The Dr. Hyman Show - Is Self-Love Medicine? with Dr. Andrea Pennington

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

It might sound too good to be true, but there are tools waiting within all of us, that can improve everything from depression to addiction, anxiety, discontent, or numerous other unbeneficial feelings or states of dis-ease. We just have to open ourselves up to them and be willing to dig deeper. Tapping into creativity and passion is one key component; another is slowing down and taking the time to meditate, reflect, and practice self-care. So many of these tools are at our disposal, any time of day, any day of the week—but we have to realize their potential and prioritize their practice before the magic can happen. This week on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I’m joined by Dr. Andrea Pennington to talk about how we can begin this process, and so much more. Dr. Pennington is an integrative physician, acupuncturist, meditation teacher, and #1 international bestselling author. She received her Doctor of Medicine from Washington University School of Medicine, trained at Georgetown University Hospital, and received certification in Age Management Medicine with the Cenegenics Medical Institute. Her extensive study of medical nutrition, positive psychology, and neuroscience-inspired biohacking led her to create a holistic media platform, In8Vitality, to teach people how to blend ancient wisdom and modern science for enhanced vitality and life mastery. This episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy is brought to you by ButcherBox and Sunlighten. Now, through November 17, 2019, ButcherBox is offering its new customers a free, completely traceable from farm to fork, animal welfare certified turkey plus $20 off your first box. To take advantage of this special offer from ButcherBox just go to ButcherBox.com/farmacy OR enter promo code FARMACY at checkout.    For the last several years, I’ve kept a sauna at my home in Massachusetts. There are so many different kinds of saunas out there, but I use one from Sunlighten and I absolutely love it. With Sunlighten you get the highest dose of infrared energy in your body plus you can personalize the sessions for your unique goals like pain relief, anti-aging, or weight loss. If you’re interested in incorporating infrared heat into your own health routine, visit www.Sunlighten.com/hyman or call 877-292 -0020 and mention promo code HYMAN200 to receive an additional $200 off any sauna through November 27th, 2019.

Coming up on this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. So I noticed with some of my patients that I could specifically tell that there were certain illnesses that were clearly tied to their belief systems. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Thanksgiving's my favorite holiday for two reasons, good food and spending time with people I love and getting to share an amazing meal with my wife, my kids, my friends, and share my gratitude for them and all the other great things in my life just fills me up so much. And it's so important for me and my happiness. But I know some of you are already feeling your blood pressure rise when it comes to the holiday season. So I'm

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Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and that's pharmacy with an F. F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, a place for conversations that matter. And today's conversation is about self-love, which I think matters because so many of us struggle with loving ourselves and actually having an authentic life. So our guest today is an extraordinary woman, a physician, a healer, an acupuncturist, integrated medicine doctor, meditation teacher, number one best-selling author. She's quite a lady. She's come from France to be on our podcast

and she's going to share with us how we can break through some of the ways in which we get in our own way and block ourselves from having the life we want because we don't love ourselves. And most of us don't really think about that. We think about how we can achieve what we want because we don't love ourselves. And most of us don't really think about that. We think about how we can achieve what we want. We don't actually stop to go, why aren't we getting what we want? And this may be really the solution that we all need. So Dr. Pennington went to

Washington University Medical School, which is an amazing top-notch medical school. She trained at Georgetown Hospital and studied age management. She's studied medical nutrition, positive psychology, neuroscience. She's studied medical nutrition, positive psychology, neuroscience. She's created an incredible media platform called In8 Vitality, that's I-N-8 Vitality, to teach people how to blend ancient wisdom and modern science for enhanced vitality and life mastery.

She's made documentary films. She's a TEDx speaker. She's a brand strategist for lightworkers. We're going to find out what that is. And she's a healer and teacher. It's been sought after all over the media. She's been on Oprah. She's been on Dr. Oz Show, CNN, Today Show, Thrive Global, and anchor for Discovery Health Channel. She's the founder of the hashtag Real Self Love Movement, which sounds great to me.

She was recently on the Conscious Is Show, which is hosted by my wife, Mia Lux, and it was a fascinating conversation that we're going to explore a little bit today. She's trying to focus on the stigma of mental illness and get rid of it for people and help people support people on their journey to authentic living. Her latest book is called The Real Self-Love Handbook. She explores her personal journey from depression to real self-love and how the cornerstone process of five-step discovery framework is setting people free from the drama of past trauma so we're going to talk about those five steps so stay with us so welcome dr pennington

thank you so much mark it's great to be here an honor to be on the show and to be connected so let's talk about how you came to all this. Because, you know, for me, what I do was something that came out of my own illness, my own struggles with chronic fatigue over 25 years ago that happened after mercury poisoning from China. And I was forced to figure this out. I was flat on my back. I was down on my luck. I was down on my knees.

And I was flat on my back. I was down on my luck. I was down on my knees and I was like, uncle. And you had a similar experience that took you from what you were doing to the work you're doing now. So just take us through that journey and how you came about sort of breaking through that. Well, as you've learned, much of my kind of upbringing was leading me on this path, although I didn't know it at the time. So this whole concept of living as your authentic self, it wasn't something I set out on originally, but I know that fundamentally there are millions of people around the world who are suffering with a variety of illnesses, diseases, and mental health challenges. And so I'm convinced that we really do need to help people liberate and love their authentic self so that they can live the full lives that

are truly their birthright. But it didn't start out that way for me, as you know. I happened to grow up with a pretty interesting, nothing dramatic, nothing dramatic, but an interesting childhood. My mother is also a physician, and she practiced acupuncture. And as a kid, I would go with her to the hospital, and I would follow her around as she did her medical rounds. And when I became a teenager, I was the medical director of her practice. So I spent so much time watching my mother and seeing how she interacted with patients and their families. And I really admired the sort of transformation that she was able to achieve with them. And so my father and my mom, you know, they were divorced, but they both, you know, loved the fact that I was going into medicine. And everything was great until I got to the third year of my medical school.

