Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #200: Diagnosing for Dollars: Dr. Roger McFillin on the Business of Mental Illness & How to Reclaim Emotional Sovereignty

Transcript

Episode #200: Diagnosing for Dollars: Dr. Roger McFillin on the Business of Mental Illness & How to Reclaim Emotional Sovereignty · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: We are conditioned to see our doctors for almost everything.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: So you're going through a normal adaptation process in response to some life stressors.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: That could be ending a relationship.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: That could be grief.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: That could be loss.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: That could be financial stress.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you report these symptoms in your medical centers.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they're going to provide you that label.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: And now you are a depressed person, which is a construct that we have created in modern culture.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what does it mean to be a depressed person?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it means I'm sick.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: It means I am broken.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: If you dig further, it means there might be something wrong with my biochemistry.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how do you approach that?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: You approach it with a pharmaceutical.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: That pharmaceutical is going to correct that emotional imbalance, that chemical imbalance, and then I will feel better.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we've adopted that mindset into our culture so much so that in 2022, 66 million adults were taking in antidepressant, according to the CDC.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McKella, along with our favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And today we have a very, very special guest, Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Roger McFillen.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: He is on a mission to uncover the raw, unfiltered truth about human resilience.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: While mainstream narratives push pills and quick fixes, he digs deeper, exposing the often ignored strategies of true survivors.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: McFillen is a clinical psychologist with over two decades of experience.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's the founder of the Conscious Clinician Collective and host of the Radically Genuine Podcast, which is ranked in the top 1% of global podcast downloads and reaches listeners in over 150 countries.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: His podcast, if you haven't listened to it already, I highly recommend it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is a hard-hitting exploration of what it really takes to overcome life's toughest moments.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: He also challenges mainstream mental health narratives and harmful cultural narratives that perpetuate illness and dependency on the medical authority.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he's also providing solutions.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't just give the problem, he gives solutions.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: He does this by empowering listeners with knowledge and alternative perspectives on mental health and well-being.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he covers so many great topics on his podcast.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're going to run out of time.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: We could talk to him all day.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to jump in right away and ask you what is the most shocking or upsetting fact that you've learned while you've been uncovering the truths about our modern mental health system.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of our discussion today is going to be around narratives and how so many stories and narratives were sold to us.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you're of my age and I'm uh late 40s right now, I grew up in an era where I was able to observe a real shift in the cultural lexicon and discussion about emotional well-being and mental illness.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: In late 1980s, it was 1987 that the drug Prozac was brought to market.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was by the late 1980s or late 1990s that uh it was really promoted to us uh in popular culture.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: There we're one of two countries with uh direct-to-consumer advertising from the pharmaceutical agencies, and there's been this large marketing effort uh that ranges from corporate media to the use of our government uh authorities, our politicians, our uh our agencies like the FDA and CDC to communicate this message that what you feel when you feel intensity, uh when you really struggle in life, that it can be labeled as a brain condition, and that brain condition can be treated with a range of pharmaceuticals.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, intuitively, instinctively, I've never really felt that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've always thought emotions were uh signals or even gifts that were provided to us divinely that were good indicators that there were things in our life that we had to face.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: The overwhelming amount of people that I've come across throughout my lifetime in my professional work who were suffering, whether what we label that depression or anxiety or post-traumatic stress, those reactions were valid responses to things that were going either internally within them or their environment.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the pervasive distortion of emotions as illness has led to unprecedented drug dependence, chronic illness.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at our data, ever since we started talking about mental illness as a brain condition, a chemical imbalance to be solved with pharmaceutical interventions, you've seen dramatic rises in the rates of mental illness and disability.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Can't really find any other medical intervention that when it is brought to market, it increases that condition 1,000 fold.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, it's a it's a marketing narrative that the pharmaceutical companies created, and it was designed to increase the amount of people that identified as mentally ill.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they've pushed that narrative into popular culture.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: They really do own the medical training of our physicians, and they've incorporated this into primary care settings.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess the most disturbing thing is really looking at the corruption and the science around psychiatric drugs and what was kept from the public and how those drugs came to market and the problems that are associated with taking those drugs, not only physiologically, the dependence and the adverse consequences, but getting disconnected from your own emotional states has led to, I think, unforeseen consequences that we don't even discuss.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the impact on relationships, the impact on resilience, their belief in their own ability to solve challenges and uh the problems that exist in normal aspects of living.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: I really do believe we're all souls that have incarnated into this body.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and those challenges are necessary for our soul evolution and growth.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And emotions themselves are major aspects of human bonding and connection.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: So any attempts to try to numb those experiences is often disconnecting us from each other, disconnecting us from nature.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think they're disconnecting us from ultimately like divinely inspired information to help us evolve.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's so beautiful.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Joel, I just can't help but to think that so a big part of this is probably a problem with labels, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Starting to label these conditions.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have people identifying with that label or being clumped into that label.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Have you found that to be true?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like it sounds like that's part of the issue here, is that now was it the pharmaceutical company who started creating these labels of these different health conditions, these mental health conditions?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Highly influential.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: What they've done is they've hired uh academic psychiatrists pretty much as thought labels, our thought or thought leaders.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And those thought leaders are very influential in how we think about the human experience and align that with the major medical establishment, the allopathic model.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the DSM is the diagnostic statistical model, which is uh really created not through uh strong empirical evidence, because these aren't discrete medical conditions.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: So uh whether we call it depression or anxiety or the 300 plus psychiatric diagnosis that have evolved over the past 40 years, what they are is they are descriptive.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So they have no explanatory value.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're highly influenced by pharmaceutical dollars.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: When you look at uh those who've been on the various committees who actually vote in psychiatric conditions, those are uh the overwhelming amount of those committee members accept pharmaceutical dollars.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let's take major depressive disorder.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: So you're taking uh an emotional state and you're trying to create it as a disorder or an illness.