Faith Over Fear: When Your Health Habits Are Actually Making You Sick

Your body isn't just a machine that you can fuel and maintain by doing everything perfectly. It's actually an intricate system that is constantly scanning for one thing, am I safe? I've seen that the initial stages of trying to approach healing some sort of illness or pain or chronic condition through holistic health practices or even biohacking can start off with the best of intentions. Eventually, if your brain pattern predisposes you toward control, fear and rigidity, what's likely to happen? That attempt at holistic health approach could eventually become its own obsession entirely. And if your brain decides that you're not safe, it really doesn't matter how perfect your diet is, how advanced your biohacking stack is or how clean your environment feels, you could be living in a chronic state of stress chemistry. And that, my friends, is the very thing that breaks down the entire body that you are trying to protect. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth, patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen? Hey, I'm Busy Gold and welcome to another episode of Decoded. This episode is called Faith Over Fear, is your pursuit for holistic wellness actually keeping you sick? I know so many people who lead very regimented, structured and healthy lives that are also chronically stressed. They might not admit it, but their entire lives have become about rigidity, avoidance and fear. So are you somebody who possibly manages every single bite of food that passes your lips? You sleep in a room that is completely blacked out, you have your temperature set, everything is tracked on your oar ring. If you don't get a 90% or above sleep score, your whole day is ruined. You've created an EMF free cave, you're wearing all the EMF devices, you run your water through a million different types of filtration and it's possible that if you're really honest with yourself, you may still be exhausted, anxious and possibly wondering what's wrong with you. The truth that nobody really wants to admit is that your body isn't just a machine that you can fuel and maintain by doing everything perfectly. It's actually an intricate system that is constantly scanning for really one thing. Am I safe? And if your brain decides that you're not safe, it really doesn't matter how perfect your diet is, how advanced your biohacking stack is or how clean your environment feels, you could be living in a chronic state of stress chemistry. And that, my friends, is the very thing that breaks down the entire body that you are trying to protect. So I have seen this before operating in this space for such a long time that there are people that may start off for the right reasons. In many cases, it's motivated by wanting to eradicate some sort of symptom. I know for me, it was lupus originally. I found holistic health and alternative medicine because I myself was sick and needed something to help pull me out of that sickness without just immediately giving away my agency and authority to the guy in the white lab coat that told me I'd have to be on medication for the rest of my life at age 23. So that was my turning point, but everyone's turning point is slightly different. And I've seen that the initial stages of trying to approach healing some sort of illness or pain or chronic condition through holistic health practices or even biohacking can start off with the best of intentions. Eventually, if your brain pattern predisposes you toward control, fear and rigidity, what's likely to happen? That attempt at holistic health approach could eventually become its own obsession entirely. So we have to make sure that your health choices are not being driven by fear because many of you, especially I've worked with people in the biohacking community that I feel live their lives this way. Everything is more fear-based about fear of getting sick, fear of aging, and then on the holistic alternative health side, there's all this fear of hidden toxins and EMFs and mold exposure that could completely destroy you. But the reality is that those things put you into a perpetual state of hypervigilance and hypervigilance on its own will create disease. So even if you lead a perfect life where you're exposed to nothing, your hypervigilance alone could create a disease pathway. So we're gonna talk about today where that wellness routine crosses the line from something healthy and prepared to a prison of obsession and fixation. And more importantly, how do you break out of these traps before your nervous system actually starts to completely fall apart? Because whenever you perceive that you are not safe and that hypervigilance rises up, you are acting out a dysregulated nervous system response and that's going to cause a whole cascade of effects throughout the body, brain, and other symptoms. So if you aren't sick from what you're eating and what you're exposed to, you could easily just be sick from the way you're living. And this is certainly the case for people who just their stress state alone is enough to not make the symptoms change when they make small tweaks, like potentially changing their diet or introducing some sort of like ozone therapy or chelation therapy. I've seen people before where health practices that work for most people don't work for these people. Why? It could very well be the way that they're approaching these practices. If there is that fear state and hypervigilance that comes into this new approach, doesn't really matter how holistic, healthy, or natural, whatever that shift is, if you're approaching it out of that fear state, you're gonna just create more chronic stress. So at that point inside of this rigid structure of how you're approaching holistic health, you're basically just normalizing your hypervigilance and calling it being structured or being devoted or convicted. So my hope is that by the end of today, you know exactly where the line is between preparedness and panic and that you actually have the tools to take a meaningful step back and make sure that you are not slowly destroying yourself. So where is the line between preparedness and panic? For some people, this became very front and center obvious during COVID. Some of us lived our lives exactly the same way that we did before anyone heard about COVID. We made no changes whatsoever in my household. Nothing changed. All that happened was people that I knew that were also living their lives the same way just became more aware of how the mainstream media machine tries to generate fear, but it wasn't hitting many of us. Like I didn't personally go into a fear state. I just lived my life as normal. So for somebody like me, I was aware of what was happening in the world. I wasn't just bearing my head in the sand and not being aware of what was unfolding in my social and cultural fabric. I paid attention, but I was able to evaluate the incoming data and information and pass it through a filtration system is this productive for me? Are these things that my family actually need to prepare for right now? Or is this something I just seem to be aware of, but it's not yet time to take action? For some people, the brain pattern type that kicks you into sort of like an impulsive hyper vigilant action oriented way to protect yourself. They are the ones that are most likely to fall victim to some of these incoming media or information streams. For somebody like me, I'm much more likely to take the information, consume it, marinate on it, pass it through a series of filters, sit with it, and then weigh a decision. So for me, being prepared would be not bearing my head in the sand and pretending like nothing was happening, keeping a tab on what was happening in my social and cultural fabric, but not letting it invade my daily thoughts and actions and make some of the changes in my life that would only equate with an emergency situation. Although people were trying to tell me at that time, it is this high level emergency. I wasn't really seeing the evidence of that with my own physical body and senses. So I trusted my senses over what I was hearing. And I'm glad I did because I never once crossed that threshold into panic. Now, if you think about people that you knew at that time, you probably know many people that certainly crossed that threshold into panic. They were wearing masks in their cars. They were social distancing in their own houses away from their own kids. If their kid had a cough, they were locking their kid in the basement. Like people went way over the top here. That is not preparedness. That is a full blown state of panic. And it's a type of panic that is completely fear-based illogical and not based on your own physical sensory system and evidence that you're understanding. It's passing through a very intentional funnel of what the powers that be wanted you to fear in that moment. So when we think about how something like COVID highlights this point of contrast, the same thing is going to really happen when somebody's approaching some sort of holistic healing modality. I'm much more likely in my natural state to have a balanced perspective of it. And in