And my mom at the time was the medical director for the Georgia Mental Health Institute. And part of her responsibilities was overseeing the drug and alcohol ward. And so as part of her continuing education, she was introduced to a modality for doing drug and alcohol detox. It was the NADA protocol, the N-A-D-A protocol, which as she was telling me about this on the phone one day, she said, listen, I'm helping these women who are addicted to crack. Now this is in the nineties when the crack cocaine epidemic was like at its height and especially rampant there in Atlanta. So she was saying, I'm working with these women who are either pregnant or in their postpartum period. They're addicted to crack cocaine and we're putting in acupuncture needles and they're detoxing.

Wow. As outpatients. Wow. No. Sounds crazy. Exactly. And that's exactly what I thought. Because you and I know, I mean, when someone is detoxing off of serious substances, there's

a whole physiologic storm that's going on. And I mean, even just, you know, withdrawing from alcohol or nicotine can send people into fits. So at first I'm listening to her and I'm like, mom, that's not only impossible, that's like inhumane. You know, my programming was such that I had just done like psych rotations and watched people as they were detoxing in the hospital. And, you know, it's like, you got to be hooked up to an IV and getting all this supportive care. And she's like, no, seriously, they're outpatients. They go to their 12-step meetings. They go to their psychological counseling, and they get this acupuncture.

So when I was visiting her over one of the holiday breaks, I was like, okay, you know, I'm not addicted, but I'm definitely stressed out. You know, give me this treatment. And so she put in these little ear needles, set me down in this comfy chair, and like dimmed the lights, and put on this little quiet music. And I had this rush of energy and this flood of emotion as tears just started pouring down my face. And I'm like, what the?

What's that about? Exactly. Because as you know, with acupuncture, like there's no medicine in the needles. We're not injecting anything. So I went back to my highfalutin research-oriented medical school, and I convinced our dean to let me come up here to New York in the Bronx. And I studied under the late Dr. Michael Smith, who was one of the pioneers in bringing acupuncture to America back in the 70s, especially for drug and alcohol detox. And so I put in over 100 treatments

and watched these men and women detox before my eyes as outpatients. And they weren't even in the comfy, posh setting that my mom had set up. It kind of blew up some of your old ideas about medicine that you learned in medical school. Absolutely. I literally was like, what the? I mean, this whole mind, body, spirit connection was definitely not what we were learning at Wash U, but it definitely impacted my thought process

about what does it really take to not only heal, but to really get down to the root cause of what initiates illness and disease and in particular addiction. Because as you know, very few people become addicted just because they went out partying and trying drugs. Many people are trying to medicate some sort of pain and trauma and experience from childhood. So from the moment that I graduated, I was already integrating this Western approach with Eastern therapies. And then I went on to do more acupuncture training at the Helms

Institute at UCLA and just really appreciated how this biopsychosocial approach to wellness and health was all about looking at relationships and environment and all of a person rather than treating symptoms. Our approach was about getting down to the root cause, which is very much like functional medicine. Exactly. So you had this, you know, traditional training, but then you kind of had a window into a different way of healing. But then something happened to you where you kind of burnt out, crashed, and that led to what you're doing now. So can you take us on that journey? Yeah. So what I didn't mention about med school was there was a moment where I became incredibly depressed and not unlike many of the other people that I was studying with.

But it was interesting because when I went to student health services and, you know, confessed to the doctor how I was really feeling, she asked me, you know, how often are you playing piano? And I kind of like looked at her like, what? But it was interesting because when I applied for medical school, she was one of the people who interviewed me. And she remembered that I play classical piano. So I'm like, I'm not playing piano at all. I mean, who has time for that? Like, it's intense. And I was surrounded by all these brainiacs who seemed to like know way more than me. She was like, you know, you should just play piano for 30 minutes a day. And like, even that was radical. So eventually she said, okay, 30 minutes a week. And even though I thought it was weird at the time, I hadn't heard anything about music, art, or creativity impacting our well-being. I did it.

And I'm convinced that reconnecting to music was part of what got me through medical school. So what I didn't share with you is that also in my childhood, I was always involved in the arts. So performing arts, theater, singing, dance, doing radio shows with my best friend, Allison. That was kind of like my lifeline while I was doing all of the pre-med stuff. But my father, as I mentioned, my parents were divorced. And the influence of my dad was such that when he found out I was doing all this extracurricular stuff, he was like, your grades. You're wasting your time. Exactly. Because he's like, that's not a guaranteed path to, you know, a sustainable future. So it started to create in me,

and it definitely broke down in med school. It created in me this stifling of my own creativity and this rejection and neglecting to honor the things that were naturally coming up for me. And so it happened in medical school. I got through that. Then I got into my clinical practice. And again, I'm like super stressed. I was at that time doing television and running a medical center. And it was my COO, a very dear friend of mine, Nadal, who came to me and was like, I can see that something's not right. Like I was heading towards burnout again. And he was like, are you singing? Are you like, write music? And I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, I just kind of noticed that when you're doing your music thing, your mood's a lot better. And it was again, this kind of

outsider who was pointing to me like, why are you not doing the things that bring you joy and happiness and fulfillment? And so it was kind of a long way to get to this realization that the flow through our bodies and even our environments, they need to flow. Otherwise, that's when we get off balance and we create dis-ease. Yeah. So you talk about how you've had all these accomplishments, but a lot of them were driven from a need, a need for approval, a need for somebody to say you're great first from your father later from your medical colleagues and the media and it was just this this outside influence that was helping you drive your sense of self-worth but behind it you felt like you

were dying inside yeah and what what was the shift that allowed you to realize you needed to move more from the external validation and, quote, love to self-love and to be really who you are? For me, it was getting to that proverbial mountaintop. I think I had published my first book, had been on Oprah a couple of times, and had all of sort of the outer trappings of success. And I was miserable. And I happened to confide in someone that I was dealing with depression. And she looked at me like, girl, you need to be grateful. I mean, of course I was grateful. But she was looking at me like, you have everything.

