Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Discover Your True Self | Dr Zach Bush #371

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Can we truly be healthy if we see ourselves as separate from nature? Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart.  Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 298 of the podcast with Dr Zach Bush. Zach spent many years as a conventional medical doctor but, disillusioned with the state of Western medicine, he began taking an integrative approach, studying the body’s microbiomes in relation to health, disease and food systems.  In this clip, we discuss why traits of ego, individualism and competition aren’t really human at all and how a practice of solitude can help us reconnect with our true nature. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/298 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 298 of the podcast with Dr. Zach Bush. Zach spent many years as a conventional medical doctor, but disillusioned with the state of medicine, he began taking an integrative approach, studying the body's microbiomes in relation to health, disease, and food systems. In this clip, we discuss why traits of ego, individualism and competition aren't really human at all, and how a practice of solitude can help us

reconnect with our true nature. This idea of competition is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about over the past few years, primarily because I used to be someone who was incredibly competitive. When I started to unpick the stories in my mind, I realised, oh wow, you were using that competition to help fill a hole in your heart. Once you actually fill that hole in your heart with other things like love and community and family and nature, I'm no longer competitive. I have no need for that trait anymore. And genuinely, I'm not competitive anymore. It wasn't who I was, it was who I became. And as I move through that, I think a lot about society. I think about

this tension between competition versus cooperation. I think of what you say about when we used to be single-cell organisms. Well, competition was probably very good then. Everyone's out for themselves trying to survive. I'm going to compete. But as we become multicellular, well, we no longer need competition. We need cooperation. And I think that works for me on an individual level. I think it works in terms of human health, in terms of what you're talking about. But it's a wider problem in society, isn't it? This kind of tension between competition and cooperation. It's a beautiful observation. The microbiome teaches us, you know, maybe another deeper lesson here, which is pretty interesting in that as we really start to understand how

the microbiome functions, because it actually functions as a whole. It doesn't function as Staph aureus bacteria against strep bacteria, which is what we thought. If you bring in enough biodiversity, there is no competition. Instead, everybody understands their role within the greater beauty of it all. And it is purely cooperative. Competition did not occur until the human ego was created. And the human ego became necessary the moment we thought we were separate and against nature. Being separate from suddenly created an immediate scarcity event. And when things become scarce, we become defensive. is our ultimate defense structure that we all have tapped into to protect our minds and our bodies and spirits against this existential fear that we are isolated alone, that we're separate

from nature. And the further we get into industrialized nation kind of behaviors, the more we forget our connections to nature, the more we've forgotten what it feels like to be a curious, creative force in nature that's there to be a synergistic possibility of life. And we start to back ourselves into these little corners of defensiveness, and now it's antibiotics and antidepressants and antivirals and antifungals and anti-everything, and we become an anti-species in our fear of everything around us. And in that fear paradigm, the ego gets stronger and stronger,

and the behavior of ego is competition. To get really at this concept of separateness and the immediate result of scarcity, we can use the example of offense. The moment that colonialists set out in the world, the English, Spanish, French, the Dutch, moving across oceans, you know, these massive empires moving out with their ships around the world. And as soon as they would land, they would start to shift the mentality of the peoples there to the belief of ownership. No indigenous people really believe in ownership. They believe that they are a cooperative part of the ecosystem around them. And they see themselves as connected to Mother Earth, nature, the divine. And they see themselves in a flow state with life itself. And then a colonialist shows up and says, wow, all these new resources, I'm going to own this little plot of land.

My family arrived 400 years ago in the United States from England and the rest. And so the Bush family arrives 16, 17 in little Georgetown and starts setting up their little shop there. And the first thing they do is they build these picket forts with these big 20 foot fences around them to protect themselves. The moment you put yourself in a 20 foot fenced in area that might cover a couple hundred meters, you've lost connection to the entire planet. And you've said, I own this little thing. And for a moment you think, well, that's super powerful. And you just became the weakest organism on the planet the moment you put up the fence because you disconnected yourself from the whole. And the indigenous people, of course, in all sectors of the world look at that and be like, where do you hunt?

Where do you get your stuff? You can't support yourself. This is what we call progress. This is because we own it. Because the egoic mind is that competition. This is because we own it. Because the egoic mind is that competition. So the moment you create separation is the moment you create scarcity is the moment you need the ego. And then you need competition. And so in the egoic world of fences and defensiveness and competition, you inherently know that you are not enough. And the ego is telling you that every day. You are enough. Keep pretending.