fact, maybe even skew toward being laxadaisical, whereas somebody else, if they commit to something, they're gonna go hard and never stop. We wanna be considerate of how our brain's natural approach to commitment is likely to impact us throughout this whole podcast. So take a moment and just look back on your history and what has your pattern been around commitment. Here are some short descriptions. So there are four primary patterns here and how they relate to commitment. So pattern one, let's say, is immediately taking the information and kick right into action. So there's this immediate call and response where the person impulsively commits, goes all in and kind of takes action upon the information that was just shared. That would be the person we were just describing that went potentially right into panic. Then we have the people that are really slow to take in the information, maybe in the early stages, they wanna be in denial about it and keep their head in the sand. They don't even wanna look, right? So that's one stage of this is I don't wanna look because I know if I look, then I'm gonna become obsessive and fixated on this. So let's call type two, the person that tries not to look eventually does and then becomes obsessive and fixated. Really, so type one and type two, very similar. One immediately consumes the information. The other one tries to push it off and doesn't wanna look because they know if they do, they're gonna slip off the edge. Either way, both of them end up becoming obsessive and fixated on whatever the incoming fear-based messaging was. Then we've got this group is quick to take in the information but doesn't typically have an impulsive fear response. So they're gonna take in the information but they're going to kind of keep it at a distance and be very unlikely to take any steps toward committing into an action. So if anything, the information makes them become avoidant and then they're more likely to distance themselves from looking for more information. So in a way, this person's more likely to go into avoidance or denial. If you go back to COVID times, this would be the type of person that was like, I'm just gonna move out to the woods and disconnect from reality. Their way of dealing with it is to not wanna deal with it at all. Then we have type four, which would be much more my type. So quick to receive the incoming information, right? Not fear-based, like it kind of is what it is, trying to be very process oriented and methodical about it, but being slow to take an action but is still very much going to decide upon an action to take and once committed will remain committed, but not fear-based. Most of you are gonna fall into one of these four types. So I think as we unfold this episode, it would be helpful for you to try your hardest to categorize yourself in one of these four. So think about it this way. If we experienced something like we did with COVID, two people can hear exactly the same health tip, right? Going back to COVID times, people heard the same news story. Why did two people leave with two totally different actions to take? If we're looking at this instead of COVID fear-based messaging, let's say it's some health protocol that you have to do to rid your body of mold. One person hears it, pauses and thinks, okay, that makes sense. I'll make a couple small changes and we'll see how I feel. So the process is incremental, a slow and steady wins the race. They make a plan, they keep living their life. That sounds more like preparedness. They add the information to their toolkit, but they move forward in a way that's incremental so they can maintain that sense of stability and confidence. But person two could hear the same exact information, literally no changes. And what they hear and receive is everything's toxic, I'm never safe, I have to overhaul my whole life right now. Every house is full of mold and they go in on Google and YouTube rabbit holes and everything they think about is worst case scenarios, rearranging their routines and becoming obsessive and in many ways OCD about how they're engaging with their life. That is panic. They've taken that same piece of information, which in this case could be, I am having symptoms that are associated with mold exposure. That might be all that person heard. Person one is going to take an incremental cadence to how they're trying to address the issue without panic and person two gets the message, everything's toxic and maybe even cascading into, if I don't completely change my life right now obsessively, maybe I could die. So it's important to note here that in this instance, it's not the health tip itself, it's not the science, it's not the advice, it's not even the diagnosis. The difference is the nervous system and brain pattern type that is actually receiving and processing this information. As I mentioned, some people are wired to control every single outcome and to them, the brain's rule is control equals safety. For example, I was that type four, my brain doesn't have that rule because my brain believes control is impossible. Therefore, the most logical way to do this would be surrender and be prepared because anything could change at any moment. So every person here is going to have a unique brain pattern that equates with a formula that gives you a rule like I just described. Everyone's rule is gonna have some variance, but there are generally these four underlying types. And those four brain pattern types are gonna determine whether you're inclined toward hypervigilance and being fixated on future outcomes or whether you are flexible, adaptable and likely to surrender because that seems like the most reasonable thing to do. So I, for example, I'm wired for a much greater tolerance around uncertainty. In fact, uncertainty is the name of my game. I love me a little chaos. I'm more naturally flexible and adaptable in the moment and surrendering, like I said, to my brain feels actually natural. But that doesn't mean that I am careless. It just means that I don't immediately default to the worst case scenarios. If you followed our previous episodes, the very first episode, I broke down the difference between positive and negative self-deception. My brain pattern type is likely to experience positive self-deception, where my brain highlights the rewards and it will minimize the risk, which will naturally get me to feel more confident and more committed going toward the danger because I see the positive outcome highlighted rather than the potential negatives. And I will say that doesn't mean that I'm not aware of the negatives. That's something that I personally have to work through quite a bit because my brain is a very high level strategic thinker. My brain is constantly scanning the environment like a matrix problem for possible outcomes. But the reality is that although I'm aware of possible outcomes, my brain tends to naturally want to choose a more optimistic or rosy outcome to believe in to propel myself forward. So we have to keep that into consideration when we're approaching some sort of holistic health practice because like I said, we do tend to kind of split into those two sides. And when you understand your brain pattern type, you can predict what side you're likely to fall on, more controlling or more surrendered. We have discussed at length over the course of podcast episodes, how the brain pattern spectrum functions and too much of anything can lead to danger. So there's a Goldilocks in the three barriers scenario where just enough control is appropriate and then you can become so controlling that you dip off the edge into compulsive behaviors. Just enough surrender can actually have a great outcome because you're flexible and adaptable in the moment, but you can surrender so much that you become reckless and chaotic. So we want to also keep in mind here that for each of you, where these four patterns get plotted on the spectrum is also going to determine whether you tend toward recklessness and chaos or whether it's a more balanced approach. And whether you're more balanced in how you choose to control and order things or whether that becomes something that leads you over toward that obsessive compulsive disorder line. You can then take that information and help build strategies that help you navigate into that center line where you're prepared but acting out a bit of surrender and flexing your faith muscle because the reality is these are things that are going to happen in your everyday life. Part of living a human life is navigating fear and uncertainty. That's why the most basic human emotion is fear. How you personally relate to fear is going to determine a whole lot about your health outcomes. If you are quick to go into that hypervigilance, you're likely to be in a more chronic state of stress all the time. And if you're somebody who tries to, whether you try or just happens naturally, see the bright side, glasses half full, willing to kind of move on and overlook things quickly, you're much less likely to exist in a state of chronic stress. When I was speaking at Dave Asprey's biohacking conference, I was teaching a seminar on how so many biohackers are focused