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: The criteria for meeting that condition is um so easily attainable that any one person is going to be able to obtain that diagnosis at any one given time.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there's nine symptoms, you only have to uh you only have to achieve like five of them for a very short amount of time, two weeks.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: So you sell this label as if it's a discrete medical illness.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a medical illness, well, then you can get a drug approved to treat it.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: We are conditioned to see our doctors for almost everything.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you're going through a normal adaptation process in response to some life stressors.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: That could be ending a relationship, that could be grief, that could be loss, that could be financial stress.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And you report these symptoms in your medical centers, well, they're going to provide you that label.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: And now you are a depressed person, which is a construct that we have created in modern culture.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what does it mean to be a depressed person?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it means I'm sick, it means I am broken.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: If you dig further, it means there might be something wrong with my biochemistry.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, how do you approach that?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: You approach it with a pharmaceutical.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: That pharmaceutical is going to correct that emotional imbalance, that chemical imbalance, and then I will feel better.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we've adopted that mindset into our culture so much so that in 2022, 66 million adults were taking in antidepressant, according to the CDC.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: 66 million.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that's in 2022.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: I guarantee you it's more.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're upwards now of about 25% of American adults on at least one psychiatric drug.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: The last time I saw data around children is we were providing SSRIs to upwards of 20% of adolescent females.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we've medicalized all aspects of the human condition.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've prescribed pharmaceuticals that fundamentally interfere with normal adaptation and functioning on a large scale level.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: For adolescents, for example, just serotonin, which is a very complicated uh neurochemical, interacts with all aspects of our body, you know, including hormones.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, 98%, most of serotonin originates through complex gut microbiome.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: So what happens when we start to interfere with these natural normal processes?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the things we know, it already has a lay, it already has a black box warning for suicide.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: In my research, if you put an adolescent on a SSRI compared to a placebo, that's a six-fold increase in the likelihood that that teen is going to die by suicide.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: None of this information is widely known.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Even though we have the warnings on the drug labels, even though we have the black box warning, which is the last warning before a drug is removed from market, almost nobody gets this information.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we're stuck in this narrative around mental illness.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really become something in our popular culture that has extended itself to a degree where we've lost all sense of reality.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, ADHD as a diagnosis, depression as a diagnosis, people identifying themselves as autism without even meeting the criteria.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: They've adopted as a personality, and that personality is used to explain all challenges that exist in their life.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: You see this on social media now, where people are putting psychiatric diagnoses in their profiles for um whatever their uh whatever platform they're on, and they've identified themselves as an ADHD person.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: They've identified themselves as a depressed person, as if it's a genetic condition that they have obtained and there's nothing they can do.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: They just have to manage it for the rest of their life, and it requires these pharmaceuticals.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: The real sad thing is they reflect on every problem that exists as related to that illness.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So lost relationships, not having success in school or in a job.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: They use this diagnosis, this label as an explanation or justification for all those challenges.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: And again, they're never able to do the really important work to be able to face what has happened and to overcome it.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: So just identifying this idea of being ADHD, they create this consciousness around it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I can't focus.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm unable to do things that other people are able to do.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not that this is true at all, because there's a lot of areas of their life they're able to focus on, but they've just adopted this personality and this mentality.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they're victims and they're being taken advantage of by the medical establishment that really pushes it because what is their job?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Their job is to sell as many drugs as possible.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: They're beholden to their shareholders, they're not beholden to our development.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Drug companies do better when people are perpetually confused and in need of their product.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Dead people don't make money for the pharmaceutical companies, and healthy people don't make money for pharmaceutical companies.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's the perpetually confused and uh externalizing their health and their mental well-being to professions and to authorities that keep them in business.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: So it uh go ahead, Joel.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're we're both chafing at the bit here, so um uh so so it is this a is where we are, is where we are primarily a product of whatever uh slick marketing on the part of, you know, uh is it money driven or is it on or is it um the convenience factor that people would rather just give me something instead of actually dealing with the emotional conflicts that they have?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: That that's that's hard work, you know, to to punch through um emotional conflicts.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: So is it is it money or is it convenience, or you know, how how do you see that?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're one in the same.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what's interesting is when you really dive deep into this, you see that the pharmaceutical companies have set up these nonprofit organizations.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: So they fund these nonprofit organizations, and these nonprofit organizations have major roles in the larger system of our economy, our education system, and our medical system.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, one example is they create curriculums for schools and they push those into schools where you start talking about at a very young age that emotions are not gifts that are used for us to solve problems.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: They don't learn the science of emotions, they start learning the medical model.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you're trained very early to become in a war with yourself.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: So when you start to experience sadness or fear or intrusive thoughts, or you have memories that of of painful events in your life, you start to you start to enter into this uh conflict and and struggle where you fear your internal experience.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: What that ultimately does is it drives you externally to go to the medical authority because we're conditioned to believe everything that's wrong with us.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: We need to go to the doctors, and the doctors are the medical authority.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: So the quick fix is if I can get out of this experience, I don't have to feel this anymore, I don't have to think about this anymore, that's relief.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of these drugs will provide some immediate relief, even if it's a placebo effect.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, that feeds a billion-dollar industry, an apparatus that is so ingrained in so many aspects of our life.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we take a lot for granted.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now I can't unsee it.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, like if I watch a Netflix show or a movie where they start pushing this propaganda, you know, where someone's struggling and then, you know, a main character will say, Well, they're off their meds, or you'll see somebody take a drug and then all of a sudden they're stable.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can't unsee the degree of propaganda that's been pushed.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's all purposeful.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of money has gone into those spots in major television, major movies.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: That apparatus is connected to Hollywood.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, we see what happens with the pharmaceutical companies funding our major corporate news networks.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't watch a news net a news show on CNN and Fox without getting a pharmaceutical company, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this kind of mass condition that I think the apparatus feeds itself.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, and just to be clear, you said the so the pharmaceutical companies set up these nonprofit organizations, and then those nonprofit organizations help shape the curriculum for like is it like K through 12?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are we talking about?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, wow.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and also obviously they're major influencers in like the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I went and did a deep dive into the American pediatrics recommendations for adolescent depression because I wanted to find out how so many teens are being placed on these drugs.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: Back in 2012, when I started my practice, I would say probably about 20 to 25% of people who came into my center were on a drug.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now I can't find anyone who comes into my center without being on at least one drug.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: One of the reasons for that is the Academy of Pediatrics recommends to pediatricians that if a teen is experiencing what we label as depression, that the safest, most effective, and evidence-based treatment is to prescribe them an SSRI.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Is that based on good science?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: God, no.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: I went and looked at every single citation that was used to support this, to make uh to influence protocols and guidelines for our American pediatricians.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: They were cherry-pick studies, they were poor studies.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: They, of course, did not include the totality of all the evidence.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: Many people don't know this, that the FDA only requires two positive trials in order to approve a drug.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: So, for example, for drug trials for Prozac for adolescents, uh, approximately 15 trials determined that the placebo was more effective than the uh than the SSRI, Prozac, fluxetine.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: But they were able to find two studies that minimally outperformed a placebo.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So statistically, it outperformed a placebo.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of games they can do with the drug trials to make that happen, probably beyond the scope of today's discussion.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: But then that's that's what gets cited this selective publication of results that fit uh their product.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so pediatricians, for example, get a distorted evidence base.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Not only that, and I this I had a conversation with a pediatrician, and I explained to him the totality of the science.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you have a teenager that says, Oh, I I'm just thinking about like I want to die, like I'm so miserable, I'm depressed.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: And if you work with teenagers, that's not that uncommon.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like they don't necessarily really believe they want to die, like they don't want to die, but they use that to communicate their pain.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: So anyone who's had teenagers, you know, hears the lexicon sometimes.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my God, I want to die.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my God, it makes me want to die.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so they communicate in this language and you go into the pediatrician for a 10-minute appointment at most, and you start saying these things, they prescribe you a drug.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that drug, as I mentioned earlier, has a six-fold increase in the possibility of a completed suicide.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is significant.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we're giving drugs that increase the likelihood of suicide to suicidal teens.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, even if the pediatrician knows this, they know that if they have a suicidal teenager or a really depressed teenager, and they don't prescribe that teenager an SSRI, and something happens to that teenager, they're liable.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: They follow the guideline, they give that child an SSR SSRI, the child dies by suicide, they're not liable.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: So this isn't about science, this isn't about evidence base.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: This is about uh the pushing of pharmaceuticals to every level of our society, regardless of what the out outcomes are.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say about 80 to 85 percent last time I saw this, as far as Americans who were uh survey, still believe that depression, anxiety, mental health conditions are related to chemical imbalances.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: Although all this has been debunked, never proven, the large majority of our population believes that.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the mass marketing.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's the pushing of these narratives.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, two so many questions, but let me narrow it down to two.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one is so if it's Not a chemical imbalance, what is it?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then, but first let's go with this question because it pertains to all this fraud uh manipulated data and such.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do um I heard, I don't know if this is true or not, that schools like K-12 schools will get more funding if the student is on a medication like an ADHD medication.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is that actually true?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think there's truth to that in the fact that in schools there's special education, and in schools, they actually have mental health clinics.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: People aren't aware of this.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: That those um I mean, I mean, just take a step back and think about how far we've come as far as melding uh education and this medical apparatus, uh, you know, this powerful medical establishment in the United States, that they push these ideas and then they put mental health clinics inside of schools where doctors, psychiatrists can come in, evaluate, and prescribe these drugs.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: So my guess is, and I don't have specifics about this, that the funding is around state dollars or federal dollars for special education.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the more people that are identified with these diagnoses, the schools are going to get more money to serve that population.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the the Biden administration, and I haven't been able to get any updates on what the Trump administration has done this, but in order to meet the mental health crisis that existed in COVID, a large amount of federal dollars were designated to school-based mental health clinics.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I think there's a there's an association, there's a correlation that the more people that are being quote unquote treated, then the schools are being funded for that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, uh that that is absolutely true.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: I can uh I can absolutely vouch for that even as long ago as I worked at the newspaper back before I came to the farm full time in the 1980s.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: I remember taking a tremendous amount of heat uh from our local newspaper when I quoted the local superintendent saying at current trends, and realize this is in 1980, okay, at a school board meeting, he stood up, and I I led with this in my article, which made him all angry, um, because he didn't want his he didn't want his gut feeling to you know be public.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: But he said at the current trajectory within a few years, 90% of the of the school budget will go to 10% of the students.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: And and and he was describing special ed, special needs, well, special needs uh type things.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so it simply grows the the public school bureaucracy, if you will.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not a it's not like somebody's checking, you know, uh overtly uh seeking that, but but um subconsciously, if not consciously, um when they have all of these special designated monies and personnel, it simply it it grows the you know, it grows the bureaucracy, which is what bureaucracies do.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go to the second part of my question.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it is really ingrained in our culture and even among mental health practitioners, the well-meaning practitioners, that um that like anxiety, depression, these are chemical imbalances.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I even I just recently watched Jordan Peterson's series on anxiety and depression.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he mentions as a behavioralist, um, you have to first tease out is this a true physiological chemical imbalance, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or if this is like a microaccumulation of events, uh like sad events that are happening in this person's life.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So even there, I heard that it's this, you know, chemical imbalance.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's not this chemical imbalance, what what is it?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: How would you define depression, anxiety, and such?
• 25:59
  unknown: Okay.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the first thing, there's no such thing as a chemical imbalance.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like our bodies are designed miraculously to be able to adapt to all our environment.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Stressors, internal stressors, even the food we eat, obviously, all of this can make us sick, but our body's always trying to seek homeostasis.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no idea of this uh uh of a chemical imbalance.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's just a uh a drug marketing narrative that wants you to believe that it's somehow outside of your control.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: So let's just go what what are emotions at a basic level?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's energy in motion, and so it is uh we are energetic beings, and these emotions are uh have a full range.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we feel fear and anxiety in response to legitimate threat.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: That threat can be existing in that particular moment, or the mind in itself can create it.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we experience uh sadness or grief or loss, uh, all in response to events that are occurring either internally in our consciousness or in our in our lives.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: And those emotions are designed to get us to pay attention and to make important decisions in how we respond to those things.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're also like have a lot of survival mechanisms to it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, like fear is a survival mechanism.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: But even uh what we label as depression is probably an adapted response to uh somebody who was, you know, at that particular moment overwhelmed and is lacking the ability to be able to contribute to the group.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I remember reading a beautiful paper when I was in graduate school school called The Benefits of Being Blue, which was an evolutionary perspective of the development of depression.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, first and foremost, we now have 20 to 25% of the population identifying themselves as clinically depressed every single year.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Historically, the idea of a real depressive episode was quite rare.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Never experienced by children, never experienced by adolescents.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Less than 1% of adults would identify themselves to be depressed, and almost every single one of them would say, I have legitimate reasons why I'm feeling this way.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it was always tied to those events.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: The medicalization of this is new.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so when someone wants to reduce the complexity of our emotional experience down to a simple uh material or biological component, what they're actually doing is they are stripping you of your agency.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not denying that there can be uh biological or physical responses uh to real toxins or things that happen in our life, or those origins aren't there.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: So for a great example of that is uh like hormonal imbalance.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we use that uh that that word again, imbalance.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, uh somebody who is experiencing a hormonal an endocrine uh condition, some endocrine disruption, that has uh an impact on like mood and energy, but that's still designed right there uh to be able to serve you, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: There is something wrong that you're gonna have to pay attention to physically, emotionally, within your environment.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: Traditionally speaking, and when I was in graduate school, it was very important for us when somebody is presenting with conditions of mood or anxiety or whatever that may be, that they're evaluated medically for a legitimate medical problem.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we are in now at a period in time where legitimate medical issues are misdiagnosed as psychiatric.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so we say things like um, like a metabolic disorder is the source or the root cause of psychiatric conditions.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if that were to be the case, it would never be a psychiatric condition to begin with.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: Psychological, emotional, psychiatric conditions have been of the psyche, of the spirit, of the mind, and have not been traditionally tied down back to these medical conditions.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, there are we are a we are an interconnected person of all things.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: We are mind, body, and spirit.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: So all interact with each other.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: So to say one is a root cause, and then you address it with some form of a medical intervention, you would be you would be receiving a medical care for a medical condition.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: And technically that is not uh what we traditionally have labeled as psychiatric.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: So going back to your original question, emotions are energy.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're normal, they're expected aspects of all aspects of our of our being.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're necessary for our survival, but they're also necessary for our own spiritual growth.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: They're necessary for us to get out of bad relationships, they're necessary for us to create in this world, they're necessary for us to bond with each other.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: All of those are necessary.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: What you see, and um which which I think is really the evil part of this, is that any suppression and denial of emotions seems to have real critical consequences for us, both emotionally and physically.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: So much so where there's large movements, scientists around the world, who really do understand the root cause of uh of disease having an emotional component to it.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you suppress those emotions and you don't deal with whether that's past trauma or allow emotions to be able to move and be able to face them, they do become kind of stuck energies that have an impact, I think, in our physical presentations and our physical bodies.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, I'm much more comfortable talking about emotions as energy and being careful of anything that adds on to the judgment of them, which could lead to suppression.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it's so it's so key to not suppress them because that's I don't think that's what our modern culture supports, right?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't really support expressing yourself or expressing your emotions.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know when I grew up, um, our parents didn't want to hear about our emotions.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was like rub some dirt on it or you know, toughen up, like, but but we weren't taught, I guess, what I would term emotional intelligence.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we weren't even taught how to walk through emotions, how how to forgive, like how to even identify what your emotion is in that moment.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like none of at least my generation, I don't feel like we were taught that.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what what it what are your thoughts on that?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's always two components to this.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: So there's what emotions are, and that's an important part of the work that I do.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: I find when I'm able to help people understand what emotions are and how they're there to serve them, and we can decrease the judgment of them and develop a more accepting stance and allowing them to be present in your life, then I think we're naturally resilient.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: We use those emotions for our benefit.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one piece.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: The second piece is okay, well, how do you respond to your emotions?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: So there are maladaptive ways to respond to emotions that can be problematic, and there are really effective and adaptive ways.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_02: So if you experience emotions and you don't know how to tolerate them and that they lead you to lash out at others or they create distance from other people, or you threaten others, well, obviously that's a problematic way of responding to your own internal emotional states.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you do feel sad and you ignore them and you deny them and you socially isolate, well, that then is the breeding ground for a depressive episode.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not the emotion themselves, it's how you respond to the emotions.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: And in my field, there's strong research around what we call approach copers.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: So approach copers are those are the ones who are able to recognize their emotions, understand that they're there to serve them, and they face and solve problems.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: In comparison, that's uh to uh what's called an avoidant coper.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: An avoidant coper might uh try to escape what they're feeling.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: That could be through drugs, that could be alcohol, that could be avoidance mechanisms.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: They tend not to face and solve problems.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: They live in fear, maybe their fear of conflict, maybe fear of judgment.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very clear to us about the outcomes of somebody who's an approach coper versus an avoiding coper.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Avoiding COPA are the people who come into my center.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: They're the ones on drugs, they're the ones not solving problems, they're the ones stuck in bad relationships, they're the ones who live in fear.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so much of my work is first identifying, understanding those emotions.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're not to be drugged, they're not to be suppressed, and then identifying the strategies to go and face your life fully.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what comes, what comes from the being on the other side of that is what is truly beautiful.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: When someone walks through fear, when someone faces a challenge, when someone gets out of a bad relationship or improves a relationship, then you see that person really begin to thrive.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Another way to look at this is our emotions are also trying to communicate to us about what our soul's purpose is.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we are off of our path, our emotions, our emotional state should be very aversive in order to get us back on that path.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh that's that's fantastic.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know it's it's easier to tear down than build up.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it's easier to destroy than construct.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: And um I I debated uh I debated through high school and college, and you know, the uh debate has has two sides.