Keep acting. Keep the facade going. Because you're actually not enough. You need to fill yourself up with all the stuff. Keep competing. Keep getting more stuff. Get more awards. Because deep inside of you, you're feeling like you're not enough because your ego is sensing that scarcity

all over the place. And ultimately your drive to be number one in the class or somebody's drive to spend hours of content absorption from Netflix or Hulu or social media, it's an effort, a competitive effort towards filling all of the perceived gaps in yourself. I've said multiple times on the show that I think the most important thing I do each day for my health, for my family's health, for my professional work is a daily practice of solitude where I sit with myself. I can start to hear what's going on inside of me. I think these days we distract so much. We consume so much, even good content, even good podcasts or good audio books, whatever. It doesn't matter. You can't just be consuming

the whole time. You have to have time where you allow your innermost thoughts, whatever. It doesn't matter. You can't just be consuming the whole time. You have to have time where you allow your innermost thoughts, emotions, otherwise you don't know what you're truly feeling. And you run around just compensating for this lack of awareness, this lack of knowledge. I find that when I can regularly practice solitude, I'm singing to a different tune. I'm resonating at a different frequency, which impacts how I feel about myself, how I interact with my children, with my wife, with my friends, with my guests. It all comes down to solitude for me. And I think it's something that is long forgotten. People now will say, I don't have time. I don't have time for solitude.

That's where we've got to in modern human progress, apparently, in society, where we no longer have time to just be with ourselves and be. There's some profound stuff that just came through about solitude that I think is very interesting. profound stuff that just came through about solitude that I think is very interesting. I've never thought about before, but the word solitude, the base core of that soul is very interesting because if we look at the current behavior of humans, we have an attitude that is amalgamation of our reaction to external inputs. And so our daily attitude towards self or others is a reactionary. Solitude with that base of soul, listening into yourself, suddenly finding that

peaceful core diffuses all of your attitudes so quickly. So instead of attitude, let's do solitude. And I think the American psyche, especially, but perhaps the whole European psyche as well, here's the word solitude in things, loneliness. And loneliness is again, an egoic belief system of scarcity, right? And disconnect. We believe we're separate from everything, therefore, and disconnect we believe we're not we're separate from everything therefore to be in solitude must be lonely in western civilization we've forgotten that we are connected to everything and physics now proves this out quantum physics everything else has proven that everything is everything we are

we are a unified hologram of information We are expressing energetic forms as life on planet Earth or beyond. And so solitude, which can diffuse the attitudes that you came in, is the thing that will finally nurture you at the level that you've been begging for in all of your life. You've filled your life, whether you know it or not, with a bunch of relationships to externalize the sense of completion or the sense of safety or the sense of I am enough. And so you've taken your egoic split mind and combined it with a bunch of other egoic split minds to try to create a whole mind. But in so doing, you created this deep codependence of identity, this deep codependence of connectivity. If you can't realize that you are a source of divine information and divine

self-identity, if you can't hear that, you're never going to get to health. You have to be present for a moment. And to be, you have to start to listen to yourself. Oh, he's so powerful, Zach. Zach, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. What can people do right now to start improving their lives and improving the lives of the people around them? To feel better, I think all of us are going to have to be willing to feel more. Right now we are suppressing our intrinsic capacity to feel.

And it's obvious why we're suppressing it, because most of what we're feeling is uncomfortable. We're feeling pain, we're feeling anxiety, we're feeling depression, we're feeling panic, we're feeling exhausted. If we're going to feel better, we're going to allow ourselves to feel all of that and then look for the root cause. going to allow ourselves to feel all of that and then look for the root cause. So feeling more is going to be that trust fall into yourself. Everything you are feeling right now is the only real thing happening to you. Everything else is external falsehoods. It's a game show. Everything else is external falsehoods. It's a game show. The only thing that's real is what you are feeling right now. If you are feeling depressed, heartbroken, isolated, those are valid feelings of you

existing as an ancient wise soul in the body of a human that's been programmed into a belief of scarcity and therefore egoic defensiveness. Allow yourself to feel all of those things and then know that the solution, the antidote to the feeling itself is inside that feeling. If you stop suppressing your ability to feel and allow yourself to feel, you will find the solution to your depression, to your pain and everything else. Because deep to that screen is a truth, is a voice that is you. You will find yourself in the authentic feeling of everything you're going through right now.

So to practice solitude is to come into enough silence to feel, and trust the feelings, and respect the feelings, and acknowledge that they are just feelings. They're not necessarily the reality of the universe. They are the result of being disconnected from that universe. And in enough time of allowing those feelings to percolate to the surface, have the very uncomfortable experience of being with them, sitting with them, they will process through. And so listen into yourself, let those experiences, those stressors, those feelings bubble up,

and you will feel better for your permission to feel. The intensity of being alive is worth it. It's not easy. It's not comfortable, but it is comforting in the end that I am actually alive and I can feel. And if I can feel, it means I am alive. And if I can feel, it means I can get through that feeling to a deeper truth. And if I can get to a deeper truth, it means I become more abundant in my relationship to a world that I am not separate from. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.