on trying not to die but they're forgetting to actually live. This conversation is very relevant to the podcast that we're doing today because in an effort for some to keep themselves well, they're actually making themselves sick by way of obsession and fixation. So no matter who you are listening to this podcast, it behooves all of us to learn where we're strategically positioned on the spectrum to get ourselves back to the center because where our brain pattern is positioned will tell us everything we need to know about how we will embody any sort of holistic health practice. This is why with things like brain pattern mapping, we have many naturopaths, chiropractors, doctors, therapists, psychiatrists come get certified by us because our brain pattern mapping technology will help them see where their client is likely to experience a roadblock or a delay or receive their treatment protocol and then self sabotage and not do it. You can see all of these things in brain pattern mapping and that link is always in the show notes if you are interested in finding out what your brain pattern type is. But for now, I just want you categorizing yourself in one of those four types. So if you don't know what yours is, it's okay, keep listening to the episode, you will figure it out or you can ask us for help and we can help you determine what that is. But these things are important when we're looking at the fear-based health loops where wellness can actually start to become a form of obsession. So when this happens, the wrong brain pattern type is left unchecked, right? You haven't found some sort of work like break method or something else that has allowed you to mitigate some of those symptoms, reverse or rewire some of the mechanisms that are causing those symptoms and you're then approaching any of these health and wellness practices in the same sort of obsessive fear-based way as would also cause you anxiety, OCD, intrusive thoughts, et cetera. So some of you start off with great intentions as I've mentioned and you want to feel better, have more energy and fix a chronic symptom. So you start researching, listening to podcasts, reading articles and at first for many of you, those steps are empowering. But for many of you, if you don't know what your brain pattern type is, without realizing it, suddenly you're scanning everything as a possible threat, molds in the walls, EMFs from your neighbor's router, the 5G tower, the wrong pan, the wrong coating of the pan, the wrong water, the wrong mattress, you see where I'm going with this. You don't just collect the information but you're actually starting now to fixate on it. Now you fixating on it is leading you to follow social media influencers that talk about it and may also fixate on it. Then you start listening to podcasts and suddenly you're analyzing and reanalyzing every single detail of your life. Here's the thing, your nervous system doesn't care whether the danger is a bear literally, standing right in front of you or just your brain playing an endless highlight reel of possible threats. And those possible threats could literally be the things that I just described. Did I eat off of the wrong pan if I went out to a restaurant? Was I exposed to aluminum? Were there too many EMFs in that business that I was just in? Either way, when you start to filter that information and to you it reads as danger, you're still responding with your stress chemistry, whether you like it or not. So in that way, instead of building health, you're actually creating low grade panic all the time. And this is a tragic irony because the more you get into health, the more dysregulated you become. And I have seen this personally take down so many social media influencers. You built a lifestyle that might look perfect on paper, right? You've the perfect fridge, you've bought all of the latest and greatest ceramic cookware, you've torn down your house, you've remediated mold, or I even know people who have just chosen to live outdoors all the time to avoid mold. Eventually, you can become so obsessive about these things that maybe to you the approach and goal is perfection, but it's quietly or not so quietly burning you out from the inside. There's just, there's no way around it. And there are times that this can become a more nuanced conversation. And I do wanna make sure that we address these things because I'm certainly not here trying to belittle anyone who has approached their health goals in a rigid way. Because for some of you, you're at a stage of acute illness where you do need that. And I've been there myself. So there are situations that require restriction and being hyper focused and I agree with you. The problem is I have seen people not know when to remove themselves and say, I'm healed enough that I can back off now. I had a dear friend named Nadia who I adore and she's brilliant, you can look her up, I'll try to drop her social handles in my show notes. I know they have changed. But I know she was somebody who had dealt with chronic illness and I believe originally resulting from Lyme. And her social media handle was like the healing something. And she built her whole business around that. I remember vividly having a conversation with her like, I think you're healed. Like I think that ING should be an ED at this phase. And I remember talking to her about it and her saying like, oh my God, babe, you're right. She's not the cutest British accent, I'm sure I butchered that. But I think some people, especially if you build an influencer sort of persona around your chronic symptoms, you accidentally get yourself to a place where you're not aware when your symptoms have gone from acute to manageable and you actually don't let yourself progress to being healed. It's like you've taken on the chronic stress and restriction of dealing with an acute condition. You've made that your whole identity. So I do just want to say, I acknowledge that there are acute situations where you have to take very restrictive measures to pull your body out of dodge. And I have been there. I think the key that I'm trying to highlight is, how do you know when you've transitioned? Are you measuring that? Or are you becoming so ingrained in that lifestyle that you might lose sight of that and stay there for far too long? Where you're in that mindset, I'm healing, I'm healing, I'm healing and not realize that there is actually a destination to arrive at. That's something that I try to impart to our students in break is that mental health is often pitched as this perpetual loop of healing when it should be a destination. I can tell you from brain pattern mapping what healed looks like for each person. I can actually reverse engineer and tell you exactly what needs to be rewired and what skills need to be rebuilt or built for the first time in order for you to reach that healed state. It is a singular destination and it does exist. But for many of us that are struggling with autoimmune and chronic conditions, we put ourselves on this hamster wheel and it becomes our identity and sometimes we don't know where to get off. We get disoriented. So I agree that there's a time when you should go all in and be restrictive. Example would be toxic mold exposure, acute gut infections, early stages of a really intense heavy metal detox, recovering from real and measurable exposure. Another example of this would be I've worked with many clients who worked in radiology for a long time. If you worked in radiology for a long time and you didn't know better and you're now experiencing a whole array of chronic symptoms, you might need to approach that as an acute condition where potentially for 60 to even 120 days, you might need to be extremely rigid. But you also have to queue into when your body's ready to transition out of that rigidity. So I agree for certain conditions, that's a smart approach and that is medicine. My issue is where's the line and what steps are you taking to discern that line? So fear can take on a 90 day protocol and hard wire into your identity. So part of the problem is that if you are repeating this very fear based rigid loop for 90 days consistently, it is likely that that will start to underline become a identity. And I do think this is why this has taken out some influencers. And I will say just shout out to Jordan, the Soul On Fire podcast. I have followed this woman honestly forever. There's a couple women out there like Lori Harder and the Scout, which back then she was Jordan Younger. I'm sure she's married now and I don't happen to know her new married last name, but you know what I'm talking about. But her podcast is Soul On Fire and she's been battling chronic illness and Lyme for a really long time. I've, she's been very open and honest about her struggles and go on her Instagram stories now and see the shift. And I am sure she's kept all of her old posts. You can literally watch the transition for where she decided, no, I'm leaving this identity behind me. I don't need to do this anymore. So there are influencers like that out there, but if you go for 90 days or more, making this your whole world, it can be really challenging to get out of it. And