You've got the job, the career, the fame, the money, the everything. But I was miserable. And I came to realize that it didn't matter how many accolades I had, how many, how much money, how many, you know, degrees I had, I was still miserable. And that's what kind of led me on this path of self-discovery. Because it was like, if all of this stuff that I had been programmed to believe you know including from my father and like you said the media you know I had I had everything yeah but I wasn't feeling fulfilled and I would have never guessed that it was as simple as just self-expression and self-love until until it was that so what but like what was the process of you going from the outside validation to the inside validation what was that that step that helped you to sort of break free from that prison

of needing the external validation to feel okay about yourself which most of us do i mean we live in this instagram culture everybody's posting selfies but there's no self-love and they're, you know, look at me, how great I am and all these weird, it's very weird culture. And it makes everybody feel bad about themselves because they're not as good as the Photoshop version of somebody else. And, you know, we end up in this cycle of even creating more depression, more isolation, more social disconnection through the social media, right? So how is that for you? Well, thank God all of that social media did not exist then because the pressure would have been too great. Ultimately, I got to a point where I was so overcome with anxiety that literally just

waking up in the morning, it was like I had to muster all of my resources to just put on that happy mask and go do the TV shows and the documentaries. And it became unbearable. I mean, I got to a point, Mark, it sounds silly, but I got to a point where I just didn't want my life anymore. You felt suicidal? I had those kind of thoughts. Now, because of my spiritual tradition, I, I knew that suicide, suicide was not an option, but I, I ended up going on a vacation. So I'm just going to take you there. This is, this is the pivotal moment for me. I happened to be in the South of France.

This was at a time when all of the TV shows that I was doing in America hadn't yet made it to Europe. So nobody knew who I was. I was able to go there anonymously. And I wanted to just be the artistic version of me. And I ended up in this nightclub in Saint-Tropez. And this guy was like, oh, okay, so you're a jazz singer. You know, we're going to get you up in the booth. And there I am, I'm like singing and I'm like sharing my love. And I felt like everyone was like receiving me for the

real me, even though they had no idea who I was. I wasn't famous. But I got back to my hotel in Cannes and I was like, what just happened? I just experienced that flow state, that bliss state where I felt complete acceptance from myself and from everyone around me. I felt like that bliss of love. And then it hit me that in two days, I have to go back to America, back to what I considered almost like a prison of responsibility. And that's when I- Prison of success.

I know. And I hate that it sounds like so privileged. No, it's true. It's actually very true. People get locked in. But that's exactly how it felt. And that's when this depression just mounted up within me. And I literally called out to God or anyone listening and said, take it, take my life, take my business. I don't know what I'm doing with it. And it was in that moment of surrender that I broke down.

I was sobbing and crying. And what happened next, I now understand, but I didn't understand at the time. I literally started melting into the bed as I'm sobbing. And then there was this intensely bright light and I felt myself being drawn into the light. So I thought God was answering my prayer because I felt myself leave my body. I went over to this other side and I saw a life review. And like in a split second, I could see how every decision I made had led me to that point of depression. And then there was sort of like this vision of how we as souls are like a little drop of consciousness. And as we incarnate and come into this human body, it's up to us to determine who we will be and what we will accomplish.

So I'm getting this vision and this knowing, and I'm like, so I could have chosen what I'm going to do and be in this lifetime? And it was in that moment that I was shown this vision. And it was a vision of me living a completely different life on the French Riviera, walking hand in hand with a child. I was singing professionally. And I was healing with my hands, which at the moment I was like, God, are you serious? You're going to make me like a woo-woo doctor?

Like, but that sense of love and peace and bliss was there and i said okay if that's the life for me fine back your bags i came back into my body and the depression was gone and i left wondering like what the f was that because i had heard of people who had flatlined or in surgery, they'd had, you know, these out of body or near death experiences, but I'd never heard of someone who wasn't in an accident or something. So I started to do research on consciousness. The old you was dying. That's exactly what it is, which is so, I mean, it sounds so cliche. Thank God you didn't have to get in a car accident for that.

Exactly. Or flatline and, you know, have my body like in jeopardy. But that was the experience that shifted it for me. I think having that experience of complete oneness and knowing who I really am as a spiritual being, where all of that earth stuff, the accumulation stuff, that isn't even really what mattered most. And that's what led me on this path of understanding the science of consciousness and how that impacts our health and our well-being. Because like, you probably remember this. I mean, you and I are old enough to remember, back in the day, people told us that depression was like a brain disease, like, or it's hereditary, or it's all about your brain chemistry. I had never heard

that decades of depression could disappear like that. So for me, I was completely, you know, with my little nerdy research hat going, okay, we've got to figure this out. What happened to me and how can I help other people? That's fascinating. You know, I noticed in some of the pictures of you online that you have a Buddha tattooed on your arm. I do. Which is kind of cool. And a lot of the things you're saying are actually making me think of the Buddhist framework. You know, I studied Buddhism in college and it was the sort of self, the little self versus the big self.

Yes. And most of us identify with the little self, which is the ego. It's our body. It's our life circumstances. It's the Dr. Andrea Pennington, the media personality, the famous doctor, the whatever it is.

And how that takes us away from our bigger self. So when you have written this book, The Real Self-Love Handbook, a proven five-step process to liberate your authentic self, build resilience and live an epic life which who doesn't want that you know you're not talking about the little self-love you're not talking about the narcissistic culture we live in of self-love the kardashian self-love you're talking about a very different kind of self-love so can you kind of help us understand

the distinction between the little self and the big self what that means and and where we get stuck in our egos that take us away from the big self that we should be drawn to to actually help us feel happy and free hmm well this whole experience that I went through kind of showed it to me where I experienced it in living color. Like I got the distinction. You didn't read it in a book. No, I got it. It was like, that's little self. That's not even real. That's illusion based on programming circumstance. But the real me, this higher self or self with a big S, that's our true essence. And I think as I started to study

more, especially like Jungian psychology and looking into how do we form these personalities, you know, looking at my upbringing, for example, you know, I got fascinated by divorce and how siblings within the same household could have completely different reactions to like family drama. So we know that when a baby is born, they're typically born expecting and accepting unconditional love and affection because that's the kind of womb experience we've just come from. But over the process of our early childhood development, we develop this ego, this identity that is a construct. I mean, it's literally a construct based on the programming and the experiences that we have.

It's not the real self. So, you know, in this early childhood period where we're developing this ego personality, it's all based on survival. It's all about, you know, how do we fit into our surroundings and how do we ensure that we are accepted and liked within our tribe, whether that's our family tribe or at school. And over time, many of us do identify with that ego or with whatever roles that we're

playing. And eventually we get to, whether it's on your deathbed or earlier, you come to realize that there's a part of you. There's a fundamental essence that is the true you. People call it the soul. The soul. Yeah. Some people call it soul or spirit. So ego, soul, little self, big self, same thing, right? Exactly.

