are definitely one of my faves as well. So, thank you.

Dr. A: Thank you. All right. Great. Everybody, have a great week, and we’ll see you next month. Bye.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: Just to make sure, if you’re a first-time listener or viewer, the forum is designed for us to really discuss consciousness, awareness, what’s going on in our life in terms of how we’re showing up in the world. And today I’ve kind of set up for what I think is one of the most important things that we can have in our life. And it’s really about psychological flexibility. I really look at that in the world we live in now with AI moving along really fast, is that’s your superpower. That’s the part that allows you to go through and maintain internal stability and external equilibrium with the people and the things that you are surrounded by.

So today: How to Accept and Grow from Life’s Challenges. Basically, this is an essential skill for conscious living. It’s not just surviving challenges, but growing through them. We don’t choose the storms we’re in, but basically we choose who we become within those storms. So with that, life doesn’t happen to you. Life happens for you, if you’re willing to learn. Now, I’ve learned through decades of medicine and coaching and helping people build consciousness. Challenges are not detours. They’re going to happen. They’re the curriculum for life. And every challenge has two layers. The events and the meaning. So, let’s talk about those two layers. First, the event is what’s happening. The meaning is what we bring to it. Growth occurs in the meaning layer, not in the circumstance layer. So, as you can see, the outer event, the thing that’s happened to you, you can’t control.

There’s so many variables in our life, starting with when we get up or even when we’re sleeping to the time we go to bed and put our head on the pill. There’s so many things that are going to happen and we don’t have control over a lot of it. And unfortunately, we would like to have control over everything. And our ego, our personal mind would like to control everything in our lives. And that’s the problem. The inner meaning is what really is your choice? How do I respond to these challenges? How do I learn from them and how do I grow? So what is this challenge here to reveal or grow within me? You’ve got to shift from, “Why me,” to, “What is this revealing?” That moves you from victimhood into consciousness. This is where you move from being, basically, with no control to being the Dominant Force of your life, which I always talk about.

So basically, acceptance isn’t the same as resignation. It’s not giving up. It’s just seeing reality without distortion. It opens the space where conscious choice becomes possible. And it’s important that we have, in this part, clear communication of actually what’s going on. Engagement, making sure we’re not denying it or pushing it away. And then, as we’re in this situation, decision making, being clear on the choices and what choice makes the most sense to move us forward and create what’s most important in our life. So, the three levels of responding to challenge. First is react, second is to understand, and the third is to create. This is where real growth occurs in our life. So the first, the egoic level, is the reaction part. That’s our personal mind responding to it. The cognitive level is the coping. It’s starting to understand and deal with it, but it’s not quite there. The conscious level is when we now take that space, that event, and we help it create consciousness and create in our life what we most want, which makes the most sense to move us forward. Not based on our egoic or even our contemplation or coping, but actually how do we create? How do we take it, become the Dominant Force and move forward through the situation being in charge?

So let’s talk about those three levels. First the egoic reaction. This is the unconscious level. Everything feels personal here. There’s no growth, only repetition. This is when people keep repeating the same behaviors over and over. It’s when I watch news, the different news stations. Everybody kind of takes this theme, the others to blame. It’s part of the Drama Triangle. And there’s this autopilot, this fight, defend, blame. And identity feels threatened. The personal mind feels threatened here because things outside its control are involved. So we’re trying to make it right. We’re trying to be closed, defensive, and want to be right so that we get through it. Basically, the second level is the cognitive coping, you know, but it’s still coping. We’re analyzing, but we’re not transforming yet. This is managing our emotions. This is what we’re going to talk about, which you’ve heard me talk about for years, and Stop. Challenge. Choose., it’s about understanding the patterns. Understanding, why have I reacted previously to this? But it’s still mostly intellectual and it’s important for us to become part of our being.

So that leads to the third part. Consciousness equals choice. Choice equals growth. Observing our thoughts. Here the challenge becomes an invitation. The level transform our identity. Use these challenges as fuel. Respond from a higher identity. So you’re actually using this. You know, obviously I teach a lot about health, about people creating physical health and mental health and in those areas, basically, it’s really important to know you become the Dominant Force, you take personal responsibility, you use the ancient stoics, both the Greeks and then the Romans to follow, talked about stoicism. The obstacle’s the way. This is how it challenges us to become more, and in our health, it’s never been more important. You shouldn’t have to look down and see a donut and say, “Oh, I’m not doing that, because I can’t right now, because I need to lose weight.” That’s the wrong attitude. The right attitude is that, you know, what I decide, this donut is not something I want because it doesn’t add, it actually, if you’re monitoring your glucose, you’ll see your glucose spike. You won’t feel as well. You’ll be extra hungry afterwards. And so you learn that this is not a choice that supports what I want to become, which is a healthy person.

That is very different than conflict manipulation. When you say to yourself, “I can’t have this,” or “I can’t have that,” this is about making those choices based on taking all these obstacles and looking at them in a way where they now become of you. Building you. Forging you into what you really want, which is organizing your life around matters most. And obviously your relationships, healthy relationships, healthy physical health, healthy emotional health, all these things are critical to live a fulfilled, happy life. So there’s three practices for growing through the challenges. They basically turn any challenge into growth. The first is Stop. Challenge. Choose., which I created this technology almost 20 years ago and I found it to be so useful, even in my own life, and with my kids, but so many people have talked about how it’s changed their life. It’s put them to now being in charge of their life. The second, structural tension, I studied many years ago with my dear friend Robert Fritz, we wrote a book together, but the bottom line is, structural tension is a mechanism to keep you focused on what’s most important and how to reach that and then the identity shift, that’s the part where we actually, over time, we raise our standards and we become a healthier person. We become a more successful person, whatever is important to us, and we move forward and really, fully enjoy life.

So let’s talk about it. Practice one is Stop. Challenge. Choose. I mean it’s been around — most of you have read about it in my books. It is in essence an interruption tool. I’ve never really labeled it that way before, but that’s what it does. It interrupts our pattern. The thing we’ve been doing, the thing that’s been holding us back, the thing that keeps us doing the same behaviors, that reactiveness, that reactive to our patterns, to our personal mind to do things, just reactive without thinking and certainly without conscious thought. And that interruption opens the door to consciousness. And the three parts are, Stop., which is breaking the pattern. You’re stopping because normally that stimulus would have you react in a certain way, like your kid leaves dishes in the sink or something, whatever it is, or someone says to you — something makes you think that they’re saying, “You’re stupid,” and going down that road. We break the pattern. We Challenge. We question the story we’re telling ourselves. Perceived threat is different then real threat. Our limbic area in our brain was designed to keep us from real threat so that we move back if a rattlesnake was in the trail but now most of our threats or perceived threats. There were things in our relationships where our personal ego is saying someone’s messing with us. So, question that story. Could the opposite be true? And then the third is, choose a higher response, one that supports you raising your identity and becoming more of what’s most important to you.

So, number two practice is structural tension. This is really about defining your current reality and the desired future you want for yourself. So, writing down — this is so important to decide, life is so chaotic now. There’s so many different variables and distractions. If you don’t know where you want to go, then you’re probably not going to get there. Someone else is going to have you do what they want you to do. Whether it’s clicking through TikTok or, you know, whatever it is, they’re going to waste your time and you’re not going to be on purpose. So, it’s really important to know what your desired outcome is and where you are right now. And the first part is, what is true right now in my life? In my health? In my ability to be around my kids? We just had Thanksgiving. How did Thanksgiving go? Were relationships great? Was it happy? Was it joyful? Were there arguments? Was there tension? Was there drama? You know, look at that and say, what is current reality and how I respond now to my environment? And how do I look at things the way they are now? How did I do in Thanksgiving? Did I eat everything that wasn’t nailed down? Did I let myself go totally out of control or did I do things within moderation? And the second part is — this is the most important — organize your life around what matters most. What did I want to create?

And then third, holding the tension between those two — between desired outcome and your current reality — will create this tension that will move you forward, to move towards what’s most important to you. That kind of motivation is easy because if motivation that’s designed around what matters most about the things that you have the highest value, you value the most, those things require little motivation. It’s the things that are highly non-motivational that we’ll get stuck with every time. And then the third is identity shift. It’s literally real transformation occurs when we evolve the one who meets the challenge. How do we evolve? Well, the four parts of that, who do I want to be in the face of this challenge? You know, and a great thing to do is journal and say, how did I react to Thanksgiving? Was I there as the most conscious person in the room? Did I basically eat in a way where I enjoyed mom’s home-cooked pie? I had my mother-in-law’s pie with ice cream on it and loved it, but I had a piece this big because that’s all I need. I just needed to have the taste. Was I thinking about, while I was eating dinner or in those relationships, future self-perspective on what’s important, were I embodying my strengths, the things that are most important, and when was I responding or were you responding with high energies? So, so critical. 

[00:10:43] So, challenges aren’t obstacles. They’re invitations to a higher self. Growth happens when we stop asking life to be easier. Instead, ask ourselves to become more awake, aware. Because when we’re aware and conscious, we don’t act robotically. We don’t go on autopilot. We actually respond in a way that makes sense. Where we stop, we challenge, and we choose the outcomes that move us forward. So, basically, life is a master teacher for us, you know, and to look at that — I’m open, curious, and want to grow — it’s preparing you for right now. It literally allows you to step in the role of a conscious creator moving from the Drama Triangle to the Empowerment Triangle and watch how your challenges elevate your identity, your presence, and your freedom. So meet the challenges and things that happen and start today with being curious, being fully present, creating versus reacting, and being conscious. So with that let’s open up, Rach, for Q&A.

Rachel: We have Melissa up first.

Dr. A: Hi Melissa.

Melissa: Hello. How are you?

Dr. A: Fantastic.

Melissa: Awesome. Awesome. I couldn’t get my question in there, but let me just tell it to you, okay?

Dr. A: Yeah.

Melissa: How do I handle an adult child that lives with me and all things happen to her? She’s like always in victim mode and my granddaughter is involved as well because my granddaughter, you know, lives with us.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, so you know, the bottom line is you’ve been studying this for a while and for you, what we just did makes sense. I guarantee if she listened to it, she might get some of it, but probably her ego would get in the way and say, “No, no, my life’s not like that. My life’s different.” So, the most important thing to realize that you, you know, you can, the old saying, you can lead the horse to water, you can salt the oats, but you can’t make them drink. And so, it’s really important to open up periods. I like to use, for you to use, something, what we call upset technology. So, she comes to you and she’s a victim, and she’s upset, and she’s emotional. The first thing is to ask a series of very simple questions. First, what happened? And actually listen to her. Don’t agree. Don’t interrupt. Listen to her so she knows she’s being heard. Second, what was missing? In other words, what was missing in this session? What happened here that was missing, that I expect? What were my expectations? And then the third, is what’s next?

So what you’re doing is in the moment, when someone is emotionally upset, they’re operating from the limbic part, the mammalian part of their brain, not from the prefrontal cortex. So what you want to do is you want to get her to slow down, to react, and get back in control so that she can Stop. Challenge. Choose. The way for that to happen through your questions is when you ask her what happened, this is the part where she’s going to release emotionally. She’ll talk about it. She’ll be emotional. She might cry or be mad or pissed. And then basically ask her what’s missing. What was missing here? You know, what was missing? What did you expect to happen? What could have happened that would have been better? And then that requires her to slow down and start using this part of her brain. When she does that, suddenly, there’s possibility. When someone’s in the emotional part of their brain, they’re turned off. It’s like, if you think with your grandchild or or even with your daughter, when you were teaching her to read, sitting on the bed at night, basically they’re reading and then they make a mistake, right? And then they get a little upset and then you say, “No, no, you’re doing great.” And then they make another mistake because as soon as they start making mistakes, it goes from here, this part that’s learning to the limbic part, which is reacting. When the reactive brain is activated, the rational brain doesn’t work. It short circuits it. So that’s going to be the main thing for you to do, let’s say, is to really work and just slow her down. 

Basically, get her to get into the point of what was missing and then what’s next? How could that situation have been better? That way, what you’re doing is helping her start to take back control. Because when she understands, okay, this is what I wanted, but it didn’t happen. The easiest thing to do is to react to it because you feel good. You get emotionally charged. I’m pissed. You know, the Jerry Springer show, I mean, that’s what that show was all about, right? People think, well, I’m not as messed up as they are. So, the whole thing is to do it from a loving, you know, obviously you love her very much and you want to help her. I know it’s very frustrating for you. So the challenge on your side, what we just talked about, is for you not to do this. In other words, when she does this, you’re here. And so she can do all that she wants, but it doesn’t help. And so eventually this will happen and you’ll settle down. Does that make sense?

Melissa: Thank you so much. Yes, it does. Makes a lot of sense.

Dr. A: Try it. Let me know. Come back next month and tell me how it works.

Melissa: Definitely. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay, who’s next?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Suzanne.

Suzanne: Hi, everybody.

Dr. A: Hi!

Suzzanne: This is along the same lines. Maybe it’s a redundancy, but I’ll ask anyway. So, whether we’re at a family event and a person, friend, or family member may be acting out, like playing games, and then kind of throws a fit, accusing people of cheating or gets upset because they’re not having the time that they want or also maybe more in a one-on-one situation, working with a friend, or a partner, or a family member on a project, and they have a very strong point of view about how it’s supposed to go and you do the listening and you say, “Okay, I understand that and that’s not the way that I’m choosing to do XYZ project.” and you give them outs like, okay, maybe you just don’t want to be involved. They say things like, I don’t want to be involved, but then yet they keep putting themselves in the situation to try and “help,” quote unquote, but it’s more of a frustration. You know, what is the, I mean, I think we say the same thing. We just stay up here and we listen and we give feedback and say, “Okay, I hear you’re not wanting to do this,” or you’re wanting to do it this way, and I’m not wanting to do it that way. So, what do you need to take care of yourself in this situation? But, I mean, am I making it clear, the kind of question?

Dr. A: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. First of all, let’s just go with some really important, what we call bright lines in law. In a contract there are bright lines and as long as you stay in the bright lines then everything’s okay on both parties or negotiation when someone goes outside the bright line. So remember the first part is acknowledgement. It’s not necessarily an agreement. Okay. So if you’re sitting there with someone and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships comes up, bottom line is, you know, blowing them off is not the right answer. Tired of what they are is not the right answer. In that moment, the right answer is to listen. Just, again, like we talked on the last one, listen to what they say and then basically ask them, okay, from your perspective, what’s missing here? And so basically, you’re getting their perspective. That’s acknowledging that you’re hearing what they’re saying. It’s not agreeing with what they’re saying. Okay? You may agree once they explain it. They may be like — I showed earlier, the clarity of the communication is important.

So they may not have the articulate skills to — maybe there’s something underneath that’s bothering them and you want to have that come out, right, because that way you can understand, but in a situation, if it’s a dynamic where you’re on a project you need to have your bright lines as well. And so if you’ve got five people working together and you have one that’s totally creating chaos and disagreeing with everything, then I think the questions you ask are appropriate. You know, is this project important to you? Because one of the things that we need to understand is if it is important to you, then great, we want to listen, but we have to work collaboratively. And if it isn’t, then maybe you should choose to do something else. The other thing is, in the moment, again, doing this, they can do all this they want, but as long as you don’t engage, you don’t perpetuate the “drama cycle,” you’re actually stopping the drama cycle, and you’re moving from, the villain is the challenger.

[00:19:06] So you may ask those questions from a challenging standpoint that — not making it personal, but when you say X, I would love you to explain that more to me because I’m not sure what that means. So in other words you’re giving them the opportunity to be heard, but you’re not necessarily agreeing. And at the end, depending if it’s two people, the worst thing is if they continue. The most important thing is to disengage. Just, again, what’s missing and then what’s next? Don’t react back, because if you even, if you’re — don’t be the hero. Okay? The hero is part of the drama track. Go from the hero, right? What does the hero become? The hero becomes the coach. Okay. The villain becomes the challenger and the victim becomes the creator of their own life, which is what this talk was about. Learning to become conscious, become aware, stop that gut reaction instant, you know, instant stimulus response, build Stop. Challenge. Choose.

So you’re stopping, you’re interrupting the pattern, and do this for yourself because there’s two sides, just like I talked with Melissa, there’s two sides to it, right? There’s your side, your involvement, and the idea is to get as clear in the moment as you can. How am I responding to it? So, it’s actually these dysfunctional relationships is a great opportunity for you to grow and that’s most important. Your role is not to change anybody. We have no control. We have no control over anybody, including our kids. We have boundaries we can set, but what they’re thinking and feeling, we can only open up so that they become conscious and sense the love, the care that we care for them and we’re loving them, not create dysfunction through creating. That’s one of the things parents have struggled with because lives are so complicated. They’ll either defer to an electronic device and not address it with their child or they’ll do it from a, “up one, down one.” I’m the parent, you’re the child and then they do this because I’m in charge. That’s not helpful either because even a little person is a fellow human. And although we need to help create safety for them and belonging and basically put them in mode to create, there’s got to be bright lines.

So you’re asking a pretty complex question. I’d have to see each individual. But as long as you focus on you and then you become — your identity is to grow, to become more malleable, to make it so that when people are dysfunctional — it’s like water on a duck’s back. You don’t engage emotionally, you don’t sense emotion, you just sense that okay, in this, let me ask some practical, pragmatic questions. What happened? What’s missing? What’s next? And you can also ask what the other one, what’s missing. You can say, what did you expect to happen? Which gives you a little more flexibility depending on what the situation is. Does that make sense?

Suzanne: Yeah, it makes perfect sense and I love it. One additional ad, if another person, say two people in the project are alone talking about the project, sharing feelings about what other people are doing and then perhaps one of the people shares frustration and kind of name calling or judgmental things, my response was, “Hey, I get it. I don’t like this situation either, but let’s refrain from name calling because that’s not — these are all people that I love, and I don’t want to have that energy.” And then the response that I get back is unfavorable to that request.

Well, I mean, yeah, but the bottom line, you only have control over you. I want to make sure that’s the main emphasis. That’s why I do this. You’re on the call. You’re listening. You want to grow. You’re open, curious, and want to grow. You’re responsible for you. You’re not responsible for anybody else, to tell anybody else to do anything other than obviously if you have caregivers, you have to do certain things that are responsible for their safety. But other than that, this is an inside job for you. And by you growing, right? And so gossiping, which is what you’re talking about, is basically you should be saying the same thing. Anytime someone’s talking about someone else with a third party, you should discipline yourself that unless you would say that to that person, you just don’t do it because basically it’s part of integrity. The whole idea in this for our identity is to become an integrous person.

You’re doing things that you’re not telling white lies. You are actually responding in a way where you’ve now decided that I’m going to grow as a person and I’m going to put myself in position with external equilibrium, that in any situation where have someone else, because if they start saying — bad mouthing, see they’re trying to pull you into the Drama Triangle and so you have to think, is in this situation, are they the villain, the victim, or are they trying to be the hero? None of those positions — and then think to yourself, okay, if they’re being the villain here, I want to turn them into the challenger, right? The challengers, objectively, what was being said and anything within that that we’re working on, not make sense from a challenging standpoint. Not from an individual personality standpoint. That’s the discipline of this. Make sense?

Suzanne: Yes. Thank you so very much. I appreciate that.

Dr. A: Yeah. And this is something that everybody deals with. You know, we start learning this. It’s just like — by the way, helping people get healthy. They have metabolic dysfunction or they’re extremely obese, we look and know, okay, we could help them, but do they want to be helped? Because if they don’t want to be helped and you try to put onto them, they’re going to respond from their personal mind and you’re actually taking them further away from working on their health. They become, deep down, doubling down on their own defense mechanisms. And that’s not what a coach does. A coach lives in the empowerment triangle. A coach coaches, they don’t “hero.” A coach challenges, does not make someone a villain. A coach helps someone move from the victim mentality into the creating where they start focusing on organizing their life around what actually matters to them most. Because when a person’s actually moving on the track, where they’re in the creative process, it’s the most beautiful thing that can happen in your life. And that’s where real joy comes because you’re helping yourself, helping others, and we’re helping work on a very dysfunctional world.

Suzanne: Yeah.

Dr. A: Right. Thanks. Okay. Who’s next?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Jan.

Dr. A: Jan!

Jan: Hey, Dr. A. How are you?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Jan: Oh, so good to hear it. Okay. I just have a fun physiological question for you.

Dr. A: I love that.

Jan: So, back in the day, before I found the program of Opavia, helping me to balance my blood sugar and understand how to eat properly, I struggled with chronic headaches. And I didn’t put the two together until I experienced the balance that I achieved through the program. And lo and behold, the headaches went away, right? It was fantastic. So, as long as I practice those habits and I continue to eat that way, I can create my own reality. Right?

Dr. A: Right.

Jan: So, when Thanksgiving came around this year, I was missing my mom and I decided to make one of her pies, just because I was missing her, and I had some of it and then I had a little more and a little more. I got a little out of hand. Dr. A.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Jan: And within about 20 minutes, I got hit with a headache to beat the band. So, it kind of ruined the rest of my day, but I didn’t take anything for it because I was like, “Dang it, girl. You got to remember this is what happens to you when you eat sugar or carbs.” Because I’ve never been a sugar person much. Like, I tend to eat the carbs, the cereals, the crackers, the bread, that kind of stuff, which I’ve learned to keep at bay. I just want you to explain what goes on physiologically that creates from the time I eat that, in 20 minutes my head starts to hurt, like what is going on in there?

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. Well, you know, your brain is one of the most metabolically active organs in the body, along with the kidneys and the brain CMR2, or oxygen consumption, is very, very high. So, it wants to consume pure sugar or ketones. It likes ketones even better. By the way, ketones are the breakdown products of fat, and when our insulin is low, bottom line, is we make ketones. And that’s why, when people go on the program and start getting healthier within 3 days, they feel better, have more energy because the ketones are a beautiful energy source for the brain. Glucose, as it raises it changes the osmotic load and it actually changes the physiology of the cells. And when you have a high osmotic load, because now you’ve loaded your brain with sugar, it changes the meninges — which are the lining — and actually the brain itself has no pain receptors. The meninges, which surround the lining of the brain, that’s where the pain receptors are, and that’s where these vascular headaches come from.

And when you suddenly change the osmotic load, because sugar pull is a very high osmotic load, it pulls in you’re changing creating [unintelligible] equilibrium between the interstitial which is the space in between the cells and between the cells and the meninges are going to change their position, so you’re stretching them or collapsing, depending. That’s why people have a headache. Like on the opposite side, the glucose is pulling all that water in versus when you drink alcohol and then you get dehydrated and then next morning you have a hangover. That’s because the meninges are shrinking and you’re causing the stress receptors, and that’s what cause that throbbing headache. So that’s why — and also, by the way, if anybody — just blink your eyes if it’s happened to you. If you basically in the morning after you’ve drank too much and you’re dehydrated, you now go have a Dunkin’ Donut, your headache’s going to get worse because you’re now putting sugar into it and it’s pulling the water and you’re actually getting— your headache becomes worse. What we normally want after a hangover, not that I’m an expert at it, but bottom line is we want something fatty. We want a juicy hamburger or something that would be more soothing because our body senses, “I want something that’s fat, that’s going to load my fuel, give me fuel, but not create that sugar load.”

[00:29:32] So yeah, you’re sensing it, and the reason why your headache is worse is because you become more and more sensitive. And that’s so important because if we look at people eating high unhealthy, highly processed food, they’ve been doing it for decades, their dopamineergic receptors, which are basically the dopamine reward system, their receptors are shrunk down. So they need that high fructose load. They need the 68 ounce Coke or Pepsi or whatever. Whatever your fuel to jar is and with that, basically, those receptors need that to respond. In fact, that’s why places like Fuddruckers and places that have these huge portions because the only way we get satisfied — because we’re not getting that dopaminergic click, is basically through engorgement, through vascular or through a gastric engorgement, that’s why the GLP-1s have a place to help break that, again, pattern disruption.

They can help, but they need to be done in a way where we’re also learning habits. So that’s why it occurs and it also, to your point, you rewarded yourself by saying, “Hey, I’m reinforcing.” That’s the negative feedback of I don’t want to experience it and that’s really important. That’s why I suggest for people that have struggled to try for a month or so a glucose monitor, because it gives you immediate accountability. You eat something and within 30 minutes, 30 to 60 minutes, how your body responds to it. It can really help. I mean I did it during writing my new book, which just got released, which got sold out in the first few days, is all about understanding how that physiology works, and for people, whether they’re thinking about going on the GLP-1 medicines or not, putting them in position to basically evaluate, are they right for me or do I just need another way to get away from sweets? Right? Like using fuelings or low glycemic program versus if I do use, knowing the period I am using them, they’re giving a training tool, they’re an antidote that if I don’t go do the other things and learn the habits that are necessary and become a healthy person in a year or so I’ve just kicked the can down the road and if I didn’t learn to eat healthy and exercise I probably changed my metabolic rate and my body composition and I’m now probably less healthy than I was before. So all these things are so important. So that was a long answer to your short question.

Jan: I love it. Thank you. And I read your book and it was amazing. So, thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah, we really need to get that. In fact, I’ve had some doctors say to me that, you know what, that book, My Prescription for Life, if you’re going to write a script for a GLP-1 medicines, you know, Ozempic or Wegovy, or whatever, you’re writing it for, the bottom line is that you should have the person read that before they go on. And if they’re going on, use it to help guide them. And then also look for a coach because a coach can really help make sure their experience, while they’re on it — or if they decide they don’t want it, help them do it without it because the drugs, even though they’re helpful, aren’t necessary to really be successful. If someone, you know, just needs to work on eating healthier.

Jan: Right. Awesome.

Dr. A: Awesome. Thanks, Jan. All right.

Jan: Good to see you.

Dr. A: Yep. Awesome. Who else?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Hannah.

Dr. A: Hi, Hannah.

Hannah: Dr. A, I hope you can hear me okay.

Dr. A: I can hear you.

Hannah: I’m in a Starbucks right now. So, my question was, how do you get to the root of eating or feeling like you need to have, like that doping hit, having a drink or having that food to eat or what have you. Like, I feel like for me, my evenings and my weekends are kind of the hardest times for me with that. Like I can do fine all day long and I don’t really know what the root cause is or why that tends to be something that I’ve struggled with. I love everything you’ve had to say today so far and I think that’s going to be helpful to just, you know — stopping that pattern, but just kind of curious if you have more thoughts on that.

Dr. A: So, yeah, the key to all this is consciousness. It’s awareness. It’s being fully present. We have a tendency, because life is so distracting, to get on automatic. And we develop patterns. And the patterns, we call them, basically, they’re blocks of activities that occur which keep us so that when you drive a car, when you first learn how to drive a car and you started, you had to look for where the blinkers were. You had to get used to moving your foot from the accelerator to the brake. You had to adjust the mirrors and make sure you looked so you didn’t run into anything backwards. There were so many skills you had to learn, but over time you learned those and now you drive a car pretty much on automatic. So those are behaviors that are good. Other than that, if we get distracted and we’re talking on the phone and we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing, still a safety issue, but as a whole, we learn to do things so we can marginalize the amount of energy, amount of thought process for routine things like washing the dishes and things like that. But for things that are just that are basically not serving us, the first thing is becoming aware of those.