I just want to commend Jordan for not just getting out of it, but like getting out of it like a boss and looking hot. I feel like Jordan, you were on your A game right now and I'm proud of you and I'm excited for her podcast. So do take a look at where she's come because I think she's a living testament of what happens when you choose to disconnect or detach yourself from that previous identity as someone with chronic illness. So another thing that I've seen happen is that when people start to get into these communities, because potentially your lifestyle choices are so rigid, oftentimes you end up separating yourself out from the more broad community. So let's say you only start hanging out with people who get it, right? Like I only hang out with people that don't judge me for how much I try to avoid mold or don't judge me for how obsessive I am about trying to reduce EMFs in my life. Eventually you start to separate yourself away from the people that could potentially talk some sense of reason into you and help pull you out of it. So be mindful of that too. When you're stepping into a more rigid approach to holistic healing, don't just cut out everyone who may disagree with you or has a different opinion. You wanna keep those people around you in your life so that if ever you need to be open to maybe an outside perspective or a little nudge of like, hey, I feel like you're doing better. Maybe let's live a little, right? Like maybe we shouldn't be in so much fear. You don't wanna have ostracized and cut those people out of your life so that they can't be that for you. So keep that in mind because once that fear-based identity sets in, it really does start to shape how you see the world and who you let into your world. I've seen this for many a previous client and even honestly friends where every trip, every meal, every decision starts to get filtered through fear of whether that's fear of not being able to have the right food, fear of not being able to eat organic, fear of not being able to avoid EMFs or mold. At that point, you're not just controlling your environment, you're controlling your relationships, you're potentially ruining opportunities that could be coming your way. And more than anything, you're diminishing your capacity for joy. If you're that rigid and structured about things, how can you possibly be in the present moment and enjoy your life anymore? And I think that's my point. That health habit at that point isn't helping you heal, it's actually locking you into that hypervigilance. Your nervous system doesn't know that you may have already won because all it's doing is still scanning for threats. So when I first got diagnosed with lupus, and I have shared a bit about this on the show before, I was living in Hawaii at the time, I was 23, and I was just starting to understand anything about alternative health and wellness. I wasn't yet what I would consider to be awake by any stretch, but I had some awareness. And I had had a variety of symptoms. I was in acupuncture school at the time, and my symptoms had just reached this peak level where I was really concerned that there was something intensely wrong with me, like the C word or something like that. So eventually I begrudgingly go to the doctor, do the labs, find out that my ANA scores are off the charts with along with a bunch of other markers. And I'm just at like a regular Hawaii GP doctor, which if you've ever lived in Hawaii, that probably means that they weren't that good, but I digress. So he kind of breaks it all down for me. He was like, you have lupus, your lupus in particular seems to attack your pericardium and heart tissue more than anything else. I'd been having these really bad heart palpitations, which if you listened to my previous episode on mast cell activation syndrome, I really do think there's a whole connected thread here that I will keep pulling because I do think that that was also connected to my childhood panic attack history. So immediately he said that it does appear to be affecting my skin, of course also, which is classic with lupus, but for me, it was predominantly skin and heart, but I also was having some nervous system issues where my body was having random muscle spasms and things that were more like an MS sort of presentation. So he was like, look, here's what the future looks like. You're gonna be on this medication for the rest of your life. You can't do this and this and this. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm, I do not accept that. I'm 23 years old. I'm not signing up for that. And it was a turning point for me because I did go seek out my very first alternative doctor. His name was Dr. Alan Thall. I don't know if he's dead or alive at this point. My recollection is back then. He seemed pretty old, but you know how when you're 23, sometimes that's not as concrete as you thought it was. I think in my mind, he was in his early 70s, which might make him past by now. But who knows? He was a grateful dead follower, great guy. And he basically was like, listen, pulling yourself out of this flare is going to require some serious effort and restriction on your part, but we can do it. Here's how we're gonna do it. Here's the pathway. Are you in? And I'm like, yeah, I'm in. If I can be restrictive for a certain period of time in pursuit of not being on medication for the rest of my life. So the first stage of this was extremely restrictive. And he let me know like, hey, you're not gonna do this forever, but I need you to do this for 10 days. No mistakes, no excuses, no cheat days, just 10 days, you have to do exactly this. So for me, that 10 days was I could only eat essentially green food. So I was eating like kale and cucumbers. I couldn't eat broccoli, arguably that has to do with autoimmune stuff. But really, like I was allowed to have avocado, but I couldn't have really anything that had any sugar. The only thing that I was allowed to have that had any sugar was I was allowed to have one raw coconut water per day. But he emphasized, and this was great, because I loved in Hawaii, not out of a can, which honestly back then didn't even exist. This was like hack off the top of the coconut, put a straw in the real coconut. So I was allowed to have one coconut per day, but other than that, I was pretty much having like cucumber, avocado, kale. I was allowed to have a really minimal amount of oil. And I pretty much lived off of that. And the only anything I had was like, maybe a little bit of brags. I was only allowed to use a tiny bit of it. So I did that for 10 days. At the end of 10 days, I actually felt amazing. My symptoms were like greatly diminished. And he let me know that the next phase of that was switching to what we now call AIP paleo. So after that first 10 day phase, then I was allowed to introduce certain things, but I went to then AIP paleo. And he suggested that I be AIP paleo for at least six months before we try adding in anything else to see what my symptoms are like. During this time, I was also doing additional things. Like I was starting to take DHEA. I actually did a few rounds of chelation therapy because I had really high heavy metal toxicity and a few other sort of IV based therapies at this time. So really at this point, I was willing to dedicate six months of my life to going all in, being restrictive, not messing up at all. And to me, that was feasible. Once I commit to something, I stay committed. So I knew six months was a short enough timeframe for me to go all in. So I did that and that worked for a long time. And if I look back at an earlier version of this, before I fully got diagnosed with lupus, a previous issue that I had with a lupus flare, I tried to treat it with raw food diet. Okay, at the time I was living in LA and everything was all about raw food. So this was kind of like a less doctor-informed approach to still try to get rid of these same symptoms. So with that approach, my doctor was like six months. And then slowly you can go down to just paleo, which I honestly maintained for essentially the rest of my life and still even today. So I've been paleo for about 20 years at this point. If I look back at the previous flare that I had where I tried to treat it with some sort of restrictive diet, I went raw food based. And I honestly, I really enjoyed that. I kept it for a little bit too long. I stayed raw food for one year and I wasn't a raw food vegan, which I think was probably a saving grace for me. I at the time, even looking back on it was kind of odd, but a lot of the raw food community that I was around was they were big on like ceviches and different sorts of kind of like dry aged meats, which also if you watch the MCAS episode, those were probably not great for me in hindsight because of my histamine intolerance, but neither her nor there. I kept it for a year. And I did feel amazing. I dropped a bunch of inflammation. I wasn't getting flares anymore, but eventually I noticed that being raw food for so long, it started to make me hyper-sensitive spiritually. I had gotten to a place where if someone even mentioned something like porn or even like something overly sexual, without even thinking about