Sometimes when we end up identifying with the roles that we're playing, we can find our identity becomes very, very fragile, and our sense of self-worth and self-esteem becomes fragile. So I noticed with some of my patients that I could specifically tell that there were certain illnesses that were clearly tied to their belief systems, things that they had taken on during childhood. And of course, now we know, 20 years later, we know now that our childhood experiences, these adverse childhood experiences and stress, isolation, loneliness, they impact our physiology, our brain chemistry, our immune system.

Just to stop you there for a sec, for every patient who comes in to see us in our practice, we have them fill out our ACE questionnaire, adverse childhood experiences, because when they fill that out and we see there's a problem, you have to deal with that because you can't just focus on the physical or they won't get better. Yeah. And that's precisely what I was discovering. Now, in the beginning, I thought I was a weirdo because trying to talk to my other medical colleagues to say, you know, this person's got repressed anger and that's what's causing her interstitial cystitis. Or this person went into a career path because her parents said this was the safe way to

go, and now she's burnt out. And it's not just because she's overworking. So being able to see that this ego personality that we create is trying to ensure our survival, but sometimes the practices and behaviors that we adopt and the belief systems that we adopt end up causing us illness and dis-ease. So how do you like dis-identify with the ego? Because it's so strong for most of us. We don't even understand that there is a possibility of separating from that. And on the show, we've had Michael Pollan and others who've talked about the default mode network in the brain that is sort of the ego in a sense, which gets suppressed

with psychedelics. Or we've had Daniel Goleman talking about meditation and the power of that to actually suppress that same default mode network, which is the strength of the ego and allow other areas of the brain to communicate. How do you do that because you know you you we shared a little bit earlier when we're chatting about neurofeedback which is another technology that helps you to to sort of regulate your brain waves and your brain chemistry and your brain function so it's it's not easy for most people to want to understand that there's a

difference between their ego and their soul that they're two different things that you're not your body you're not your mind you're not your thoughts you're not your feelings right that there's a difference between their ego and their soul, that they're two different things, that you're not your body, you're not your mind, you're not your thoughts, you're not your feelings, right? That there's something else going on that you can connect to that's eternal, that's everlasting, that's in you, that's always present, that if you touch it, it's like what happened to you in that bed, you got to touch that for a moment and you realize, oh, darn, like this isn't all there is,

is this, you know, personality. There's something else. How do you help people? Because that's a, seems like a very difficult thing for people to get through. It is. It is the biggest challenge. And I think that's why I bring together all of these different modalities to help people have an experience of the real self. So I, as you mentioned in the intro, I've been teaching meditation for 15 years now. Meditation is the number one thing that I recommend, whether a person's dealing with stress or cancer or trying to find their true self, having that regular practice of getting to that point of stillness where you can perhaps have that, that flash where you touch that bliss and you recognize, whoa, there's something more to me. But not everybody's a huge fan of meditation or they know that it's going to take

a while to get there. So you mentioned psychedelics. We now work with people who do plant medicine and other shamanic ceremonies to help people get into expanded states of consciousness where they can also have an experience of the true self. We're also doing a lot with narrative therapy. So one of the things I learned very early on in my positive psychology days was about the benefit of just writing and journaling. And what we've discovered is that many of our patients, they did it because I told them it was their homework, but they were finding out over time that by writing their experiences, it can be the mundane stuff of just daily life, but also revisiting their past. They were able to recognize that same concept of all of the programming that led them to where they were. And then we would take them through other exercises of writing. So, for example, writing about a peak experience in your life, a time where you felt bliss or a time where you did feel loved and accepted.

And by getting it out of your head and onto paper or onto a screen, you're able to start to reflect back on what elements are actually you that are not just, I was coerced into doing this by my parents or by the media or whatever. And it's these regular experiences of the self that little by little gets strengthened. But I mean, I wish, you know, I wish everyone could like wave a magic wand and either, you know, through the magic of plant medicine or an out of body experience, they could have that oneness experience that tells them there are so much more to you than what you see in the mirror.

But that's why- We get so attached to that. We get so attached to our physical body. I've shared on the show that I've had an experience when I was really sick a couple of years ago where my mind was gone. I had no emotional capacity. I couldn't focus. My body was completely broken. I was literally in bed, nothing I could do. And what was left was just that sort of real self, as you call it, you know, was that sense of something that's abiding always that I can touch and that isn't really all this physicality and this sort of thoughts and job and identity it's like

who are you if you're not all that and i think it's something people often don't think about and and there are ways to touch it you've talked about meditation psychedelics you know neuro feedback and it's something that i think we all need more of because part of the reason we get into conflict part of the reason we have this divisive world we live in part of the reason we get into conflict, part of the reason we have this divisive world we live in, part of the reason that we're struggling in society because we're attached to that little self and we're all in this kind of completely polarized world. And what you talk about is when you do connect with self-love, it actually allows you to have compassion and to be able to be in the world in a way. So it's not just this narcissistic self-love that you're talking about. It's something really different. So I'd really

love for you to sort of help walk us through what are those five steps that you teach people that help them get to that place of real self-love? Well, the cornerstone process is a five-step process that begins with awareness. So as I mentioned, there are several exercises and questionnaires that we invite people to explore. Because becoming aware of who you are and who you are not is essential. Again, as you said, we get so attached to the roles we play, the things that we've done in the past. So in addition to the Values in Action survey, which is from the beautiful people at UPenn of the five Chinese elements is your main influence. Like wood, metal, air, water, fire. Exactly. And there's so much insight that comes

when you start to recognize that the elements, the time of your birth, and it's not woo-woo, but I mean, there's 5,000 years of Chinese science. When you start to see that your makeup is not random, this is who you are, it gets you even closer to step two, which is about self-acceptance. So after you go through this awareness phase where there's several, you know, several exercises we take you through, then you get to a point of recognizing that, okay, the past is the past.

And for many of my clients, they have had traumatic pasts. They've had things that you don't even want to bring up in terms of trauma and abuse and neglect. Absolutely. But there comes a moment of reckoning when we realize we can no longer blame our parents or society or the economy or even our own bad behavior. We've got to get into this present moment and accept that here's where we are.