So, one of the key things, and it’s something that most people don’t like to do, but it can be really helpful is have a journal and just have it, you know, I have a journal right here and basically when we finish today, there’s a few things I’ve been thinking about that I’ll write down in this which will help me and then I can go back and I got this journal five years ago and actually Venice, Italy, you can see the the famous bridge. But, you know, I can look back at these and reflect on them and said, “Okay, has my identity changed? Have I noted these areas where I needed to work on or I needed to learn to teach better or whatever it was and become more fluent at communication and then using those to find out, okay, what triggered me. So in those periods where you ended up — you’re not going to be perfect. It’s just not going to happen. But small, incremental improvement, and the best way is to identify what are those triggers?

So, just to give you an example, bottom line is when I was at Thanksgiving at Hilton Head with my whole family and my wife’s family and we had like 17 people and two of the guys are master chefs. There’s food everywhere. I mean, it’s everywhere and I’m having pecan pie with some ice cream and I was not as — and I’m pretty good at this now. I mean, I lost 15 pounds. My waist circumference is what it when I was in college because I use a glucometer and really focused on being fully present. But during that high structure where basically around me I don’t have any control over the people that are — and some of those people are overweight and they have bellies and they need to eat healthier. That’s not my job to do that. My job is to, how do I negotiate it? And it’s easier for me because my identity is: I’m a healthy person. But you do have those temptations.

So, the first thing is to get rid of anything that you’re really, highly susceptible to. So, you know, when I was in high school, my girlfriend was the captain of the cheerleaders and before the game, she’d always make me hot chocolate chip cookies. So, I’m addicted to warm chocolate chip cookies just, you know, they’re around me. I can smell it. So, my girls used to use that to my disadvantage. Now, I don’t have those in my house. When they come, they get the kind in the tube and they make one. And I may have one of them, but basically, I don’t do that. You buy your willpower at the grocery store. That’s the first thing. You create an underlying structure. The sixth MacroHabit is your surroundings. You become the chief and these are things you can do immediately. Your habit formation, moving to becoming a healthy person is going to take time and it’s not easy. It’s something that’s going to require discipline. But the thing you have complete control over, and so the things you want to immediately look at, let me optimize my environment. Let me make sure in my environment I don’t have these kinds of things that are high glycemic starches, all the things that Jan was talking about. Making sure I have healthy snack items. I have, depending on whether you’re on the program right now, healthy fruits, you know, an apple is awesome. Apple juice is terrible, right? So, you know, peeling an orange is okay. Get bananas. Bananas have been so processed. There’s so much Mangoes. Those are so full of sugar. Get the fiberladen, you know, vegetable — avocados are a great choice. Get something you enjoy and have that as your treat.

And what you can do is actually, because fast food is fast, and that’s why we have a tendency to go to it, basically — remember you want to make anything that’s not healthy harder to do and anything that’s healthy easier to do. So take up an apple. You know, one of the things I tell you, that sometimes I won’t take an apple, but I’ll tell you, if one of my girls are home and they put it in that thing and sliced it into pieces, I love to grab a piece, right? So, take, create a little zip lock with that and make it so it becomes easier to do the things. That’s the second thing. And then the third thing is use this technology we just talked about, the three, the Stop. Challenge. Choose. Use that to basically disrupt, as a pattern disruption, you know, as an interruption device. So if you suspend for a moment, you start breaking those recurrent patterns, get off autopilot. Second is the creative process. Look at what you want your life to become. Bottom line is what does that entail? What’s your desired outcome? Where are you now and what are the secondary choices and pick some things — like, I’m no longer going to eat high carbs. I’m just eliminating from my diet. I’m gonna bring in fresh fruit. I’m going to have a bowl of fruit in my kitchen. I’m going to put something on the — could be a picture of you looking the hottest you’ve ever looked — on the refrigerator. It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s all different for each and every one of us, but I use the glucometer. I have it on right now. And I put it on, as soon as — I didn’t have it on while I was there. Just so happened that I didn’t have any at the time. I put one on as soon as I got home and bottom line, all the metabolic parameters have totally normalized again because I want to make sure I’m acutely aware, because these patterns are, it’s a journey of a lifetime.

[00:39:39] You are being subjected to an obesionic world between high addictive foods, sedentary lifestyle, stress in our lives, interaction, things with our family, sleep patterns being disrupted. You have so many things that if you’re not aware of those and constantly working on them they’ll creep back into your life. Just like Jan was saying, and she’s been studying this for years. You get around and you make a pie and all of a sudden you’re thinking about your mom and the memories float in and you’re eating it and it’s so easy for us. So it’s about becoming aware and why Stop. Challenge. Choose. is so important, you’ll feel the “icky sauce.” You’ll start feeling that, “Oh, I’m getting ready to do something that I don’t want to do,” and you want to stop right there. You want to interrupt that pattern before that becomes, you start moving into the Drama Triangle, right? Where now you’re doing it, you’re blaming somebody. You’re the victim and I’ve got to have this. It’s important to me. And so, it’s a matter of that discipline. And it sounds like a lot of work, but I can tell you the results are when you become a healthy person, everything changes in your life. You sleep better. You have more energy. You enjoy all the aspects of life more. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, and metabolically being healthy. So, hopefully that’s helpful.

Hannah: Yes, thank you.

Dr. A: Yep. You’re welcome.

Hannah: Thank you so much.

Dr. A: Yep.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Melissa. Hi, Melissa.

Melissa: Hey, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Hey, how are you?

Melissa: I’m doing good. How are you?

Dr. A: Good.

Melissa: Third person to ask you.

Dr. A: That’s okay.

Melissa: I really have been struggling because I fall into — I gravitate towards the the hero space in the Drama Triangle and I am really struggling with being positive and being a light which is something that I pride myself on and I built my whole identity around and it’s who I am. Number one is woo on my strengths and so it’s what I do, but I really feel like I’m fighting for it this year, and I’ve had a lot of close friends, colleagues you could say, that I feel like have dimmed their light and feel that it’s wrong to be super positive in a space where, you know, I think you said it’s a broken world or I can’t remember how you put it just earlier on this call. And so I’m really struggling with how do I cut through the noise of making it wrong to be who I am and to be keep being bold in the things that I’m passionate about health and wellness and I’m a pharmacist and so I’m super passionate about kind of how the GLP’s have affected the population and so I’m just struggling to stay positive, but also out of the hero space, if that makes sense. So, I don’t know how to bounce.

Dr. A: Yep. So, I’m going to draw a little diagram. You may have seen me draw this before, but this is really important. So, can you see that? Let me make sure I got — Okay, so on this side are the creator, and this is the creation. The idea is that you’re — what I hear you saying is that you’re here and you want to do this. You want to help people. You want to make a difference. But what’s happening is there’s a feedback loop and what’s happening is you’re making it about yourself. You got to get beyond that. That’s really really important. And the hero. So just to define what the hero is, and by the way, that feedback loop is that you can never create what you really want if you make it about you. Okay? So you need to be removed from the equation from that standpoint. You want to create, you love helping people. You want to help them move forward but that you’re getting that loop when they’re saying those things. You’re taking that personal and that’s what a hero does. And then the hero, even though it sounds like the hero of the, you know, the victim, the villain, and the hero — because in, I mean, look at Marvel magazine. I mean, we look kind of at heroes as being special.

Hero in this case means that you’re trying to take over and take responsibility for someone else because that relieves the pain for you. Okay? That’s not your job. Your job isn’t to get people to do anything. Your job is to await. And this is really important. I love — you’re closing your eyes because your job is to awaken them to the possibility, and for those that want to move forward and raise their hand to change their life. The world is in a negative space right now. There’s no question. And when they say, “Well, you shouldn’t be positive.” No, that’s not true. First of all, in your life individually, you are the Dominant Force in your life. That’s what I wish for everybody. When you’re the Dominant Force, all those outside voices no longer matter. Those voices are just data coming in you because you can look around you at anything and you’ve got people all around you that are going to judge you because it’s about them. 

If you get shot in the head, it’s not about you, it’s about them. I mean, it’s going to hurt. So, that’s really important. When they say things, you’re taking that personal and you’re allowing that to affect you as the creator and you’re not doing what you do. There’s a lot of people out there that want to be helped. You go help the people that want to be helped and then you use the technology that we talked about today to minimize this, right? So it isn’t the Drama Triangle, because you are instead of the hero, you are a coach and a coach knows that if someone’s doing this, you don’t do this. You actually ask those questions. What’s happened? What’s missing? What did you expect? And what’s next? And then when you do that, you’re going to calm them down. Whether they agree with you or not doesn’t really matter, but what you’re doing is you’re staying in the space. And I can tell you, people are attracted to people that have the calm. And when you’re in an environment, someone’s talking to you and they want to go into the Drama Triangle. If you’re not, if you’re in the hero triangle, you go, “Oh, it’s okay. It’s going to be all right. I’ll help you.” No, that’s not your role. Your role is to ask them questions.

Again, going back, so important, acknowledgment is not agreement. They may be so far off track and that’s why they’re dysfunctional and why they’re pissed off because they found that by reacting like that, it brings that adrenaline and it makes them feel alive. That’s why the news stations have gone — Huntley Brinkley, 50 years ago, used to have objective reporting. They would do the facts and just the facts. Now it’s all, “Who did it?” Villain, victim, you know, hero, and there’s this dynamic going on. 95% of the world is in that dynamic. So, don’t be surprised that as you’re continuing your journey to become more and become the Dominant Force in your own life and being organizing life around what matters most to you. Those people, their input, basically should be like water in a duck’s back. Now, if there’s something going on, you want to take that obstacle and use that as a growing device for you. How can I handle it? That’s why today I went over the the three basic — looking at Stop. Challenge. Choose. Using structural tension, and third is working on improving our standards so our identity becomes what we want it to be because when your identity — my identity is that I would never stop now at a Dunkin Donut. Just wouldn’t do it. No desire to. It’s not who I am. Coffee is good for you. I make coffee. I actually built a new home and I have a really cool coffee maker that I push a button and it makes me coffee. I just read a study this morning. Coffee may increase our lives up to five years. So that’s actually a good thing. And I — there, see? There you go — But I don’t drink five cups of coffee [sound of an applause].

That’s got to be that’s got to be Chris. He is absolutely twisted. That’s our support, or does all our support. But anyway, the point being is that there’s things that are good for us and we want to double down. Those are our strengths and the things that aren’t. So you already know that you’re on the right track. You are the Dominant Force in your own life. And as long as you’ve organized your life around what matters, look at you smile. I watched you in a moment there, go through a period where you were concerned and now you’re smiling. You’ve got this girl and all you’re, and I’m not being your cheerleader. I’m just saying, the principles are the principles, and the principles are: the only person you’re responsible for is you. If you have kids, yes, you’re responsible for their safety and making sure you build an environment for them to grow and flourish, but with all the relationships, you’re not the hero.

You are the coach. And the coach on a football team, you know, just taking right now the coaching carousel. We got 50 new coaches last week. Bottom line is, a coach is there to help an athlete who wants to learn to be good at that. If someone wants to become healthier, you’re there to help coach them, not to be their friend. Now, you can build rapport and trust. That’s important for a coach. Friendship is not. Friendship is a bonus. If that happens, great. But basically what happens with friendship, unfortunately, as you know, friendship sometimes is kind of like having family members, right? Where they then, all of a sudden, they can get away with stuff. And you want to have a clear, in coaching, you want to have a separation where yes, you can be there to support them, but you’re there to coach them, not to hear them, to make them feel good.

[00:49:36] You’re there to help lead them on a journey and to awaken them. When that light dims, we’ve heard people talk about that today, when it dims, bring back and refresh. Why do I want a bright light? You know, back in the, for what? Ten years, back in the late, I think it was the 1800s, Nantucket became the center of commerce in the world. Why? Because they could create a brighter light because whale oil burns brighter than traditional, right? And they didn’t know about, they didn’t have oil in the, there was no oil from— we didn’t know about oil under the ground yet. So basically in that period for 10 years, it burned brighter. Now what burns brighter is helping people manage. So that rather than getting caught up in this draw — Drama Triangle — they can come out and start building their life with the creative process, realizing that the reactive states they’re in, that they’ve carried over since childhood, are not serving them and they’re actually all cost and no benefit, and I can tell you in medicine, I left traditional critical care because I was helping people at the end of life with very aggressive, aggressive techniques and tools and chest tubes and Swan-Ganz catheters and I was leading the end of metabolic dysfunction, and now I get to move upstream and help people become healthy so they never suffer from that and that’s something that someone has to — your job is to awaken them so that they want to do it and if it’s dulled, the reason why it normally dulls is because they don’t think they can do it and you want to transfer the belief that they can because they don’t believe it and help them and and show you have to have self-efficacy where over time they become successful. It’s the gain in the gap, right? It’s that they need to have small wins and the small wins build their self-efficacy and keep them on track with that feedback loop. That’s what a coach does. Cool?

Melissa: Yeah, that was very needed.

Dr. A: Good. Awesome. Like go do it, girl. You got this.

Melissa: Thank you.

Dr. A: Don’t let anybody keep you from your dreams. Anybody. Because what we do, what this is about, what we’re talking about today, the world needs this. My Prescription for Life, my new book, the world needs it. Half the people that are going on those GLP-1s don’t need to use them. They actually, if they work with us with a system, they can do it on their own. And if they do need them because they’re highly susceptible, and we can figure that out in that little quiz I have. If they are, then let’s make sure while they use them as a powerful tool to help them combat and is the antidote to this obesionic world, to this highly unhealthy, highly processed food, sedentary life. So, let’s get them up, moving. Let’s make sure they’re eating healthy proteins and let’s make sure they’re doing all the things that are necessary.

Melissa: Yep, I’m on it.

Dr. A: All right. Good.

Melissa: Thanks, Dr. A.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay.

Rachel: All right. We have Barb up next.

Dr. A: Hey, Barb!

Barb: Dr. A, how’s it going?

Dr. A: Great.

Barb: Yes. Good. So, I have two questions and that’s because as I’ve been listening, something just occurred to me. And that is one, August of 2023, I was diagnosed with diabetes. And on that day, my doctor referred me to her coach. And three months later, I was no longer diabetic. So, I had my metabolic flip. And that’s what made me become a coach. Because I couldn’t believe it and I wanted to share it with everybody. So now I’m even more enamored with our pathway of how we’re trying to help more people understand metabolic health.

Dr. A: Yeah. No, that’s awesome.

Barb: With saying that, when you say, “Organize your life around what matters most to you,” well, what matters most to me is that, and is my health, and my coaching business. But the problem is I devote most of my time to it because I enjoy it so much and I’ve got a lot of stress going on financially and I’ve got a surgery coming up and a husband with dementia. All kinds of stuff that I need to focus on more, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to trade feeling amazing for feeling miserable.

Dr. A: Okay. Well, basically there is no benefit in feeling miserable. Zero. 100% cost, no benefit. Beating yourself up, right? Just like I said, staying in that pattern of being a victim because you have to take care of your husband. You got all this stuff going on, my finances, that serves no purpose at all. It’s zero. 0% and it’s 100% cost so going back to this is, you want to do this, you want to build — if you build a huge business, right through the creative process three things happen. First, your health will be magnificent because as you do this, you’ll have more time to work on yourself because you’re helping people. You’ll be more in the mindset and your identity will become a healthier person and you’re going to realize the finances so that you can pay your bills, get some help for taking care of your husband, and your life’s going to get better. So, you need to double down on this. It’s not about me. It’s about what I’m building. And for the next two to three years focus on this and all the things that are issues for you will get better. That’s the key.

That’s what I mean by organize your life around what matters most. Obviously, you identified those. Your health, your husband, your future, being financially sound, those are four parameters that are important. So lead from that future and then in the moment, basically, only say yes to things that are moving that forward. All the rest of the stuff is basically not necessary and that becomes more important in the world we live in because AI is going to penetrate every area of your life and the job of AI is like the apple in the Garden of Eden. It’s to get you to do things that function for the corporations that put that stuff out, not for your best interest. So that’s more important than ever to be so clear on your North Star, where you’re going, and then say no. If it’s not a full body yes, if when something happens and you can’t say yes up here in your heart and in your gut, say no. And that will start giving you the time. You have 168 hours in a week. Okay? If you take eight hours basically times seven, that’s 56. Bottom line is, that puts you in a position to know that you have over a hundred hours, when you’re not resting, that you have to work on this, right?

Barb: Yeah. And I do that. I just fear that I’m avoiding things that maybe I should also be doing.

Dr. A: Like what?

Barb: I guess being miserable about everything.

Dr. A: Oh, okay. There’s no time. You know what? That’s some of the [crosstalk 00:56:37]. No. And again, going back, I’m not just giving you something to understand. I’m giving you the technology that I’ve developed to help you with three things you’ve got to do. You’ve got to — number one, you’ve got to — the most important thing is structural tension. You’ve got to decide, what’s your future? What’s that future I want? Organize my life — what are the most important things in my life? Write those down. Be so clear on those. You should have that written down, memorized. It should be on your — be wherever you spend your most time. On your desk or wherever you can look at them and review that daily. In fact, maybe spend a moment, either when you go to, depends on when you learn better, either in the twilight hour, the hour before you go to sleep, or the hour in model morning in the morning. Look at it every day. And you’re looking at it to show you, this is what I want to bring into being. This is the creation I want. Not just financial, but my health, all that is in there. Your health, your finances, your success, your ability to maximize the time you have with your husband, all those things are in here. It’s not here.

You’re feeling sorry, suffering, all that stuff is of zero value. All that stuff slows down. It’s like handcuffs you’re putting on yourself that minimize your ability to go forward. The key to going forward is to focus on what you want. I can tell you that I knew I was going to be a physician when I was seven years old and I came from a family — I’m the only one in my family that went to college. Bottom line is, no one was going to shake that for me because that’s what I wanted and I stayed true to that. Same thing here. Organize your life. Don’t let life get distracted. Don’t let it become the imagery that seeing stuff on TV about a certain car or something. Make it about what’s most important to you. It requires very little motivation then. And then spend no time. Remember the idea is to make progress and if you’re not making progress then you’re not focused on it because if you’re focusing that 100 plus hours on the things that you want, you will make progress. Our speed will depend but you will build momentum and the halo effect is when you work on one area like on your health or on sleeping better, it helps all the other areas. It helps you think stronger. It takes care of that point when you’re feeling sorry for yourself. Does that make sense? 

Barb: Yeah. Yeah, it really does. And it just, I guess it affirms that I shouldn’t feel guilty for focusing on what matters most in my life. That’s really what I’m getting at, is that…

Dr. A: No, that’s your — that’s why your here. Remember that’s why you’re here. You’re only here for a short period of time, a hundred years or so. While you’re here, basically, the idea is for you to evolve your soul to move from self-interest to be in service of your soul. Your ego should be in service of your soul. Not your self-interest or your personal, right?

Barb: Yes.

Dr. A: It should be things that are important to you. As long as you stay there, you’ll never go wrong and you’ll become better at everything you do. Cool?

Barb: Great. Yes! Cool!

Dr. A: All right. Well, listen, have a great week. We’re out of time. Thank you. These are amazing questions and great dialogue and I’m looking forward to seeing you guys next month. Have amazing holidays and I’ll see you in January! Bye.

Video transcript:

Dr. A: All right. Well, good morning for those of you on the—well, outside of the east coast—good afternoon to you! And we’re about ready to do our monthly Conscious Forum. Today’s November 4th, 2025, and I’m excited. We’ll give everybody about a minute or so to kind of get into the room and get ready for some things that I’m going to repeat, that I’ve talked about many times before, but also some new things. And then, as always, the whole purpose of the forum is to open it up for the listeners to be able to contribute either in questions or contribute things that they’re thinking about. But this is all about us waking up and improving our awareness.

As it said on the first slide, I’m not a psychotherapist. This is not psychotherapy. This is simply the study of consciousness and we’re going to talk a little bit about that. So, let’s go ahead and get going. Just to remind you, the forum, a forum is a noun and it means a place, a meeting or a medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. So, what I do typically, if this is your first forum, congratulations. I think you’ll find some things in here that will stimulate your personal mind and potentially help you start on your journey, if you’re not already to being more present, more awake. So bottom line is I’ll do a little overview and then we’ll open it up for questions so we can share things together.

So let’s go ahead and get started. The topic this month is: how can we manage our personal mind and make life a lot more fun? And so that’s a good question and as you see Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, a fellow human. We all have our thoughts, we have our feelings, we have our personal mind. We have our egos, but you’re part of— you are your personal mind. And some of us know this and some of us don’t know this. But, what we’re going to talk about today is understanding what I mean by being present—being aware, focused, focused on the world outside of us, how that comes in. And we’ll start off by basically talking about this: consciousness.

So consciousness refers to the state of being aware of one’s thoughts and feelings. You’re not your thoughts and you’re not your feelings. You are the one that is aware of those things. The more we can become that self-aware, the more we can consciously influence our thoughts and feelings and respond in a resourceful way to help ourselves and to help others. It helps build relational health. So we know about awareness. We have, you know, if you look out and look as this gentleman is, looking at a vase. You’re aware of that. I’m looking out. I can see the ocean. I can see my Peloton. I can see the TV. I see pictures on the wall. And they’re all very clear that I’m not those pictures. But when it gets closer to our thoughts and feelings, that kind of gets blurred. So let’s really just go over that.

So everything your consciousness thinks about, everything your consciousness is started as a sensory input into your brain. Not you looking out, but the light energy coming in. The energy actually comes in, reflects off your retina, goes into your brain, and then reflects up there. It’s kind of like if you’re watching a ball game out in LA, it comes through the airways, goes into a camera, comes through the airways, goes onto a TV screen, and it’s pixelated. The same thing with your organs. So if we think about that, we see the plant vase, we hear the birds chirping, we smell the cookies baking, we basically can taste the lemon, and we can touch a hot plate. All these organs are very important for us to be able to manage ourselves in the world. These are all things that we’re conscious of. Although I have to tell you that most people are not conscious of most that’s going around them. They’re more absorbed into their thought. And we’re going to talk about that and the relationship to that because that’s really important.

And just as an example, if you’re driving your car, when you first started, when you were a student, basically you had to know where the brake was. You need to know to keep your right foot on the accelerator and use the same foot for the brake. You had to learn to use your turn signals. You had to learn to steer. Parallel parking was an absolute terror because you were worried about hitting one of the other cars. All that stuff was very very difficult at first. It required practice. Now when you drive your car, basically you’re aware of very little around you. You obviously are aware of the stop signs — hopefully! Some people are so distracted and in their mind that they run stop signs or they run lights because they’re that distracted. But the point is you’ll drive all the way home, maybe be talking to somebody on the phone. You’ll get home and we’ve all gone through this before.

We’re actually at the garage door and we go, “Wow, we’re home. I need to open the garage door.” So, I have to stop the driving part and do something else. But through that whole thing, we’ve done this almost totally being very little aware. And that’s why driving is such a dangerous thing because we’ve got a 3,000 lb machine that’s moving at 65 miles an hour, and unfortunately, most people aren’t aware and they’re not even using their blinkers or anything, but that’s a different story. Today, we’re going to talk about the other thing.

Events, people, something happens. It comes into our mind. It evokes thoughts. It evokes emotions. And our ego gets involved. Our ego is our personal mind. It is, if you had wanted to define it, the summation of all the experiences that we’ve had since we were aware when we were really little. And obviously, the emotional part of those experiences, when we’re really little, less than five, can be very very embedded into our brain, into energy, inside of us because we don’t know how to process it when we’re really little and those things become traumatic, scary, and so they’re in there and they’re triggers that come up and that’s part of the reason. If we really look in terms of philosophical approach, all life is suffering and it’s suffering because we have preferences. We prefer things to be one way or the other. If we didn’t prefer—because the second rule is if you have no preferences, suffering goes away. 

Doesn’t mean there won’t be things that happen that are painful in our life. We still have loose loved ones. We sprain our knees. You know, we have different stuff that happens. But the bottom line is the suffering part is optional. And what happens is it creates the Drama Triangle, which we’ve talked about. We’re going to talk a little bit about that today in relationship to that. So, we either project out, so we see somebody and we project our feelings onto them because we’re feeling these emotions that may be negative and bring up, “Oh, they’ve always been like that,” and then we’re projecting. So, what we do is we filter reality. That’s our ego doing that to basically make life more comfortable because we prefer things to be a certain way. So what’s happening is actually the objective part. What I’m making of it, basically, is interpreted to create a narration inside that makes you more comfortable in the world. It’s our story. Our story isn’t real.

A videographer that took a film that would be a real interpretation of what happened. But we kind of tweak it so it works best for us, because we prefer life to be a certain way. So basically, you know, unfiltered and you’ve had these experiences where all those thought processes have kind of gone away because you’ve had such an impactful experience going on in front of you, like seeing a sunset. You know, I’m very fortunate and blessed, I live on the water. I have sunrise and sunset, and the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular and they take my breath away. Sometimes I’ll be in the process of doing something in the evening and all of a sudden I’ll kind of see the reddish glow and the golden part and whatever I’m doing I just stop and I fully become present in that moment. Unfortunately, most of us, you know, we look at that sunset and say, “Oh god, I remember 5 years ago before we got divorced and we watched the sunset in Cancun together.” And so we’re on the left side and the cogs are going and we’re not really enjoying. We’re actually suffering. Doing what should be a very enjoyable experience. So let’s talk about that for a minute.

The unconscious individual means we’re not aware. We’re not removed. We’re actually in our thoughts and feelings and so we’re unconscious. And basically we’re reacting, and so we’re at the effect of we’re a victim mindset. Life is happening to me in the state you’re energized. The reason why people watch the Jerry Springer shows or get mad in the office or tell someone off and feel good about it because it energizes you. It actually makes you feel alive because it releases the stress hormones. You know, we have four basic “F’s”. Basically we can fight, we can flight, we can faint, and we can freeze. All four of those are mechanisms that were designed for survival 100,000 years ago. Back then, if there was a saber-tooth tiger, you better run fast. If there’s a snake, you better freeze basically. I don’t know if we fainted, but I guess we did faint sometimes, but usually wasn’t the best strategy. And then, of course, the other one is fall, you know, basically freeze and into a state. So like with a bear, some people say that’s the best way to handle a bear. Don’t move at all. All those things basically, now, we do those things not for survival, not real threats, but because of, in here, we feel threatened.

You know, you’re sitting down and someone goes by in a group you’re with and you say, “Hi, Mary.” And Mary keeps walking and doesn’t say anything. Basically, you can make quite a story in a hurry. You’re like, “How dare her not answer me? What is she doing? She thinks she’s better than me.” Blah blah blah blah blah. And you might even get to the point where you get up and go say something to her and then Mary goes, “I’m sorry, Sue. I didn’t see you. I didn’t hear you.” And that’s all it was. But we can make up some pretty good stories in a hurry. 

[00:10:20] As a conscious individual, you’re creating your experience of the world. We’re moving from being reactive to what goes on to being responsive. And I talk about that all the time, basically becoming the Dominant Force in your life. Taking personal responsibility, radical responsibility for everything that happens. When you do that, the locus of control comes inside of you and you now have the power. When you blame or you villainize or basically you try to hero somebody, you’re giving the power away. You’re not holding the power. So we want to come from that victim mindset to creating what we want in our life. We talk about that all the time. Organize your life around what matters most and then go out and create it. So you take responsibility, you’re curious and you want to develop a growth mindset.

You want to learn from every experience, not try to make it have some negative meaning. So that conscious evolution moves to the point where over time we’re kind of— I spent a lot of my time now, “you’re co-creating your experience of the world.” “It’s through me.” “Life is happening through me.” You see more possibilities beyond just yourself. I mean I love doing this forum because, you know, usually, most times when we do it, it awakens people to more and start to understand themselves and take out their lab coat and their goggles and actually look and start seeing and vision and purpose that something bigger than themselves. So what is this big mission? How can it be part of it? I think we all are involved in that. Obviously, one of the things I’ve been working on for over 20 years is to help people optimize their health and their wellbeing.

So with that basically, “By me,” means that I’m conscious and you ask three questions. Anything that happens, these three questions basically settle everything. This is what you call upset technology. I’ve talked about this before but I haven’t in a while so I wanted to bring it up. I think it’s really important. Someone comes to you and they’re really upset. Rather than getting in the Drama Triangle with them and being their hero and say, “Oh god, that’s terrible.” Basically ask them questions. If you’re conscious, ask, what’s happened? What’s missing? And what’s next? That takes us from the emotional part of our brain, which is reactive basically to the prefrontal cortex, which is the part that separates us as human beings that puts us in position to build a rational decision. That’s what the Stop. Challenge. Choose., that I created so many years ago is about. It’s about when something happens, stop. What was missing here and what’s next? So that we know that we can basically go through it, get out of that emotional space. An unconscious individual, which is where 95% of the—all you have to do is go on any TV show, any news show, it doesn’t matter which one, they’re saying what’s wrong, who’s to blame, and how do I fix it?

So, basically, really important to see the contrast. And as you can see, there’s a line there, and my dear friend Jim Dethmer, who’s actually having, they’re in the process, I was just talking to him the other day of republishing that book for the late—the lay population<<<<???? but he talked about the conscious leadership, about being above and below the line and being above the line is when you are conscious. We’re going to go below the line. Going below the line means you’re closed, you’re defensive, and you want to be right. Above the line means you want to be open, curious, and want to grow, and we’re going to all go below the line, but it’s not that—it’s about recognizing and moving ourselves back above the line. That’s what’s so critical to do and that’s what Stop. Challenge. Choose., helps you do. Once you’re way down in the Drama Triangle and you’re really emotionally charged—very hard to get out of it by that point.

So what must happen for us to transform so we can really start enjoying our lives more? Well, first of all, we have to let go of the past. You cannot change the past. The past is the past. Best gift you can give to yourself is saying goodbye to the past. The past can be a great experience to help you build your present and your future. But the bottom line, the past is done. Stop trying to have a better past. It just can’t happen. Second, being present. Being fully present, letting in what is necessary. The only thing you really have full control over is this moment and how you’re responding. The more you’re awake and present, the more your consciousness, the better relationships you’re going to have with your kids, with your spouse, with your friends, with your community, with your job. So, it’s really important to have that level of awareness. It has all good and no bad attributes to it. And then obviously the future, leading from the future, there’s so many variables of things that can happen.

There are billions of things going on all around beyond what you know and see. What you want to do is make sure you’re you’re you’re figuring out what’s my compass. You know, I have a a compass here on my desk, but I can’t move it right now, but that was used by the ancient mariners, and I know that I use a modern compass, and now we use charts and GPS obviously, but the point is—and satellites—but, the point is, we did use compasses to guide us so we don’t know where we’re going and make the corrections were necessary because the waves and the currents will move you off course. And if you don’t have the direction you want to go, you’re never going to get there. So leading from that future basically is so important. So one of the things I highly recommend for everybody, to do this, I mean, I usually do it once a week on Sunday. I look to see the things I did this week, did they move me closer to where I want to go? Did I say full body yeses? I only say yes to the things that really matter. 

In other words, a full body yes means, I say yes here. I say yes here. And I say yes for my gut. All three areas. And say yes to the things that move you to what you want because otherwise you’ll be so distracted because the world is one big distracted mess. And everything is trying to get your attention, get you to buy something and now with AI it’s you know it’s going to be a hundredfold that. So it’s really important that we now establish ourselves as the Dominant Force and we organize our life, so you’re leading from the future—actually organize your life around what you want and not based on what you’ve had in the past, but what do you want to bring into your life? What’s really important to you? Because unless you do that you’ll be basically building somebody else’s dream. You certainly won’t be building your dream.

So basically I like to use this because it’s all about microHabits. The reality is, there’s no one giant step. There’s no just ‘one breakthrough,’ but it’s a lot of little ones. First, focusing and making sure you know where you want to go and then making a lot of little changes so you’re changing your standards. Our identity and picking health is one. Health is so critical. You know, you have a mind in there that has a mind of its own. But the point is without a healthy body, your mind doesn’t even function as well as it needs to. You could end up being in a metabolic fog because you have metabolic dysfunction because you’re eating the wrong foods. You’re not getting out and moving enough. You’re not sleeping well. You’re having too much stress and all those things can affect how clear your mind thinks. But beyond that, basically you’re becoming a healthy person. So you choose not to have that hot fudge Sunday or stop at McDonald’s. You not because oh I can’t do that because it’s not healthy. No, you don’t go there because you know over time your mind is foggy when you do. That it’s not who you are anymore. And that happens over time. It doesn’t happen by itself.

And especially when it comes to starting to work on your mind because, you know what? When you look, your thoughts, your emotions in the form which are the form of all the things I was talking about in my room, those things are not you, but as you can see, thoughts are closer and emotions are fairly close, and objects are farther away. We want to be able to know that we’re basically observing. We’re the conscious witness that observes our thoughts, our emotions and our form. They are not us. They do not define us. That’s really, really important because basically when you’re kids, you don’t spend any time doing that. You’re out basically being aware of the present moment, you know, playing with balloons at the pool. All you have to do is listen. One of my favorite things when I’m getting ready for meetings and stuff and if I’m at a hotel that has a pool and I have a balcony that faces it, one of my favorite things is to open the door and listen because you have this den of just this laughter in the in the distance and it’s all the kids, you know, they’re in a pool, they’re in water, they’re just having a ball and they’re not thinking, they don’t they’re not in their heads. They are totally aware and alive, interacting with other little humans.

So basically, it really comes down to this. You know, we want to develop internal stability. So whatever comes in, we have the psychological flexibility to handle it. So if you have something bad happen, you don’t go off the rails with it. You handle it in a way, and that gives you external equilibrium, which means you can deal with anything. You can handle it. And that’s something you should get used to saying, almost a mantra you should say to yourself in any situation. “I can handle this.” And you handle it by internalizing basically, and then Stop. Challenge. Choose., the outcome that moves you forward. Recognizing the emotions you’re feeling. Understand why you’re having those thoughts and then move forward to create an outcome that creates equilibrium. You want to be the one when the house is on fire that bottom line is you very calmly get everybody out. You don’t get yourself in an emotional state where your prefrontal cortex is shut off because that’s what happens if we get too emotionally involved in something, then our rational brain doesn’t work.

[00:20:00] And just talk about the guys and girls that are on death row. You know, if they could have only “stopped, challenged,” for a few moments to let that rage go by, they wouldn’t have done the atrocious thing they did, which they’re now feeling bad about for the rest of their life. So basically, of course, 99.999% of you are not in that state but we all can work because basically when we can take our personal mind to the side and personally observe, be awake and present, everything becomes better in our life. So with that we will now uh open it up to Q&A. Rachel?

Rachel: All right. First up we have Mandy. Mandy, can you unmute yourself? There you are.

Mandy: Hi.

Dr. A: Hi, Mandy.

Mandy: Am I supposed to ask my question or are you reading it?

Dr. A: No, I’m I want you to ask. I want to hear you say it, because how you say it can be just as important as what you say.

Mandy: Right. So, I don’t really know how I’m going to say it.

Dr. A: Well, you don’t need to know how. Just say it.

Mandy: Okay, just say it. After the past 10 months, almost a year, I have been caring, with my mom, for my dad and we lost him last week and I’m okay. I’m okay because I spent, thank you, Optavia, I’m an Optavia coach. And thank you, Optavia. Thank you, Dr. A, for allowing me to work my business anywhere and be with my dad, in his final breath. I’m good at having fun. I will have fun with the best of them. I will be a kid and I will tumble down a hill with my grandchildren. I don’t have a problem having fun. I’m having some bitterness, I guess. And I have some healing that needs to take place with my relationship with my sister and a lot of it was watching this past year, wanting her to be present. She was, but not fully. And I feel like I’m having a lot of bitterness, maybe judgment. Maybe, I’m ashamed to say it, but maybe, “I’m better than you,” because I took care of my dad better than you. I need to know how to start healing that within me first so I can have a much better relationship with my sister. And the hardest part is I feel very intimidated talking to her because she’s in a women’s ministry coaching position and she jumps into coach mode and I need her to be sister mode.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well…

Mandy: Sorry. That was a lot.

Dr. A: No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, that’s like—but here’s the way you need to reframe this. Okay? First of all, there’s only one person you’re responsible for. Who’s that?

Mandy: Me.

Dr. A: Right.

Mandy: Me.

Dr. A: Yeah. You have no authority over your sister. It doesn’t matter. Just because you’re from the same genetics, because you grew up together. You have zero authority. You’re basically projecting. You’re projecting things you have inside of you onto her. How she responds, what she did or didn’t do, you know, get into competition with it. That’s of no value. That’s all cost, all cost in your relationship with her. No—zero benefit. So if something is cost and no benefit, you stop doing it.

Mandy: Ok.

Dr. A: I mean, stop. The coolest thing about it is because you are working on this and because you are listening to this and you have been working on yourself is, use this, be open, curious and explore why are you feeling that way. Why is that happening? Because there’s stuff inside. Remember I said anything that was traumatic.

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: Anything that was a negative. Most stuff you let go by. You know, when you drive your car, you don’t remember the lines on the road, right?

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: You don’t remember 99% of the trees. You may remember one because it has a certain shape when you pass it multiple times, but the majority just kind of comes in, right? Comes into the senses and goes away. Okay? There’s stuff that comes into the senses that you don’t like and you didn’t like them when you were growing up.

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: And so because of that, you either suppress them, you resist them, or you somehow don’t fully process them and get them in and out. And so they’re there. So this is a great opportunity for you to put on your lab coat and find out why am I feeling this way. This is not about your sister. If your sister came and shot you in the head, it wouldn’t be about you. It would be about her. And I mean, just to make it an extreme case.

Mandy: I know. I know.

Dr. A: Okay. So whatever she’s got going on, she’s that’s her own stuff. And bottom line, if she’s in a position where she’s in ministry and does coaching and all that stuff, and because, you know, until you were an opt to be a coach, you didn’t do that. So there’s also some of that going on. So if you really get curious, I think you probably hit it on the head. There’s probably you’re thinking, well, wait a minute, you know, you’re doing all these things and you’re not responding the way I am. Well, everybody handles, first of all, everybody handles events differently. The goal is how you handle it, not how she handled it. And bottom line is, the only thing you can do is, if you’re like this, okay, nothing good will happen. You go like this, and then—I had the same thing with my mom. I’m going to tell you, my mom and I are very strong personalities till I started studying consciousness. Basically, she’d come see me or I’d go see her, we spent about three days and basically then it was time to go, right? It was just. Now I absolutely love being with my mom, and she didn’t change. She didn’t change at all. I changed and now I love her to death. We just talked yesterday and we just got her a new iPhone. She’s 92 years old and she’s just got a new iPhone and she’s using it and we’re having fun with that and sending her pictures. My two girls, one’s in England, one’s in vet school. So, I’m building, I’m responsible for what I feel, not what she feels. But I can tell you, because I don’t argue with her, I don’t take the— I don’t let anything that happened, because, hey, I’ve know my mom my whole life. Right?

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: So, there was stuff probably that happened, is probably reasons why, you know, that we did fight like that. I don’t do it anymore. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what I do. And what matters is what you do. What you do. Not what she does, just what you do. And bottom line is— and by the way, as far as grief—let me just spend a moment. You got to spend a lot of time with him at the end, which is awesome, because most people don’t get to. You got to be there for when he passed, moving to the next level. And the other thing, a really reflective thing that one of the thought leaders — the world thought leaders — talked about is grief can be many things but the the most beautiful thing about losing somebody is that all of a sudden all the other people, including your sister, by the way, this is an interesting one for you. All things that they were show up in them, and for me, you know, I lost my wife. I have two beautiful girls and I see her in them all the time. Right? So, it’s a beautiful thing. I didn’t really lose her. She’s here forever. Right? And that’s how you should kind of approach your dad. And also with that, it might be a neat area. You were talking about healing. It might be a cool area for you to do with your sister, right? And basically just look and see the reflections because there’s probably parts of her personality that’s in him.

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: Yeah. And so the whole point is that as long as you are being open, curious, and want to grow, not be closed and not be defensive and want to be right, and you know, some of the things you said you’re doing. So, you’re catching yourself on those and say they serve no value. They do nothing other than worsen my relationship and the way I think about my sister, which is of zero value. I want to actually improve my relationship. We’ve lost somebody very important to us. I would love to be able to share that on a more conscious level. And that happens only by what you do, not what she does.

Mandy: Thank you a million. Thank you a million.

Dr. A: Does that help?

Mandy: Yes. Tremendously. I was, I’ve even felt like— I didn’t feel like I was being a villain. Maybe a little, but I felt bad for my parents. And so I was almost villainizing my parents… [crosstalk 00:28:38]

Dr. A: You’re being both. You’re villainizing and you’re being a hero.

Mandy: Yeah.

Dr. A: Being a hero for your parents. You see that?

Mandy: Yeah.

Dr. A: None of it’s good. None. Remember, and it’s in my books, the Drama Triangle is basically the victim, the villain and the hero. Right? The Empowerment Triangle is the victim becomes the creator of their life. You work, you become open, curious, and want to grow and become more. Right? The villain becomes the challenger. It’s okay to challenge viewpoints, but not to do it by making someone wrong or making me right. It’s actually challenging— let me understand in more detail. And then the hero becomes what? The coach.

Mandy: Right.

Dr. A: Right?

Mandy: Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. All right.

Mandy: Thank you.

Dr. A: Okay. Who else we got, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Betsy.

Dr. A: Okay. Betsy.

Betsy: Hi, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Hi, Betsy.

Betsy: I’m not sure. Can you hear me okay?

Dr. A: I see you.

Rachel: There you go.

Betsy: Nice to see you. And Mandy, thanks for that because I just lost my dad and had a similar situation with my brother. So that was very helpful. So appreciate that.

Dr. A: Good.

Betsy: So my question for Dr. A is; how do you help people or work with people whose “dreamers” are broken? As I look ahead to my future, I’m turning 55 this month, and I’m planning my future. We don’t have kids, my husband and I. And really trying to get him to be able to visualize our collective future together. And I find sometimes that his dreamer is a little bit broken. It’s hard for him to imagine what life could look like and so that we can take those little steps to get to that future that we both desire. But what I’m really finding is he has a really hard time thinking big and thinking, “future.” And I think part of that is just his upbringing and kind of the paradigm of lack that he’s had. And I’m just curious, what words of wisdom you might have for me to help him find his “dreamer,” and be able to see that life can be different.

Dr. A: Okay. Well, first of all, you can’t get anybody to do anything. So the whole thing is about making people aware. Awakening them to possibilities and, you know, when you— and I wouldn’t use, “his dreamer is broken,” only because that’s a stereotype. You know, I’ve created a story, that’s his story— that’s not his story. His story is that for whatever reason he’s not able to have the extended vision, possibly based on his past, right. So first thing of all, the past is gone. I grew up in a tenement house in New York City. I’m the only one in my family that went to college. So, you know, I could say, well I came from a family… So that’s just an excuse. So the reality is, your role is to awaken to amazing things that you can do together that are beyond what you’ve been able to do in the past. And that could be small things. It doesn’t have to be huge. You don’t have to go climb Mount Everest. You can go up a hill, right? Near your house. I mean it just starts with that.

[00:31:53] And it’s the gain in the gap. You know, there was a book written by Benjamin Hardy on that. And what in essence you want to do is to look and see as you move forward together in life, here are the things that the gains you’ve had. You’ve had a bunch of gains. The gap may be that you want to, you know, you may have this big hairy audacious— well, okay, let’s just go there for a minute. So, Bet, what is something, big hairy audacious goal that you’d like to go do or be or see or what’s something you’re thinking about that he isn’t thinking about?

Betsy: I think a lot of it comes down to financial stability. And I mean, we’re doing fine and thank you, Optavia, but also, just really, honestly just thinking about our future and being in our 50s and 60s and, you know, we’re both healthy and blessed in many many ways, you know, just thinking about, what does retirement look like? What does, you know, travel… those kinds of things. So it’s really kind of everything, just like…

Dr. A: Okay, so…

Betsy: Getting out of the current present and thinking about what… [crosstalk 00:33:07]

Dr. A: So basically you’re saying more he relies on these experiences of the past to guide him in the present and you really rely on the organizing your life matters most, about leading from the future that you want to guide you in the present. Okay. So you’ve got to find then, just find a couple things, you don’t need to find everything. I mean, obviously, if you guys are doing fine right now. That’s great. But the bottom line is, you know, when you— Is he working full-time?

Betsy: Yeah, we’re both self-employed.

Dr. A: Okay. So, you work full-time and there’d be a time when, you know, you want more time together, right? So, that’s one of the things you’re doing with your business is you’re building exponential growth to the point where you have more and more free time. So, basically, find a few things that you can project from the future. In other words, things that he does like. I mean, he’s got to love— Does he like sports?

Betsy: Oh, yeah. We’re, skiers and [unintelligible], professionally.

Dr. A: Okay. So, I’ll just pick something that I’m familiar with. Does he, would he like to go heli-skiing?

Betsy: We both have. Yep.

Dr. A: You have. You have already. Okay.

Betsy: Yep.

Dr. A: You loved it?

Betsy: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We talked about going again.

Dr. A: Okay. Okay. So, stop. You just told me his dream is not broken. He wants to go again to something he loves to do that’s relatively expensive and he can’t do it all the time. What if you could plan over the next five years to be able to heliskiing once, twice, three, four times a year?

Betsy: Yeah! Come on, Dr. A. Let’s put that trip together. Let’s put the Opivia coaches trip together.

Dr. A: When was the last time you heliskied?

Betsy: For me it was a long time ago. For him it was probably five years ago.

Dr. A: Okay. So what do you mean he’s not dreaming? He wants to go. You both talk about it. Go heliskiing.

Betsy: It’s more about the, getting the planning. Like I think that he can…

Dr. A: Well, you could be the planner. He doesn’t have to be the planner. Bottom line is say, “Hun, let’s see where we are financially.” You know, heliskiing, obviously, is a relatively expensive sport. So let’s just look at our finances. Let’s see where we are. Bottom line is, you know, we’re fairly close. Let’s plan on going heliskiing this spring, right? Or next spring, whatever. Something that’s, do something that’s not going to break the bank but put you in position to be able to do it. So, and I would say from where you are now, I would do it this spring. I would plan a trip this spring and then once it’s there, put the money, start putting the money and basically that is one example of leading from the future, right? So you decide that we’re not going to do this because we’re going to do that, or I’m going to build my business 10%. So you know, so in other words, structural, okay, leading from the future, acting in the now is structural dynamics. Okay, it’s a process that I learned from Robert Fritz years and years and years ago. Bottom line, if your desired outcome is to go heliskiing April 5th and bottom line is right now we’re in November 4th. Okay. So, however many months that is, what are the secondary choices we have to do to make that reality?

Focus on the secondary choices with the idea we’re going heliskiing. Get that in his mind. And now you are basically dreaming, producing, setting goals, something that you haven’t done, but you both love to go. So, he does love to dream. He’s just basically trying to, he’s trying to be practical in the present moment. You have to create the structure for him. You know how to do it. You dream. You said you dream more than he does. Well, I actually, I look at it as you set goals better and you sound like you’re better at actually creating the tactics and strategic and tactics to support him. So, you do that part and let him be the dreamer.

Betsy: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think just having something where he can replay his and experience the belief that it actually can happen, you know.

Dr. A: So, well, it’s more, it’s actually more than belief. It’s actually, you’re creating a situation, now you’re going to do the work to take you to that. Belief. If I believe in you, if I can transfer the belief I have that you can be as successful as you want in your business, that’s good. You don’t believe until you actually build self-efficacy. So, you actually have to see the results in order to have true belief. I just want to be really clear on that. You can’t. Affirmations are no good if they’re a lie. Okay? So, I am this or I am that. No you’re not. If you’re not that, then you’re not that. But, I choose to do this. This is my decision. I’m leading from that future. And because I have a million choices I can make every day, I’m going to make the choices today that lead me to the future I want. So, in terms of that particular thing, you should run in to see him after say, “Hey, Dr. A says we’re going heliskiing.” And bottom line is go— I don’t know who you use. I use CMH.

Betsy: Me too.

Dr. A: Yeah, they’re awesome. Basically, call them and say, “What spring trips do you have?” And even if this year you go on a five day instead of an eight day, right? Go on a five day. Great. Let’s see what we got. Boom. Let’s look at it. Let’s plan it. Let’s start thinking about it. Let’s go skiing. And every time we go skiing, you’re doing that as a secondary choice to get in better shape to basically be able to go heliskiing. See, that’s how that’s how the process of expanding your future works. It’s mostly setting the direction and then informing your every day to that direction. So you’re not distracted. So it actually happens.

Betsy: Yeah.

Dr. A: That’s more important.

Betsy: Agreed. Thanks, Dr. A.

Dr. A: You’re welcome.

Betsy: Let’s go skiing sometime.

Dr. A: All right. Good to see you skiing. I want to see some pictures. All right?

Betsy: Okay. Sounds good.

Dr. A: Awesome. Okay. Who’s next, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Deanna.

Dr. A: Hey, Deanna.

Deanna: Hi, Dr. A. So my question— well, it’s good to be here, and thank you for all of what you give us— everybody, community, you, it doesn’t… it just… Yeah. But my mind and my conscience, whatever you want to call it.

Dr. A: Well, we’re gonna define whatever you say, I’ll help you define it specifically because when you know the language, you know the science, you’re more likely to get it right.

Deanna: Yeah. My question is, what steps can you take to be aware before? And that can be— you know, that dot dot dot, that can be any scenario. I have read, you know, I’ve followed and practiced in my LifeBook. I’ve done the Habits of Health and I reread, I also have done Dave Blanchard’s, Habit Finder Health, and outside, in books of Let Them, Let Me by Mel Robbins and everything, but I still find it hard to become aware before I take an action in speaking that causes…

Dr. A: Problems.

Deanna: Well, causes whatever, you know. Yes. But yes.

Dr. A: All right. So, that’s an easy one. You get the “icky sauce.” No, you do. You get the “icky sauce.” Your human mind. Okay. You have your subconscious and you have your conscious. When something— so, every five seconds in our life, something happens. Constantly. If you start feeling that “icky sauce,” where you just don’t feel right, tightness in your throat, pressure in your chest, tightness in your jaw, butterflies, whatever it is, when you feel that, right then, I created something so easy. You stop. You don’t do anything. You stop. You take a deep, centering breath. If you have water, you take a nice big drink of water. That’s what I do. If I’m in a board meeting or in a room and something comes up and it’s something that’s triggering me, I will always stop and drink some water, think about it for a little bit, and then basically challenge why am I feeling that way and then choose the outcome I want. And so the way to do that is start with little things. I mean, you know, if something huge happens in your, you know, with somebody in your family and they attack you at Thanksgiving dinner with a sentence that pisses you off, that’s a hard one to practice on.

[00:42:17] You practice on the little stuff. You practice on the stuff, you know, I’ve talked about this many times before. I live on an island and there’s only one way on and one way off. And in most of the areas, it’s 40 miles an hour and there’s older people, not always older people. I shouldn’t even stereotype that. There’s seems like there’s always someone in front of you that’s going 30 and most of the places it’s a double yellow line. Okay. I use it every day, every week and I basically say, okay I can get irritated about this. I can’t go around. I don’t want to do something illegal. It’s double line for a reason. There’s a lot of side roads and stuff. So, first of all I choose to do something in place rather than getting upset about it. I choose something like, well I have another five minutes before I get to that meeting. Let me think about what I’m going to say or I’m a little, you know, I get a little, “ick,” so let me listen to a great song or let me listen to a podcast. Let me listen to someone that I enjoy. So you’re fully responsible for that. You’re not creating a big enough gap between the stimulus and the response. And it’s not going to happen by reading. It’s not a— it’s going to the mental gym. It doesn’t— you can read all the great sages and say, “Oh, I understand that.” That’s not what this is about. This is about creating a gap between stimulus and response.

We traditionally, because of fear and survival, we react at a thematic level, basically either at the brain stem with a reaction or the limbic area as mammals where we have an emotional response and when we have an emotional response, all you’ve got to do is go to Element Four. Look at the three brains, the reptilian, the Labrador, and the human brain. And understand that unless you basically create that gap when you start to sense the limbic brain getting activated and you’re starting to react, if you don’t stop right then and your body will tell you, your emotions are energy in your body. They actually have sensations to them and it’s good to even get used to it. There’s a whole chart I have in there about, you know, identifying. There’s only five main emotions. Identify which one you’re feeling, challenge yourself on it, and then choose an outcome that doesn’t get you in trouble.

That’s fully your responsibility. But you got to practice it every day. It’s not a thing you’re going to learn by reading. It’s not a knowledge-based thing. It’s a practical— okay. You can read how to do bicep lifts, right? Or bench presses. You can read all you want about bench presses, but it doesn’t build your muscles, right?

Deanna: Right. Agreed.

Dr. A: To build your psychological flexibility, and that’s what we’re talking about, only happens through practice. It’s going to the mental gym every day. So, start picking little things that irritate you. And then there’s three ways you can negotiate through. One is to substitute something positive like I just talked about. The second is do a mantra. Do something, use one word. If you have a bunch of stuff going on in your head, do a mantra, just simply means take one word that you’re saying to yourself, some word that’s special for you. It can be spirituality. It can be God. It can be whatever. Whatever matters to you. It’s different for each one. And repeat that over and over. And as you do that, all those other thoughts will dissipate because you’re focusing on that one. That’s the second one. And the third one, the hardest one, but the one that’s the most successful is the one where I talked about earlier where you just become the witness of it. You sit there and witness it and you basically totally release it. You don’t let it take. You don’t let it get you. You don’t suppress it. You don’t resist it. You simply feel the feeling all the way through and then you let it go. And then also the other part of that, is that will give you— those are breadcrumbs, just like we were talking about earlier with Betsy. Those are the breadcrumbs — not Betsy, with Mara — the breadcrumbs that actually will lead you to that stuff you’ve got inside of you, that’s been there forever, that you can start working on and releasing. And a lot of this, the best way to do it is breath work. Nice deep, centering breaths.

You’ll know because if you’re starting to get reacted, your breathing will become shallow. It’ll be up high and it’ll be rapid. And the best thing you can do then is slow your breathing way down. Take a deep belly breath where you actually feel your belly going out. Your diaphragm goes down and then you release that. And when you release that, you release that emotion with it so it doesn’t become reactive and you keep your mouth shut. Right.

Deanna: That’s hard for me to do. But yes.

Dr. A: It’s hard for all— listen, you’re a human. Don’t think you’re some special character. We all have that. Okay? You got to work on that. That’s part of what we call socialization, right? When you’re five years old, you know, the golden rule for kids is you don’t steal other kids things, you don’t hit other kids. Same thing with your mouth. You don’t do your terse barbs that you can do just because you can do them. You stop doing them because you want to build internal stability and external equilibrium. That’s what creates your— first of all, three main reasons. First, for your own health. When you’re stressed and you become in a reactive phase. It is really harmful for you. It is really bad for us. It releases cortisol, epinephrine, all these things that raise your blood pressure. Create insulin resistance. It goes on and on, I can go on for an hour. Second thing is basically it affects your relational health. Not just your health, relational health with other people which is really, really important. And then the third obviously is your ability to do your job and help people or whatever it is you do. It’s important for you so you can have good relationships with the people that you care about. Cool? [crosstalk 00:48:44]

Deanna: Thank you, Dr. A.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. So, Deanna, just pick one— I’ll tell you even a better thing— today, don’t even try to work on it. Just observe yourself. It’s a good thing, is— listen, I have a journal. I have a journal right here on my desk and basically I will write down things and then at the end of the day like let’s say a couple things I’m working on right now. So basically I’ll write down, did I get those things done? And if I didn’t, what were the things that happened during the day that I wrote down here? Because it’s a great way to kind of summarize your day and you can do it with your phone, you can do it with notes, you can do it, whatever, it doesn’t matter. I do it. I write it because that way I like to visually look at it, but the bottom line is, we’re all humans. That’s the misconception. The people that seem to have their stuff together are those that basically have worked the longest on it. Just like those that can go in and lift the most weight in the gym. They’re the ones that have worked the hardest on it. Same thing with your whole relational health. It’s all about going to the mental gym and getting better. And you’re not going to be great. You’re going to still mess up. But here’s a good thing about that. When you do mess up, write down what was the trigger so that you now have an idea. It’s like rattlesnakes, right? If you’re on a trail in a swamp where there’s rattlesnakes, you know, in this area, you better be more observant. If you’re in an area or doing something or meeting with somebody that normally your relationships, like rattlesnakes, you need to know that I need to be extra, extra cautious and careful. I need to be more on my a-game, I need to be more aware before anything happens. Okay?

Deanna: Got it. Thank you, Dr. A. And yes, I will start with the little things and journal. I trust me, I’ve made a great improvement on myself to become aware…

Dr. A: Good!

Deanna: But there are more often times that I don’t. So, it’s like what am I doing that I’m not becoming aware, prior? But this is helpful. So, I appreciate it.

Dr. A: Remember, your body will tell you. Let your body tell you. It’ll always tell you. Get more aware of your body, how it’s sensing, how it’s feeling. Do some exercises where— basically progressive targeted meditation on feeling your fingers, your hands, different parts of your, sematic parts of your body so that you’re more aware when something’s going haywire because it’ll tell you right away that your emotions, remember your limbic part of your brain is before your prefrontal cortex. It was designed that way so that you could react. So that rattlesnake— you didn’t go, “Oh, look how pretty that rattlesnake is.” No, you jump back in a caustic relationship or something you have an issue with. It will tell you if you’re going haywire right from the beginning. And the most important thing you can do is stop. Stop talking. Stop acting. Take those breaths. Get control. Remember, you’re wrestling back control of the thought part of your brain, so you can make a choice that supports long-term relational health, all of your health. Okay?

Deanna: Thank you.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. All right. Good luck on that.

Deanna: Thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah. Okay, Great. Rach, who else we got?

Rachel: All right, we have Karen. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi, Dr. A. Hi, thank you. Okay, I really don’t have a question. I’m here because I asked you a question about a year or so ago, due to some family stuff that had been going on and your suggestion was to go get professional help and I was in resistance. I really was. Life had been turned inside out for me. My heart had just been ripped out and so I’ve been doing a lot, of course, I’ve been a part of Optavia for 11 years. I enjoy all of the opportunities we have for learning from you, and Dave Blanchard, and everything. But finally, about two months ago, I decided to go — it could have been a little under — to go get some professional help, and boy, the thing that happened was our son had quit coming over with his family. I babysat for him two days a week. And it was just I never felt anything so hard in my life to deal with. Then that was bringing up triggers of other trauma that happened when I was in my first marriage. And so there was just so much going on and I just felt like I couldn’t manage. And now my son is back in our life after a year and a half. And I really work hard at not saying, “Well, I didn’t say that or I didn’t do that.” It’s more like, “Tell me more about that. What did you want to have happen? What was your expectations?” All the things we talk about. And it has made a huge, huge difference in our relationship at this point.

And so thank you for that direction, to go get professional help. Again, I’ve only gone like four times, so I think I’m just more open and curious than I was before. Before it was like I don’t want to talk about this with anybody, but now it’s been a little bit easier. And so thank you for sharing that information with me. And then of course all the questions that get asked here touch my life also in different situations. Losing my mom, bringing my dad who’s 92 into our home and the things like that that also add to all those stresses, that create those different triggers and emotions to manifest. So that’s all I want to do is just thank you for your input and your suggestion.

Dr. A: Well, I love that, Karen. And I love— thank you for going over that and talking about that. Yeah, we all need mentors for different things in our life. And sometimes we’ve had a lot of things happen to us. It’s really important, you know, I mean, I sit here in general terms and talk about how our mind works and our brain works. But when there’s specific stuff like that, you know, you basically weren’t receptive to it for a while. And sometimes just by taking the edges off and you start to see, wow, this is helping me, but what I need is specific, targeted— with someone that is a psychotherapist, right? And so, yeah, I love to hear that because the journey to health, to mental, just feeling, you know, this sense of wellbeing is so critical for our long-term health.

And so I love that. I love it. Continue it and embrace it. Like, I used the word curious in there. I love that. That means you’re starting to function in a conscious way and want to learn more about yourself, and knowing that— again, looking back to that simple little model of internal stability and external equilibrium, right? As you become more internally stable then the equilibrium on the outside, with your kids and stuff, would become greater. So you’re really a great example of if you do the work inside, it’ll improve your ability to have external equilibrium with the world around you and specifically with our loved ones, our relationships, our friends, our co-workers, and people that are very important to our daily life. So it’s really exciting for you and congratulations, that you’ve had the courage to step up and do that. It’s really pretty impressive.

Karen: Thank you. I do have one quick question. When we talk about cortisol release, does that happen when, and I know this is going to sound silly, but like when we’re watching an intense movie or a football game and you get really intense, does that release cortisol as well?

Dr. A: You’ll have a little bit… cortisol. Well, cortisol basically, it gets a bad name, but cortisol is an important hormone. If you look, you know, when I was writing My Prescription for Life I wore, in fact, I have it on right now. I have it on.

Karen: Yeah.

Dr. A: I use it to monitor everything I eat, to make sure I optimize my metabolic health. And in the morning your cortisol level, around 4:00– depending, if you sleep 8 hours in normal time period around 4 or 5 in the morning your glucose starts going up, preparing you for the day, and cortisol is being released then and what it does is it kind of bays and protects us against stress, against getting up and moving, the waking up process. So it’s normal then. Cortisol under stress is released and that’s negative. Most of the things, if you’re watching a movie or something, and you know, it’s not reality, right? Then it might get a little jolt of epinephrine, norepinephrine and probably maybe a little spike, but it won’t be chronic, right? It’ll be in response to what the visual is. And because it’s not chronic— see, what happens with our stress level. It’s usually creates cognitive emotive loops.

So we start thinking about it, and then we get emotional about it, and then that loop just starts building and yes, cortisol is released during that and it’s continual and it’s really bad for you. A little pulse of cortisol, if you got the hell scared out of you on a roller coaster or watching a scary movie, probably is not going to have any long-term effect on you.

Karen: Okay, good. I just, that’s something I just always wanted to ask somebody because, yeah. But thank you again. I sure appreciate all of these conscious forums and I’m looking forward to your new book, too.

Dr. A: Awesome. Well, it’s coming out November 13th.

Karen: Yep. I’m ready!

Dr. A: Thank you.

Karen: Thank you. Have a good day, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Thank you so much. Okay. Who else we got, Rach? We got time for one.

Rachel: We have one more if we can squeeze Allison in.

Dr. A: Yeah, I’ll probably be a little briefer so we stop on time. [crosstalk 00:59:11] Let’s see what you got.

Allison: My question in a nutshell is, how do I get out of my own way? Basically, I know my thoughts are counterproductive rationally. I know that they don’t serve me. I know that the what-ifs are just keeping me stuck. But yet I seem to always think in that way about making changes in my life, moving forward in my life, letting go of the— my children are grown, they have families of their own. And I seem to fall back into that, Oh, I wish I could go back. If only I’d done this differently or we’d live closer or we, you know, I fall back into that pattern. And I’ve discussed this with my awesome coach and I know the past is the past, but how do I tell my whole brain that?

Dr. A: Well, I mean we talked about a lot of it today actually. You know this, and by the way, these are recorded. You can go to my website and watch these as many times as you want. So that would probably be good. But here’s the most important thing, you have a desire to do that. Right now you have a very strong personal mind that is holding on to its experiences from the past. And as long as you’re living in the past, you’re going to suffer a lot because the past is gone. Things that your— the way your ego and your personal mind want them, it’s not that way anymore. So you’re going to suffer because you prefer for those things to be from the past. So if you stay in that space, you’re not going to be happy. You’re going to be miserable. So the first thing is the gift to yourself is to realize that you know don’t you want wouldn’t you rather be happy than miserable.

Allison: Yeah. Of course.

Dr. A: Okay. So, no, I mean, of course, but you haven’t said that to your ego. You haven’t talked to your mind and said, “Hey, I’m tired of suffering. I want to move on.” And what would be really good is find a couple things that you really like to do. You know, that bring you joy and focus on those things and then use those to help put your personal mind back in perspective. So, what’s one thing that you would love to do that you’re not doing right now?

Allison: Working.

Dr. A: You would like to not work?

Allison: No, I would like to work. I’ve been out of work since June and I would like to work.

Dr. A: Okay. What do you like? Okay. So, that’s a great thing. So find something that you like to do and basically, you know, go for it, and focus on this is what I want. This is my future. This is what I really want. And basically, put that into your formula so that, and understand this, this is really important, Allison. You’re not going to wiggle your nose like, “I Dream of Genie” and everything’s going to be great. Okay? But, in slow incremental improvement leads you that way. Okay? And when we talk about above and below the line, open, curious, and want to grow. So if you want to work, which would be good because then you have a new job and you want to be open, curious, and you want to grow and get better at it. That’s a beautiful gift to yourself and that will put you into joy in the current moment as you’re learning and growing. So that’s a beautiful thing. Yeah, without that right now you have basically your ego saying, “Hey, I’m trying to protect you and to give you self-worth,” and where we got that was in the past. So it’s— but you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, okay, so, since that’s true, that would be a great thing to start with. Find a job, even if it’s not the perfect one, find something you like to do in the arena. Whether it’s work with people or whatever, animals, in the food industry, I don’t know, whatever it is you like, get that going and use that because you need something constructive to build on. Leading from that future and then where every day you wake up and you have meaning. Without meaning and purpose, daily in our life basically— and like you said, your kids are all grown, they’ve got their own lives. So you feel kind of a little bit like you’re insignificant in the world and that and you don’t want to be there and that you have full control over.

Allison: Okay. Yep. I appreciate it.

Dr. A: Start there and then come back on. Get a job. Come back on and let’s talk more.

Allison: All right. Sounds good. Thanks.

Dr. A: All right. Thanks. All right. See you. All right, guys. Hopefully that was helpful. Lots of great discussions. Thank you for contributing. Bottom line, I’ll leave you with this: our personal mind was there to protect us when we were young and we didn’t really understand things. Where we are now in our life is determined by us. We make the choices. We decide where we want to go. I always say two things. Organize your life around what matters most. What are the things that are most important in your life? Schedule those forever, how long— just like we talked about the heli-trip. It can be, you know, going on a European vacation. It can be, you know, living on the water. Whatever. Whatever is important. It’s going to be different for each and every one of us. And then put yourself in position to lead from that future, take full responsibility and be the Dominant Force in your life. And say no to the things that aren’t leading you, that are distracting you. Because every day there’s more AI, there’s more ChatGPT, there’s more TikTok. It goes on and on and on. And if we’re not focused on where we want to go and what’s important to us and what we value most, then someone else will have us focused on something that doesn’t do that for us. So, start there. Start having more fun. Do the things that you enjoy doing. And God bless. And I’ll see you next month. Bye.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: Hello, everybody, this is Dr. Andersen, and this is the Conscious Forum. We do this usually on the first Tuesday of the month, but this week, this month, we’re doing it on the second because I was just coming back from actually filming a health documentary in Spain, which was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot about, you know, Spain’s a pretty cool place and they live a long time. In fact, Spain is probably very shortly going to become one of the blue zones, the area in Spain called Galicia. So, lots of insights there. It kind of led me to want to do this talk: What is Required to Become a Healthy Person? I think we all ask that question – you know, over 90% of us have some form of metabolic derangement. Very few of us are optimally healthy. This is about consciousness, but it’s also about understanding how your mind helps control your body, and together they basically create optimal health and wellbeing.

So with that, we’re going to talk today a little bit about what is required to become a healthy person. As you can see, I put down a fellow human. You know, we’re all – whether I teach this from an ivy tower, I’ve written several books on health and wellbeing, write stuff on consciousness, I’m a human just like you are, and we all have to deal with life, and life does get in the way. It’s intrinsically unstable, and as a result, sometimes we kind of run on automatic pilot. So, we’re going to talk about this in detail. So, the first thing I want to talk about is the modern world is designed to keep us unconscious.

Health begins with awareness, not luck. You know, this isn’t just another talk about habits. It’s about identity. Our world is designed to keep us unhealthy by default. We’re here to reclaim choice and design health consciously. So, this is really important for us. So, with that, let’s talk about – let me move to the next slide – so the current health crisis is really dramatic. You know, we don’t drift into health. We have to design it, and I’ve been talking about the creative process now for over 20 years. And the creative process is that we actually have to decide what health looks like and then work to create it because it’s not going to happen by itself, because basically, chronic disease is the norm because our environment is rigged for unconscious living. And so if we don’t actually become aware, which is so important, and get out of autopilot into conscious living– so we have to literally start noticing our patterns, our environments, and our unconscious habits. 

Health won’t happen. We must choose it deliberately. And that is so important for everybody listening or viewing today. Because without that, nothing changes, and you’ll stay in the recurrent patterns, because the world is designed to put you on autopilot. It doesn’t want you thinking. Your ego doesn’t want you thinking. Your ego wants to do the job for you, keep you in the routine that’s easy for you, keep you in the comfort zone. And everywhere around you, every food company, every energy-saving device company, every news station is doing things that actually put you at higher risk for disease. So without that, we basically, without awareness, we’re not going to move. We’re not going to change. So, I like to think about it as the 5-second pause. You know, you need to ask yourself when I do something, when I sit down to eat, when I decide to sit on the sofa versus go up the stairs, use the remote rather than go switch on the TV, is this moving me towards or away from health? So, ask yourself those questions because awareness is the first step. If not, you will stay on autopilot. It’s kind of like when we drive our car. You know, when you first learn how to drive your car, you had to learn where the turn signals are and where the rain–where to put the windshield wipers on, and you had to learn about the brake and the accelerator, and turning, and all the other stuff that was involved in driving a car. And now, pretty much when you drive a car, you’re usually on your phone, hopefully hands-free, and you’re talking away. And next thing you know, you’re at your garage. Oh, I have to open my garage. I’m home. And that’s kind of how we are in everything in our lives.

We get into a pattern, basically those repetitive patterns. They’re influenced by our surroundings. They’re influenced by all the different parts of our environment. They’re influenced by the people we hang out with. They’re influenced by the architecture inside our kitchen. They’re influenced by how many labor-saver devices, and all these things are mostly, if you bought them from someone else, designed to make life easier. And honestly, when it comes to our health, we don’t want life easier. We want it to be more enjoyable. We want to be more aware and more conscious. So basically, awareness is the first step. And if we think about it, basically, our daily choices are so critical. You know, external pressure starts change. So you know whether you’re– you know, you get a lab result that says you’re pre-diabetic or you look at a picture and it shows you in your bathing suit, you say, “God, that can’t be me.” Or any of these things can happen. And that mode– or doctor says, “You are pre-diabetic and you’re going to get diabetes and have to be on medicines.” All those things start from external pressure, but they’re not sustainable.

Intrinsic motivation comes from purpose and identity. So you have to ask the question, who benefits most when you’re healthy? And obviously, the first thing is you. You benefit the most, and you need to be the chief architect of your own health because, without that, all the other things around you will keep you from being healthy. The second thing is relationships. Our relationships are so important, and when we’re healthy, we’re more vibrant. We want to do more things. We get out more, more active socially. And those things were really apparent when I was in Spain. I mean, just basically, they believe very much in living life. They actually say we work to live, not live to work. And that’s kind– we got that backwards here in the country. So who benefits? You. The people around you that you care about, and our whole society collectively. If our health care challenges go down, if our health care costs go down, the country benefits, and we thrive more. So basically, becoming the healthy person, you know what happens here? Well, it’s a strong sense of identity which consistently outweighs your willpower. Once you become a healthy person, you don’t have to try. You actually become that person, and you do things because it supports what’s more important to you. And that is so critical for us.

So if we think about that, basically, healthy choices become the default when you change who you are. You raise your standards by 1% a week. So, how do we become a healthy person? How do we change our identity? We do that by increasing our standards. And we do it in small increments. We shift from I’m trying to, to someone who values and protects my health. Show how identity alignment removes decision fatigue. When you have to keep deciding everything because you haven’t chosen to be a healthy person, everything becomes hard. You see something at a restaurant, you want it and you know it’s not healthy, and then you have to force yourself not to do it. So you’re using willpower. No. When you become a healthy person, then you don’t do these things because you don’t want to do them anymore. It’s really important.

So, let’s basically talk about the core Habits of Health. Now, I rearranged these. Normally, they’re done with the Macro Habits, but I want to put them in the categories so you can see which ones have to do with here, which ones have to do with your body, which have to do with your surroundings, and which have to do with your actual spirit. So, Healthy Body, how we move, what we eat, hydration, sleep, those are all critical, and we know how to do those. You know, I’ve spent many years with the Habits of Health teaching how to do that. Healthy Mind, resilience and stress management. Learning to Stop. Challenge. Choose. Learning to build psychological flexibility is so, so important. Healthy Surroundings, our underlying surroundings determine our behavior. We want to make it easier to do things that are healthy, and we want to make it harder to do things that aren’t healthy.

So the bottom line is you buy your willpower at the grocery store, right? If you don’t bring home stuff that’s not healthy, you’re not going to go out at night when you have an itch for something or like just an urge to eat some particular kind of food, because you’re not going to drive 10 miles to the grocery store at night. So, it’s important to modify our surroundings. And then our spirit, you know, basically having purpose, gratitude, and connection is so critical for us to have a healthy state of mind.

So with that, the invitation is, since health isn’t a destination, it’s actually your identity. Choose one small area to upgrade this week. If you choose one thing to do that you know is healthy and choose not to do one thing you do that isn’t healthy, that’s a double win. That’s like a 14-year point change in a game when the football team’s ready to score and they throw an interception, the guy runs it back for a touchdown. Those are basically small wins by your new story, and it’s really critical. The other part is reclaiming your authorship. You’re not a character in the story. Your thoughts are not you. Your feelings are not you. They are byproducts of your ego. You are actually the entity that is here, conscious. And who are you beyond your performances? You know, whether you’re doing well in school or in your job. That is not who you are. You are who you are. And you decide that by being fully aware in the moment. So we want to write a new story. This is not about adding more to your plate. It’s about taking back the pen and writing a different story. One where you become the healthiest version of yourself. It’s so critical.

[00:9:59] So basically, as I kind of close up this part of the forum and we open it up for questions, when you know who you truly are, no one can tell you who you’re supposed to be. Think about that. That’s so critical. We’re always being told, “Oh, you’re an unhealthy person or you’re this or you’re that.” You’re none of those things. Your identity can be whatever you want it to be. You need to make the decision and a series of small choices that make a difference. So, this is my invitation for you. Start observing your patterns. You know, a great way to do it, most of us don’t do this, but is to journal. Journaling is so good. I have a journal right here that I took to my– I take when I go overseas, that I write notes in. I got it in Venice. It’s a picture of the the famous bridge in Venice and you know I write things in this basically that are so important for me being able to reflect on and so I can use those and look back at them, just like, by the way, when you write books and I’ve written several books, as you know my newest one, My Prescription for Life, is just getting ready to be released. It’ll be on Amazon later on in the month, and it’s going to be available for everybody, and I’m going to go in next month to the studio and do a recording of it. But when I read–when I write the books and then as I go back to them, I was just reviewing something in the very first edition of the Habits of Health on metabolic health, seeing what I had written then and how I’ve changed my understanding.

You learn so much. So, it’s really important to write down what you’re doing during the day and then look and see, and you can actually, you know, a fun thing to do is write down what you ate today. Write down how much you moved today, or whether you sat on the couch, how much TV, how much time were you on your computer, and you can write those things down. And a cool thing you can do is you can take a regular pencil and then a red, and then a green one, and put next to it just a little star or something. Put in red the things that took you away from your health and or put in green the things that took you toward your health or put a like a just a dash in a regular pencil if it didn’t have any change one way or the other and then you can kind of look and then you can go through that and see over time, do you actually have more green than red? And if that’s true then you are changing your standards. Every week, you’re changing things and getting closer. So it starts with awakening that awareness and then creating a life that’s aligned with your true identity. And all of us have the opportunity, and I’m going to end with this next slide.

Your true identity is to become a healthy person. To be as healthy as you can with what you’ve got, and it’s a matter of three things. Changing how we perceive things so that we frame everything in a positive light. Two, basically, our choices, our decisions. Start making decisions that lead us towards health. And then the third is our behavior. Start doing things that lead us toward health. So basically that’s it! Hopefully that made a difference and got you thinking about it. And so now Rachel, let’s open it up for questions.

Rachel: All right. First up, we have John. John, can you come off mute? There you are.

Dr. A: Hey, John, you’re muted. Can’t hear you.

John: There we go. How’s that?

Dr. A: Good.

John: It wouldn’t turn off. I apologize.

Dr. A: That’s all right.

John: So, we’re talking a lot about metabolic dysfunction. And as we dive into the explanation of what metabolic dysfunction is, it tends to get a little wordy. Do you have a simple way to explain metabolic dysfunction without…

Dr. A: Sure do! I sure do.

Josh: Let’s do it.

Dr. A: You want it?

John: Yeah.

Dr. A: Okay. So, basically, think of your body as being an orchestra with a conductor. And there are three basic aspects of that conduction. There’s physiologic, there’s emotional, and there’s cognitive. And creating coherence in those three areas creates metabolic harmony or synchronization. Just like, you know, when you have an orchestra and you can tell if one instrument’s off in there, and man, it just doesn’t work. Well, metabolic dysfunction, basically– first of all, metabolism is simply us taking external energy from in our environment, putting it into our body, and it goes through the different phases down– first of all, you digest and you absorb, it’s broken down, and then the end point of metabolic health is these small little organelles, they’re called because they’re small and they’re inside all our cells called mitochondria. Mitochondria are like the powerhouse. They’re like the engine in your car. When you have that tuned and it’s running well, you don’t have any coughing. It isn’t, you know, sputtering. It’s not missing a beat. It sounds, it purs. That’s metabolic harmony. That’s metabolic synchronization. That’s basically when everything’s working like it’s supposed to. Okay.

The key modulator in our body that regulates all energy is insulin. Insulin is produced in our pancreas. It’s basically made in the beta cells, and when we eat something, it’s broken down and goes into the blood. As our blood sugar goes up, our insulin level goes up in order to help facilitate. Every cell in your body has insulin, has insulin receptors, and insulin’s designed to grow. So three things create dysfunction from the very beginning. I’m kind of just outlining the whole thing in very simple terms, hopefully, it makes sense so far. Right?

John: Right.

Dr. A: Okay. All right. So, basically, when you eat the meal, you know, there are three macronutrients. Basically, there’s protein, there’s fat, and then there’s carbohydrate. Part of carbohydrate is obviously sugar. There’s actually a fourth: alcohol, but it doesn’t have any nutritive value, but it does actually have energy in it, right? So, it’s around seven calories, right? So, basically, when you have those nutrients, they go in, the body utilizes them, it goes into the cell. It’s like there’s a gatekeeper, and the insulin opens it up so the glucose can go into the cell and work perfectly. When you start having dysfunction, the very first sign of dysfunction is kind of like high blood pressure. You don’t know about it. You really don’t know about it. What you may sense is a feeling of fatigue, malaise. You just aren’t feeling, you know, those days when you just don’t have that kick in your step. Right?

John: Right.

Dr. A: And what we’re finding now is, what’s happening is you’re starting to get insulin resistance. Insulin resistance means that the cells are not functioning– the insulin is not functioning and opening up the gates to those cells, and so your body is making more insulin. So if we look at somebody that may have no other symptoms yet, and if we look at–we don’t measure this. We measure glucose. We measure your blood sugar, your fasting blood sugar. That’s really pretty far down the road. When you basically have elevated blood sugar, that may have been five, ten years where your insulin levels have been going up trying to help keep up, so it could get your blood sugar into, the glucose, into the cells. So you already have metabolic dysfunction, and we sense it, that the mitochondria are not functioning as well, and it’s requiring more, and they’re kind of starting to sputter a little bit. Right?

Once your blood sugar starts going up, now you’re really getting into it, and then it leads to–there’s a thing called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is actually–we started studying this, you know, like 50 years ago. It used to be called syndrome X. Metabolic syndrome means that you– there are five things that they look at, that show that you’re metabolically not healthy. And by the way, just to make it, we can’t study in real life your mitochondria. We can’t look and see them sputtering. We can do that in the lab, but we can’t do that– it’s hard, very hard to do. But we know some of the things that go along with metabolic dysfunction, which is metabolic syndrome. There are things as simple as your waist circumference. That’s because you’re when your waist circumference goes up, and it’s over 35 as a female or 40 as a male, you’re starting to get visceral adiposity. That’s visceral fat. That’s unhealthy fat that creates inflammation and creates all the secondary things that go on.

Second is your basically your blood sugar starts going up. Your fasting blood sugar is going up. Third, your triglycerides are going up. Fourth, your blood pressure is going up. And then fifth, your HDLs are going down, which is the good cholesterol that helps move it away. So any one of those five things that happen by themselves is that you’re building metabolic dysfunction. When you have three of them or more, you now have metabolic syndrome, which means you have pretty significant disease already occurring. So that’s that’s kind of how we quantitate it. And here’s the thing: metabolic dysfunction is the harbinger. It’s kind of like the soil that grows all the major diseases. So everything from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, to Alzheimer’s to other cognitive declines, to cancers, all those things are directly related to metabolic dysfunction that started years before, including, by the way, fatty liver and PCOS that women get, right? Where they become infertile. All those things are a result of that.

[00:19:58] So in the continuum, metabolic health means very clearly that we are humming along. We have basically great coherence between our physiology and our emotions. Oh, because here’s the other thing, the things that I spend time on the Habits of Health all either create improving metabolic health or worsening metabolic health. So everything from the– and the three things that raise your insulin. First, number one, is insulin raises insulin. So if your insulin level goes up and it goes up as a result of eating the unhealthy, processed food, ultraprocessed diet, we eat, right? That’s the main reason, eating too much sugar and salty stuff that is not healthy for you.

Second is inflammation, which is when your gut is not healthy because you’re eating all these improper foods, and you start to get leaky gut. And then what happens is some of the bacteria that are supposed to stay inside your gut actually leak into your bloodstream, causing inflammation. And the third is why I do this forum, and that is your stress level. As your stress level goes up, basically your insulin load goes up, and the other part of that is your sleep. When you don’t sleep well, your cortisol level goes up and you’re you’re basically more likely to be unhealthy. So, does that help?

John: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for chiming in. I appreciate it.

Dr. A: Yeah. You’re welcome. Cool. Awesome. Okay. Who’s next, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Alison. Hey, Alison.

Dr.A: Hey, Alison. I think you’re still muted there. Yep. There you go.

Alison: Hi, Dr. A!

Dr. A: Great to see you.

Alison: So, we talked last March, and I shared with you how I felt stuck. I was starting, stopping, starting, stopping. You gave me some things to talk with my therapist about, and that helped massively. I just have to show you the change in me since then [Alison shows a photo].

Dr. A: Wow. Awesome.

Alison: And so I’m headed back in the right direction again.

Dr. A: I can tell by your smile.

Alison: It’s crazy, like the mental capacity for everything, just how it affects all areas of life. And I feel I’ve never gotten to a healthy BMI in my adult life. I got close about six years ago with Optavia, and I let the voices– I think it was a combination of two things. First, there were a lot of voices that I feel like had never seen healthy on me, and so they were very well-meaning, telling me, giving me, all kinds of advice that was not in alignment with my goals and getting to a healthy BMI, being healthy, like you’ve been talking about. So that was part of it. I think the other part of it, if I’m going to be honest, was my unbelief that I could actually get there. I now believe that I am fully capable of getting there with the program, with the tools that you have given us. It’s going to happen.

But there is this underlying concern for the voices that have already started coming up. I like what I see in the mirror now. Honestly, I’ve liked it. I’ve learned to love that back from when I was at my highest. I had accepted that piece, and so I’m happy with that piece. I’m a little nervous as I get lower and lower and closer and closer. I’m not going to be used to what healthy looks like on me either. And I just, I don’t want to stop. I want to, like you were talking about, get to that point where I’ve got as little visceral fat as possible and I can be as healthy as possible for myself and my family.

Dr. A: Yeah, I love that. I really love that. So, who are you?

Alison: I think maybe I need to spend some time there.

Dr. A: Yeah, because, okay, so what you have to do is do a plus and minus column.

Alison: Okay.

Dr. A: Because you’re still in a bit of an oscillating structure. Okay, you want to be in a creative structure, and that’s what this talk was today. So, you’re a great example. Thank you for sharing. First of all, let’s go back for a moment. I’m just curious, what were the main things we talked about last year that helped you work with your therapist? What would you say to those? So, let’s start there so we can build on that.

Alison: Just really getting deep into my “why” and what’s important to me and building on small habits. And so really, like one of the things was starting with five-minute walks, and that’s grown to the point where now, almost two hours, and that’s my safe space. That’s my time with God. That’s my mental– I go for walks now not for physical health, but the mental, emotional piece. So, really giving myself that time and space.

Dr. A: Okay. So, okay. Let’s just take that one. Let’s start right there. So you know, do you journal by the way? I used to, but I haven’t been lately. Oh, hello! Okay, let’s start. You can’t–remember this, health, being healthy is a lifetime commitment.

Alison: Yeah.

Dr. A: It’s not a thing you do for a while. It’s not a thing– and what you’re doing again, a little bit, is you’re looking and saying, “Wow, look how much better I look.” Right? So, you’re looking at getting rid of something you don’t want. I don’t want you thinking that way anymore. I want you, what are you creating in your life? Problem-solving does not create anything. It just gets rid of something that’s wrong. And then when you get close– that’s why you’re starting to get worried again. You’re getting worried because you know I’m not used to this. I like it. But it never lasts. So your belief isn’t complete. If your belief is complete, you wouldn’t be having this discussion. So first of all, stop fooling yourself. Okay.

 Alison: Thank you.

Dr. A: That’s the first thing. Second thing is, focus on what you are creating. Okay? You’re a beautiful woman. You want to be at a healthy BMI. You want to be fit. So let’s just take something like– we would need to look at, what am I doing in small incremental steps and what do I need to continue to adjust? Okay. So getting out and just walking five minutes is a good start. It got you out. I mean, I can tell you this morning I got up. I’ve got really busy– I have this to do. I have to get ready for Sunday. I have to make these lectures. I got all these things. But what I did is I took some fat-free or sugar-free yogurt. took a nice cup of coffee, put a little creatine in it because there are things I do now. I didn’t used to do those. And I went and sat outside. I happen to live on the ocean and it’s the ocean’s pretty rough today. And I sat there for 15 minutes doing exactly what you’re talking about the time this for our spiritual growth, right? And I really looked at that and and in that, you know, I said to myself, you know what? What a beautiful place we live in, right? That appreciative gratitude those things are so important.

Be grateful for who you are. Be grateful for the things you’ve done. And now, as I move forward, you want to look at the practicality, right? We start with microHabits, and then you build them and now you’re saying you’re spending two hours a day walking. Well here’s the thing, is that actually the best use of your time? Now part of, the spiritual part I love, two hours is a lot of time. Could I use that time and now diversify my Habits of Healthy Motion? Add weight resistance training, add some HIIT, right? Some highintensity interval training. Can I do– and maybe you’ve already done these things, but my point is how do I now as I move forward add and remember you are evolving and as you evolve, you have to continue to do things you didn’t do before, right? You don’t start swimming across the Golden Gate– the San Francisco harbor. you get in the kiddie pool and learn how to deal with water as a kid, right?

Where you are now is you’re now incrementally improving and refining the things you do. You know, I started when I wrote My Prescription for Life, which is just getting released. I wore a glucometer for a year, a continuous glucose monitor, and everything—I had never done that before, and I knew, I wrote in 2008, in the first Habits of Health, I wrote about glycemic index and gave you great guidelines, but I hadn’t actually done it specifically, each thing I ate. I started doing that. My waist circumference is basically two inches. It’s the same as I was in high school now. I never reached that before because I continue to learn and grow and do more things that help more decisions. The little baby steps that together add up. So, you should do a full review now of everything you do. You know, if we went back to the slide I showed you on the Habits of Health, the stuff on your physical body, okay, what can I do to now improve my physical, my Habits of Healthy Motion? Should I add getting on a Peloton or getting, you know, whatever? It doesn’t matter. Going to the gym, going bike riding, it doesn’t matter what. Swimming, getting in the pool, whatever works for you. And make sure it works in your schedule because it’s now who you’re becoming. And so, it’s something you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life, not just for a short period of time.

[00:29:57] That’s the problem with dieting. That’s the problem with any of these problem-solving ways. You will get to the point where just like, you know, I made an analogy in one of my recent talks. It’s like going to the casino, right? You may have some small wins, but you’re going to lose. The person that’s going to win is the casino. The casino, those casinos in Vegas are huge monoliths. I mean, they’re luxurious beyond—they’re crazy how luxurious they are. They’re extreme. That’s because you’re going to lose when you go to the casino. If you focus on losing weight alone by dropping your calories, you are going to lose long term unless you’re approaching it from creating health. That’s the whole shift towards metabolic health. We want to help people start improving their body’s ability to put itself back in balance. So, you should do a review. You should sit down this weekend when you have some time. I know you’re a busy mom, but basically take all key six MacroHabits.

Alison: Okay.

Dr. A: All six of them. And the one you really want to focus on—does your dog have a collar on? What’s he got? What’s he got going on? [Alison’s dog comes into view onscreen with a cone collar on].

Alison: I was trimming his hair and I cut his neck.

Dr. A: Oh, okay. Well, that’s something you want to work on. Like maybe take him to the dog trimmer.

Alison: Yeah, I mean that’ll be cheaper than the vet bill!

Dr. A: Than the vet bill, yeah [Alison and Dr. A are laughing]. So, anyway, but here’s my point—and see how you feel right now when you’re laughing?

Alison: Yeah.

Dr. A: Okay. You can do that in all the key areas. You can laugh about, “You know what? I’m now creating health in my Habits of Healthy Emotion,” and go through the book. Go through the LifeBook. Go through and say, “Okay. Which of those do I need to add?” And maybe compress rather than spending two hours out walking and talking to God, you can do that in in the cliff notes with God, and love it, and I’m making fun of it, but have that spiritual—that’s an important part of everything. That’s part a big part of our “Why.” But beyond that, let’s add the other two or three things that can help improve your physical heath. As you increase your muscle, you increase your ability to absorb glucose. It’s like a big sponge and it also absorbs your insulin. So in the times when you do get stressed, because life does get in the way. You’re not trying to be pollyanna and say that life is perfect. You’re basically learning that when something in life happens that isn’t perfect, I now have the physiologic or psychological flexibility to make it like water on a duck’s back. I deal with it, address it, and then I move on with my day. It doesn’t raise my insulin, so that by later in the afternoon, because I’m so stressed out, I’m looking to eat a hot fudge Sunday.

Alison: Right.

Dr. A: Every one of these things you have control over and you’re there. And part of journaling, you need to start journaling. And I think the idea, you know, I talked about earlier, write down make–there’s charts. You can go to habitsofhealth.com and get charts that measure your six MacroHabits and where you are in them from 1 to 10, and start doing that. Take a journal each day, take the categories and say, “Okay, I did these three things that helped with my Habits of Health and I did these two things that were habits of non-health because I was sedentary.” Right? Start doing that. And then what’s going to happen is you’re building your aramentarium. You’re building this protective bubble around you. So that the influences that used to take you down and sabotage you no longer have that effect on you. Cool?

Alison: Yes. Thank you.

Dr. A: Right. Come back on in a couple months and let me know. And by and by the way, each time you start to have that little self-doubt creep in, look at where you’re going. Look at your recent gains, the things you’ve done that have actually helped you. And basically don’t give any energy. You know, there’s an old Indian adage about we all have two wolves, right? One of them is one of them basically is loving, takes care of the family, does everything and the other one is mean and nasty. Which one are you? The one you feed.

Alison: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.

Dr. A: Okay, Rach. Who else we got?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Mary. There you are, Mary.

Dr. A: Hey, Mary. I can’t hear you. You’re muted.

Mary: Sorry, I hit the wrong button and your face disappeared.

Dr. A: I hear you now fine. Don’t worry. Don’t be sorry.

Mary: Okay. So, I wrote up my question and I don’t know where it went so I’ll just rephrase it. It’s nice to chat with you, of course. My question is, I’m in a nursing facility and I will put it bluntly, I don’t see a lot of Habits of Health going on beyond the fact that they give the patients their medications and they provide activities that are not really the MacroHabit of Healthy Movement. And I just wondered if you had any thoughts on what I can do if not while I’m in here, because I’m confined to the bed, if not while I’m here, because I do suggest things and they’re poo-pooed. And so what could I do after I go home? Which I assume will be after I have surgery on my broken leg in about, I’m hoping for about 6 months. I have lost 182 and I have 70 to go. But I feel for these people who don’t have that hope of going home and it actually breaks my heart. And when I read the book, the LifeBook and the Habits of Health, I see all these things that they could be doing. And I had the idea of starting a kindness project, but anyway, that’s what I wanted to hear from you.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, you know, I’m going to show you something. I’m going to show you something because you are asking the million-dollar question, and I asked the same question to the food industry, to the energy saving device industry, to the news agencies, to just about everything out there in our country, unfortunately it is obesogenic. It’s not helping us. And certainly the difference, you know, being in a facility like you’re in, is focused around, it’s tooled for disease management. It’s not tooled for health. So I know it’s frustrating. I think for you, the best thing you can do is get yourself, get that thing fixed, and get out and start moving as much as you can. I’m going to show you a cute little video that I did when I was in Spain. I went to a community center where there were people that were in their 80’s, 90’s, and basically hundreds. And I want to show, I’ll show you, just to give you hope that you can do these things and when you get out obviously, but by the way, what can you do? Whatever you can do consistently, right? Do something, you know, again going back to the microHabits. Do something that you can do every day, right?

Start off slow, just moving your limbs, you know, being able to get out of bed and be weight dependant, as long as your balance is good. You do start very slow. Don’t try to overdo it and just incrementally get just a little bit better every day. That’s that will make all the difference. So, I’m going to show you something cute just to give in inspire you. Okay, here we go. Can you see those people?

Mary: Yes.

Dr. A: They’re all in their 80’s, 90’s. Some of them are in their hundreds and they’re out there in a little community center and they’re doing the Macarena. She’s taking them through the motions. Like just simple things like that. Keeping their flexibility, moving themselves, sitting in the chair because many of them, like yourself right now, can’t can’t do that. So, what you have in here, help yourself get healthy. You know, obviously if you need surgery, modern medicine has things we do that can help like surgery. Get that repaired and then as soon as it, you know, your doctors say it’s okay, then get out and start moving as much as you can, and start slow because your balance won’t be good. You’ve been in bed for a while, so you’re, you know, when you’re at bed rest, you get kind of light headed when you get up suddenly. So, just work, but don’t let the frustrations of what you’re seeing in there. We’ll get that changed over time. That’s why we do this. That’s what this Conscious Forum is about.

Mary: That’s what I wanted to hear.

Dr. A: Okay?

Mary: Yeah.

Dr. A: And good luck.

Mary: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dr. A: See you, bye. Okay, Rachel, do we have anybody else?

Rachel: All right. Yep. Next we have T.J. Hi, T.J.

T.J.: Good morning.

Dr. A: Morning.

T.J.: So I just absolutely love getting into the Habits of Health and LifeBook. In fact, they are threadbare now almost. I love that we’re moving deeper into metabolic health, which I feel like that is everything that you have taught us through the years, and over the last 10 years. Like I said, I have just just eaten it up. There’s one thing that stands out to me, and I’d love to have you talk a little bit more about it. Somewhere in there, you talk about within 3 months, our cells rejuvenate, and within 3 years, it’s as if we haven’t done the damage. And I will say over 10 years, I no longer live with obesity. I no longer live with Hashimoto’s. I no longer live with rheumatoid arthritis. And that, it’s so powerful what can happen when we change our identity and become this person. And I’m so thankful. But I’d love to have you talk just a little bit more about about the way ourselves regenerate.

Dr. A: Sure. Yeah. So, so first of all, you know, one of the things we’re learning more, and you’re right, when I wrote the Habits of Health, the first version in 2008, I talked about the key role of insulin. I talked about metabolic health. I talked about lowering our insulin level, what insulin resistance was. So, we’re just learning more. And what’s nice is now we’re able to make the claims that we actually specifically can help with that, you know, by reducing, targeting visceral fat and protecting lean mass, and by protecting muscle. I mean, those are all great things, but it’s all part of a continuum, right? In the continuum, if the three main reasons insulin goes up is what we eat, insulin begets insulin, basically inflammation and then stress, then those are the things that I’ve been addressing since 2008 and continue to address as we learn more and more.

That’s why we created–every one of these things, your body will put itself back in a functional state once you’ve got your mitochondria, really, as great powerpoints, creating pure energy, right? They’re creating pure energy that’s used. It’s very– our body has this, not just this inherent capacity to heal itself, but it’s got this intrinsic balance. And so when the nutrients are right, we’re moving, I mean, just like our, when you sleep better, right? You have less stress. The serotonin levels replenish, you have less, you’re able to handle because life is intrinsically unstable. We’re going to go through struggles in life. It’s when we then become the victim and we fully give in and give the power to the process that we start losing our way because then we have no control over it and we feel like we’re in victimhood. That’s the key part.

Like you saw just a little bit ago, Alison was talking about dramatic changes, right? And she knows inside of her that she can do what she needs to, but the voices are still there. Those voices need to basically come out, be released, and no longer be of significance. So, it’s—and I think you’re going to love My Prescription for Life. Because it literally is all about metabolic health and I you know, I started writing that a year and a half ago. And it really, really is the next stage in what we’re doing basically as a mission and that’s helping more and more people, like I love your smile. I can just see you you are in love with becoming a healthy person and the contrast if you could—you know, this is another thing we always tell people, take a picture when you start on our program so you can see what you look like before and show other people how you’ve transformed, but just as much of that, if you had taken a journal when you were at your worst, right? Had all that inflammatory stuff going on, autoimmune stuff, and you looked at how you felt, you quantitated that in a day, and did a synopsis, and then look at this vibrant smile on your face.

Today you are categorically, now you’ve become a healthy person. Before you were relying and and there’s a place for medicine if we get hit by a car or have an infection, but there’s very little place in chronic disease. It just simply keeps us alive, not in a healthy state. And I’m all about health span not lifespan. We want to compress those two. So you live up to that last moment in a healthy state, fully vibrant, enjoying life. And that’s the best gift you can give yourself, your family, your community, our society, and the world. And becoming an advocate of that is so very important for us. So yeah, our cells basically replenish themselves. And what happens is, over time, as we get older, if we haven’t replenished them properly, they reproduce at the same level and the DNA, the telomeres, which are the ends. They’re kind of like, if you think about it, they’re like the little anklets that are on the end of your tennis shoes or your your running shoes, you know, they have the little plastic thing that you can put through the hole and then, you know, as they get older, that frays, right? And then you can’t, you have to put a little spit on it to get it through the hole.

[00:44:49] Same thing happens with our telomeres. They start shortening and unraveling and then they don’t reproduce as well. If you put yourself in perfect metabolic health, you do the things that are necessary, your sleep–the six MacroHabits. I mean, it covers everything. If you’re doing those six things and you’re working on, just like we were talking with Alison, getting better and more diverse, you will maximize your—genetics basically are like a little imprint in there that duplicates. And even if you have bad genetics, if you make good choices, 70% of our health is determined by our choices, our lifestyle—not by our genetics. 30% is your genetics. So you can’t pick your parents, but you certainly can pick your choices. And if you pick your choices, you can overcome the discrepancy between what your genetic, it’s not, you’re not destined. And we’re learning more and more about epigenetics. We can turn off the bad genes. We can actually turn them off by the Habits of Health, by My Prescription for Life and by the things that we’re learning together and collectively reaching out and helping others is a big part of that because we’re in the service of someone else. The joy that brings, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century now and bottom line is, do I look like I’m getting bored with it? No.

T.J.: Not at all.

Dr. A: Okay. So, was that helpful?

T.J.: A tiny question, kind of on the same lane. So, one of the things that I’m talking about when I’m talking about metabolic health is like there’s corrosion that happens. For me, that’s a picture that works really well. There’s corrosion when we’re living in the Habits of Disease. And corrosion, when you think about it, it can actually be cleaned off pretty good. And there might be a little bit of pitting in the metal, but you can clean it off and so those cells are replenishing. But if we wait too long, that corrosion goes in and creates a place where that opening and closing of that insulin flap will never happen. Does that kind of…

Dr. A: Yeah, let me give you a couple real life examples of exactly what happens. Okay. So, one of the things that happens within visceral fat is we get fatty liver infiltration. And before years and years and years ago, the only way you really got fatty liver and got cirrhosis was from alcohol or drugs or from infection, from viral infections. But over the last 40, 50 years, with the onslaught of processed food, we’re getting more and more fatty liver infiltration. In the beginning it’s very reversible. You know you’re basically, as soon as you get insulin low, your body will—through lipolysis—the liver will start cleaning itself, and go through a regeneration where it’s getting healthier and healthier and healthier. If you wait too long and you get cirrhosis, there’s actually scarring of the liver. Now a little bit of cirrhosis you can manage, if you get yourself metabolically healthy. If you have terminal cirrhosis and it gets really bad, it gets to the point where you actually need a liver transplant, which they’re not very available.

They’re very expensive and you end up having to be on all kinds of drugs for the rest of your life. So that’s not the end. And we call it MASH now. It’s actually metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. So that appeals to everything. Same thing with your—we have in our vessels. We have a thing called a glycocalyx which is basically a lining a film in all our blood vessels and around all our cells. And when our insulin level is low and our glucose level is under control, we have a very healthy glycocalyx and it’s kind of like teflon. It lets everything go smooth. When blood sugar gets raised and we get glycated, the hemoglobin, that’s why we measure hemoglobin A1CA is that then what happens is the glycolation occurs and that glycocalyx starts to degradate and over time we get disease.

So all the major diseases I talked about earlier, basically caused from progressive insulin resistance in the metabolic dysfunction, and then metabolic syndrome, and then leading to these terminal disease state which is significant cardiovascular disease, you know, very significant hepatitis, infiltrated liver, which becomes serotic, cognitive decline in our brain, all those things are related, and by addressing this you’ve added several years to your—as long as you don’t get hit by a car, right? Well, that’s the thing. Nine out of 10 deaths are related to metabolic dysfunction. Okay. The 10th one is an accident.

T.J.: Yeah.

Dr. A: So, look both ways while you’re getting healthy.

T.J.: I appreciate you so much. I just love learning from you. Thank you.

Dr. A: Your welcome. Awesome. Okay, we have 10 minutes left. Rachel, are there any more?

Rachel: Yes, we have one more question from Paula.

Dr. A: Hi Paula.

Paula: Hi. So, I just wanted to say, so about a year and a half ago I was living in a nursing home, and was in a wheelchair, and I was able to walk again, and got out, and living in my own apartment again. But my main struggle is that I’ve lived with mental health issues and struggles for a long time, since I was 20 years old, and I’m in my 50s. And I just started my journey. I’m in my third week now, and my question is, how can I change my mindset to just really remain positive and keep going, like to keep on my journey? Because I have, like quite a ways to go to, like lose my weight, and get healthy, and everything, because I have a lot of illnesses and stuff that I really need to take care of. Sleep apnea, rheumatoid arthritis, a lot of inflammation, a lot of chronic pain issues and stuff that are really affecting me right now.

Dr. A: Okay. So, two things. First thing, what do you love doing? What’s one of your favorite things, if, in your day you could do this? Give me one example of something you really love.

Paula: I have a lot of creative hobbies that I like doing. Diamond art, cross stitch, coloring, drawing.

Dr. A: All right.

Paula: Stuff like that.

Dr. A: Okay. So, all those are creations, right? You’re creating things. One of the key things, and by the way, you know, I’m not a psychotherapist. I don’t give mental therapy, cognitive therapy.

Paula: No, I understand.

Dr. A: I’m just saying this so that I’m going to tell you some things. Obviously, the first thing is if you can work with a therapist.

Paula: I do.

Dr. A: Okay. Great. Great. That’s really key because they can help you, you know, if there’s any chemical imbalances, any of those other things. But here’s what I found. The more you focus on what you want, right, which you’ve mentioned a bunch of things you want. You want to reach a healthy weight. You want to be more active. You’re already out of—you’re not in a nursing facility, so clearly you’re getting better. So that’s good. The more you focus on the things you want and the less you focus on the things—it’s kind of like what I was talking about earlier to Alison about the wolves, right? The two wolves. The more you focus and substitute. So, three things you can do. The easiest one is substitute, when you’re having a negative thought, substitute something positive.

[00:52:30] Like for instance, you know, I use the example because we all end up doing it, you know, when you’re driving and sometimes you’re kind of in a hurry. You’re in a 35 mph zone and the person in front of you is going 27, and you’re getting frustrated, right? Well, that serves no one. And you can’t pass them because it’s a double line. So, change it to something positive like, I’ll say something like, “Hey, you know what? I’m going to take five more minutes.” Now, if I, and I’ve learned, I’m much better than I used to be, I always kind of leave earlier just to build more wiggle room because I know that when I’m late, that’s doesn’t represent me well. And if that’s happening, then I’m more stressed.

So, I always try to eliminate that, right? So, first of all, I would start earlier. But the point is, I would then say, “Okay, well, it’s going to take you another 10 minutes to get there. Let me focus on…” if I’m doing a presentation, “let me rehearse it. Let me listen to a song that brings me energy.” I’ll do something positive. I’ll throw something positive in there. So, you replace the negative with a positive. I’m not talking about pollyanna, like if you’re having pain, “Oh, I have no pain.” Focus on something that takes the pain away, right? Something of joy. Maybe do, you know, like you said, cross stitch or something that makes you feel better. And the more you do that throughout the day and substitute that, your body, your chemistry will change because when you’re doing something you enjoy, something we value, literally our brain chemistry changes and that will help you.

Second thing is, as you work on your health, most of the things that you have that are chronic, well we can’t make claims of that, but basically, we know if we metabolically become healthier then those things have less of an effect on our body, right? So you have lots of good motivation to do more things that help you and not focus on—see, we have a tendency to label and let’s actually, let’s end, because we only have five minutes, but let’s end with what this whole talk was about, your identity of being an unhealthy person versus being a healthy person. Right? You have the choice to be as optimally healthy as you can with what you have in your health, in your life.

We know now more and more, the more we reverse our metabolic health, the more that insulin and inflammation and all these things that create pain and all those things, those things don’t have a stronger effect. So if you do these things in general, we can’t make claims on it, but I can tell you that you everything in your life will get better, and you’ve already made a great stride. I mean, if you look at our earlier speaker, she just broke her leg. So she’s incapacitated in a place where people are basically left and forgot, right? They’re left and forgotten, and they need to be fully in the community and joy. So I would pick—the other thing that would be good for you, if you can, is either online, like in communities like this, find some social things you can do with others, right? Because when we can communicate and have relationships and talk to other people you—obviously I don’t know how much you can get out or how much you can’t, but the more you can do things where you relate with other people, that’s a really important thing too. Because now you’re on a journey. You’re able to do things that you like, and the more, always substitute because your mind is the master controller. Your consciousness is the master controller of where your health’s going to go now. And you’ve made a decision to not let the label of the identity of being unhealthy keep you stuck. Just like Alison, right? She was stuck. And now she’s getting healthier in all aspects because she’s now dedicated to focus on what she wants to bring into her life, not what’s wrong with her life.

Paula: Thank you.

Dr. A: Welcome. Good luck to you. Come on in a couple months and let me know. Okay?

Paula: Okay. Thanks.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay. So, we’re right—we don’t have any others, do we, Rach?

Rachel: No, we don’t.

Dr. A: Good. Yeah. Well, we’re right almost at the hour. So, hopefully this was helpful. We all have the ability to become a healthy person. And that’ll be different for each and every one of us. But knowing that today you can make the decision that, you know what? I am going to modify my identity. I’m going to work on my standards. I’m going to start each week adding new standards of how I’m going to basically make choices. Remember we have three things. The first is our perception or how we frame things. I always frame things in a direction of the creative process of what I want. Second is make the decisions that support that. So figure out what you want and then have that inform you every day of the choices. Remember to start asking the question, is what I’m doing adding to my health and taking me more to becoming a healthy person or is it making me unhealthy? And start being aware.

It starts with awareness. Take five minutes in the beginning. Things as simple, you know, I had a real, because in critical care and all the training I did, you know, we didn’t have much of a chance to eat at all because we’d be in the ICU and you couldn’t have food. So, we’d run down to the cafeteria knowing that our beeper would probably go off and so I learned to eat like a Labrador Retriever. And I mean really fast. And it’s taken me years to break that. But now just when I put something, I use the fork going into my mouth as a cue. The cue is, okay, chew 20 times. Really savor this and then enjoy the food. So you slow down. Give the opportunity for your food to now signal back that you’re full. Something as simple as that took me years and years to do, because we have strong habits and we have habits that are made when we’re young or things that happen to us and they kind of give us an identity and your ego wants to keep you in that identity, doesn’t want you to get out of your comfort zone and yet it’s that autopilot that we’re being prayed on more and more with AI, with the food industry, with highly addictive food, with sedentary lifestyle, with all kinds of energetic saving device, with the stress that comes from the world. Being on our TV and every news station pointing at each other like you’re at fault.

All that stuff is negative on our health. We need to be able to become aware and when something’s starting to affect us, choose something different. So, going back to I created this 20 years ago, stop when you’re feeling that icky sauce. Challenge why you’re feeling that way, and choose an outcome that supports your health and doesn’t degradate your health.

So, great. Thank you everybody that contributed today. They were great questions and hopefully we’ve all learned a little more about how we can become a healthy person. See you guys. Bye.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: We missed last month. Lots of stuff going on. I was actually out in the islands in the middle of nowhere with my family and had an amazing time. And you know, that’s kind of what this is all about. It’s about being present and doing the things. And as you’ve heard me say for so many years, organizing your life around what matters most and becoming the Dominant Force in your life.

Today, we’re going to be talking about waking up, the art of being fully present. This is so important and I’m going to switch it up a little bit today because I don’t want to give you a didactic speech where I’m sitting here lecturing to you about what consciousness is, what presence is. I want this to be something that you really feel inside. We want this to be kind of an experience for you. And so we’re going to kind of chill out here and spend a little time.

So, the first thing is if you’re just jumping on this call, take a deep breath, just kind of relax. Get yourself settled in. Hopefully, you have some water there, and hopefully the room is quiet because, as you know, in America, everything is a distraction. And we’re in the most distracted time we’ve ever been, anytime in this universe. In fact, now with AI, I mean, there are so many things going on. You can get lost outside of your reality. And the cognitive part of our brain is really important. The emotional part of our brain is really important. And what we call the coherence, where your physiology, your emotionality or your emotions and your cognitive area are working together in sync. And that’s a real problem because if they’re not in sync, then it creates dysfunction. And as you know, I left critical care and reacting to disease a long time ago to help people create health in their life and become that Dominant Force and create health.

You know, there are two very different states. One is one where we’re in survival and we’re stressed. And in that state, we’re really just getting by. It’s a scarcity mentality. We’re concerned about so many things, and it’s just downright unhealthy for us. So, like I was saying, when I was on the boat out in the middle of nowhere and could turn off my satellite, be there with my family in this incredible place where we actually swam, and I don’t mean at SeaWorld, I mean actually in the ocean in the back of the boat, swimming with dolphins. And I got to see Erica, my younger daughter, actually had a female dolphin, brought her little baby, this little baby up and came up, and she had her tucked under and then opened her fin, and they had that experience where Erica was right there, kind of like my baby was there—baby to baby. And those are experiences that’s what life’s all about. And I know you’ve had those before.

I know they occur. I mean, you might come around the corner of a hill or a mountain and there’s a glorious sunset. You might wake up in the morning and it’s been raining and the sunlight’s beaming through. It might be seeing one of your children perform incredibly well in a show or in sports. It might be a moment you have with your significant other where you just feel that bliss. But we don’t have them very often. And that’s because we’re distracted. Almost every five seconds, something happens, and it distracts us. So today we’re going to do a couple of exercises. We’re going to talk a little bit about this, and then we’ll open it up, and hopefully, the forum is about you taking these experiences or things we talk about today and then bring your version on it or ask questions or want to know how you can do it better. You know, you want to be open, curious, and you want to grow because I can tell you that waking up—the art of being fully present is the most powerful thing we can do in our lives. And you know, I saw today that over in India they had huge floods, tsunami floods or not tsunami, but rain, monsoon floods and a million people were dislocated. We have the luxury of being in this country, where we have pretty much security. Yeah, we have bad things happen, but we usually have things in pretty good shape. Our technologies kind of protected us. The main thing we need to work on is in here [Dr. A gestures towards his head]. So, are you guys ready? Put a “one” in the chart or in the chat if you are. Okay.

So, let me ask you something. How much of your day do you actually live awake? I mean fully present versus lost in thought. Think about that. You know, science tells us that the average people’s minds wander nearly half the time. Think about that. Almost 47% of your waking life, you’re not really here. You’re somewhere else. We’re living yesterday or rehearsing tomorrow. Have you ever been driving somewhere, pulled into your driveway, and realized you don’t even remember the trip? That’s not presence. That’s autopilot. And most of us are on autopilot almost all day long. In fact, when we lay down in our bed and go, “Phew,” at night, where does your day go? We ask that question all the time. Here’s the truth. Presence isn’t just a great idea. It’s the key to freedom, to connection, to creativity. And that’s what we’re going to explore today. In fact, right now. 

Okay. Bottom line is, what is consciousness? Well, consciousness is simple, but it’s profound. Consciousness is the capacity to be aware, not just of the world around you, but of awareness itself. Most of the time, our brain basically is not anything more than in the default mode. Our brain runs on autopilot, scanning the past, predicting the future, feeding us endless narratives. It’s like this inner narrator. It’s always talking. It’s that voice in our head. And we mistake that voice for who we are. Our thoughts, our feelings are not us. Basically, what we want to do is create presence. And presence is very different than that. Presence is the shift from being inside your thoughts to becoming the observer of your thoughts. My dear friend Jim Defner likes to say, “Most of us don’t have thoughts. Our thoughts have us.” They have a stranglehold on our lives, and that dial, that inner dialogue, most of it, even incorrect stories we’ve made up.

So why does it matter? Being present is the foundation of a conscious life. Why is that important, and why is it the foundation? First, it’s your personal freedom. When you’re present, you create space between stimulus and response. Instead of being hijacked by our triggers, you have the freedom to choose. That’s why years and years ago, I created Stop. Challenge. Choose. We have a tendency just to react to everything around us. And we feel that stress. And when we start to feel that icky sauce, rather than just respond to it and leash out and say something we later regret to our family or to our colleagues, instead challenge why you’re feeling that and choose. That’s what awareness is. That’s what presence is. It’s now bringing it back, kind of shutting off that reaction, and now sitting there in a calm space.

Second, as I mentioned in relationships, deep presence is the greatest gift you can give another human. When you’re really there with someone, they feel it. They feel seen. I can’t tell you, Erica is in the second year of vet school, and she was, you know, we spent time together on the boat. I mean, like an hour, and I was just fully present. I wasn’t giving her advice. I was just listening to her and maybe asking her some questions to reflect on. And it was really important. She actually, and then Savannah came over for three weeks, and Savannah lives in Europe, in Britain. I don’t get a chance to see her as much, and we just spent so much time together and she wrote me a note when she left and said it’s so hard because you’re the greatest dad in the world and I just feel so loved and cared for.

That’s by being present. It’s not—it’s no great skill. It’s simply getting all that noise and thoughts, quiet them—not that you’re not going to have them, you’re going to have them, but letting them go and being present. And the third, in performance and creativity. When we’re in the creative space versus the reactive space, we’re basically at our best. We can perform. We get into flow states. Those moments, you know, we lose track of time. When you’re at your best, require presence. Athletes, musicians, innovators, they live in those spaces. The quality of your presence determines the quality of your life.

Okay, let’s do a little exercise for the next three or four minutes. Let’s not just talk about presence. Let’s experience it. I want to guide you through a short exercise. Just two minutes to show you what I mean. Okay, let’s sit up. Sit upright. Soften your shoulders. We carry so much stress in our neck and our shoulders and that’s why we upper shallow breathe and it just creates this tense situation and you might have noticed you were in there, maybe hurrying to get on this Zoom, but I want you to soften your shoulders kind of roll them back and roll them forward and then close your eyes, if you’re comfortable. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose. Feel the air as it enters. Now slowly exhale. Notice the subtle pause at the bottom of the breath. Thoughts may be already starting to bubble up, bubble up for you. That’s okay. Just notice them. Label them. Thinking again. And then return to that gentle state with your breath. Take one more inhale and one more exhale. Now open your eyes. Look around the room. Notice the colors. Notice the sounds. Notice you are here right now.

That stillness, that clarity, that simple awareness, it’s always available to you. It’s not about stopping thoughts. It’s about noticing them without being pulled away. You can do this exercise. So now, lean in to what I’m saying. Here’s the takeaway I want you to leave with: consciousness is the space in which your life unfolds. Presence is how you reclaim it. You don’t want to miss it. There are so many moments. You know, one of the things when my girls were little and crazy busy building this mission to help people create health, they would come from school and I might be on an important call or in the middle of doing a lecture and they would come in and I know when I made the decision to be fully present for them, it made all the difference in the world. And just so you know, we all have crazy lives, but just being there for that moment. And after about 30 seconds or a couple minutes, they would be bored and say, “Okay, Dad, see you later.” And then they’d be off to do what they want. But feeling that presence is so critical in our relationships.

So, I want to challenge you for the next 24 hours, once each hour, you can set it on your timer, on your phone. Pause. Take one of those conscious breaths and ask yourself, “Am I awake right now or am I on autopilot?” That one breath repeated throughout your day will change everything. Because if you can master presence even for a few moments, you stop being a prisoner of the past or the future. You step into the only place you are truly alive, this moment. And in this moment, you’re free. Okay. Hopefully, that was helpful, and maybe you guys, some of you will comment on that. Rachel, why don’t we open it up for questions?

Rachel: All right, we haven’t gotten any questions yet.

Dr. A: So, I think everybody’s just recovering. They were being present.

Rachel: Yeah.

Dr. A: Good. Good. That’s good. So, if you do have a question, just go ahead and pop it into the Q&A portal in Zoom, and we’ll get you on camera to ask your question live.

Chris: And one of the benefits we have to this new technology, Dr. A, is if someone on Facebook has a question, we can also pull that question in here and I can have you answer it live on screen. I can’t pull them on, but I can pull the question in.

Dr. A: Wow, Chris, that’s—you are Mr. Techno go-go gadget binoculars. I love that. I love that. Okay. Well, while we’re waiting, do we have any questions yet? I think I usually give a lecture and it stimulates all kinds of questions. But actually, just for a moment, while maybe people are coming together with their questions is, you know, it’s really important to understand there’s the material world and then there’s the field or everything else around us. And we spend so much time in that material world. And when we go into presence, we become so connected. Like last night, I have a bunch of meetings this week and a couple of lectures, including this lecture, and last night I was thinking about it so much and I said, “Wow, you’re not going to get a good night’s sleep.” So, I basically, fortunately, I’m very fortunate I get to live one of my “Organize my life around what matters most.” I love the water, and I feel that all the time and I could hear the doors were closed, the sliders were closed, but I could hear the ocean. And I specifically created that connection with the ocean and started listening to that, and then saw things start to pop up and then I would just kind of notice them and let them go, and the next thing I know, I mean, I was out because I have kind of a crazy life. And it’s so important for us to be able to take command and become present. And just that, hopefully, that little exercise kind of mellowed you out and kind of lowered everything and put you back into space. So basically, I see we have some questions. Okay, let’s go. Rachel.

Rachel: Yes. First up, we have Rick. Hi, Rick. Oh. You are muted, Rick.

Rick: Did we get it?

Rachel: There you are.

Rick: Hi, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Hey, Rick. How are you?

Rick: I’m doing well. How are you?

Dr. A: Okay.

Rick: So, on your thoughts about being present, I’ve been learning recently that taking some time to meditate, to just focus on that breath, and the suggestion I got was to try to do it for 10 minutes in the morning. To just get in the practice of being present and focusing on breathing. Do you think that’s helpful for this consciousness? 

Dr. A: Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, listen, we have a tendency—so one of the things in the Habits of Health Transformational System, I created the Model Morning and then the Twilight Hour, right? And during the day, we—a lot of times, because our lives are so busy—we don’t have a lot of time. We’re busy at work or we’re taxi drivers for our kids, you know, it never stops. I mean it’s kind of nuts. Unless you live on a desert island somewhere, right? Our lives are pretty crazy, but in the morning and in the evening, you have these periods that you can kind of chisel out some time for yourself. So yeah, I think it’s really important in the morning sometimes, you know, we get up and boom, we start, and then we’re on autopilot all day. So spending a little time to reflect on that, and if you can spend 10–and by the way, people that haven’t meditated, you don’t have to spend 10 minutes. You can spend one minute. I mean, spend the time. Spend the time that you have and don’t force it. And the idea is people say to me all the time, well, I keep hearing all these voices in it. I just can’t meditate. That’s not true. If you’re hearing the voices, you’re now separating yourself from the voices. And that’s being conscious. That’s actually now sensing that voice in your head, not identifying with it and actually moving it. And then every time you sense it, this is not a guilt trip.

This is about learning skills that most of us never learn. And those skills are such that I can tell you as a kid, my father was in the Air Force, and we lived in Savannah, Georgia on an Air Force base and the whole left side, where the runways were, was a huge swamp, and it was all fenced in. So there were no people or really many cars back there, and I can remember as a kid I would ride my bike–you bike out into the swamp. I’d say goodbye in the morning in the summertime, say goodbye to my mom, and I’d be gone all day. And I’d go out in the swamp, and I’d observe nature. I love nature, and that was my form of meditation. It was totally removed and fully engaged in that. And you know, as your life gets more complicated, you finish school, you get a job, get a family, all that stuff starts piling up. So you have to specifically develop the discipline in order to do it. So yeah, getting in the morning like that for 10 minutes in the Model Morning—another thing to, that’s really good, is when you basically figure out what are the three most important things I need to do today for myself. Right? So figure that out.

You can do that before you go to bed or in the morning when you first get up. Figure that out, and you can either meditate before or after. Some people do better after because they’ve now cleared their mind. But just spend that time and kind of notice when your mind gets distracted, and then come back to present. Yeah. The thing I’m talking about doing here is start incorporating it into your day. You’re actually using, you know, our breath, our respiratory system. Breathing is autonomic. And what that means is it’s controlled by the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. And as a result of that, we breathe automatically. You don’t have to think to breathe. You do it automatically. But it’s a great way of finding out, where are you? Are you on autopilot, or are you present? And most of the time, if you sense, so you can start to use it as a diagnosis. Where’s my breathing right now? Am I breathing deep from my diaphragm? Deep belly breathing, where when I breathe in my belly, so a good way to check that is put your hand on your chest. Put your hand on your belly and take a deep breath. You should feel your stomach and your abdomen actually moving out. That means you’re taking a deep, centered breath from your diaphragm. Your diaphragm is this huge muscle at the bottom of your, basically it separates your lungs from your abdominal cavity. And it’s a muscle that you want to pull down and take a deep centering breath, like you said. And when you do that, then you take over and you kind of diffuse that automatic state you were in.

So that autopilot state you were in, you can take control over it. The second part is you can use it for your meditation and for your presence because all of a sudden it’s calming, and since you’re focusing specifically on that… It’s kind of like what a mantra is. A mantra is when you’re really—you have five different thoughts going simultaneously, and you’re trying to start working on getting control. A mantra is saying one sentence or even one word over and over inside your mind. And what happens is then your mind starts focusing on that mantra and all those other thoughts, the pathways that have them in these cognitive-emotive loops kind of stop. So it allows you to get that back. Same thing with your breathing. When you breathe like that, you take your physiology back. Remember I talked about physiologic, emotional, and cognitive coherence. When our body is in resonance like that, that’s when you’re in that flow state. That’s that beautiful state you’re in when everything feels great and you want to reproduce that.

The more you can become present, reproduce that throughout your day. It becomes critical. You look at athletes. Right now, we’re in college football. You watch, they have their headphones on. They’re literally trying to get centered, remove, and listen to the music to put them in that centered flow state. So when they go to the game, they’re fully engaged in just that. They’re not worried about dropping the ball. They’re not worried about any of those things and then they just perform which they practiced over and over and over again. So yeah, no, I think that’s great and you should definitely keep doing that, Rick.

Rick: So being present is a skill, and we can get better at it.

Dr. A: Exactly. Well, actually, if you’re—okay, if you’re on the beach by yourself, I don’t mean on in Coney Island or in some place where there’s a thousand people running around and they’re, you know, with all the kids and sandboxes and throwing sand and seagulls eating food. But if you’re on the beach or in the mountains by a stream, that’s presence, right? You’re taking in your surroundings. You’re sensing how you feel, and you’re just being fully there. Yeah, it’s a skill because most of the time that’s not your world. So the idea today was to give you that skill, an exercise in that skill. So you can take that and literally do that once an hour, and first use it as a diagnostic. Was I being present, or was I on autopilot? And I can tell you that you’re usually on autopilot. And so that’s the first thing. So it allows you to build that skill. The second thing it does when you did that exercise, and I think everybody on the call should—on the Zoom—should be thinking about that. You felt a release. You felt—didn’t you feel that? Didn’t you feel kind of like that sigh? Yeah.

That’s all of a sudden, all that stuff going on just kind of melts away and doing that, then, separates so you feel the difference between—now I’m not saying—listen, if you’re doing something, surgery, you’re focused on that. That basically is being focused on that specific thing. But that is very close because you’re actually, when you’re focused on something like that, you are being present, right? You’re being fully present to one specific thing. And intentional focus is the skill. It’s a superpower that most of us lack and most of us need. And it’s because we’re so distracted. So yeah, just by doing it every hour, take your phone and just have it catch you because it’ll be your own little monitor where you go the phone goes off and you go, “Okay, turn the alarm off and then what was I doing right then?” And the funny thing is, many times you won’t even remember because you’re so distracted. So does that make sense? 

Rick: Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to try it.

Dr. A: Awesome. Good. Cool.

Rick: Thanks.

Dr. A: Yep. All right.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Christina. There you are, Christina.

Christina: Hi, Dr. A. So, my question is—and I try to meditate as many times as I possibly can—but I have trouble getting rid of the noise in my head. So, you’ve said so many great things and gave so many great tips on how to do some of those things. On how to get rid of the noise and be present, close my eyes, breathe deep, and let go and then just open my eyes, see my surroundings. A lot of the time, I have a hard time getting rid of the noise in my head. My head—it’s like it never stops thinking of things that I’m not supposed to be thinking when I want to meditate. What can I do, or what can we do to kind of train our mind to stay in that meditation mode?

Dr. A: Okay. So, I’m going to give you a little metaphor here to start with to make it make sense, like give you a different perspective. So, your thoughts in your head are your personal mind. They’re your ego, right? Your ego wants to run the show. It’s wanted to do that since you were a little kid. In fact, it found that what it could do is create stories to protect you. And that’s the ego’s job to protect you from reality. So, when you start looking to—first of all, don’t use the word try. Language means everything. Our emotions don’t have any language. Our prefrontal cortex has language. So, you’ve got to change your language. So, don’t try. Do. Right? 

Remember Yoda lifting the spaceship, right? The little guy, little green guy, about that big. He could lift the spaceship, and Luke couldn’t do that, right? Because he was fully present. And Luke said, “I try. I’m trying.” Don’t try. Do. And here’s the thing. You have control. Your ego is specifically trying to distract you. It’s trying to keep you—it doesn’t want you to be present because when you’re present, you have the power. You have the freedom. You have the freedom over your relationships. You have the freedom to be creative. I mean, I know when I’m in my—you can’t be creative when you’re stressed out and reacting. So, you’ve got to diffuse that. And that’s why Stop. Challenge. Choose, when you’re feeling that “icky sauce,” something’s going on. It’s letting you know, and you want to catch that right away.

Same thing when you meditate. When you start to meditate, by the way, many people say that, “Oh, I just—the voice is in my head.” Yeah, but you’re now aware of it. That’s the first step. You are aware. You’re aware that you have voices in your head. And all you have to do is gently say, “Okay, but that’ll be okay. We’ll talk about that later, but right now, this is my time, my space, and I want to be fully present.” You have control over that. I know you don’t think you do, but you have full control. Your ego is trying to. It’s like the ego is sitting up there trying to be in charge, and reality is it doesn’t serve us well. It really doesn’t. You want to build—when we’re young, our ego basically helps support our ambition and our growth and whatever is important in our life. But as we start maturing, our ego should become in service of our soul. And our soul is to be connected to this incredible thing called life. And for us to gain control over it, we’ve got to take that back. So just like Rick was saying, yeah, it’s you’ve got to practice it. And it’s okay.

Listen, maybe now when you do it, you take your breath, you feel it, and for maybe 15 seconds, you feel how good that feels, right? And you feel, like I said, when you finish that exercise we did, even as I did it, and I’ve done it a million times, I could feel the brightness in the room. Things become clear, things slow down. I feel much more connected and clear. Right? You can use a mantra, you know, whatever works for you. It doesn’t really matter. But if it lasts 15 seconds, great. Then tomorrow, try to do it for 20 seconds at a time. It’s something you haven’t done your whole life. You’ve been running on autopilot, as we all have. You will find the more you do it, the more it’ll help you, the more you’ll feel in control, and suddenly you’ll become that Dominant Force in your life. People won’t be able to, right now we have triggers and basically, because we’re on autopilot, the triggers stimulate us and pretty soon we’re doing something that we had no intention of doing, we don’t want to do, and after that passing we go, why the heck did I do that?

You did it because you were not actually present. You were running on auto and your ego reacted and says, “I’m right. I’m going to be right.” That’s your ego speaking. See, I don’t really care much about being right. I care about being open, learning, growing and being curious. It’s a very different state when we’re closed and defensive and want to be right. That’s why, you know, I can’t watch TV, honestly, the news, because all it is is, you’re wrong, I’m right. You know, we’re right, you’re wrong. Your party’s wrong, we’re right. It’s all a bunch of kaka. It really is. If we really focused on what we want to do, it’s organizing our country about being great. It’s organizing our life and our health about enjoying the things that are important. It’s really when you become the Dominant Force in your life, everything changes, and it’s not going to happen overnight. We become codependent on other people, and the first thing we do to drop from being that is we become aware. So you got this. You got this.

Christina: Thank you, Dr. A. Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Yeah. 

Rachel: All right, next up, we have JoAnn.

Dr. A: JoAnn!! 

JoAnn: Hi, Dr. A.

Dr. A: How are you?

JoAnn: Good. How are you? So my question is: I have a five-month-old daughter who I want to give attention to, and I want to be a good mom and, you know, I want to be there for her, but I also want to be present for things like this. Like right now, she needs to go to bed. She’s cranky, but I want to listen to what you’re saying. So, my question is, does presence mean that you’re eliminating all distractions and focusing on only what’s in front of you, or does it mean that you’re trying to focus on a priority one at a time? I guess.

Dr. A: Yeah. No, that’s a great question. Listen, life gets in the way. We’re humans, okay? You’ve got a primary responsibility. You want to be a good mom. You want to be a great mom. Okay? One thing is physically being present for your child. The other is being aware and awake with your child, right? Because we have a tendency, because we do this with our family, not just our kids, but our whole family, because they’re kind of stuck with us. A lot of times we react, we say stuff, we don’t really think about it, right? We just basically—if we’re present, we’ll sense the subtleties in a relationship that are so important. So in this case, don’t beat yourself up about that. Okay? Basically, what you’ve learned today can be helpful. It’s kind of like, you know, Abraham Lincoln a long time ago, I think he’s the guy that said this, or some very smart person said, “If you have five cords of wood to cut with an axe, spend your first hour sharpening the axe,” right?

So, what you’re doing by being on this call is you’re sharpening your axe. You’re starting to learn to be more aware so that when you’re with your present, because, you know what? You can spend a lot of physical time—and as you know, especially with a young child—you know what most young kids are doing and what we do as parents, we give them this [Dr. A holds up a phone], and all of a sudden, we don’t have to worry about it for a while, even if we’re right next to them. Well, that is not being present. That’s fully putting them into something distracted, not spending that critical time, you know, sensing things and being there. I mean, I was watching, you know, I travel a lot and I was watching a young mom with her child and I saw in the next place I saw where one just handed the phone to him and the other one sat there and they kind of were playing a game and then asked questions and their baby started, you know, you could tell it was sad about something and then she sat there and just worked with her to figure it out, right? So the answer is you have priorities and you need to organize your life around your priorities, and one of your priorities obviously is raising your daughter—it’s your daughter, right? [JoAnn nods her head, yes] How old?

JoAnn: She is five months old.

Dr. A: You had to think about that? [Dr. A and JoAnn laugh].

JoAnn: I had to remember when her— when we—we just celebrated it. So.

Dr. A: Oh, good. That’s awesome. So yeah. So, but there’s going to be times when, let’s just say something’s going on and, you know, she’s not feeling well, but part of that, by the way, by being aware, if you’re giving them attention most of the time, they won’t need your attention. It’s when you ignore them that they, you know—they did a study on secured attachment and they took, you couldn’t do the study anymore, but they looked at really young kids that were with their moms and they found that there were three behaviors. The kids were playing. They would then take the child away, and most of the children, when they take them away, would basically cry for a second and then go away. Well, it’s when they came back that told whether the mom was being a good mom.

Those that came back hugged their mom and then went back to playing. That’s secure attachment. They feel comfortable. They didn’t feel the need. The second group would cling on to their mom, right? And basically, that’s because sometimes they were getting mixed signals from their mom. In other words, when it was convenient, the mom was there. And so the kids were needy, and they didn’t have secure attachment. And then the third group were unfortunately kids that had moms that were like drug addicts and stuff, and really gave them, you know, were totally disassociated. And those kids, you know, it was tough for them. But the bottom line is, what you want to develop is this relationship with your daughter where she knows you’re there, especially at that time, because they’re totally dependent on you, right? 

But so if there’s something going on and they’ve got a temperature, a fever, then you know what? I would skip this call if you need to be with them and watch it on video. You can still watch it. You can always work around it. But I think you sound like you’re grounded well. You want to be a good mom. And certainly this work of being present will make you—all the subtleties of kids, see it’s so easy as an adult because you’re up, one down one. You can basically tell them, you know, do this, do that, do that. And most of the time they do it because they are totally dependent, and it’s important for them to belong, and they know if they counter what you’re doing, then they don’t belong, and those are the lowest level of needs we have. You know, Maslow’s needs, right? Does that make sense?

But yeah, practice it because there’ll be times when she’s sleeping or you know feeding or whatever, paying attention, and then there’s the other times where you can—actually, a good thing for you to do is kind of check yourself is stop, right, and then sense. Take that breath and say, Okay. Where am I right now? Am I reacting? Am I frustrated? Did I want to go to the store, and now she’s so needy? Right? I mean, that’s your job, is to basically create boundaries, but be there so that when they need you, you’re there for them, and understand what they need, not just stick a pacifier or give them a distraction.

JoAnn: Right.

Dr. A: Make sense?

JoAnn: Yes, it does. Thank you.

Dr. A: All right. You’re welcome.

Rachel: All right, next up, we have Connie. Connie, can you come on camera? There you are.

Dr. A: Hi, Connie. You’re muted.

Connie: Okay. Hi, Dr. A. How are you today?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Connie: Thank you for taking this. I have always been a go-to person in my family, and I find that my priorities get put behind other people’s priorities. I think [crosstalk 00:00:36:10]. I know, but how do we get a balance in that?

Dr. A: Yeah. So, the bottom line is, you know, I talk a lot and we’ve talked over the years about the Drama Triangle, right? You’re kind of being a hero.

Connie: Yes.

Dr. A: Yeah. And that’s not helpful. Being a hero to someone does not empower them. It enables them. So, the two things you—giving you a couple little exercises. You know, Jim Defner, in conscious leadership, in his book, talks about a full body, “Yes.” Don’t say yes to everything people want because you want to be liked. Okay, they get to the point where they now basically take advantage of you, and you don’t have your life, right? You need to make sure there’s balance. So the way to start with that is, I always focus on what’s important to you now? Your family may be important to you, but the bottom line, you need to set boundaries. We all need to set boundaries. And so they need to know they can’t take advantage of you because if that happens, they actually lose respect for you and they’re using you. And so that’s not helpful. What’s helpful is to set healthy boundaries and then basically the things that are really important to you, that bring you great joy. So if you know, give me an example. 

Connie: You want me to give you an example?

Dr. A: Exactly. I want you to give me an example.

Connie: Oh my gosh. Well, the most current one is my husband’s 94, and I need to do physical therapy that I do on my own, but I will find I will miss a week of that because I don’t want to leave him by himself if he has needs, right? I’m trying to find a balance there.

Dr. A: Yeah. And that’s a—you know,  listen, like we were talking about in India. The flood and all these people, you know, things happen in life, and you’re dealing with a real issue. It’s not that you’re making this up, but what you need to do is figure out, okay, how do I take care of something that somebody I love so much and be there for him, but not become fully overwhelmed with it. Because here’s the thing. If you’re fully overwhelmed and you’re not doing anything to take care of yourself mentally, as well as physically, you should actually, you know, obviously get out for walks and do stuff. If you’re not taking care of yourself, then you can’t take care of him as well as you need to either. So, there has to be those—it’s again, it’s boundaries you’ve got to set.

Connie: So, he is being well cared for. The problem is it doesn’t leave time for me to take well care of myself.

Dr. A: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s absolutely critical.

Connie: Yeah.

Dr. A: Yeah. And you, and if you get sick, then you can’t take care of them at all.

Connie: And that happens. Yeah.

Dr. A: Yeah. So, bottom line is you need to set, you know, and you can do it in time blocks. You just find time blocks that, okay, here’s my schedule. Let me figure out what makes the most sense, and let me take this hour, these two hours, you know, and do it around the schedule so it makes sense. You have the ability to organize your schedule and then make sure you—every day, you’ve got to check. You’ve got—here’s my schedule. These are the things, when you wake up in the morning, when Rick was talking about meditating, wake up in the morning, you’re in your Model Morning, spend 15 minutes before you do anything. Right? Before he wakes up. I don’t—I mean, that’s your own…

Connie: And I do that. I do, do that. I have my miracle morning. Yes.

Dr. A: Okay. So, and as you do that, write down these three things I need to do for myself today, right? Physical, mental, and whatever. Something fun, right? Physical, mental, and something fun, right? And you know, whatever else you need to do. And then basically figure out, okay, how do I work that into this day? Is there anything on my calendar I have to get done today? And then work it in so that you can be fully—now, here’s fully present. If you’re regretting that you’re not doing something that you wanted to do, work on your rehab, your physical rehab, and you’re with him, you’re not really present with him because you’re now thinking…

Connie: That is true. That is true.

Dr. A: That’s why being present lets everything happen. That’s why in your Model Morning, in the morning, make sure you’re fully present. Say, okay, how do I accomplish this today? And sometimes you have to do a workaround and sometimes best intentions don’t work. But rather than beat yourself up, say, “Okay, well that didn’t happen. Let’s see, what can I do so that doesn’t happen again?” And, “Let me make sure I get done what I need for myself.”

Connie: Well, what I’ve done so far is I had always tried to make it to where he would have something to do while I could do what I needed to do. But it’s gotten to where that’s not possible to do that anymore because his needs are more. And so recently, what I have done is just have to say to myself, you have to get this done today. Time is a factor for me.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Connie: And then I just have to accept that I’m not going to be there for him for those two hours. 

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. You’ve got to do that and do more of that. And remember, if it doesn’t work out, don’t beat yourself up. Have contingency. Remember, the obstacle is the way. The ancient stoics, the Romans and the Greeks used that adversity, right? Dealing with that and now that he’s more dependent, how am I open, curious, and how can I grow to make this work so I can have my own, because you’ve got to have your own presence. If you’re in a reactive, survival mode, you cannot thrive as a human being, and you need to take care of your own health. Okay?

Connie: Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re so welcome. All right. All right. Who else do we got?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Stephanie. Stephanie, are you there?

Stephanie: I don’t have video. I’m so sorry.

Dr. A: That’s okay.

Stephanie: So sorry. So, thank you.

Dr. A: Don’t be so sorry. Don’t be so sorry. Just you don’t have video.

Stephanie: Okay, great. Dr. A, first of all, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything. You changed my life with your program and your beautiful community. I—16 months ago, I couldn’t walk, and now I can walk, and I’ve released 150 lbs, and I’m actually healthy, and I’m feeling happy. Sorry. Thanks for the disclosure, Chris. My question is, two months ago, you talked about how we can actually even look at a picture that makes us happy, and it helps us become happy. And my happy place is trees. So, I bought a book on the secret—The Hidden Life of Trees, and I’ve been restructuring my home. But what I wanted to know is now every morning I go sit outside with my dog, have a cup of coffee, and that’s my meditation time. But what about grounding? Is grounding important? Like maybe putting your feet on the earth or putting your feet directly on concrete or is that something that would also help with consciousness?

Dr. A: Absolutely. And I refrain from concrete and use grass, soil or rocks out in nature. It’s, you know, the concrete city kind of takes some of that dynamic away. But bottom line is, yes. Absolutely. You know, I’m very fortunate. I always wanted to live on the ocean and now I’m fortunate enough to do that. And when I go barefoot, in fact, by the way, part of grounding is that when you’re home, and as long as it’s safe, obviously, you—and if there’s no insecticides out in the grass, you know, the more we are without our shoes, the more connected we are to the ground, right? Obviously. So, I love to walk in the wet sand. Sometimes I walk in the wet sand, sometimes in the summertime, it’s always in the wet sand because the regular sand’s pretty hot. But, the bottom line is just feeling that sensation of being connected. You know, we’ve become an indoor species. Our kids are out less than eight minutes a day, which was really tragic. And yeah, getting outside. I love that image.

I was actually, as you were talking, I was visualizing that. I have a good friend who is an internal medicine specialist, and she sent me a picture. We haven’t talked in a while, and she sent me a picture. She lives out in the country, and she was sitting out on her porch with her coffee and in nature, and absolutely, the more you can do that and get your shoes off, walk in the grass, walk on the ground that connects you, and it connects you to whatever your spirituality is, it connects you back to being aware and awake. See, that’s why nature is so important for us. And we should all connect more with nature because if we’re not connected with nature and we’re living in this artificial intelligent world where everything is structural and full of digital signals, we’re not connected.

That’s why, you know, AI will continue to grow, but it’s not sentient. It’s not that connection of emotion and coherence that we have with nature. And you know, I’m not going to get into quantum physics, but basically, the field determines what happens to matter. I mean, it’s as simple as that. We know that Einstein showed us that. And what I mean by that, that picture, that’s why I was talking about that photo. When we basically change our state, we change everything. We change all the probabilities. We change all the things that can happen to us. And it’s such a hard thing because we’re always connected to matter and to the material world. But the reality is the more we can be out there with ourselves, connected to this incredible thing. Listen, you know, the telescopes, the recent telescopes have shown us we’re this little speck in the middle of this big black void. And when you zoom down from—we haven’t found life anywhere else yet. And when you zoom down to this beautiful bright blue globe, which is because we’re mostly ocean and you see the greens. I mean, we should be so grateful that in this spec, that you’re here right now, because it doesn’t exist as far as we know. I mean, it does somewhere. I mean, there’s always the possibility, but we have such an opportunity to be fully present. And that brings what I said earlier when I was talking, that brings us our freedom. It brings us our connection. It makes us so grateful, so critical to our wellbeing.

Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for everything.

Dr. A: You’re welcome.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Carrie.

Dr. A: Hey, Carrie.

Carrie: Hello. How are you?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Carrie: Thanks for doing these. These are so helpful.

Dr. A: Good.

Carrie: My question for you is, what would you recommend for me to tell one of my clients—I have a client who is very overwhelmed and her day just completely controls her. So we talked about a lot of things like the Model Morning and the evening routine, breathing every hour, and having a mantra. Where would you recommend someone starts who’s already overwhelmed? All these things seem like a great idea, but to someone who’s already overwhelmed, they don’t even know where to begin, and it seems like too much. So, where would you recommend they start, and how can we incrementally build in these good habits so that they can become more conscious?

Dr. A: So, how do you eat an elephant?

Carrie: One piece at a time.

Dr. A: Yeah. One bite at a time. Exactly. So, you just have to find something. What I find, especially when people are overwhelmed, I need to find something that they value a lot, right? Something that really interests them, right? Because when something is—we highly value—the things that we value highest don’t require as much motivation. If you’re asking her to meditate and she’s overwhelmed, she can’t, because, bottom line, she’s in a survival mode and we’re in a survival mode. We’re in a reactive state, and we’re just getting by. Everything’s scarce. Life is happening to me. And you got to start somewhere. So the way I would recommend is find something that she loves. You know, even those that are mostly overwhelmed, there’ll be something that brings them joy, right? Something they’re interested in. So find, explore that with her and find that one thing, and just start building. Start there and build it in where you find—depending on what it is.

It could be anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be, you know, going for a walk. It could be holding their grandchild. Doesn’t matter what it is. And find that small thing that they’re highly motivated to do, and help them develop that and block out the noise. So there was a movie by Kevin Costner a long time ago, and it was about a pitcher that ended up getting hurt. But when he would get ready to pitch, especially when he got older, he would say, “Start the mechanism.” And what he would do is he’d actually stop all the distraction, the fans yelling at him, you know, all the things going on. And then he would just do this one thing, the one thing he was really good at. And that’s what you want to do. You want to find something so she can have that first bite and then have the second bite, and then help her work with that so she starts feeling some control. Because when we have—what you’re saying is she has full loss of control. She feels she’s a victim. She feels everything’s happening to her and as long as you’re in that position, you know, in psychology, we call that locus of control. When the locus of control is outside of you, when it’s basically, you’re blaming someone else, you have no power. And so you give all the power away. So you need to find something that she highly values that she wants to bring back in and be responsible for and start there. Does that make sense?

Carrie: It does. Thank you.

Dr. A: Yeah. And you know, and really this is good for you. Okay. So, this all works together. So, as a coach, you’re being fully present for her and asking her questions allows you to sense, okay, when is she moving away from you and blaming, and when is she starting to feel? You know, I’m a big—I love movies and they make great analogies and there was a movie called Gladiator. I don’t know. Did you ever see it? 

Carrie: Yes.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah, it was a classic, right? Classic movie, and Marcus Aurelius, basically was talking to Russell Crow, to Maximus, and they had just—it’s the opening scene—and he’s just been in battle and he was weary and a lot of his men got hurt or killed and he’s having a private conversation and he’s talking about all these concerns and Caesar goes to him, “Tell me about your home,” you know. No, he says, “I want to go home. That’s what I want to do. I really don’t want to serve anymore. I’ve done all this. I want to go home to my family.” And rather than force him, he basically, Caesar goes to him, “Tell me about your home,” and all of a sudden you see the affect, you see him from being concerned, the stern look, to starting to smile and talk about his son, loves to think he’s a horse, and loves to play with horses and the place smells like popular, and he goes, you can just see him beaming, right? That’s where you need to go with her. You need to get to that place where something that excites her, because when we really value something, then we start wanting to take ownership back of it. So that’s what you’ll have to do with her.

Carrie: Okay.

Dr. A: Remember, we’re not—we said in the very beginning, we’re not psychiatrists here. We’re not—what we are is good listeners. We’re empathetic coaches. We’re about sensing where they are and helping them move on beyond that.

Carrie: Right.

Dr. A: Cool. 

Carrie: Thank you.

Dr. A: You’re welcome.

Rachel: All right. We have one more question from…

Dr. A: Hey, Lynn, how are you, sweetie?

Lynn: Good morning! It’s so good to see you. And first and foremost, I got to say, you know, I feel so fortunate—I’m going to get emotional. Ron and I have benefited so much from your mentorship and all the learning and all the personal growth from this and from everything that we’ve done. And my question is that I can get—I think I’m pretty good at being present and having those moments throughout the day. But when you’re working with other people and you see the potential for them, you know, whether it’s a coach, whether it’s a client, whether it’s a kid that’s, you know, faltering, whatever, how do you kind of stay present? Like, I don’t know in their world or in your own world, whereby you can lead them well?

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, the first thing is everybody wants to feel relevant, right? And in this world we live in, because of all the technology and advancements and all, you know, it changes every week, right? We have something else, you know, it’s crazy like ChatGPT and Grok.com, and I mean everything’s changing, and so it’s really important that they feel that you’re fully present for them. And in the beginning, remember, acknowledgement isn’t the same as agreement, right? So, they may be saying some nutty stuff in the Drama Triangle, victim mentality, and all you need to do in the beginning is connect with them and build that rapport. And I don’t mean like we were talking about earlier, enable them. I’m not talking about enabling them in any way, but just being present for them. And that presence that you have, especially when we have a tendency, and our egos get in the way here, oh, I know what I need to do. I know what they need to do. Stop talking. I can tell you, right, what you need to do, right? 

We have a tendency, because you’re a physician. It doesn’t work that way. And that up one, down one, more than ever doesn’t work. It has to be this partnership. So, the best way is that they feel connected that you care, and you do care. You know, you’re one of the most empathetic people I know, Lynn. And just that sense, you know, Jane Paxton is the same way, right? You know, bottom line is that sense, that’s your superpower. And just use that superpower. And don’t look for, you know, like Rick was saying, well, I never did this. I mean, I have to practice it, right? Yeah. Because you’ve never done it in your whole life. They’ve never done it in their whole life. It’s like starting off and climbing a 14,000-foot mountain when you haven’t gone up a hill, right? You got to start them slow. And the frustration comes because you know, it’s like, you know, taking a thimble and trying to take the water out of Katrina, right? But every little bit does make a difference.

You know the famous metaphor about the starfish on the beach? They’re all over the beach and the kids are throwing them back, right? And you know what? He said, “Why are you doing that? They’re all over the place. It’s not this one. This one’s back.” Right? Even a small little gesture of helping them make, may make all the difference in their life. It may click that tumbler where all of a sudden you can make them aware that they do have control. And that’s why—Stop. Challenge. Choose. You know, when I was writing the first Habits of Health and created Stop. Challenge. Choose., my designer, the guy that made those pebbles, bottom line, had a young son that was in psychotherapy, was a problem child. He simply just started using that on them. And now, you know, he actually did Prescription for Life. He did my new book. And he basically told me like six months later, we hadn’t talked about it, he said, “You know what? Just that one little exercise changed everything. And now his son apparently is doing really well. He’s in, I think he’s in Cambridge or something, he’s doing incredibly well, and he was a problem student. So you’d be surprised when you throw that, you help that one starfish, you know, and help that one conversation. Over time, it can change everything.

Lynn: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Awesome. All right, we have two minutes. Does anybody have any one last quick thing they need? Rach, or are we good?

Rachel: No. I think we’ve gotten through all of them.

Dr. A: Awesome. Awesome. Well, listen, please practice this. You know, it’s your gift to yourself. It puts you in such a different position. It puts you, when you walk into a room to be fully present and be aware of what’s going on. It allows you to build your relationships. It allows you to get back in that creative space and start doing the things that you really want with your life. And certainly, more than anything, it gives you the freedom to be in control of how you live your life. So, thank you guys. Appreciate it. If you like this kind of format doing this, put that in the chat and let us know. I’ll see you next month. See you guys. Have a great week.

Video Transcript:

Dr. A: All right, everybody. Welcome to the Conscious Forum. This is the 1st of July, 2025. The summer is well on its way now. We are now in the summer equinox, the longest days of the year, starting on the 21st. And that’s kind of appropriate because we’re going to talk a lot today about nature, your relationship with nature, how important it is for our consciousness, and how important it is for us to truly, truly become connected and aware.

So with that, the topic today is: Nature and You. This is a foundational piece of wellbeing. It’s so critical, so important, and so many times we disregard it. You know, we treat ourselves sometimes to a sunset or the stars at night, but for most of us, most of our lives, we’re kind of on the run. We’re in this race, you know, and it’s almost like when we were really little, someone whispered in our ear: success. And that was the main thing, success. And the reality is, what’s really more important is the health that comes from being fulfilled, being happy, being connected, sensing that every day that you’re fully engaged in something that creates fulfillment for yourself. That you have great relational health. Obviously, as a leader in the health field, I’m very much into physical health, but our mental health is what this forum is all about. And I think so many of us are really at a point in our lives where we need to kind of stop and proverbially smell the roses.

So today we’re going to talk about that nature and—you’ve seen sunsets and we remark on them to the people we’re with and we may spend a brief moment looking and say, “Wow, isn’t that beautiful?” And there’s a sense of something that happens inside of us when we see this. But most of the time, we acknowledge it, say, “Wow, isn’t that beautiful?” And then boom, then we’re back to our life, to this search, or I don’t know, process of creating success. And what we really want to do is really be in the state of being, a state of presence. And so what I’d like to do is start off today, and this may seem a little “woo-woo” to some of you. And if it is, then that means that you really need this more than I do. And that is this sense of presence. And so what I’d love us all to do is kind of take a big deep centering breath and kind of feel ourselves. Most of you are sitting presently. If you’re in your car, don’t do this, but close your eyes and kind of feel your feet on the floor and kind of feel a grounding. And take a couple, I’m going to do it myself as well. Take a couple of really deep centering breaths.

And as you exhale, kind of feel the release of that tension, that energy. That… [Dr. A takes a deep breath], with each breath. And it’s so important. We spend so little time, and it’s so easy to do. We can do this all day long and we can do it, you know, if you come out of a stressful meeting, something happens in your life that creates that “icky sauce.” You can always spend a moment and kind of release it because even though our breath is part of our autonomic nervous system and we breathe automatically, is we can take back control and when we take control of our breathing and we kind of sense our presence in the space we’re in and we feel ourselves grounded—this is really important by the way, when you go outside in nature and walk to your car and just spend a moment, and just feel that connection, that ground, the gravitational pull of the earth grounding us back to the present moment.

So, why does nature matter so much for our wellbeing? Well, just as I’ve been talking about, basically, nature reduces the stress hormones like cortisol. You felt that release, that almost like you can feel it’s all this canned up inside. It’s almost like a tea kettle that’s about ready to whistle. There’s all this pressure inside of us. And when we release like that, and especially when we connect with nature, we’re going to talk a lot about this. I’m going to probably talk about a few things that you’re not familiar with, which you can incorporate into your life, which I think are so important. But it improves our blood pressure, our heart rate variability, and our mood. It changes our mood. Even images of nature improve cognitive performance and reduce fatigue.

So if you’re at a point, that’s why it’s great to have on your screensaver, have a beautiful picture of nature, and just look at it during your day. If you’re at work and you’re everything’s crazy around you, and you’re in search, in pursuit of success, so to speak. Bottom line is, you can stop and have a beautiful picture. Digitally—we have it on our phone. I have wonderful pictures I’ve gone out sailing in the islands. And actually, I decided to do this talk while I was out on my boat in the middle of the Exumas, the lower Exumas, an area where there are no people. And people say, “Well, what do you do down there?” “What do I do?” I celebrate nature. I see incredible wildlife in the water. We snorkel. We watch these incredible colors of the aquamarine water, highlighted, changing throughout the day, beautiful sunsets, and incredible stars. And you know, what’s interesting is we used to play a game, one point for a plane, three points for a satellite, and five points for a falling star, you know, or a meteor. We’ve had to downgrade a satellite to just two points because there are so many. The sky, the night sky, is full of the garbage, the stuff which makes life easier for us, but certainly kind of clutters up the beauty of nature, but actually, in essence, they’re kind of fun to watch. So, bottom line, all these things are so important and we spend so little time, and they are free. You can look up at the sky any night.

So, this is one of the words I wanted to introduce. This is called biophilia. It’s basically an inborn connection. You know, we are wired to seek harmony with nature. It’s part of us. It’s part of who we are. That’s why, you know, people will do heroic things and risk their life to save a dog or a wounded animal. There’s this connection. And once,  10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago, we were so connected in harmony. You know, most of us have seen movies about the American Indians and their connection and you know, when they would kill a deer, you know, taking their heart and taking a bite and then thanking and gracing for giving them, you know, the nutrients that come from that, and that connection is something that we’re all attuned to. You know, a couple thousand years ago, there wasn’t technology, there wasn’t electricity, there certainly weren’t any of the internet devices and phones and computers. And so, we were much more connected. And there’s a resonance that occurs there. There is a sense of calm that occurs there and a harmony that’s so, so important.

So biophilia, that love of life so to speak—and Aristotle talked about it back over a couple thousand years ago, but there’s this connection, love of life, and the tendency—and I can tell you, while I was in the islands and even where I live on the ocean is by my choice. I mean it’s my favorite thing. I love water. I love being around nature and I can tell you that I use it all day long and it’s something—you don’t have to live by the water to enjoy the senses of nature, and even if you live in a city like New York City, you can go to Central Park. I mean, most cities have parks you can go to and walk through. But that connection, kind of emergence of ourselves into nature, is so, so important. And yet I would say, if I tested people on biophilia, what that actually means, most people wouldn’t know because it’s a lost art, and it’s an art we really need to resume.

You know, our mental illness is at an all-time high. Our use of AI, the internet, and our phones. I mean the connection. People are certainly addicted to the electronic leash, and they’re connected to it. But bottom line is being able to come out into nature, and that reconnection is so critical. So, “Nature is a teacher”. I like to think of it this way, and I love to sail. Many of you know I’m a sailor and sail in the ocean for a week at a time out in the middle of nowhere, 1200, 1500 miles through the ocean. But nature doesn’t rush. Yet everything gets done. And trees don’t cling to the last season’s leaves. Rivers don’t resist the flow. So ask yourself, what is nature trying to teach you right now? And you know, as I look out, right before I got on this Zoom, I went outside for a minute. I was going to I was trying to take a picture of the pelicans. We have a dance where the pelicans fly by–sore by my house. And I was hoping to get one, I want to get one instantly because it’s one of my favorite drills. And I become so attuned to watching them and that connection to them. And sometimes I even sense the term synchronicity, where things are happening for a reason. We’ll talk a little bit more about that. But basically, ask yourself during the day, am I connected to nature? And what is nature teaching me? What can it teach me?

So, one of the things I haven’t talked about before but is in our consciousness, is “rewilding” our consciousness. Modern life overstimulates and detaches us from all their rhythms. Our circadian rhythm. Most 80 million Americans don’t sleep well. Why? They’ve lost their circadian rhythm. They are up with electronic devices, blue light, TV, internet, on shows, and just totally disconnected from nature itself. To reconnect with natural light and grounding practices. You know, one thing I did in my house is I put an automated system in that at 8:00 at night, right after sunset, everything in my house goes to very, very low ambient light. There are no bright lights. And I’m reconnecting that. Yes, I live in a house and yeah, I’m really happy I have air conditioning so I can keep it cool in Florida in the summertime, but I also want to do the things that reconnect with nature.

[00:10:39] So basically dropping the light, getting natural light and then in the morning, it is so important to get out. One of the key things, if we look at how our brain works, is in the pineal gland, and basically morning sunlight, just looking outside, getting up, opening your drapes and really reconnecting. It creates this alertness, and it creates the reticular activating system to fully become alert, and by doing that, and abruptly seeing that light, it allows us to go into a wake state. And the other things are, when I’m home, I never have, I don’t allow shoes in my house. Basically, I’m barefoot, and one of the other things they talk about is walking around in nature barefoot. Walking on the beach, walking out in your yard and making sure you’re—obviously, if they’ve just put insecticide down, don’t do that. But if you’re in a natural state, the other thing is nature fast, where people, many people now, are assuming a new ritual of going 3 days—going in nature and not eating and fasting to reconnect themselves. 

So that reflection is so important. You know, when do you feel most connected to nature? What works for you? We’re all in different places. Some of us do live in cities, and maybe it may require you to get out of the city on the weekends, to get into a space, but all of us have access to the evening skylight. And basically, what part of your life is asking to return to something simpler? And that goes with what we were talking about last month was this idea of getting back into flow. You know, removing a lot of that thought and the cognitive dissonance that occurs. All the cognitive-emotive loops of worrying. Not being fully present and getting back to something simpler. And can you, in your life, get back to, you know—I have to tell you, my most fun thing isn’t going to a major city or to a metropolis. It’s actually my trips that I go out on the boat to the Exumas and basically hang out with family and friends. I mean that really connects me and that’s actually what, as I mentioned earlier, why I wanted to do this talk, because I think so many of us are leaving that part out, and it’s such a grounding effect to start getting us back into a healthy mental state and consciousness.

So what’s our legacy? You know, nature is our original blueprint. Way before we had technology, way before you had all these other things that you now identify with, we were basically based in nature, just like every other organism. And if you look at many simple societies, they don’t look at themselves as being humans separate from nature. They actually look at them as being part of this incredible process which is the nature’s cycle, this interaction that occurs, this dynamic ecosystem that they’re part of, and they contribute to, and you know when you’re in that state, you don’t pollute. You make sure you take just what you need. You have abundance mentality and you do the things that connect you because you don’t want to ruin those resources and the more we can return to it, the more we return to ourselves. So again, the breath is a great way to kind of remind you to reconnect and kind of connect back to your connection with nature.

So synchronicity. Synchronicities. Next time you see a sunset or you’re watching the skyline or the sky at night, even if you’re in a major city or in Arizona and you’re looking down from the foothills and you’re looking at the lights twinkle and stuff, the synchronicity isn’t by accident. Our connection to nature, our connection to so many things—I was snorkeling and came around a corner and there was about a 5-ft barracuda, and it’s funny because the idea, much like a response to a snake or something is a degree of caution and certainly I respect, but there was a curiosity from both of us and we just kind of looked at each other. I didn’t move, he didn’t move or she didn’t move, and we just kind of looked at each other and just for like two minutes, and there was just this sense of connection that occurred. Now, I didn’t go spearfishing in front of her, do something stupid where I could have created a dangerous situation, but there was a connection, and there are so many times that’s available to us. And by connecting with nature, with a bird that lands on your balcony, seeing a wild deer in nature, whatever it is, just that opportunity to reconnect is so important to remind us.

So, basically, open your awareness to the lessons of nature. And this is kind of my favorite drill. I love this at night. I’ve got a big kind of a sofa and I love to sit outside, and you know, it’s beautiful in the morning, it’s beautiful in the afternoon, and then obviously at night with the stars. It’s incredible. Many times I’ll sleep out there, and just, the connection is incredible. But, if you don’t live on the beach—you know, basically, this is what the Japanese do. They have a—I think it’s called Shinrin-Yoku, which means forest bathing. And simply, you can find a natural environment like a forest or a park, and you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the forest. And you engage your senses listening to the sounds, smelling the air, touching the natural elements, observing the scenery, and breathing deeply and being present and mindful. And forest bathing is a beautiful way to connect you. It helps, again, simple as the other things we talked about, it lowers our autonomic nervous system, lowers our blood pressure, lowers our cortisol, and puts us in the environment, and they say even the smell and the inhaling of the forest, the environment, the scent coming off the trees, that all of it can be hypnotic and very soothing. And we all have access to some—through a park or through the local woods where you can go do this. So important. And plus, go for a good walk and get your steps in as well

So when you embrace nature, life starts flowing. Again, going back, this is another example of creating internal stability, when you are calm, you know, one of the things in college and medical school, I was a lifeguard on the west coast of Florida and I noticed in the morning, I would get there at at 10:00, and people would come with their blankets and their kids and their chairs, their cooler, and the first hour would be chaos, you know, yelling at the kids, changing them, putting the sunscreen on, and it was this state of high tension. And by the end of the afternoon, the parents would usually be sleeping, the kids would be playing in the sand, and there was a sense of calm that occurs. And that’s an example of biophilia. It’s this connection to nature, the sense of the water, the sense of being out in nature. That’s so important to create internal stability, which allows us then to be more in equilibrium with our surroundings and with the people in our lives. So with that, let’s open this up for questions, Rach.

Rachel: All right. First up, we have April.

Dr. A: Hey, April.

April: Hi, Dr. A. I’ve—getting back to grounding. I have read a lot about it and right now I’m currently waiting to have hip replacement surgery, so I haven’t really been able to go down to the beach and walk like I normally would. So, what is your opinion of grounding mats and grounding sheets?

Dr. A: Well, you know, my personal opinion is that you don’t need any of that stuff. I honestly—I mean, there’s a commercial application. When there’s a commercial application, people find many reasons why you need it. You know, I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I think if you’re using it in the way–what we’ve just been talking about, I think it’s fine. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think the good old ground is really what you want. Now, the other part is like, if you’re not able—as mobile as you’d like to be until you get this fixed. By the way, you’re a great example. I’m looking behind you, is that real or is that synthetic?

April: Those? Oh, it’s totally fake.

Dr. A: Okay. That’s okay though. Well, I can tell you by looking at you in that surrounding and seeing all those plants. Okay. Plants are part biophilia, right? Surrounding yourself with plants. I mean, I have a tendency when I go to the store and go grocery shopping, I always go over and get flowers. I always have flowers in my house. I mean, I absolutely love them and they’re totally—It’s totally a luxury. It’s totally not—there’s no “quote” value from the standpoint of, you know, what do they do? But they do a lot for me. They bring color, they bring life, they bring—I love it. And so I think anything you do, standing, feeling the ground underneath you… you know, I actually added something to my life a couple months ago. I’m going to do it in a future talk, but I’m now using a cooling mattress on my bed. The other side of this is when you’re not present, when you’re sleeping, is so critical that we get eight hours of high-quality sleep, which sets you up to be much more present in the day.

[00:20:21] When you don’t sleep well and you’re tired your senses kind of have a dull edge on them. And so to truly appreciate nature and all the things it’s great to get a good night’s sleep. And so I basically in that case, I use it to keep my body cooler because when our body’s cool, we naturally release melatonin. And so melatonin, that’s why I always suggest to people an hour before they go to bed, build a sleep ritual. You know, that twilight hour, where you’re taking a hot bath and then you’re cooling off, making sure your room is dark, quiet, and cool, right? Because that cools you off. And when your core temperature goes down, you release, naturally, melatonin. Well, I actually added that, and that’s certainly a gimmick, if you want to say a gimmick, but what it does is it creates coolness so that I don’t overheat, and it dramatically improves my sleep and I monitor, I use a device, a wrist device that monitors, and actually this particular mattress actually monitors your sleep as well and it cools or warms depending on how you’re sleeping. So I find it incredibly helpful. But as far as those, I don’t know anything about grounding mats. I just know that it’s really what you’re doing here that allows you to—I mean, obviously the reason why I’m mentioning a cooling bed is you’re actually physically changing the temperature, which helps your body stay cool and the when your core temperature is lower, you don’t wake up, because I have a tendency, because I happen to be hyper energetic so to speak, I get hot at night and then then it wakes me up and so now, I’m not—it’s not waking me up and so I find that helpful, but I think anything that works for you, awesome. Cool?

April: So, just one other thing is, as far as just being in nature and walking, is it your belief that it’s either dirt or grass, not sidewalk, that is going to be beneficial for the grounding part?

Dr. A: Well, I mean I think anytime you get back to the natural organic state of nature, that’s going to be better for you.

April: Okay.

Dr. A: But, I’m not—there are two different things. One is physical activity. If you live in the city, get out and walk, right? Get out and walk. And also, if you’re in a place where you’re near a highway, make sure you’re safe and so you’re on—you know, one of the things when I was in Copenhagen doing the documentary, one of the beautiful things, “health by design,” was that they actually have raised bike paths. They’re not just a line painted on the road, right, where someone can still whack you. They actually are elevated, you know, like a curb, and they have their own special place. So that gives you a safe place to physically be active. So yeah, but as far as, yeah, getting into nature, getting back to the natural—and when I say synchronicity, that’s what I mean. Man-made structures, the urban environment, is not conducive to being in nature. And that’s why one of the fathers of New York City was smart enough to—because, you know, that real estate is obviously at a premium—to be smart enough to designate Central Park as a place for all the people of New York City. And I’m just picking that as an example. Even in an urban environment, you can find areas to get out in nature and truly be with nature.

April: Well, okay, one last question. So, since you mentioned the documentary, when will your primer be available?

Dr. A: Very soon. Very soon. It’s literally in review right now, and it should be very soon.

April: Okay. Thank you so much.

Dr. A: You’re welcome. Awesome. Who’s next, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Barb.

Dr. A: Hey, Barb. You’re muted, so I cannot hear you.

Barb: There!

Dr. A: There you go!

Barb: Got it. Sorry. Yeah. So, I am curious about building a habit around connecting with nature because my first thought is, oh, I’d love to go connect with nature, but I’m so busy. I’m so this, I’m so that, you know? So I need to maybe build a solid schedule or something. I don’t know. I just wonder.

Dr. A: No. Yeah. Exactly. Well, you know, and there are other parts. There are many parts of this. I’m not an exercise enthusiast, but I stay, I heliski, I do lots of sports and stuff. I actually build into my day, activity. I build—I have a mindset that, for instance, like right now, I’m sitting at my desk for this hour, and then I’ll get up, and I live in a three-story. I’ll go up and down the stairs. I’ll go do something specifically down in the basement. I mean, I will make sure tha,t intentionally in terms of activity, in terms of my consciousness, that I spend time doing that. So it doesn’t have to be a designated hour where you go do something. It can be—like let’s say you work in an office building, you can take a walk to the water cooler or bring your own lunch, go outside, walk outside into the park or for a walk at lunchtime. If you live at home, just put a timer on your phone and spend five minutes. You know, I go for a walk on the beach. I basically will just walk outside on the balcony and spend 15 minutes. I think it’s important that we build that into almost this sense when—and then I think a really good thing, which we started with when I was talking about presence, is take a deep breath and as you release, do I have tension? And most of us will say yes, and we’re breathing from our upper chest rather than deep centering breaths from our diaphragm, where we fully feel our belly, come out, and that’s a great way to do it. 

Put your hand on your chest and your belly, and feel do you feel your belly come out when you deep breathe. If you don’t, you’re breathing up here. And what you want to do is you want to reenter your breath and breathe from your belly because when your diaphragm expands it, your autonomic nervous system, you have the vagus nerve which stimulates the diaphragm. And that nerve is part of the autonomic nervous system, which is part of the system that’s the calm system. And you’re reconnecting your vagus to you and to that calm state. And even just doing that and then sensing that. But I think a deep breath is a good sense like when you do that, say, “You know what? I need to walk outside.” You know, we as a whole, we’re finding more things such as vitamin D. You know, vitamin D naturally, we get vitamin D when we’re exposed to sunlight naturally through our skin, and so many people have a relative deficiency. I mean, I’m not giving medical advice here. I’m just simply saying that getting out in nature for a few moments, you know, you’re not going to get sunburn in five minutes, but you will absorb the energy from the sun. And if you do get burns, then put some sunscreen on. But the point is, getting connected more during our day. It’s a centering practice. It allows us to, what April was talking about, this grounding that occurs. So important for us because if we’re running on that proverbial success track, we’re going to miss life.

Barb: Yeah.

Dr. A: We’re going to miss life.

Barb: Yep. That makes total sense. Yeah. I just need to remember to walk.

Dr. A: Use your phone. Use your phone.

Barb: Yeah. Right. Set a reminder.

Dr. A: Use your phone. And then what’ll happen is it’ll become a habit. I know. I know during the day. I mean, I get up several times. I mean, I don’t sit at my desk for never more than—this is about as long as I’ll sit at my desk at a time. But I get up, I move around, I basically walk outside. I sense that in the morning when I get up. I specifically designed this house so it’s all glass. I have the full view of the ocean with the sunrise in the morning. It’s kind of like I feel that connection. And I can’t overemphasize how important it is because when you feel connected spiritually, you know, whatever your religion or your spiritual thoughts and your faith and things, that connection is so critical for us and we just seem to come—we kind of, it’s like sleep. It’s like sleep. We kind of put it on the back burner like it’s a luxury and it’s really not. Our connection to nature is so critical for our wellbeing.

Barb: Makes sense. All right. Going to do it.

Dr. A: All right. Good. All right. Rach, who we got?

Rachel: All right, next up we have Becky. Hey, Becky.

Dr. A: Hey, Becky.

Becky: Hi, Dr. A. How are you?

Dr. A: I am fantastic.

Becky: Good. So, this resonates, this whole subject with me very, very, very strongly because I’m a big believer in—and I guess it’s called grounding. When you just touch grass, is what they say, you know. And I went to the backyard. We are getting a little bit of a rain right now, but yes, I do it quite a bit. Every morning I have my coffee and I go out there and I stand in my grass. My nice soft grass, without any ‘stickers’ in it, with my coffee and just barefoot, and sometimes I even lay down in it, and just lay down and just be still because I believe there’s power in the planet from God that heals us and just connects us. And I also wanted to say about this one time, I work at a church camp, and I was just there last week, or the week before, and it’s by a river and there’s hot rocks because the sun’s beating down on that and I work in the kitchen during that camp, right? And I’m so achy from the bad beds and the concrete that I’m on, you know, I go out to that river and I lay down on those hot rocks, and I started doing that years ago and it’s so helpful. It hurts. I mean, everywhere where it was hurting, I’ll put a hot rock and because, you know, they do that at expensive spots. I said, I’m getting this for free, you know, and it’s just wonderful. And so, I just wanted to share about that. I didn’t really have a question, but those are my experiences with grounding. Anytime I can. I was just at Arlington Cemetery, Sunday. We had traveled to, I had a conference for the DAR, in Washington, DC, and so I didn’t want it to be disrespectful or anything like it, but that grass is so wonderful. I got my flip-flops off, and I stepped in the grass and just stood in it. And so anytime anybody finds really soft grass or even in your own backyard like I can even show you my little backyard area if I can flip it. I don’t know if I can flip it. Can I flip it?

Dr. A: Sure!

Becky: Yeah. See that little?

Dr. A: Awesome. Yeah, that’s awesome grass.

Becky: That’s right. Oh, my husband worked very hard to keep it awesome for us. And now I can’t flip it back to my face.

Dr. A: No, that’s awesome. And you know, that brought a smile to my face. As a kid, my grandmother used to take me up to Pennsylvania up in, up near Dushore, a little town in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, like the Wilkes-Barre area, and I remember one of my favorite things used to be to hop along the rocks and the riverbed, right? And just hang out, be with nature, watching the water, watching the little insects on the water, the kind that stay on the top. Their surface area is so little that they dance on top and feeling—sitting down, like getting in the cold water and then laying on those warm rocks like that. And think about how that makes you feel. And we have this search—this and going back to just for a moment, what you’re saying, success and this need to—you achieve all these material things but the real things that really matter are the simple things. There are the things like that, and just like looking at your grass, right? I can just tell, it’s great and brings back memories of being a kid and going out in the grass in the lawn in the evening and catching lightning bugs, right? Fireflies, right?

And just the simple, that connection both to our youth and to ourselves and to nature. When we’re kids, you know, I mean, I remember my father was in the Air Force and we lived on a base in Savannah, Georgia, and because for the aircraft, for the runways, there was a huge fence system so no one was allowed in, and so, but being on the base, I could take my bike when I was like 8 years old and go to the swamp and observe nature all day and just the beauty of that and doing that. And you know, kids today, they end up unfortunately on their phones or on the TV or, you know, and they’re losing all that connection. We become an indoor species. And it’s so critical as adults that we get our kids out, and we’re moms and dads that are spending time out in nature because that connection is so critical. So, thanks for sharing. That’s awesome. And I love, I saw somebody put up there—sitting on their porch in the rain, right? As the rain comes down and just sensing that. The sound and the dampness from that. It’s pretty cool. So.

Becky: Yeah, I was going to go ahead and lay down in the grass, but it’s kind of wet. So I could show you how to do it if you needed to [crosstalk 00:34:00] And river water and oceans, I put my feet in them every time I get to them. And I just think if we just start doing that because I watched a documentary on Amazon or something like that about grounding, and they were talking about how in this time period we’re always wearing shoes. We’re never touching nature, and so just, on purpose, and my husband always wears closed-toed shoes and socks and I tell him take those things off and put your bare feet on the grass.

Dr. A: Exactly. Exactly. No, that is so cool [crosstalk 00:34:33].

Becky: Yeah. And so if everybody will just do that anytime they want to and you’ll feel the power of it. I don’t know if it’s electric—what’s in the magnetism or what it is, but it’s something about—it doesn’t matter, you feel it and when we open to it—but you have to be open to it. You have to be present, and a great way to start, especially if you’re, you know, if you’re spending most of your time inside, is your breathing. Your breathing starts to reconnect you to that. So it’s great. So, well, thank you so much for sharing that was awesome.

Becky: You bet. I’ll talk to you later.

Dr. A: Okay, Rachel.

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Mary. Hey, Mary.

Dr. A: Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hey! Hi. It’s wonderful to meet you. I want to thank you. I think that if Optavia didn’t exist, I would be in much worse straits than I’m in. And so I’ve been confined to a nursing home waiting for surgery on my leg fracture for quite a long time and I was just wondering, I’ve changed Zumba so I could do it in the bed and I’ve come up with a lot of other things so that I could still do them in the bed, you know, and I am wondering how can I reconnect to nature stuck in here? I mean, I look at magazines and I watch travel videos and I do those things, but I don’t feel the same thing that I would feel if I were standing out in the rain or if I were barefoot, etc.

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think the things you’re doing are good. We know this, the research supports that just looking at a picture of nature improves you, that there’s a connection that occurs there. So I think obviously while you’re not able to be mobile and you can’t get out of it, I think you’re doing the right things. I think the more you can do that—and spend time, you know, what was nice, the kind lady I was just talking to, bringing back the memories of things you did before and you could do, and you’ll be able to do again once you get your legs fixed. Is that connection? It brings back memories and the memories of those days out as a kid in nature. Looking at pictures of beautiful, like I have a—I got a book, it was actually given to me by my friends that I took with me on my sail trip and it’s a book about the islands and it’s just photos, but it’s photos of these incredible sunsets and reefs and fish and beautiful—of a shark in the the evening sunlight, and I was looking through, they gave it to me over the weekend and I was looking through it last night and so you can take magazines and if you have access to a computer and you can actually go—when I, you know, I actually, when I made this presentation, those pictures that I have here, I just put those together yesterday from nature, from going online and just said, “beautiful pictures of nature,” and they came up and they’re free. You don’t have to buy them, and you can just put those on your computer or on your phone and just look at them and visualize that connection.

I mean that state—remember, your mind is critical right now for your recovery. And you know, I love that you’re doing Zumba and you’re doing things to stay active while you’re even in bed rest, until you get your leg fixed because all those things are important, but the mental part of you being strong for yourself and not getting depressed or upset and really, fully focusing on this beautiful thing called life and your connection to it. You know, you’re connected to that, and I can see, when you’re smiling now, I mean, I can see your face change. The more you can do that, and so it’s a—this is an opportune talk I’m doing today because it’s an opportunity for you to really focus on that and to use that mental energy to help with your recovery as well. Cool?

Mary: I just got taken off the vitamin D, and I just really feel a difference in that, too. So, I will get some coffee table books and I will get busy.

Dr. A: Awesome. Awesome. Sounds great.

Mary: Thank you.

Dr. A: Good luck and good luck with your surgery.

Mary: Thank you.

Dr. A: All right, Rach?

Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Carrie.

Carrie: Right now, but I have a question. People put their gemstones, during the full moon cycle, to re-energize their gemstones and our vital force. The moon has a negative effect on me. The full moon has a negative effect on me, and I am restless and don’t sleep well. Any thoughts on changing that?

Dr. A: You kind of broke up. So just repeat what your question is again.

Carrie: My question is [Carrie’s audio is breaking up] their gemstones out during a full moon cycle, and just to re-energize that and their vital force. The full moon has a negative effect on me. I am very restless and don’t sleep well for like two or three days during that full moon cycle. Any suggestions on flipping that or changing that?

Dr. A: Well, just complete disclosure, I don’t know anything about stones and their life force. But I will say this, there are certainly people who are affected by the moon. The moon has a huge gravitational pull. It affects us, the light from the moon, I mean, obviously we’re connected through being a human to the moon and obviously the moon has its effect directly, has its effects on us, and so what I would say to anyone that isn’t sleeping well, make sure that obviously your room is totally dark or you have a sleep mask, number one. Make sure that the temperature is cool. It’s very important that—I think anywhere less than less than 70° but 65° to 68°, keeping your room cool, making sure your room is quiet, that there’s no sound in it. And then probably on the days, you know, if that seems to be directly correlated with when the moon is full, on those days, basically, if you don’t sleep well, don’t take a nap. Give yourself a chance to stay awake, even though you’re tired. And then the next night you’ll fall asleep. Use a bath. I mean, I think a bath or a hot shower, hot bath or hot shower, like an hour to half an hour before you go to bed. Those things should help you with that. And then, I mean, I don’t recommend this, except for when people travel, but there is the ability to use a supplement. Like a natural melatonin, you know, on those times. So, they’re all potentially helpful. I mean, I’m not recommending that, but you know, and obviously communicate that with your physician before you would do that. But those are all things you could do if it’s only those two or three days. But as far as—I can’t really comment on anything as far as re-energizing your gemstones. I’m just—that’s a little bit beyond science.

Carrie: Thank you.

Dr. A: Yep. You’re welcome. Okay. Is that everybody, Chris, or do you have a specific question?

Chris: It is. But I got a fun question for you.

Dr. A: Okay.

Chris: You’ve known me for a few years now. You know, I live here in Arizona, where it’s currently the same temperature as the surface of the sun. And I don’t know if you noticed, I am incredibly white. I burn in about five minutes of sunlight. I can be outside with my kids for maybe 20 minutes before I am on fire. And so, how can you ensure you’re getting enough nature when it is so hot outside? You know, what are some other things that you can do to ensure you’re getting all of that?

Dr. A: Yeah. Well, that’s a great question and you know, I know Arizona is dramatically hot and they can say, “well, it’s dry heat,” but when it’s 120 degrees, that’s pretty hot. So, you know, the bottom line is there doesn’t have to be a direct relationship between being outside and sunlight. Sunlight is one of the benefits, but you know, there’s indoor—you know, a great—even in Key West, and I was there last month. There was an indoor, like a sanctuary, that was all butterflies, and you could go in it and it’s covered. There’s no sunlight getting in it, and it’s butterflies. It’s a like an arboretum but it has butterflies in it, and anything like that. You can go indoors. You can also go in the evening, by the way, once the sun is set. I mean, the Arizona skyline at night is incredible. You can be out when it’s that hot. I don’t recommend going out because you don’t want to raise your core temperature. But you can certainly use the evenings and go out and, you know, play the game with your kids, that I did with my kids, and you know, look for—you can sit outside, drive up to the foothills, and look at this beautiful panorama.

One of the most favorite things to do when I’m out in those climbs is that spectacular, at night, that skyline with all the lights twinkling in the distance, you know, and be up in nature and you can see the stars and see the lights of the city. I mean, I highly recommend in the summertime that you don’t go out in this, in the heat. And that includes, by the way, I see people all the time in Florida, we don’t have quite that level of heat, but it’s in the ’90s, but we have high humidity. And I’m watching people out, the sun is at its hottest between like uh 12 to 3. One to 2 is probably the hottest. You should avoid being out, certainly not exercising during that period. But exercise early morning or in the evening. So I would recommend in the summertime, like where you are now, enjoy the evenings and do any activities you do in the evenings or go to indoor facilities. I’m sure that town has probably a bird sanctuary, or you can go to zoos that have indoor facilities and do things. By the way, that’s something I didn’t mention, but a wonderful thing to do if you do live in the city is, go to the zoo. Go to the zoo, and connect with the animals in the zoo. I mean, that’s a great way to resume that. And the other part is, you know, one of the things, especially for kids, do you have a pet?

Chris: Yeah, we have two cats. Two indoor cats.

Dr. A: Two cats. Okay. Yeah. That’s having—and having your children, by the way, spend time and take care of a pet is a tremendous opportunity to nature and nurture, right? And a great way for young kids to start learning responsibility and connection with a different species than humans. So, those are all uh things you can do.

Chris: That’s cool.

Dr. A: Yeah.

Chris: That’s great. And then there was one question from someone in the chat. They were asking what do you do during winter? I don’t know what this word “winter” is because I live in Arizona, but apparently, there’s a changing of seasons when it gets cold outside.

Dr. A: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the bottom line is that’s one of the wonderful things with technology today, is you can get clothes relatively inexpensively that you can layer, and keep you—protect you against the elements and get out and do things. Obviously, you don’t want to go out and shovel snow if you’ve sat on the couch all year, because that’s a great way to test your cardiovascular system. But, bottom line is, I mean, I love the winter. I mean, I go specifically to the winter. I live in Florida, which doesn’t get cold either, but I go out to Colorado and ski and snowshoe and just love to go out and walk in nature. So, yeah, getting you outdoors in the wintertime is equally important. It’s because you can get cabin fever, and just getting outside, the fresh air, again, observing the stars at night. Those are all important ways to connect.

Chris: All right, awesome.

Dr. A: Cool.

Chris: Thanks, Dr. A.

Dr. A: Awesome! All right, if that’s everybody, we’ll end a little early today and hopefully this was helpful. I did this a little unusual most of the time. We’re talking about, you know, consciousness from the inside and how you’re thinking, your thoughts, your feelings. But I think it’s really important to expose ourselves, you know, forest bathing, getting out and watching the sunsets, watching the stars, making sure we’re connected daily to nature, interacting with the species other than ourselves are all important to assemble that reconnection, that synchronicity, that biofilia, which is so important that we’ve kind of lost in so many ways with our advanced technology. So, with that, I hope everybody’s enjoyed this. Have a great Fourth of July, and I’ll see you next month. Bye.