it, I'd start crying. I would, I would like got to this place where I was like crying for the darkness of humanity. And at that point I was like, girl, you need to rotisserie chicken. You need to rotisserie chicken right now. And to this day, shout out to one of my dearest friends in the world, Bella, our joke with each other is, you look like you need to rotisserie chicken. Because for some people, and this was certainly the case for me with the raw food diet, it got me so high level spiritual and detached from our physical world and physical reality and even my physical body, that yeah, I felt great. I felt energized, but I was completely cuckoo. I completely lost touch with reality and I became aware of that toward the end. I was like, whoa, this went too far. So I foiled these two stories because one, story one, I knew what the timeframe was and I was committed to that timeframe and I knew it wasn't forever. Version two was earlier in my life. So arguably I wasn't as emotionally and spiritually mature at that point. So I didn't really go into it with the plan. It wasn't informed by a doctor. I just was like so miserable that I had to do something because I was just so miserable. So I went into it and kind of slipped off the edge and lost myself for a full blown year until I was like, girl, I need a chicken. So there is an approach here that I'm suggesting, which is go into it with a timeframe that matches the severity of your symptoms and don't go into it open-ended like it's forever and come up with a reasonable sort of transition plan so that you don't slip off that edge and let this sort of rigid, overly structured way of doing things become your entire life and identity. So if you want a perfect example that has been studied extensively of why living in restriction is absolutely not tied to longevity, you have to look no further than the research done on the blue zones. I used some of the research on the blue zones in my seminar that I gave at Dave Asprey's biohacking conference as well. And I want to keep people focused on the idea that you can hear somebody highlight certain pieces of data from the research and keep focusing on those ones, which for us, a lot of what we hear is like, Mediterranean diet, olive oil, right? These are all the things that they had in common. But the reality is the deeper you go into the study on the blue zones, it really seems to have less to do with just purely the Mediterranean diet, for example. And much more to do with how they actually lead their lives. People in all of the blue zones do not lead obsessive restricted lives at all. In fact, these blue zones are extremely rare and people there tend to live past 90 or even 100. But the caveat here is they're not just living to that age and then like living these decrepit lives. They're actually aging to 90 or even 100 and they're maintaining their energy, their clarity and their purpose. They're not choking down 100 supplements in their pill bottle every morning and they're not tracking their macros at the gym. They're not covered in devices. They're also not jumping in ice baths every morning because Instagram told you that that was somehow the cure to everything. They're eating real locally grown food, typically that's in season. They're moving their bodies every single day. And in most of these blue zones, they're not moving their body in a gym with artificial light and air conditioning, right? They're outside moving as a way of life, out in the sun, out in nature. So things that are integrated, even in some blue zones, literally not even having access to a car. So they're just, they're walking stairs all the time because that's just part of how they go to the store or go to a friend's house. They're squatting and lifting in the garden. They're cooking a big meal from scratch and inviting tons of people from their community over to share in that meal. They have a deep daily connection with other people. They eat together, they work together, they laugh together. And they have a sense of purpose that gives them a reason to get up in the morning. And that alone is actually one of the strongest predictors of long-term health. Yes, they're prepared, they know they're herbs. In many of these blue zone cases, they honor traditions that have been passed on for generations, but they're also more importantly, not living in constant fear of what not to eat or where not to go. They're not avoiding risk. They're living these celebratory, in the moment, surrendered lives. There's joy, there's connection, there's trust. And I want to remind you that there is some real magic here in not obsessively self-monitoring, but also being consistent, right? There's a lot of consistency in how people in these blue zones are leading their lives, but more than anything else, there's presence and connection. In this way, their nervous systems are not always in a chronic state of stress. So I want you to remember that the brain and body are getting constant signals that you're safe. And that's going to change the way every single one of your body systems will function. If you feel safe, your digestion works better. If you feel safe, your hormones are more likely to be in balance, your immune system will strengthen. And your body will move back into a repair mode and stay stuck in defense mode. So I want to break down exactly how this works and why even the best diets or supplement plans or workout routines are more likely to make you fail if your nervous system starts to feel like it needs to be in hypervigilance. We mentioned before that your nervous system has really one job. It's to answer the question, am I safe right now? And if the answer is yes, your body will relax into rest and digest mode, digestion works, hormones balance, immunity strengthens, and then your body starts its natural repair processes. But if the answer is no, either because there's a real threat or because you have manufactured a threat in your mind, your body will go into survival mode. Digestion will start to stall, hormones start to go on to alarm bells, your immunity will start to take a back seat, and repair just completely stops. And whether that threat is real or imagined, your nervous system really doesn't care and it can't discern the difference. So what's fascinating and dangerous is how belief and diagnosis actually hijack your entire system. There's a growing body of evidence that points to this paradox in preventative medicine. I first heard about this on a podcast I did many years ago with someone on just the data that surrounds the introduction of preventative medicine and how especially early diagnosis and over screening may actually worsen health outcomes rather than improve them. This episode is brought to you by Healing Sauna, the most advanced portable infrared sauna on the market. I've been using this consistently at home and it is truly next level. I originally went for it because I've been struggling with lymphatic drainage and struggling with weight loss, rashes, and I knew that I just needed to add something into my daily habit stack that I could keep up with. This is something that I can keep at home. It's something I can jump in for 15 minutes instead of going somewhere to go sit in the sauna, wait for the sauna to warm up, just boom, jump in there, throw on a pod, and heat myself up from the inside out. I use it about four to six times a week, even for only 20 minutes, has been proven to extend your lifespan. By far and away, the best sauna I have ever owned. If you are serious about your health, recovery, and longevity, go head over to Healing Sauna's, use my code BGHEAL for $100 off. So let's dig into some of the data and research surrounding this paradoxical relationship because it would be easy to think, well, logically, if I'm able to go into preventive medicine, I know about something before it happens, therefore I'm more likely to survive it or heal from it. And we've found paradoxically that this is actually not true. Let's take a first look at overdiagnosis in screening. From breast and prostate cancer to autism, ADHD, technological advances and shifting diagnostic thresholds often mean that many diseases are detected that may never have become symptomatic. A perfect example of this, that's timely that I just saw on Instagram this morning was, and I believe the year was 2009, they changed the blood pressure threshold for what determines you of high blood pressure. And guess what? That's going to create a whole new demographic of people who now have high blood pressure and need medication, where just six months prior than that, they wouldn't have been medicated because they didn't have high blood pressure. You can literally change a number, right? This goes back to our conversation around normalization. You can change a number, stamp it, be like, oh, this is high blood pressure now. And if you are quick to take the bait, then you're like, oh, I have high blood pressure now and I take the medication, even though maybe even two days prior before they changed it, you would not have had blood pressure. What's the truth? So this isn't something that's benign, over diagnosis can often lead to unnecessary