And so that's when we move into compassion, as you mentioned, and forgiveness. So we have exercises in this second step that really bring about a detox, detoxing body and mind, environment, relationships, so that you can start to accept that this is your life and from this point forward you're the one in charge of it um step three is all about accountability and it's this is where we invite people to start to rewrite that's not something that people like

no it's not accountable it's generally not to own your stuff but a friend of mine calls it cop-to-itiveness cop-to-itiveness. Cop-to-itiveness. Yeah. I mean, but that's where we have to cop to it. Because if you continuously blame everything outside of yourself for your woes, whether justified or not, then you remain a victim. But if you're willing to say, I'm going to cop to it. These are the things that I did.

These are the things that other people did. I'm ready to clean the slate, forgive. It doesn't mean you're condoning bad behavior. It just means from this point forward, I want to be accountable for my life. I'm moving from the victim into the hero because that's what we're all on. We are all on a hero's journey. And it's up to us to start to pick up that pen and decide that I want to be the one who gets to write the rest of my life story. Right. You get to be the author of your life instead of being the victim of your life. Exactly. It's amazing how many people don't understand that.

The empowerment of being able to really author, design, create, imagine, dream your own life. Yeah. dream your own life. And I think it's kind of a force in the universe that you can tap into that people don't realize. It's sort of like Dorothy and the ruby red slippers. She's got the power. She just has to learn how to click her heels. And I think for most of us, it's not part of our culture. It's not part of our cultural framework. It's not part of our religious teachings. I mean, it is in certain cultures like in buddhism but most most of the time we're not really thinking about our capacity to tap into this sort of real phenomena that's surrounding all of us which is the sort of connection between everything

that's going on jung called it synchronicity and when you begin to sort of notice what's happening in your life and pay attention to the signals and the signs and what feels right, you actually can be guided in a way that is so beautiful. It takes you to where you are. It's sort of how I've done what I've done.

I really didn't have a master plan. I've just really listened to the signs that came in front of me. And then when the door opened, I went in. And when something happened, the big things in life that really matter, that made me who I am, I didn't plan. I didn't plan to get sick. I didn't plan to get a job at Kenya Ranch. I didn't plan to go to Cleveland Clinic. I didn't plan exactly to write a book. I felt compelled because I got sick and

wanted to share my story. And that led to this and that and the other thing. So it's really, you know, it's fascinating when you look back at your life, you can see that there's this thread connecting everything. Exactly. Going forward, it's hard to see, but you know, you told the story of your struggle and how that actually led to where you are in this moment

and gave you the understanding, the skills, the knowledge to be able to do what you're doing and teach what you're teaching. It's not just that you read it in a book. It's actually was coming out of the grist in the middle of your life. Yeah, But we're in a process of awakening, you know, and that's why, you know, your beautiful wife with this conscious is show, you know, we have people who are waking up that they're recognizing that there is a power,

you know, we don't have to call it the law of attraction or anything weird, but there is this force that's available to us in our lives. And the more that we are able to start to wake up, and that's why this process is all about your own awakening, recognizing where you've been programmed or addicted or playing the victim role. Because as you become more awake, then you recognize, just as you said, you're able to write these stories about your life and look with a little more detached involvement to recognize these threads and these patterns. And so as you move from this phase of accountability, this is the first stage in our program where we ask you to write your own self-description. description. So rather than all of the things that you've carried from the past, it's like, who do I want to be now and going forward based on who I really am, all of these talents and traits and abilities and all of the forgiveness and compassion that you've practiced now, who do you want to be? Because that's-

Like who was that Andrea who was singing on that jazz club in France, right? Exactly, right? Like if I could really architect my life, but that's really what it's about. It's about architecting a life, you know, becoming this, this author, this architect where you get to choose. And yes, sometimes life is going to throw us stuff. I mean, that's just the nature of life on this blue planet of ours. But having that sense of agency is crucial and it's crucial to the health process. If you're trying to heal from a sense of disease, if you feel that you were just overcome and a victim, it makes it very hard for you to mount the immune resources that you may need and the vitality. But as soon as you recognize that you're an active participant,

things shift and change. Yeah, it's true. Your immune system really does listen to your thoughts. Absolutely. And fascinating, there was a research study, I'm sure you know about this, where they had people journal for 20 minutes a day. Not like, I went to the store and bought milk, but what's going on underneath? Yeah. You know, what's really up below in their hearts and their minds or souls? And they just, 20 minutes a day. And it was a randomized control trial where they looked at people who just wrote about

whatever they did that day versus what was really deep inside. And these people with rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, they got better on objective measures over the course of three to six months, which is kind of bizarre. I mean, how can you regulate asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, which are, quote, real diseases, which people suffer from,

but how do you do that with just writing in your journal? And that's the power of this process, and I think that's a really important piece that that is is hard to do people actually i think don't know how to write what's inside they don't even know how to listen to what's inside how do you get people to sort of begin to listen to that other higher self voice because there's a there's a unconscious voice that we can rant and rave and blame and not own and you're inviting people to do something quite different, which is to listen to that other voice in your head that's whispering,

maybe faintly. How do you get it to be loud and clear? Well, I take people through an attunement meditation. And in the beginning, just like with the first step of the cornerstone process, I invite people to take five deep breaths and just become aware, aware of whatever's going on. So if there are thoughts, if there is some little chatter, even if it's the mean snarky chatter of self-judgment or it's your laundry list or all the things you've forgotten, just become aware of it without judging it and let it pass without grabbing hold and going down the rabbit hole with these thoughts. And as we invite people to do this, we ask them to only start with like eight minutes a day, because of course the studies show that you can literally impact your brain in eight minutes. But by just doing this process of becoming aware and tuning in, again, in the beginning, it may just be chatter. That's all you notice, or you notice the uncomfortable bits in your body.