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_03: You have to you have to identify what what's wrong in society, whatever, you know, whatever the problem is, and then you have to present a plan.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, it strikes me that we have we have a cult, we have nursed as a culture, it seems like it's it's getting worse.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to get political here and partisan, but I mean when you look at what's going on in in college campuses, whether it's the uh Hamas, the ICE, the whatever it is, uh it seems like we've been extremely good at at um at the identifying you know things that we don't like, but we haven't we haven't channeled that energy of what we don't like into constructing something better and more beautiful.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: And is is that do you think that that what we're seeing in our whatever you know, our our our um dysfunction um is that part of this whole this whole problem?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Joe, I think all of that's intentional.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the the chaos that's ensued uh is something that I think um let me put this the the right way.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: So if you if you look back historically, I'm a bit of a historian because as a just a psychologist myself, um I am interested in what influences human behavior.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that we know uh influences human behavior is fear provocation.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_02: And this whether it's the CIA or NGOs from around the world, they're they clearly know in order to create chaos, you have to direct a person's attention towards fear and division.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: You want to provide more control mechanisms.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you want to increase this the power of the state.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then you must have a divided country.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: You must have chaos and you must induce fear.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do that, then you're more willing and more susceptible to a lot of the brainwashing techniques that lead people to accept their own servitude.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what we have seen throughout our country over you know the past century.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: We've given up so many freedoms in order for some false sense of protection.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I am at this point, I have no doubt of the intentional nature of whether it's foreign countries or whether it's our own country, to induce constant fear.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and that fear is designed for further control mechanisms.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was one of the reasons COVID as a bioweapon was brought upon the world.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was to induce more control mechanisms, and they've been successful.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's why you see so much political division around uh culture wars.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we our attention is a commodity, and that's the one thing uh that I think is important in our own uh spiritual growth and our own emotional well-being, is we have choice in where we want to focus our attention.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: You can focus your attention on everything that is wrong, all the bad things that can happen in life, everything that's wrong with your partner, uh, what's going on in Israel and Gaza and Iran and protests.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if that if that controls your attention, you're gonna be in disease.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to be physically, mentally unwell, you're gonna distrust your neighbor.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: But if you bring your attention away from all of that and you choose to focus your life on what you're grateful for, the love in your life, if you're serving others, well, you're you're going to create a state of ease and peace in your life.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think you're healthier, I think you're creating in love.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, this is a dark and light issue.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, we're gonna have a real choice in uh, you know, how we're gonna construct this country, um, how we're gonna construct our communities.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is it going to be out of love or is it gonna be out of fear?
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: But people have to be have to be awakened to all the strategies that are constantly bombarding us to divide us and to get us to live in fear.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's so interesting uh how you uh that's so well framed.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: You that we choose what to fear.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was I just um I was just at uh Freedom Fest in Palm Springs, California uh yesterday, flew home, and I'm on on the plane, and this couple gets in next to me.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm on the aisle.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: This couple come next to me, they're they're uh, you know, uh late 50s and uh both not morbidly obese, but definitely overweight.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm sitting, I I didn't use my armrest, you know.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm pushed out into the aisle kind of thing.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: So, so of course she's wearing a mask.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: And as soon as they sit down, out come the handy, the sandy wipes, you know, and they're they're wiping down all the seats and the you know, and they offered it to me uh to wipe my you know, seat buckles, all this.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: I look, I just smiled and said, No, I actually want your germs.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: They were nice about it, it didn't cause a row.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and so so they got settled in.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: First thing they do is they open up a great big uh, I don't know, they made these packages this big of uh Reese's cups, and they and they wouldn't touch the plastic.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: They they ate it off the they like put it in their mouth from the cardboard, you know, so funnel so they wouldn't have to touch the touch the uh the recipe.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: They finished that, then it came out a big bag of Doritos, so they ate the Doritos, then came, but this time we're airborne and they come with the food cart.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: So they get they get uh Coca-Cola, um, and then they then then they they buy a special little uh uh cracker meal, you know, rich crackers or whatever to go with it.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, everybody's everybody's food and drum, you know how the plane is, you ever kind of gets quiet there.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was a long flight Phoenix to Charlotte, you know.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and uh then they ring the attendant bell, and the flight attendant comes running, you know, uh, and and he he says, Um, my wife's having trouble with her sugar.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: Can you bring us some uh apple juice?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so of course they had to bring apple juice.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sitting there thinking, here she's got a mask on.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're they're antimicrobial, everything.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: So they fear that, but they have what I'm fearful of is the Doritas, the Coca-Cola, and the and the Reese cups, and there's zero fear about that.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that sounds psycho to me.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: It it is psycho, and they're they're victims of of brainwashing over the course of their lives.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: It makes no logical sense, you know, obviously.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny how um our modern culture has put us at war with nature, you know, and and that's part of that fear provocation.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that person is injecting poisons into their body, but afraid of their fellow human beings, right?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: They they would have to, they would have to assume that everything in our world, everything in that exists in nature is there to harm them.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're you you can the the words are I I've I've been much more attentive to what's happening in popular culture about the the the fight that's often uh that we're placed into with our natural environment.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like even when we talk about microorganisms, like they're they're even spoken to as far as as like invaders.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Viruses are invaders, they want to put us in fear all the time.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the The understanding of this, like psychologically, and anyone who's studied the placebo effect, the placebo effect is a very strong effect of mind and consciousness on the body, is the more you put people into fear, you're gonna actually be inducing that.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're actually creating that in in consciousness.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just sad that we've gotten to this point that someone can be so unwell and so sick, but yet still following the same rules.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, in in agriculture right now, wildlife, I mean, think about bird flu, wildlife is now the enemy.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we we've now we've now demonized Bambi, we've demonized the duck, we've demonized the goose, you know, uh uh wildlife.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's and and a and an agriculture, a food system that demonizes wildlife is inherently um out of sorts.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: You just can't demonize wildlife and think you can have a healthy uh ecosystem.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, Cena.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh this is this is so wonderful.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: I I just can't believe how how good this is.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, Dr.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: Roger, you're a you're a breath of fresh air in a in a crazy, crazy uh world.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: And and in a TikTok world that feeds all this.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not good enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm not, and it just it just feeds on that.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's so dark.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's so dark.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when I emailed Joel telling him how you know we found each other, uh, you know, Dr.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: McMillan, and I told Joel, I'm like, he is our third P in the pod.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like you are going to love him.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: Was I right?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: You you were right.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know what I would love to do is in the time remaining, can we talk about um let's make this applicable for our listeners?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say, you know, anxiety, overwhelm, these things are all on the rise.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and people are afraid of that label.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, Joel and I, that's why we call this beyond labels.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: We try not to use these labels.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we have these labels, and one reason why we don't use them is because they do invoke fear in a lot of people and outsourcing of your own power.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you um speak to our listener, let's say there's somebody who is experiencing what what we would label as anxiety, like chronic anxiety.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: What are some practical steps they can take to try to reclaim, like as you call this emotional, the fun um fundamental emotional sovereignty?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are some steps they can they can take to shift the energy, if you will?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: All right, first and foremost.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: And what's what's interesting to me is um I I treat people who have panic attacks.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Panic attacks are the easiest thing to help somebody overcome.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_02: But what we do in our medical system is going to put that person uh into a chronic state of a battle with their own anxiety and panic the rest of their life because they're going to prescribe a benzodiazepine.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the most important thing: there is a paradoxical effect with emotions.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: The more you try to get rid of them, the more you try to escape from them, the more you judge them, the more intense you're going to feel them.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: So, very simply, this goes into our conversation about being in a battle with nature.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and you're you're in a battle with human nature if you believe anxiety is something that has invaded you.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that will control you.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: The truth of the matter is it's there to serve you.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I say to every single person that I meet, because I think this is basically if you want to be immune from ever developing a mental illness, then see everything in life as having happening for you, not to you.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: So what we do is we allow people to live with anxiety, to accept its presence, and even understand why it might be there to serve you.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then you direct your intention into what really matters, right?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the most important thing is around attentional control.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: You get to choose what you focus on.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: But if your emotions like anxiety are accepted and allowed to be there, then they're always going to be at a manageable level.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're just indicating to you that something's important is about to happen, or there might be something your mind is worrying about.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: But your direction now is to continue to move forward in life.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: You focus on what exists in that present moment.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: The only time and the only place we could ever live is in the now.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's all.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: The eternal now is all that exists.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Our minds want to go back into the past.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: They want to ruminate over the worst situations in our life.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: They'll provoke shame, they'll provoke fear.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: Our mind wants to go into the future, predict all those other bad things that may happen.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_02: Well, our body's reaction to all of those things are going to be anxiety.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: But your anxiety is going to be a friend, a partner that comes along with you in all different types of situations.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have an important conversation, an important meeting, public speaking, a difficult conversation.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_02: Just imagine if we said we feel something, and whenever we feel it, we need to avoid it, right?
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: That would be that would lead us to an entire life of stagnation.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: So instead, we accept its presence, we learn to accept its presence, and then we move through it.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then what happens on the other side of that is it just starts to diminish.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: Once you accomplish one thing you were afraid of and you overcome it, then fear is really not there anymore.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: It becomes non-existent.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I want to approach life like it's a video game, you know, like we have levels.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: So you might have uh, you know, anxiety about taking a test or public speaking.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_02: You take the test, you face it, you have public speaking, you overcome it.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean you'll never feel anxious again.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's just you're gonna feel anxious uh in something that's maybe bigger or even more important than you.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's speaking in front of a large amount of people, maybe it's taking the MCATs, but still you've now developed a relationship to that anxiety where it is not attacking you, where it's not a threat, that it's just a partner with you.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then same thing, levels down the line to the point where fear never controls you.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and that's my ultimate goal in life is I don't want fear to ever control me.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want it to stop me from doing anything that my soul wants to experience.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh quick, quick story.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: I just recently got off a vacation to uh the Florida Keys.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: And all my all my kids now are over the age of 18.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I realized that in my early 20s, I went on a uh on a deep sea fishing trip and got caught in a storm and got so seasick, you know, people were vomiting in the front of the boat.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was coming back, it was hitting you in the back.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, you just felt absolutely horrible.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like playing praying to God, like, if you can get me off of this boat, I'll never do this again.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I get off this, I get off the boat and I'm like kissing land, and then I never go back on a boat again, never have the experience of like a fishing charter.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized that I was like holding my kids back from certain experiences in life.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided on the Florida Keys, I was gonna charter a boat uh with my family, and we were gonna go deep sea fishing.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized, like, as soon as I got on that boat, I started to feel intense anxiety.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I started almost feel like panic-like symptoms.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: I got nauseous just like I did on that on that boat.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: And all I did is I went right back to the techniques or the approach that I work with with all my clients.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, I'm just talking about this being a fishing trip, but you can apply this to anything, right?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: I breathe through it, I accept its presence.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: I actually am much more spiritual now.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: I surrender a lot to to God.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to live my highest version of myself.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I surrender that and I give up the fight with it.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, if I vomit, I vomit.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna survive, right?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I focus back on in that moment, which is a beautiful day.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then before I knew it, like a school of mahi-mahis right there, and I have to get on the pole and start, you know, fishing.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's now I'm directing my focus into that.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: And now I'm fishing, and that's what I'm thinking about.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at my my my kids and the friends that they brought with them, and there's smiles on their face, and I'm reeling in this mahi-mahi.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's life, and that's where I'm focused on.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's what grabs my attention.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not worried about getting seasick, I'm not worried about a storm, I'm not worried about anything else.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just focused fully on the moment.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's just the best metaphor for how we can apply a lot of these skills to all areas of our life.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if if I if I went to you and um and and paid you the regular uh clinic, clinical um rate to get that advice, uh, it sounds very similar to the cowboy who said, when the horse throws you off, get back on.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, wow, that's pretty that's pretty good to take that.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, you're right.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: And and you know, um Temple Grandin, of course, you know, the animal behaviorist, um says this is this is very much the way animals are, because animals don't have schedules, they don't have plans, they don't pay taxes, and and they they are totally in the moment.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: So when she when she talks about how to handle stress-free animal handling, it's all about the moment in the moment.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and my wife and I talk about this all the time because I I I say um, you know, I can never remember anything because I'm like a cow.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_03: I just live in the moment, you know.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: And and so and and I love this that that you're actually um giving some validation to this idea.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: You don't hold on to that.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: Just uh let it go.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh let it go and um and yeah, let let it go.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: But letting go is a is a hard thing.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, go ahead.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you just brought something to my attention too, because you know, one of the things that my wife always says to me is when she tries to like reminisce about different times, like when our kids are younger, when we did this and we did that, I don't remember those things because I actually don't approach my life that way.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really care about taking photos or pictures because I feel like that takes me away from the moment.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to reflect or reminisce like on a part of my life in comparison, like it's better than this or better than that.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think when we are focused in creation, like, okay, what am I going to create today?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_02: How's today going to be a special day?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: How can today be meaningful?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: What can I do today?
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a life-changing experience.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you get stuck in this, uh this in your mind, essentially, and you're trying to capture a moment so you don't forget it or that you remember it later in your life, all that is taking you away from just really being mindful and being in the flow that life provides.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, don't put your hand back in the fire either.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if somebody has if somebody has really burned you, um, don't expect that they're going to be the greatest partner tomorrow.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_03: So part of the emotions of of um dealing with that is that emotion is that's not a person that I want in my life a lot because they're detrimental to me, to my my mental stability.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the power of emotions too.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they um, you know, when we do experience things in life, it is encoded, I believe, into our DNA.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I really want people to to trust their intuition, touch, touch their experience.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, certainly there's red flags that are provided in their lives that give us information that say, okay, get away from that person.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do that again.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're designed to learn, we're designed to grow and transform.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're still throwing ourselves into into life, but I think when people get stuck in patterns, those those patterns are uh induced by fear, they're induced by previous learning, they're induced by cultural messages.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think fundamentally we have to get back to trusting ourselves and and and trusting that innate intuition uh and and learning that um I think is is more like connected to a greater source consciousness that's more connected to to God versus what we're gonna get from schools or what we're gonna get from television programming.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's all programming, you know, getting out of the programming is gonna be really, really important.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and one of the ways that we are programmed is going back to the diagnoses, right?
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: The the labels of the mental health or the physical health labels.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I have found in my own experience is that the hardest people to help reverse any kind of condition are the ones that have identified with the label.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like we're saying it they're living in the past, they keep bringing that past diagnoses up into the present moment.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, do you find this is also true?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: And how would you help somebody?
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for lack of a broad better way of saying it, kind of change their story, change that narrative that they're telling themselves over and over.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: Cena, this is the biggest challenge I have in my work.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um because if I look if I look back on my career, the clients that I've had the biggest challenge with, it is those who are attached to that narrative, that story about them being broken and ill.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: There will be, there will be people who come to see me, come to my center who just want to be quote unquote managed.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: They've attached to this idea that they have a mental illness, it's incurable, and they basically need to talk to me every week to make sure that they don't destroy themselves.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a narrative that I have to break down.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a narrative pushed from their family, from their psychiatrist, from popular culture.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: I have this condition, uh I'm broken, uh, I need these drugs, and I can't really trust myself, and I'm disabled.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you can look at the statistics around disability over the past you know 20 years, they're skyrocketed the amount of people who identify as being psychiatrically disabled.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the first thing I try to work with people is to get off the drugs because the drugs are inducing a sense of consciousness and dependent dependence.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I do that, you know, just by providing informed consent.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: So that is but that's an ethical mandate on my part.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_02: So they're often on like three, four, five drugs all interacting with each other to induce some level of sedation.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, their true selves aren't even present.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like a it's a version of themselves, you know, without emotions, without an independent mind.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: So to break them out of the brainwashing is you have to at least refer to the fact that, hey, these drugs can be making you sick, and they do.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: And um, if they're willing to safely kind of taper off those drugs, change some very important aspects of their lifestyle, nutrition, sleep, things that are absolutely necessary.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, their soul begins to awaken again and they become a real person and they can experience emotions and independent thoughts, and we can go back and understand how the story developed when it happened, and we can kind of connect with this part of them that wants to live more fully.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's, you know, that's the opportunity to break free from this narrative of them being mentally ill or them being broken.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and when that happens, it's beautiful.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's why I'm on this earth, to be honest, is for that.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's many different ways it can be done.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: It can even be done from people hearing these conversations where, you know, I've they've thought that themselves this themselves, and then it's just been validated.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that's another aspect of why I love my work on the podcast, is because I get the stories about how you're validating everything I've felt like I've known in my heart, but I just couldn't trust because I haven't I've been told not to trust myself.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And they've either protected them, um, their other family members or their children from going into that system.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_02: And they themselves have gotten healthy.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is so beautiful.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to share just a quick story, kind of a humor story, because you mentioned trust, and even you felt susceptible to not trusting yourself.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think these are also in subtle ways that we don't trust ourselves, we don't trust our bodies.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: So a while ago, maybe in the last year, my family all got the flu.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I hate throwing up.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just hate it.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was feeling just so sick and nauseous.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and you know, you can tell that like you're gonna throw up, but maybe you won't throw up and you're trying to fight it, right?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just getting worse.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm starting like dripping with sweat.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally I was like, okay, body, you have the infinite wisdom that came from God.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead, I trust you, do whatever you need to do.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got your back.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then blah, I just vomited and I felt so much better.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I stopped fighting what my body actually wanted.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: But to get to that point could be so hard.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you got to let go of control.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to trust in your body, in its infinite wisdom.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to have full faith in that, you know.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we just start suppressing and fighting it.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's just reminding me.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: The story popped in my head because I was like, oh, that's such a simple example of what you're talking about to really just embrace these God-giving gifts.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think that happens all the time.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not just the vomiting story, but these day-to-day things where we can just we can surrender and just give into the the flow of life.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_02: I began to realize that um my mind was inherently self-limiting.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: Even when I um wanted to achieve things or become things or experience things, eventually I said, well, why would I limit to just to that?
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: So my mind was always providing all these limitations on who I am and what I can become.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: And my life didn't really take off until I just said, you know what, fat, I'm not gonna do that anymore.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna surrender and say, you know, whatever God has for me or whatever my higher self has for me, I'm just going to surrender into that.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to control anymore.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to induce a control over the way things should be.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to allow them to be as they are.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do the best with what comes up.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: And when that happens, it's amazing that everything in life becomes invigorating.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: Life is in color.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a new challenge, it's a new opportunity.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: Even when things don't go your way, when you have that rough day, it's like, okay, what can I learn from this?
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: What is the lesson in this?
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: It changes absolutely everything in our lives.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, I think way too many people are just conditioned to attend to, oh my God, how do I protect myself from right now?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: They're just in fear.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_02: Their prayers are about protecting themselves, protecting other people.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: And they're, they don't realize they continue to this cycle where they're creating in fear and they're conditioning themselves and all others in fear.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_02: Breaking out of that matrix is such an important life task.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think one of the biggest, one of the biggest challenges of this podcast, Cena, is how, for me at least, is how I how I interact with the greater culture now.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_03: When you enter, you know, when you come upon people, well, I've got this, I've got that.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: If you dare to do anything but, oh yes, I understand.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry for you.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_03: If you dare to act any way except except accepting of it, you're not empathetic, you're not charitable, you're not kind, you're not all this.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so with this, armed with this, uh, Dr.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_03: Roger, what you've shared with us today, armed with this, um, I feel this, I'm I'm fear, I'm fearful.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm I'm anxious about you know my next interaction with one of these folks that's that's you know, uh, well, I'm just I'm just broken.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh or you know, I and and um well I'll I have to work that out.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_03: I have to let you know let the flow happen.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway, uh this has been absolutely um stupendous.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_03: It's been just just wonderful.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_03: And uh wow, you're a you're a new uh you're a new hero for me.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's wonderful.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, before we let you go, can you um because there's more people like you, right?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's more people who who relate to your message and and these kind of fundamental principles of life.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: So can you talk to us um about your conscious clinician collective?
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just launched the the full searchable database a couple weeks ago.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: Here was the dilemma I was facing.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, people were hearing me on podcasts, and I was getting overwhelmed and inundated by emails and stories.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of these stories had to be with uh people who had were struggling or their child was struggling, and the medical authority was pushing diagnoses and drugs on them.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: In some cases, there were even instances where child protective services were threatened against parents who didn't accept their child to go into a psychiatric hospital or to sick take a psychiatric drug.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they wanted to know how to live better or to deal with a real legitimate problem that was happening with them or their family members without the diagnoses and drugs and the whole medical aspect of it.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I was getting all the overwhelmed with all these emails.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_02: Who, you know, do you have anyone in Utah?
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have anyone in North Carolina?
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Any who can you refer to?
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided to start the Conscious Clinician Collective, which was uh a searchable database where clinicians, healthcare practitioners, mental health practitioners around the globe can take a look at what our mission is.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really around informed consent and medical freedom, where we talk about when someone's struggling emotionally, they have a range of options in how to be able to understand that.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I created a declaration.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: So anyone who is a clinician, healthcare or mental health care clinician can attest to the declaration and put themselves in the database so people can say, Oh, I can trust that person.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I can go in there, I'm not gonna get pushed drug, pushed drugs as uh as my own uh as the only way to solve this problem.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_02: I might, I, I I'll be listened to.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: I can spend sessions more than 10 minutes.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't have to adhere to this pathologizing of every aspect of the human experience.
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'd like to do is kind of grow this into a place where there's multimedia information, um, podcasts, experts, videos, where people are just exposed to different ways of thinking so they can make informed decisions about their health care.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're at stage one of this.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_02: What I need people is is to sign up for it.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you get all your information on there, you're attesting to the declaration, you're making a stand, you're taking a stand against what's being pushed on us.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I think you're saying I'm going to be part of a global community where I trust people's uh own uh abilities to make decisions for themselves.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_02: And informed consent is a legal and ethical mandate.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_02: We don't receive it anymore.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: We don't, you know, healthcare practitioners don't provide it to patients, uh, mental health care practitioners don't provide it to patients.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm there's not many, I think, therapists or psychologists who sit down with people and say, you know what, you don't need therapy.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm one of those guys, right?
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not going to put you in my office and create a dependence on me on things that I think you can inherently handle and face yourself.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: I can pro maybe I'll provide some brief consultation for you, but we're pushing so many people into therapy too.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_02: Therapy is pushing people to be uh like dependent on another person.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_02: You're sometimes entering into a mindset or an intention where you're focusing on, again, on everything that is wrong with you, which can be very problematic.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_02: Therapists and clients are developing a narrative of who they are, they're creating a new story of that person.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it can be really problematic, especially with the ideological indoctrination that is occurring in universities and training these therapists.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot to be concerned about for people who are living in the United States and are being told that, you know, they could benefit from therapy or they're getting these recommendations from doctors.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just trying to cultivate a community where we're much more than that.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't mean therapy can't be helpful.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_02: It can be.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_02: I do it.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a there's a way.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: There are certain crisis situations where a pharmaceutical might be able to stabilize a condition.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's I'm I'm not against any type of drug that ever exists out there.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's just there's a there's a time and there's a place, and then people have a right to make informed decisions around it.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what the conscious clinician collective is.
• 1:09:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so you can go to that, which is thecccollective.org.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: Please sign up.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: We need we need clinicians to sign up to really build this organization and build the platform.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's so wonderful.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll include all the links and the link to your podcast and such um in the show description for anyone who's interested.
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at the end of each episode, we pose a community question.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just some some kind of question to get our audience involved with the um episode that they've just listened to.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try something different.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Usually Joel creates every single community question for us, but do you want to try to create uh just share a question that you would pose to our community?
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Me personally?
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's pressure.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um let me just see what kind of comes to me.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I want to I want to pose the question to everybody who is listening right now.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I want you to to take take a moment and reflect back on a really dark period in your life.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, something that we you know was really, really challenging.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: You felt overwhelmed by it.
• 1:11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um it might be something that's you know it could have been something that's extremely painful.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Even when you think about it right now, it might bring back up like an energy within you of those strong emotions.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to just take a take a moment and reflect back on how it may have served your growth in your life.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: As dark as that was, as painful as that period was in your life, how has it informed the way you live?
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Where can there be gratitude around it?
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, I love it.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that question so much.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Goodness.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, this has been so fascinating, so enlightening and uplifting.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm sure I can speak for Joel in saying this that we would love to have you come back.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you all so much for joining us, and we will talk to you next week.