treatment and psychological distress and a lifelong identity as someone who is sick. I have plenty of sources for this that I will put in the show notes if you want to dig deeper on this. Another issue is false certainty and stress. Routine screenings cause anxiety. They can cause false positives and unnecessary interventions. For example, mammograms may identify slow growing tumors that may never have become harmful, get trauma and fear grip the patient anyways. And then in many ways, they can become that self-fulfilling prophecy. One very simplified example of this is because I had anxiety for so long, that anxiety tends to become more of an issue when I'm going to the hospital or doctor and I'm getting my blood pressure screened, I'm much more likely to have my heart rate go through the roof and they'll be like, is your heart rate usually 127? I'm like, no, not usually, it's just anxiety. So even just putting yourself into the seat of being observed can often start to kick off false positives because you're in a state of stress. Here's the important takeaway. What you focus on and more importantly, what you believe you're threatened by can turn you into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was studied that when doctors give you a die-by timeframe, the patients tended to mirror that timeframe. And conversely, those who are given a live-to frame, like you have 55% chance to live to your 85th birthday, report significantly higher expectations and then your mindset shifts and you're much more likely to actually live to that timeframe. There are numerous stories of patients who were told that they only had months to live who outlived those expectations by years. Some of these never got the prognosis or chose not to know. They went on to survive and heal in ways that medical logic simply can't explain. And this isn't just anecdotal. The will to live, the perception of your prognosis and the belief in your ability to survive all have a measurable psychological impact. That's why faith, joy, connection, belief, they are not just emotional niceties. They are actual biological safety signals that your nervous system scans and filters. They tell your body if it's safe to shut down the alarm system and actually move into that state of healing. You can control your food, your water, your environment, every single detail, but if your mind still thinks that you're under siege, your body's not gonna let go of fight or flight. So I want to help you shift the narrative instead of just simply striving for control. We have to actually start to establish safety and surrender through our belief, through our connection to others and faith, because that is the only state where healing can actually exist. I do see faith as this balance factor. We can be aware of the information or the prognosis, but we can also have faith that we are not going to walk out that destined path, that we have a different destiny that doesn't lead us to pain and suffering perpetually. We have to believe something better for ourselves. So when we think about preparedness, preparedness tells us I trust myself to handle what comes. While panic says I have to control every single thing or I won't survive. The two mindsets, right? They're sisters. Both can involve careful planning, healthy habits, and even attention to detail, but internally, they're each going to send different signals to your nervous system. One allows you to be in parasympathetic nervous system response and repair, and the other virtually guarantees chronic stress and dysregulation. And this is where I think faith should actually be regarded as a biological tool. And I don't just mean faith in some sort of prayerful religious sense, although that can certainly be a part of it. I mean, faith in how your body was designed, that you have the ability to radically heal, but you actually believe healing is possible. That faith and that belief in what your body is capable of, that changes your biochemistry. It tells your body, stand down, I've got this. And that is the state we have to get ourselves into if we want true healing to take place, so that we can get to that place of being healed, ED. We see it all the time in recovery and even in medical research, people with the same diagnosis, the same treatment plan, the same resources, have two totally radically different outcomes. The ones who trust the process and believe they can recover, who stay anchored in their sense of purpose, maybe even don't stop doing the things that keep them vibrant and productive in life, they may heal faster and more fully than those who live in constant doubt and fear, start to quit things, pull back, and take on that persona and identity of being sick. When you strive to be perfect and control every single detail, it will never deliver you to a place of peace. You can't micromanage your way into a regulated nervous system. The moment your health practices become about eliminating every possible risk, you've already put yourself into fear territory. And fear, even in the name of health, keeps your biology in defense mode. True health is built on balance. This means knowing when to take action, when to let go, when to let your body and life do what they were organically designed to do, and maybe even when to have a little fun. You cannot control peace, but you can embody trust on the path to health. I wanna share one story in my life that was a profound experience of exactly what we're talking about right here. I had a tumor growing in my prodigland when I was about 15 years old, and I had this very long surgery that I didn't know it at the time, but put me at a risk of facial paralysis, and it was like a whole trauma in and of itself. But the real story is for whatever reason, when they completed the surgery, it kept forming what's called a seroma. So there would be this kind of pocket of fluid that kept like filling back up. And even though I'd had it removed, all of a sudden I had this like, you know, big pocket of fluid hanging off the side of my neck, which as you can imagine as a 15 year old is like the most horrifying experience ever. I pretty much walked around in a hoodie forever because I felt like the ugliest person alive. And it kept filling back up. I'd have to go to the doctor, they'd stick a syringe in it, they'd drain it. And at a certain point the doctor was like, listen, seromas aren't supposed to last for this long. You're like trending toward Guinness book of world records here. If it goes one more day, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but you have to come back in for surgery and we'll have to actually put in a drain that's draining nonstop, and you'll have to stay in the hospital. And I remember looking at my mom and dad and I'm like, hey, here's the deal. I'm miserable, I haven't had fun with my friends in forever. I've been living in my room with a hoodie over my head, being in fear over what was gonna happen to me. And you know, if I'm gonna have to go back in for surgery and possibly be back in the hospital again, can I at least just have one night of fun? And of course I understand the parental desire to be like, no, I have to keep you safe. But I think I appealed to my parents' good sense and they let me go over to my friend Sophie's house for a sleepover. So I go over to my friend Sophie's house for a sleepover and what I'm about to tell you, we may have engaged in witchcraft. I don't know, I'm a Christian now, but whatever it worked, so. So I go over to her house and we're having this fun night. I'm just, my whole goal is, I just don't wanna think about the fear anymore. I just wanna be a normal 15 year old kid and just have a fun night. And I don't know how this came to be, but somehow we ended up having this like candle and we prayed over this candle and I remember rubbing the wax on it and just declaring my Serema won't fill up tomorrow. And I really believed it. At that point I was like looking Sophie in the eyes and I'm like, A, this is kind of my first like real spiritual experience like this. And I just remember declaring it over my Serema, like this is not happening. I'm not, this is not filling up again. And I had a fun night and that was that. And the next day, guess what? It didn't fill up. So you can look at this a variety of different ways, but from a scientific perspective, I think that what actually happened is I communicated to my body and I told it, commanded it what to do. And up to this point, I was kind of just believing this fear-based message that the doctors had been giving me. At this point, I personally crossed the threshold of no, we're not doing this anymore. And I declared it over myself. So whether it was the power of the candle or the power of God or the power of declaring that over my own body and believing it wholeheartedly or some combination, we won't ever know for sure, but it worked. So that is a powerful expression of how our belief in something can actually yield physically manifesting results in the third dimension. My parents were floored. They couldn't believe it. And honestly, neither could my doctor. I think at that point, my doctor was like prepping for surgery. There