But the more that you do it, little by little, you do start to hear, maybe it's a quiet, still voice, and we're not talking about schizophrenia, but like you might hear something when you start to tune into your body and say, well, what is that pain associated with? Well, it's because you're overworking or because you were hanging out with those people that you know you don't have any business hanging out with. Like you start to get underneath the chatter and underneath the symptoms and the pain to the deeper meaning. And that only comes the more that you're willing to listen

and face it. So we lead people through this attunement meditation process, which starts off with allowing anything that comes up to just be without judgment. And then we start to tune into what would it feel like if there was a loving presence that said it was okay. That said, you know what? Yeah, you are feeling like everyone's taking advantage of you. I'm so sorry you're going through that. What if that compassionate presence was just saying, I see that and I'm here for you.

Instead of that inner critic. Exactly. And again, you might still be in the, well, this isn't fair. That's okay. But if you can invite compassion in, little by little, you'll start to feel that compassion towards yourself. And as we tune into the compassion, that is typically when people are willing to let go of a little of the intense ego struggle of this should be my way or this shouldn't be happening. And it's like, well, what if we opened up our mind and said, okay, whatever's best, let me be guided by that. What is the best outcome for me in this situation? How can I align my mind with a higher mind or the mind of the divine? And again, this is getting

deeper into the meditative process, which people don't usually do right away. But once they get to that point of just saying, even if it's only for five minutes, I'm going to say, what if I opened my mind to another solution or possibility? Many times people will say they come off of that meditation cushion, or sometimes they're hiding in the bathroom because that's the only place that they can get, you know, eight minutes by themselves. And they're like. I meditate in the back of the car, on airplanes, wherever. Exactly. On the subway.

It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. Standing in line. I go through it, you know, just. But people are telling me that they're getting these insights. And they're getting inspiration that teaches them how they can make a change. Even if it's a tiny little change in their life or in their thought processes. And all of that is starting to impact the way they live their lives.

So powerful. So you've got awareness, you've got acceptance, you've got accountability. And the next step is? Inspired action. So from that same state of, okay, what would be the best next step? You don't always have to have the entire plan,

but what would be an inspired action that I could take in my life or in my relationship or in my well-being that could get me where I want to go? And again, from that state of openness, we're not relying solely on ourselves to come up with a solution. We're opening our mind to the possibility that that next phone call that comes in or an email that arrives or some new podcast that we're tuned into, we're like, oh my gosh, that's synchronicity, it just happened. I've just found my next step.

And it's by being open and curious that we arrive there. It's so true, I see that almost every day in my life. And if you pay attention, it's not like you're trying to force the narrative on top of it, but it's actually true. For example, I just wrote this book called Food Fix about fixing our food systems coming out in February. And I've been focused on how do we shift policy?

How do we create an awareness of this issue that no one's talking about? People talk about climate change. They talk about social injustice. They talk about economic inequities. But nobody puts the story together. And I feel like this is one of those things that needs to be in the conversation that we're having, that we need to collectively solve this. But I know i can't do

it myself so i just put it out there i'm thinking about this i'm trusting and i get this email this random email from this guy who i don't know who was referred to me by some guy met at a lecture i gave that was some years ago who's like you should connect with this guy it turns out he is a huge activist and and very interested in this whole food issue and system and wants to change it and he's the guy who launched bono's one campaign oh well and who's completely politically connected in washington and it's all about policy change and I'm like wow how did this happen you know so I think there's always those moments where we just have to sort of relax and just believe that the unfolding is actually how it's supposed to be and it sounds weird it sounds corny but it actually works it actually is true and when you get out of your own way when you

let go of the fear when you get let go of the, when you let go of the fear, when you let go of the lack, when you let go of the attachment to having things be a certain way, then all of a sudden magic happens. And it can happen really every day. And I literally can go through every day and tell you magic after magic after magic. And it's like, oh, okay. You're living a magical life, man. I kind of just you

know knock wood knock myself on the head but it's really true and it's it's taken me a while to get there but i i just the more i can drop in and relax yeah and not strive but just be and then be aware of what's actually coming up and you know if i'm like i just want to make a billion dollars so i can have my yacht that ain't gonna happen right but if i'm acting from a place of love and compassion and you know i see what's happening in the world i see the chronic illness i see the economic disparities i see the social injustice i see the environmental degradation climate change i mean these things are real yeah and and i i just have this urge to try to be some contribution to solving that uh but i also know that like you know who am i but why not right like why not try right it's not like i figure i'm going to solve all the problems but

i feel like if i pay attention i have good intentions and I have the right framework that I'm coming from. I'm not coming from a place of need or lack or ego. I'm coming from a place of love. Then magic happens. It does. It really does. And it's really, it's in the process that you've set out is a way for people to actually start to connect to that reality because we're so disconnected from it and it prevents us from actually having the life we want. Yeah. And so we can stumble into it or, you know, in retrospect, look back on it,

or you can take one of these five-step plans that, you know, we Americans are so great at, but literally now over 15 years of using this framework and teaching it at the University of Monaco, I've seen how people's lives have systematically changed. I want a job teaching at the University of Monaco, I've seen how people's lives have systematically changed. And I want a job teaching at the University of Monaco. That sounds pretty awesome. Well, come on.

So you've got that dream life now. But it is like what you described. I, as a kid, didn't plan this out, all of these amazing experiences. But little by little, now I'm starting to architect more of the magic and and it is partly it's it's about appreciation and gratitude which is the fifth step of this process it's like what you described when you just start to look around at the abundance of your life like we have everything we need in many cases to thrive but we overlook even the simplest things like just fresh water to drink. But if we can start to shift our focus to what can I appreciate in my life, in my environment,

in my relationships today, we know for a fact that these tapping into these positive emotions impacts the body's immune system, our brain chemistry, our heart rate variability. Like we can impact our bodies just by being grateful. But we can also tap into that magic because the more that you open up to this sense of abundance, the more you are going to see it. And I know that sounds all weird and woo-woo and law of attraction, except that now we do have clinical studies that show that tapping into positive emotion deliberately, even these micro moments

of positive emotion are impacting our sense of resilience. Yeah. I often say, you know, people who are optimistic live longer, even if they're wrong. And you can get into trouble. I, and I have gotten in trouble by being overly optimistic because I don't often see the things that are not right that need to be changed so I kind of can stay stuck in patterns that aren't serving me but for the most part you know having a mindset that is about love that's about being authentic that's about self-compassion it's about compassion for the world it's about service these are things that sound kind of crazy but they actually drive changes in your biology that make a huge difference you know bruce lipton wrote a book called the biology of belief which literally talks about how every cell in your body is listening to your thoughts yes i mean you know my wife me in the show last night

that she recorded with you said you know you wouldn't talk to your friends like you talk to yourself. You wouldn't say you're such an idiot. Why are you doing that? Why did you make that mistake? You know, you would be thoughtful, compassionate, nice. You'd be compassionate. You'd be helpful. And if we just turn that in on ourselves, it can make a huge difference.