was already a spot for me at Norwalk Hospital. Like we were already pretty much good to go, but it didn't fill up because of my belief and my faith. So another thing that I want to teach you about here as we're trying to discern this line between where we're kind of slipping off the edge into control and panic versus surrender and preparedness is something that I teach in break method called controlled surrender. And this is something that I typically teach in break using this analogy of an experience that I had one day when I went into a sweat lodge. So I was probably about 19 or 20 at the time. And I told you that I had a history of anxiety attacks. Historically, my whole life, I've also been extremely claustrophobic. So for people that know me, they're like, busy, you went on a sweat lodge, like, no, you didn't. I'm like, I did, I really, I did it. I did do that. People don't believe it because it's so opposite of who I am and how my anxiety patterns show up. And it doesn't sound like something I would do. And yet I did it. And this was something that I wanted to challenge myself emotionally on. So when the opportunity came, this was like really my first experience of listening to some of the back and forth messaging in my head that was trying to get me to fall back into old anxiety patterns. So everyone's kind of lining up to go into the sweat lodge. I can hear myself, my inner monologue, like you should make sure that you're last and so you're closest to the door so that you can leave if you feel like you're in a panic attack. Right? Cause those of you that have ever had panic attacks, most of your panic attacks and abatually being anticipation of a panic attack, which causes a panic attack, it's real doozy. So I hear this and I'm like, you know what? No, I'm going to be the first and so I'm the furthest away from the door. So this was my first experience of this awareness of surrender and pattern opposition. Where I'm like, no, I'm not going to do what my brain is telling me. And I'm going to go all the way to the back to reduce how easy it is for me to like hit the exit button. So I go all the way to the back. I end up staying in the whole time for all of the rounds. And this was where I first physically became aware of this in between state of what I call controlled surrender. For me to stay in place for all of the rounds of the sweat lodge without wanting to escape or run away or have a panic attack, I put my hand underneath kind of the whatever the tarp or whatever's on the outside, keeping all the heat in. And I could feel some of the cold dirt with my fingertips, but I kept my hand there. And I remember this awareness in my internal monologue, like, you know, technically you're strong enough. You could just like this whole thing is made out of like branches and like blankets. If you wanted to just stand up right now and like blow that like literally just flip this whole thing, you could totally do that. But you're choosing to stay exactly right here in this moment. So there was some sense of peace that I got from being aware like of what I technically could do and that I would be able to do it if I chose to exercise that, but that I was choosing to stay right here in the discomfort and surrender to the process itself. And this lasted for hours. And it taught me a lesson about life because in life, there are plenty of things that you could do. There are actions that you could take to prevent this or that. But a lot of those put you into that heightened nervous system response of sympathetic response. And there are other ways that we could lead life. We could be aware of the things that could have, could have, would have happened, but we can also choose to surrender in the moment and let things unfold a little while longer. I think it's when people mistakenly believe that if I don't control every single detail, then something terrible is going to happen to me and I can control nothing. The reality is having an awareness of what you could do. In my case in the sweat lodge, I knew that if I had to, I could pull the whole thing off, but I was choosing not to. I wasn't going to ruin everyone else's experience and I also wanted to learn this lesson for myself. So sometimes knowing what you could do hypothetically and then choosing to pull back from that and surrender to the moment, that is what truly brings you into this experience of presence, surrender, or controlled surrender, however you want to look at it. So here are some actionable shifts that I think are important for everyone to embody and how they're approaching any sort of health and wellness habit. And I want to make sure that these are practical. Every health choice that you make is going to either come from fear or from awareness. So when you're going through and you're auditing these things, you have to actually be able to sort them this way or that way. So one question is this action feeding my safety and or is it feeding my panic? Like being aware of this, is this helping me feel at ease and present and prepared or am I becoming overly fixated and panicked about something like this? And it doesn't really matter how healthy something looks on the surface. It's about the emotional sensation that you experience when you're acting it out. So the fastest way to tip back into panic accidentally is to be thinking about the past or future projecting. This is why the only real fix here is presence. When you're in the actual moment, you can respond only to what is actually happening in three-dimensional reality, rather than what what ifs that your brain is spinning up or worst case scenarios. Presence is what allows us to have dynamic range and without it, your brain will always default back to instinct. Instinct is always gonna be your old programming, your fear-based responses and those same overtly controlling responses that you've likely been running for years. If you are in presence, you can respond dynamically. You can adapt in real time. You can pivot without panicking and you can choose based on what's actually right in front of you instead of the fear of what could happen or fear rooted in what happened in the past. And we do have to start small here. When you feel the urge to over control, to Google one more thing, to double check your supplement stack one more time, to ask the waiter 14 questions about the food. Yes, yes, yes, but is it grass finished? Maybe you should just feel your feet on the ground, take your shoes off, wiggle your toes, ask yourself, have I historically overwhelmed myself with information and rabbit holes? Yes, do I tend to weaponize the information that I find? Probably yes. Can I challenge myself to put this away and focus on something that stimulates my senses like movement, laughing, cooking, or even sense, right? Even some aromas can pull us out of that response. You have to stop feeding the panic with an endless diet of worst case scenarios, potential new dangers, every single podcast, article, influencer posts becomes a new thing that you have to fixate and add onto your regimen. You have to build flexibility into your life. Say yes to meals with friends instead of constantly bringing your own plate. Take the trip, maybe without double or triple checking your supplement stack. Show your body that you can be outside of your safety zone and you can still figure it out in the moment. And again, the caveat here is I do realize some of you are trying to recover in those acute stages. And I get that as long as there's a time marker on it. But if you are living your life in this sort of fear restricted state where you're just saying no to things or only doing things one very specific rigid way, forever, you're no longer healthy. It doesn't matter how healthy it looks on paper. You're not healthy emotionally. Your nervous system isn't healthy. The point of being healthy isn't just to shrink down your life into some sort of controlled bubble. Ideally you want to be healthy so that you can live more. And presence is what actually lets you experience that life that I know you're working so hard to protect. And I'm telling you controlled surrender is one of the fastest paths to get there. One of the things that can help people when they're trying to transition out of this state of hypervigilance into maybe learning how to be more flexible or practical with how they're walking out their health goals is having something that I just call a health hierarchy. So this can help you stay out of panic and just be reasonably prepared. And these are things that are a hierarchy of what to use non-negotiable. And that's gonna vary from person to person. If you don't have a hierarchy, any little bit of compromise may feel like a failure to you if you are a perfectionist. So if you make one now while you're calm, then potentially that could cascade into something where you're beating yourself up over it down the line. And that is a curveball that many of you won't come back from. So if you have this sort of health hierarchy, you can hold yourself to reasonable standards and also find wiggle room to not be as strict or rigid in certain moments. So I'll tell you what my nutrition hierarchy looks like