Absolutely. And that's what I want people to recognize that much of what's going on in your life is determined by the stories, the stories that you tell yourself about yourself. And even though you may have experienced some drama and trauma, you can still transform that into a more heroic story. And that's where our work is going. And as you were describing, we have such incredible power to transform our own well-being, which is, as I've shared with you, one of the things that we're focusing on going forward with this company, Innate Vitality.

And it's around neurofeedback, for example, putting some of these holistic modalities to the test. We want to start documenting some of the things that I experienced just by myself in my medical clinic. We want to enlarge. And one of them is starting off with this beautiful Institute of the Awakened Mind. Like, perfect name, right? You know, these wonderful people who have been taking the work of C. Maxwell Cade and Anna Weiss, who previously studied like healers and magical shamans and whatnot, breathing, that you can literally change your own brainwave pattern to get you into an expanded state of consciousness. Of course, would we all love to become enlightened? Yes. But in the short term, I want to help people get out of burnout and breakdowns and become more empowered. So these are the things that excite me and they're absolutely possible for us.

And neurofeedback is essentially where you put electrodes on your brain like an EEG. Yes. And you can literally control your brainwaves using basically a video game. I did this years ago. It might be different how they do it now, but it's literally a way of training your brainwaves

because most of us, we can sort of feel our heartbeat if we want to slow our heartbeat we can do deep breathing we can regulate our blood pressure through breathing i think that's something that people understand but controlling your brainwaves seems crazy and weird but you literally can play a video game and the way you progress in the video game is by entering certain brainwave states, which you can learn how to recreate. And it's sort of like a little hack to kind of get into a meditative state. This friend of mine has a program called 40 Years of Zen. So in a week, you get literally 40 years of the equivalent of meditation by using this technology. Yeah. Well, I love it. I mean, what you've described is spot

on. So Judith Pennington, who founded, no relation, who founded the Institute for the Awakened Mind, has been teaching people all around the world how to use what they call a mind mirror. And it's exactly that. You're putting on these electrodes and you're looking at a screen, or you can do the meditation and look at the screen afterward. And you can literally see how each level of these meditations has impacted your brainwaves. And so for me, that's been really helpful for patients because now we have a way

where they can see it's not just, oh, it's soothing music. So yeah, you're relaxed. They're able to see their own brainwaves being impacted by their thoughts, by their breathing, by going through this visualization. And what does that translate to? Well, that's what we are going to start documenting is what does that translate to concretely in your life besides the health parameters that, of course, we'll be tracking. You know, my training was in anti-aging or age management medicine. So, you know, we want to look at, you know, telomerase activity. Yeah.

Like if we can start to protect your dna and slow down the aging process then we're taking this this meditative state out of you know just contemplative practice and we're making it more accessible and reasonable for people to get on board with and i just happen to know that the more you do it you are more likely to have one of those enlightened experiences where you contact the real self. That's true. I mean, Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the Nobel Prize for the study of telomeres, found that if you meditate, you literally can lengthen your telomeres,

which means you reverse the aging process and you're biologically younger. I think there are cultures where we've studied science and we've studied the external world in an incredible way in the west and we've learned so much about how things work but we've kind of ignored the inner world and in ancient countries like tibet that's all they did i mean they just had nothing there yeah and they would often meditate for years and years and years and caves. And we're studying this inner world. And those technologies now are getting translated in the West. And they don't have to be woo. You don't have to have like incense and candles and be in a monastery.

It's actually a technology for accessing the brain in a way and changing the brain in a way that we don't have in the West. And we had on the show Daniel Goleman who talked about altered traits and Richard Davidson who studied the MRI scans of Olympic meditators, people who had spent 40,000 hours meditating and their brains are different. The structure of their brains are different.

The function of their brains are different. Their levels of love and compassion are different. The brain waves are different. That put them in a state of happiness and bliss and love all the time, which is pretty striking. And wouldn't it be nice to walk around like that? Now, I know most of us, it's not really easy to attain the short term, but it's something that we can actually start to build on a daily basis with a practice, you know. But the beauty of it is that it isn't, even though you're looking at people like Mathieu Ricard and all these others who've

been meditating for years and years, we know that even just after as little as eight weeks, people are seeing changes in the brain and changes in their lives. So I'm happy that people can now recognize that even if you take a little baby step today and stay with it consistently, you're going to see benefits. It doesn't have to be something that just pays off in 40 years. Even in a few weeks. And I've sent so many of my, it's basically one of the drugs I use. Meditation is medicine. Food is medicine.

Sleep is medicine. Exercise is medicine. And meditation is medicine. And I found that for myself, I couldn't function without it at this point. For my patients, I've just seen remarkable changes in their level of happiness, their level of function,

their level of, of ability to function their level of ability to handle the stresses of life and be more resilient so you know we've had many people like dan harris in the show daniel goldman talked a lot about meditation i think it's it's uh you know something that's so important it's it's it's worth repeating over and over because if people can just do it even for five minutes a day it's powerful and if you don't can just do it even for five minutes a day, it's powerful. And if you don't have the time to meditate for five minutes a day, then you better look at your life and see what's wrong with it because that's a problem. Absolutely. Yeah.

How many minutes you spend scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or watching some nonsense on television. I mean, I actually don't watch TV. I do sometimes watch Netflix. But I almost never turn on the TV. Neither do I. And I haven't really my whole life. I think it's when I was a kid, of course, I watched Commander Tom and Batman and Superman

and Gilligan's Island and all that. But when I went to college, I never had a TV. I never had one through medical school. I never had one through raising my kids and it wasn't until my son was into basketball that I got a TV when he was you know the eighth grade so he can watch basketball but it's it's it's such a distraction and I think there's so many distractions in our life that that the quality of our life is diminished by that it's's not enhancing it. And we've had a gentleman on the show from MIT who talked about, Cal Newport, who talked about the power of just disconnecting

from social media. You know, I just had my nephew, for example, just turn off notifications on his phone because the new app and iPhone says, you have 3,000 notifications today. And every one of those does a little number on your brain. And you have 3 000 notifications today and even every one of those does a little number on your brain exactly turning that off and disconnecting is super powerful so um let me talk about something a little bit sort of off track but i think that it's it's fascinating

uh which is something that you've called the world schooling for your daughter you live in france you're um doing something that is quite different in her education so um how did you how did you come to that and what do you do because we are teaching our kids in a way that isn't helping them become global citizens isn't helping them understand the world they live in isn't giving them the skills they need for a happy life. So how have you shifted not only teaching adults, but your daughter and children? Yeah, it's been quite an interesting journey. But I happen to have a very passionate and sensitive soul in my daughter. She's now 13. And what I noticed almost instantly with schooling, as you know, it really tries to force us down a particular path. And including the schools in France, when Napoleon took over the schools from the church, he literally said, I want to know what every child in France is doing at 830. And it became very regimented.

And I remember sitting with my daughter, it was like a Sunday and we're just kind of hanging out and she had this weird look on her face. And I was like, you know, what, what's going on? What are you thinking about? And she was like, I'm thinking about school tomorrow. And I'm like, well, you know, why, why is that a bad thing? And she was like, well, I, you know, she started coloring and she was like, I just wish there was more time for art. And I'm like, at the point, at the point she was at, I'm like, you know, you guys do an awful lot of art at this point in your schooling. And she was like, I just wish there was more time for art. And I'm like, at the point she was at, I'm like, you know, you guys do an awful lot of art at this point in your schooling. And she was like, yeah, but did you know, mom,

they take off points if you color outside the lines. Oh, wow. Like literally those words. And I was like, what am I doing? And as you look at particularly any sort of Western school system, but definitely what we were seeing in France is they were still forcing kids to like toe the line. This is what you do.

This is what you don't do. So then we moved her to a Montessori school, which was better. It allowed more of sort of tactile creativity and entrepreneurship even. But there came a moment when we recognized that all of this sort of forcing people to take tests and study to the test, like you're only learning this stuff so that you can regurgitate it on this exam. And our school

systems will be evaluated based on your grades. So don't mess up. Yeah. And she's very clever. She was just like going through this, this exam thing. And she was like, do you realize that I've just now lost six weeks of my life that I won't get back? And I'm like, wait a minute. Okay. You didn't lose anything, but it really struck this chord that why are we spending so much time forcing our children to memorize things that are not necessarily pertinent and relevant in life? So I decided as an experiment to do homeschooling. And homeschooling is much different than what I imagined it was. I thought I would have to be the teacher. And let me assure you, I am not the teacher.

Thank God. There's all sorts of curricula that are online in France as well as in America. So we're following an American curriculum. But what it's allowed us to do is she now travels the world with me. So as I'm doing workshops and retreats in multiple countries around the world, she's with me. Sometimes she has to do a report on each country that we visit. But now she's being able to do what really drives her and motivates her. And so as she was doing an exam recently, she was like, Mom, did you know that I'm on 10th grade science and 10th grade math?

And I'm like, wow. And you're only in seventh grade, or I think she was just passing into eighth grade. So it's allowed her to really go for the things that she's passionate about. And it's allowed her to not feel the same peer pressure and stress and drama that she was starting to get into in middle school. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I think, you know, coloring in the lines is what we learn in school in so many different ways. And it doesn't teach you to be alive.

It doesn't teach you to be connected to how to author your life. It doesn't teach you how to be in a relationship. No. It doesn't teach you about how to really take care of the world you live in and your relationships in your life. So I think that's a powerful idea. How do we shift our educational system? And not everything in homeschool, but I think it's sort of a beautiful thing.

It's not for everyone, but it's working for us. And what I recognize is that the school system was really starting to stifle her creativity. And I think that conformity in all its forms ends up stifling our creativity. And for me, that conformity, you know, that was forced on me and my upbringing. And again, with the medical community, you know, I was sort of an outlier when I started doing integrative medicine, but conformity is what causes us to start hiding parts of ourselves and denying our true passions. And that's not healthy. That's true. I'm so far outside the box. I can't even find the box anymore. Thank God for that.

So I'm really excited about your new book. It's just out. Thank you. The Real Self-Love Handbook, a proven five-step process to liberate your authentic self and build resilience and live an epic life. I mean, I think everybody should have that book. Who doesn't want to have an epic life? And imagine if everybody on the planet started to have more self-love instead of building self-hate or external hate, which we see so much in the world today. And I think this is a very practical, doable manual that people can follow. It's not just sort of an airy-fairy concept.

And it's a process that will, I think, help people connect to what they really love, what really matters to them, and to actually, more importantly, connect to a sense of happiness that isn't connected to their identity and their ego and their circumstances and what they look like. And that's what the world needs more of.

Thank you. So check it out. Also, you can check out Dr. And that's what the world needs more of. Thank you. So check it out. Also you can check out Dr. Penning's work at In8Vitality, that's I-N, the number eight, vitality.com. She's got workshops, she's got great classes online. I would check it all out. And I really loved having you on the show. Thanks for talking about self-love,

which we all need more of, with a big self-S. Thank you, my pleasure. So you've been listening to The Doctor's Pharmacy. If you love this conversation, we'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment. Please share with your friends and family on Facebook. And we'd love to have you subscribe anywhere you subscribe to your podcasts. And we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, everyone. It's Dr. Mark Hyman. So two quick things.

Number one, thanks so much for listening to this week's podcast. It really means a lot to me. If you love the podcast, I'd really appreciate you sharing with your friends and family. Second, I want to tell you about a brand new newsletter I started called Mark's Picks. Every week, I'm going to send out a list of a few things that I've been using to take my own health to the next level. This could be books, podcasts, research that I found, supplement recommendations, recipes, or even gadgets. I use a few of those. And if you'd like to get access to this free weekly list, all you have to do is visit drhyman.com forward slash pics. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics.

I'll only email you once a week, I promise, and I'll never send you anything else besides my own recommendations. So just go to drhyman.com forward slash pics. That's P-I-C-K-S to sign up free today.