right now. So for me, the non-negotiable, though never is I never eat gluten, like literally no, never ever. Then from there, my next priority is I don't do any grains as much as possible. Am I more willing to compromise on this if the moment like let's say I'm out with friends and everyone's like, oh my God, this, you know, so-and-so is the best thing ever. I'm not in that moment, especially in the state of health that I'm in right now, I'm not gonna say no to that. I'll have a couple of bites and be a part of the group. Whereas years ago, I would have never done that. So I have become more flexible there, but it's still something that I try to avoid as much as possible. And my next one is I strive to get 30 grams of protein three times a day. It doesn't really matter where those protein sources are, whether they're meat or protein powders or, you know, chickpea pasta, which is kind of one of my new favorites. But that's my nutrition hierarchy. If I'm reasonably sticking within those three, I'm not gonna be rigid about other things. Do I technically do better limiting night shades? Yeah, do I typically do better with a low histamine food diet? For sure. But those are not something that I allow myself to obsess over. They are not part of my three-part hierarchy. Then if we look at my health hierarchy that goes beyond just nutrition, my hierarchy looks like this. I try to get myself asleep by 11 o'clock on weeknights because sleep is very important, especially if you listen to my episode on mass cell activation syndrome. I go in my healing sauna at least five times a week, but honestly, even two to three times would make a meaningful difference. Healing sauna, I love because you only have to be in it for 15 minutes and it turns onto full heat immediately. So you don't have to preheat it. You don't have to go somewhere. I keep it in my house. It makes using the sauna a non-negotiable that I would never fail on. Even last night, for example, my husband went to bed already and I had to stay up late working on some things. And it's so quiet that I was able to do the sauna for 15 minutes right next to him while the lights were off and he was sleeping and I still got my sauna in. And if you are interested in that sauna, it is the one that I recommend and it's in my show notes and there's a $200 off code using BGHealHEAL. Another one that I focus on that is I do right after the healing sauna is body gua sha and lymphatic drainage. So my routine is always get out of the sauna and then do my body gua sha and lymphatic drainage. This just helps. I have a tendency to have my lymph stagnate and become painful nodules. This just gets everything flowing. And then for me, I also strive for three workouts per week. I don't notice how I'm not restricting myself. It has to be exactly this way or at this time. I keep it reasonable. To me, three workouts per week is reasonable. I'm also not saying it has to be at least this amount of time. For some of you, you may want it more defined but I think for the purposes of what we're trying to accomplish with today's episode is give yourself a limited hierarchy that allows you to prioritize without getting obsessed or down on yourself. So this is something that I like to call the three by three support routine. Ideally what I would love for you to do is to pick three supportive actions that you can stick to no matter what. So these are three non-negotiables and they can be things like what I have on my list to start things off, but it could be something else. And I want you to commit to doing them three times a week. So these can be things that you actually look forward to or they could be things that you might not technically look forward to, but you know will pay dividends with your health and wellness or spiritual connection. I already shared with you, my three are the ones that we just went through with healing sauna, body wash off, working out three times per week. I also, as I have mentioned, I do keep myself accountable nutritionally but I don't obsess about it and overly restrict where in previous years of my life, I absolutely used to. So keep in mind your list doesn't have to match mine but I do want you to make sure that it's realistic, meaningful and non-negotiable. And I would love for you to challenge yourself, do that three times a week for four weeks. Let's call it a 30 day challenge. You can check in, you can reach out to me on Instagram for accountability. And if you feel called to add prayer meditation, I think that would be a great thing to do. Like I said, I do that when I'm in the sauna. So my healing sauna time is my prayer and meditation time. However you wanna do that, it's something that can absolutely benefit you because it'll help you come back to that state of presence and parasympathetic nervous system response. So you can use a more anchored practice is what I would recommend. So let's say that meditation to you immediately means kind of the more zazen, empty your mind, transcendental meditation. I typically don't recommend those, especially for people who are more inclined toward fear and obsessive control because you're also more likely to have intrusive thoughts and those types of meditation typically make intrusive thoughts worse. So I like to have you focus on either a short repeated prayer. I teach something called directed meditation. We're actually seeking an answer on something and you're establishing a connection to your subconscious and letting the information flow. So you're kind of creating this loop by which you're allowing your body and your Soma to deliver information. And then you're not necessarily getting up out of your meditation to take action on it, but you're just kind of letting it pervade your cellular fluid and matrices and you're letting it exist in your body. So there's a form of communication there. You also could use something like binaural beats or any sort of something that allows you to focus on a sound or a sensation or all things that I think could be really beneficial to you. The key here is for those of you that are more prone toward the obsessive fixation, I really don't want you to do the types of meditation that are the empty your mind. We don't want to empty anything. We want to be full. In fact, any practices of emptying, especially, I'm Christian, so this has a bit of another element to it as well. Emptying practices are typically, in my opinion, dangerous if you struggle with any sort of mental health issues and we can dig into that more on a future episode, but we want to make sure that you are fully embodied and you are in the fullness of yourself, that we're trying to build ourselves up rather than push our soul and spirit out of the body. So I want us to keep in mind here, because I know this was a lot of information to digest and for some people, it might take a second to really evaluate where you're at on the spectrum and that's okay, because sometimes we can trick ourselves into believing that something we're doing is inherently healthy and we're not willing to look at some of the damage or fallout from that. And I've been there myself, so I'm certainly not trying to point fingers, but I think it's an important process for many of us to go through, because you can't heal when you're in a constant fear state and you can't thrive when your body thinks that it's just perpetually under attack. So to me, if you feel like beating your body up and like constant cold plunges in this super rigid schedule and like you can't ever break from anything and if your kids suddenly want you to come out and play, you can't go embrace your child and play in that moment because you have to stick to your daily routine. Like that is robbing you of being present and engaged in your life and you cannot convince me that that is in the best long-term interest of your longevity, your spiritual connection or nervous system regulation. So you have to learn to discern that difference. Preparedness can protect you and can help you walk this out in a way that is sustainable and somewhat consistent. But once you cross that edge into panic and rigidity, it is going to be a detriment to any attempts you have toward longevity or achieving health goals because chronic symptoms and autoimmune symptoms absolutely quarreling over to nervous system dysregulation and you can't separate those two things. So when you get your nervous system right and you choose controlled surrender and presence, oftentimes you can actually heal. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you wanna share this with somebody who has been struggling with chronic illness, autoimmune disease or even just may have an approach to biohacking or health consciousness that becomes overly rigid or obsessive, this episode's for you, share it far and wide and I will see you next week. Your brain isn't broken, it's running an old code. Break method is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, just logic-based rewiring in 20 weeks or less. Head to breakmethod.com and see what your brain is really up to. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken, the code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen?