The Rich Roll Podcast - Live Life Awake: The Art & Science of Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine

Episode Date: August 10, 2018

Welcome to another special mid-week conversation lifted from our recent retreat in Italy featuring Colin Hudon and Jennifer Ayres. Wise beyond his years, Colin is a physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine as well as a talented herbalist, acupuncturist, tea master, and founder of Living Tea, which sources and imports the finest and rarest old-growth teas and teaware in the world. A gift to humanity, Jennifer is an Ayurvedic Health Practitioner and teacher certified by perhaps the world’s most lauded Ayurvedic doctor, writer, and teacher Dr. Vasant Lad. Longtime listeners will recall both of these friends and incredible humans have previously graced the show. If you're new to the podcast and enjoy today's exchange I urge you to check out Colin & Jennifer together in an episode entitled Heal Thyself (RRP #261) and Colin alone from (RRP #319). Today they reunite to share a wide variety of insights on the benefits of supplementing our Western approach to medicine with ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic approaches to holistic health, disease prevention and healing. We discuss the similarities and differences between these respective approaches and enetertain audience Q&A on many other finer points of mindfully optimizing functional well-being. LivingTea Discount: To honor his appearance on the show, Colin is kindly offering a 15% discount on his Seasonal Tea Club subscription service, which sends out 3 to 5 old-growth, hand-curated rare teas and reading material that details what’s special about the teas, how to brew them, as well as ideal foods, herbs and lifestyle recommendations from a Chinese Medicine perspective. To avail yourself of this deal, visit livingtea.net and enter RICHROLL (all caps) at checkout. Also, subscribe to the Living Tea newsletter for discounts in September when Colin returns from Asia with new teas. Disclaimer: This is not an ad or paid endorsement. I get absolutely nothing out of this other than the satisfaction that you will enjoy incredible tea. It was an honor to have Colin and Jennifer join us on retreat and it is my pleasure to share their copious wisdom with you today. Peace + Plants, Rich

The basic idea is that we are deeply interrelated, interconnected to our environment and the world we're in, what I say the context of our lives, and that all of it influences us just as we're influencing life. And we're trained in studying patterns. I believe that's something shared with Ayurveda. And by really seeing clearly patterns, we're able to treat them and over time bring back wholeness or harmony between all these different functions in the body. Yeah, so many similarities with Chinese medicine, many more similarities than dissimilarities, where I believe that we had the same root and that culturally it evolved in different languaging with some subtle nuances that are different, but very, very similar that we treat systems, not symptoms. Life is relationship.

Our relationship to our environment, our relationship to each other, our relationship to our God as we know him or her all contributes to wholeness. That's Colin Hudon and Jennifer Ayers. And this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. What's up, people? Rich Roll here. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome or welcome back. We got another great special midweek episode teed up for you guys, lifted from an amazing session that we recorded during our last retreat in Italy with traditional Chinese medicine physician and tea master Colin Hudon, as well as Ayurvedic health practitioner, Jennifer Ayers. It's a fantastic discourse conversation.

But before we dig in, quick reminder that on August 23rd in Los Angeles, I'm hosting a screening of the new documentary, Running for Good. It's the Fiona Oaks story. It's this beautiful portrait of an amazing, and I think underappreciated athlete and activist, directed by my friend and multiple podcast guest, Keegan Kuhn, who you know from Cowspiracy as well as What the Health. After the screening, I'm going to be doing a live podcast in the theater

with both Fiona and Keegan. It's going to be a fantastic experience. Tickets will go fast. So to grab yours, check the link in the show notes or on the appearances page of my website. I also tweeted it out so you can look at my Twitter feed or my Facebook feed as well. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more.

Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com.

All right, so Colin Hudon and Jennifer Ayers. Longtime listeners will recall that both of these friends and incredible humans have been on the show before. They were on together in an episode entitled Heal Thyself. That was RRP 261 from December of 2016. And Colin was on the show by himself in October of 2017. That's RRP 319. So you can check those out if you enjoy today's conversation. RP319. So you can check those out if you enjoy today's conversation. For those new to the show,

Colin is a physician of traditional Chinese medicine, as well as a talented herbalist, acupuncturist, tea master, and he's the founder of Living Tea, which sources and imports the finest and rarest old growth teas and teaware in the world. I should also say that in honor of his appearance on the show, Colin was kind enough to offer all of you guys a 15% discount on his seasonal tea club subscription service, which basically sends out three to five old growth, hand curated rare teas at the beginning of each season. Plus a ton of amazing reading material. To check that out, go to livingtea.net and enter promo code RICHROLL at checkout. It's really good stuff.

And disclaimer, this is not an ad. I get nothing out of this whatsoever other than knowing you will be on the receiving end of the best tea in the world. Also joining us today is Jennifer Ayers. Jen is an Ayurvedic health practitioner and teacher, and she's certified by perhaps the world's most lauded Ayurvedic doctor, writer, and teacher in the world, a guy called Dr. Vasant Lad. Both of these people are amazingly wise and insightful when it comes to optimizing functional, holistic health. And it was an honor to have them join us on retreat.

And it is my pleasure to share their wisdom with you guys today from a session conducted during our recent retreat in Italy. So let's get into it. Happy birthday, Meg. Yes. Yes. So we are so honored to have Colin and Jennifer with us throughout this week. I know a lot of you have been getting a lot out of the treatments with each of them. And I thought that it would be good to sit down and kind of explore in a little more in depth the art and science of

what they practice. How many of you guys here have had treatments so far with either one of these guys? Yeah, almost all of you, right? Yeah, I've shared with some of you guys individually who've expressed to me like how impactful it was that you were experiencing breakthroughs and learning things about yourself that you didn't know before. And I think that's super cool. And I think we're going to get into the specifics, the differences, the similarities in their approach. But I think one thing that's common to both of them that they share that's super important to kind of what Julie and I espouse is this idea of self-empowerment in your own health journey and in your own healing, right?

This idea that you can take control of this process for yourself. And both of these talented individuals are here to help provide you with certain tools so that you can go on that journey yourself and I think that's really cool and it's something that is at odds with our current system of medicine. We're sort of taught that we should divest ourselves of certain responsibilities and decisions when it comes to our health and just take our doctor's advice. And I think we're all here because we've realized that although there are certain benefits to that, certainly with acute conditions, and yet there's much to be learned from some of these ancient practices that really have to do with preventing ourselves from getting into

that situation where we have an acute condition. So anyway, super glad to sit down with both of you guys today. And I thought that what we would do is kind of have a loose conversation between the three of us. I'll ask you guys some questions. We'll just, we didn't prepare for this at all, so this is going to take on its own organic life. And then kind of like what we did with the Happy Pear guys, like open it up to you guys and make this an interactive experience. So to kick things off, I thought it would be good for each of you guys to specifically talk about your respective specialties, traditional Chinese medicine for Colin and with Jennifer, Ayurveda.

What's similar about these two areas and where do they differ? Where do your approaches differ? You guys have a microphone over there? Yeah. Do you think this talk will be more effective if I sit on our lap and we fight over the microphone? At least have your leg kind of over her leg. This is where Ayurveda and Chinese medicine meet, right?

On this couch. Should I start? Okay. So Chinese medicine, you know, contemporary or modern allopathic medicine has been practiced in its current form for 250 to 275 years, according to what I've learned in my education. And which raises this kind of curious question, which is the alternative medicine,

the 5,000-year-old medicine or the modern medicine that we practice? And to use your word, we could unpack that for quite a while, but to kind of keep... Let's unpack that. Let's unpack that for quite a while, but to kind of keep... Let's unpack that. Let's unpack that for a minute. But I have obviously tremendous respect and I'd say reverence for the miracle of modern

Western medicine, but I do feel that the science of Chinese medicine can help explain some of the mysteries of Chinese medicine can help explain some of the mysteries of modern Western medicine. And so Chinese medicine really dates back the first... We dated back to 2737 BC with the writing of... Or with the book, The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Traditional Chinese Medicine, or Chinese medicine. And in it, there's a conversation between the physician to the emperor and one of his friends who's curious about the topic. And the depth and profundity and wisdom in that text,

as well as the technical detail, is so profound. I've read it three times and still every chapter I have to sit and digest and digest. And we have this idea of people coming out of ancient times as being kind of like Neanderthals or lesser evolved or in some way having less to offer. And I think that's a huge misunderstanding. In a lot of ways, if you look at the way modern culture is structured and the way that we live our lives, you can make a very strong argument that we're in a state of de-evolution. So without going too much off on that tangent, Chinese medicine is based in a meticulous

observation of nature and a belief that the human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm of nature itself. And so, whether you look at these functions as metaphorical or symbolic or as actually literal, we look at the atmosphere, the movement of the seasons, qualities of warmth and cold and dampness and dryness, and all the things that make up nature and the movements of nature, and we find their corollaries in the human body as it manifests in the blood, in the energy, in the body fluids, in all of the organ systems, and the movement of all of those substances, and more importantly, the relationship of all of them. So one thing, one description I read that I

liked was reductionism, which is the basis of the modern medical model coming out of scientific method. Reductionism treats symptoms, whereas holism treats patterns. So the basis of Chinese medicine is developing an acute observation, a meticulous observation of all these patterns in the body based on how things are presented symptomatically. If I go too deep into Chinese medicine, I think people just start to nod off into Never Never Land. But the basic idea is that we are deeply interrelated, interconnected to our environment and the world we're in,

deeply interrelated, interconnected to our environment and the world we're in, what I say, the context of our lives, and that all of it influences us just as we're influencing life. And we're trained in studying patterns. I believe that's something shared with Ayurveda. And by really seeing clearly patterns, we're able to treat them and over time bring back wholeness or harmony between all these different functions in the body. Yeah, so many similarities with Chinese medicine, many more similarities than dissimilarities, where I believe like we had the same root and that culturally it

evolved in different languaging with some subtle nuances that are different, but very, very similar that we treat systems, not symptoms. We are, I mean, life is relationship. So our relationship to our environment, our relationship to each other, our relationship to our God as we know him or her, all contributes to wholeness. We also have a similar idea of looking at all of the tiny parts that make up our physical world, which we call gunas, or attributes.

So hot and cold, rough, smooth, dry, oily. We believe that we came in on the moment of conception to begin with and the moment of birth with a certain ratio of all of those attributes. And that is your perfect version of you. And it's completely unique. And if we had an interaction because of this relationship with life, with anything, it starts to change. So then we call that an imbalance. Wait, what? So we don't take that word very seriously. But all of the gunas, attributes that are outside of us, we start to imbibe. We start to take in through our senses and through our food, through our emotions. And those actual gunas, attributes,

start to build inside of us. That's good and bad, right? We're in relationship. We need to be touched and touch. But when we have too much of one of those attributes, it starts to cause a problem. So learning how to apply the opposite is how we would then balance that thing.

And it can be so simple. If you have too much oily, we use a drying substance. If you have too much cold, we apply heat. So super simple. But then when we get further in, it can be very complicated. And wait, what are those lists? I have so much to memorize. And the truth is,

we all have the knowing inside of us. And although the goal is balance, we don't have to know those lists to get there. We, if we're situated in ourselves, there's even a definition of health according to Ayurveda. And it goes on as samadosha, meaning balanced

doshas, those energies. Samadhatu, malakriyahaso. Balanced datus, tissues. Balanced agni, balanced everything, right? Balanced mind, balanced senses. And that sounds like, oh my gosh, how would I ever get

everything balanced? But the last piece of it is what gives me hope and is kind of the main drive for me when I'm doing my practice, is and you're established in the self. So if you're deeply established in the self, you don't need any list. You know exactly what you need in every moment. You let the body lead and you know.

So applying what you know, what you need, will naturally bring the body back to balance and therefore then the body knows how to heal itself. So that's a little bit about Ayurveda. That's great. And I thought just to play devil's advocate here for a moment, imagine for a moment that I am head of oncology at Mass General. And I'm sitting here and I'm listening to you and I'm like, that's all very nice and

kind and quaint. Yes, doshas in 2000 BC in some ancient textbook. And it's all very romantic, but let me tell you about my MRIs and my electron microscopes and the mTOR pathway and what we've learned just in the last five years alone about how certain disease mechanisms functions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like, let's let the experts take over from here. Like, what is your response when you're confronted with that sort of mindset about Western medicine

or how we kind of think about and practice health, disease, disease prevention? So if he said, let the experts take over, I'd be like, thank you. Please. I don't feel any need to confront or discredit or...

I believe there is a right time and place for every type of medicine, that there are strengths and weaknesses in each, and that Western medicine is a miracle, is miraculous in what it can accomplish. So I have nothing to say negative about Western medicine except for when it causes side effects. So in traditional medicine, we believe that anything could be a treatment

as long as it brings us closer to balance and doesn't have a side effect. That's a really big deal. So we would incorporate anything that modern science proves to be helpful and consider it our practice, our treatment, as long as there's no side effect. So that's one piece of it where I don't need to talk to him about that, but in my own knowing, that's part of why I do what I do. I love it. When it comes to something like oncology,

we also have clearly in our practice, we need to assess, is someone truly my patient? Can I treat this person? There are people that I believe are not treatable by my medicine. We have our limitations. Because why? So in the case of cancer, let's say, because the pathogen is acting faster than the treatment can reverse. And that's the only reason. We know what

to do in order to reverse that pathology's trajectory. And we can feel it in the pulse before it becomes physicalized. So we're amazing at preventative medicine. But when it's already become physical and it's a fast acting pathogen, like if it's a fast growing cancer, we know the limitation of how much time it takes to walk backwards, back out through the pathology to regain balance. And that the pathogen will win in terms of time. So I'm gonna say, please get chemo. Please go for it, and I will help balance the effects of the chemo after the fact. Colin. So I had said earlier this phrase, how the science of Chinese medicine can explain the

mysteries of Western medicine. And I mean, this is a very good question. It's one really worth exploring, I think, in great, great depth. I would like to think about it more. My brother's a doctor, so we talk about this kind of thing. We have to also look at the questions of why do disease conditions or disease states that weren't common 100 years ago or even 50 years ago, why are they so prevalent and rampant in society right now? And so I'll answer this in two ways. One, we can look to the mythopoetic language of Chinese medicine or Ayurvedic medicine as a guidepost for some of the cultural and contextual ills of modern society. So, you know, why is cancer so rampant? That's a good question we can start with there. And if we

only focus on how do we treat the cancer without actually looking not just at the physiological or the pathological etiology, but also at the social causes that are surrounding it, we're not going to get very far. You know, it's only looking, we're not seeing the forest for the trees. Is that the saying? Yeah. I think so. for the trees. Is that the saying? Yeah. So if we look at something like, okay, so we're talking about the elements, the fire element in Chinese medicine, which relates to the heart and the small intestines and heat and inflammation in the body at a basic level. And we look at heart disease that 100 years ago wasn't prevalent, or it was largely not a huge issue socially or medically speaking. And then we look at our society that is devoid of

a lot of connection, a lot of warmth, the warmth of fire. And so people are trying to fulfill that through indulging constant craving and pleasure. And if you look at all the advertising agencies and all the social media, and it's trying to constantly feed the craving. So we're being sold shirts and cigarettes and foods and all these things and the constant need to try to satisfy something, which is really symptomatic of an underlying lack of warmth, lack of connection. So you go, well, how in God's name is that related to the oncology department at wherever? And I would say actually it's a lot more closely related than we want to recognize, which is

that there are a lot of societal ills that are the underlying and pervasive cause of a lot of modern chronic degenerative diseases because it starts to affect the way we eat, the way we live our lives, and a lot of the psycho-emotional ills that are contributing factors to disease states. So that's one. The other is that we do have what we call, I call double-blind controlled studies, the blind leading the blind, but because they can be largely skewed, and you have to look at who's funding those studies and the ways that they're conducted. But we've now done a lot.

We have a lot of evidence-based medicine with regards to Chinese medicine. I can't speak for Ayurveda. That is more objective. So for example, with orthoscopic surgery, we have proven studies to show that we can cut the healing time in half with the application of herbs and acupuncture and that kind of thing. And there are all these ways that as an adjunct therapy, these medicines can work so beautifully together to be minimally invasive. And there's a famous PBS special with Bill Moyers from, I don't know, the early 90s, where he's in China trying to understand this mysterious ancient medicine. And there are a lot of things about it that are amazing, but the point, the one that I remember the most and that a lot

of people reference is a woman getting open brain surgery and she's using 25% of the anesthetics of a normal Western treatment. And she's got all these needles in her body that are treating the pain receptors in her brain such that they don't have to use nearly as much anesthesia. And there's a lot of this cross-pollination and ideas where people are working together in China in particular so that the side effects are minimized from Western medicine. I sometimes use the analogy of like a lot of the antibiotics we're using. So now we're developing super, you know, bacterial super strains that are antibiotic resistant and causing other problems. I say it's like a lot of Western medicine,

especially with drug therapy, it's like fishing for trout in a stream with a bazooka. You know, you don't need to wipe out all life in a city to get the one bad guy, you know? So in a lot of ways, it's about finding a more skillful way of integrating these medicines to cause less damage ultimately. Yeah. I mean, the phrase you used earlier was, you know, the forest, losing the forest for the trees, right? And I think that really what you're saying is we cannot diagnose and treat the microcosm without taking into consideration the macrocosm. And I think that that is applicable in both of your specialties, not only at the cellular level, but also at the individual level in terms of how the individual is contextualized within their the aperture and looking at specific mechanisms, but not so good at really being able to take into consideration the larger ramifications

of those decisions. So when you prescribe an antibiotic, what is the sort of chain of events, the domino impact of that down the line? The analogy that comes to my mind is, you know, the early explorers, like, sort of accidentally introducing some mammal to, you know, some land mass and thinking, well, this will be great because we'll have food, and then it just creates this cascade effect that creates all these problems, right? I think as humans, we don't have enough humility around, like, that larger interplay, right? We just like to think it's a binary thing.

Oh, this means this without taking into consideration the larger aspect of all of this. And to me, having gotten to know you guys and been treated by both of you, like I'm a living example of the benefits of what you do. And my dream would be, and I'm sure you would share this, is to see a way that we can merge these ideologies, these practices into our current system. So where are we today in terms of how we can do exactly what you said, Colin, which is like have the Western medicine practices, but also have them

influenced by the specific things that you guys do like what are the barriers to that and kind of where are we in terms of being able to Have that more of a mainstream thing I do think we're headed in that direction and I feel there are hopeful signs out there of people working together that direction and I feel there are hopeful signs out there of people working together that there's more understanding and acceptance in a lot of communities and I think the drive is because people want it so I think a lot of people are frustrated with the limitations of western medicine or the side effects of it and are looking for alternatives. But with serious disease, that practitioner, like I would,

refer back to a medical doctor. And so I think it's going to take a long time that the barrier is misunderstanding. And I'm not sure what it's going to take to break that down, except for the people wanting it. That's a quick answer. Yeah, I mean, we're seeing it

with the sort of rise of all of these functional medicine clinics that are combining a lot of these practices. But fundamentally, I think a lot of it is going to have to do with insurance, right? Like if insurance covers this stuff, then it's going to ultimately lead to more mainstreaming of it. And Colin, remind me, we were talking the other

day and wasn't there something about insurance covering certain practices, things that you do that were like changes in how we practice medicine? Yeah, so legislation has changed around Chinese medicine in the last couple of years such that we have gained status as primary care physicians. If you have your doctoral degree in Chinese medicine, you can practice just with a master's. But as a result, a lot of the standardized testing and the board exams in Western medicine have become unbelievably difficult, which is good and bad in the sense that the national board

is asking us that we be very conversant and fluid in understanding biomedical science in Western medicine that we can communicate with Western doctors, not at the same level, but at least with a high degree of understanding, which is amazing. The downside of it is that both of these realms of medicine, we'll say Chinese medicine and Western medicine, are lifetime studies upon themselves or unto themselves. And so by having to... So I could spend the next 10 years or 20 years just studying Chinese medicine and still have a long way to go to really achieve mastery in the same way that a good Western doctor can spend 20 years studying the Western medical model and still have a long way to go. So by asking us to become that diverse, I think in some ways it's diluting our ability to

really focus on what we do best, which is Chinese medicine. So there are these rare individuals who come along and have the mind or constitution to spend 20 years just studying the two and the, the, um, places where they meet. And those rare individuals, if you're lucky enough, you find them as a teacher or mentor and you climb into their back pocket and

follow them around all day. But, um, my brother is a Western doctor. As I mentioned, he's working on a, uh I mentioned. He's working on a model that's loosely based on a model that came out of the 80s called the biopsychosocial model. So it was developed by a Western doctor, which is a more holistic model that takes into account psychology, it takes social context, job security, relationships, trauma, you trauma, all the different aspects of a person's

health. And the way that we're talking about working together is when patients come in, we round table the patient with a number of competent practitioners from different modalities and determine a treatment plan together. And the other side of it, which is that is instead of it just being, I'm the practitioner and you're the patient, we are trying to empower the patients to take their health into their own hands, to have accountability and responsibility with their health. But also then as practitioners, our growth is happening as well. So I'm continuing to learn from,

we'll say my brother or the other modalities, so that we're really developing a holistic psychology around treatment. And we're hoping that this model is effective and that we can find ways to work with insurance companies. The traditional, in Chinese medicine, the traditional way they did, quote, insurance back in the day, was you paid your local practitioner who was treating a population. And if somebody in the family got sick, they stopped, the whole family stopped paying. And so the responsibility, the onus was on the... That's really interesting. ...approach to insurance, right? So the onus was on the... That's really interesting. That's a different approach to insurance, right?

So the onus was on the practitioner to keep everybody in the family healthy. And also, you weren't just treating the one person, you were treating their whole family. Because generally, it's familial dynamics that are the most undermining or the most complex contributors to our health. I know we all have perfect relationship with our parents and our siblings and our children. But so the practitioner is treating the whole family and their job, and this is one of the strengths of Chinese, and I believe Ayurvedic medicine, is the ability to foresee things in the future and not in some mystical way. We're not looking into magic crystal balls,

but understanding patterns. But what's beautiful about that is the reversal of incentives. Right now in Western medicine, the incentive is on perpetuation of disease. Money is made through the perpetuation of disease, unfortunately. And that doesn't mean that, look, doctors are well-intentioned and people who are trying to cure diseases through pharmaceuticals are perpetuation of disease, unfortunately. And that doesn't mean that, look, doctors are well intentioned and people who are trying to cure diseases through pharmaceuticals are well intentioned, but it's just systemically we're set up where people make more money if these diseases continue, right? But if you were to reverse that and say, the money goes away when people get sick, what would that impact have on our culture?

And on insurance. Yeah, amazing. A key fundamental core principle behind both of what you guys do is that if we can bring the body into balance, if we can bring the microcosm into balance with the macrocosm, if we can balance all of our internal systems and bring them into alignment with the external systems, that the body has the intelligence to heal itself. It knows what to do, right? Which I think is super interesting. And so, and sort of part and parcel with that is that the relationship of patient to practitioner or doctor is a partnership. It's not one of I'm telling you what to do and you go do it.

It's an interplay. It's like a dance, right? And there's a responsibility that has to be shouldered by the patient, right, to go and, like, do the work. It's not just you say, you know, and then this happens. And I think it's very different from our current system, which is just give me the pill, like I just, you know, just deal with the symptom and go away. So how can somebody who's listening to this, who's never been to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, doesn't know anything about Ayurveda, what are some principles that somebody who's listening to this can take away from this discourse to go on that journey of taking more responsibility for their own health

and well-being and healing? Yeah, I think it's an essential piece of the puzzle. an essential piece of the puzzle. There is a huge change. Hippocrates is the father of medicine. And if you really study what he wrote, it's similar to Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, more similar than to modern medicine. And in his day, empowering the patient was a big part of his practice.

In the Dark Ages, I think it was, where there were witch hunts and there was a change politically where monarchs were given the rule to write through God because it was their birthright through God. And the physicians treating them were also empowered by God. And women couldn't be physicians at the time. And at that time, it was like, well, I'm in charge. I have the power because God said I'm the one. And so you need to listen to me.

That model shifted dramatically at that time and has been the model ever since. So it's an interesting like history. Cool. Okay. So taking the power back. Daily practice is maybe overly emphasized in woo-woo land and it's essential. What we do every day, following the lead of our bodies, so knowing what we need because our bodies tell us so, is your responsibility. And if you do that,

you will not have an illness. But it's bigger than that. There are genetic, I shouldn't say it, as a black and white thing. But you're much more likely to be closer to balance if you're listening to your body. So how do we get to that? Easier said than done. There's so many things that distract us away from that. I would say regular schedule. You wake up at the same time every day. You go to

bed at the same time every day. You eat at the same time. You have your biggest meal in the middle of the day when the sun is highest and your fire is the strongest. 10 o'clock, 10 p.m., there's a special thing that happens with biorhythms, where about 9 p.m. we start to feel tired. And if we don't go down and be in bed by 10, we start to go up in our energy level. And people will be like, well, I'm a night person. Well, guess what? Anyone who stays up past 10 p.m. will feel like a night person. And why is that? Because the energy that's supposed to be shunted into the body to be rejuvenating the physical body gets shunted to the brain

because the body thinks there must be a problem. A bear must be chasing me if I'm awake after this time. So we're robbing ourselves every time we stay up too late. These very simple things in terms of the rhythm of a day change everything and puts the power in your hands. Yeah, you don't have to go to bed by 10, but there are consequences and you know about it. And you already know about it.

That's the thing, right? You know, you know. But doing it is a whole nother thing. Spending time in nature. Having a morning practice where we are actually connecting with ourselves. So through meditation, that's the most surefire way of then getting in touch with the body. And this is where I'm constantly putting the power, the emphasis back on the client, the patient. Everything that she just said. I mean, I like to emphasize or to reiterate what she's saying

about developing a deeper sensitivity to your own biorhythms and to your own needs. There is a tendency right now in kind of modern dialogue around diet that there is the perfect way to do things. And I think that that is not right. I'm starting to get into unsolicited opinions.

Let me tell you. Whoa, Nelly. No, it's okay. I mean, that was one of the things I was going to get into, not to overly interrupt you, but this need, this drive that we have that's probably culturally driven to be reductionist. I mean, you mentioned reductionism earlier. It's like, as a Western society, we're reductionist

by nature. That is the, you know, the derivation of the scientific method. And we want to know, like, okay, so do I eat plant-based? Do I eat paleo? What's with the keto diet? Should I do intermittent fasting? And what's the ultimate superfood? And like all of these very specific things. And I know Jennifer's kind of refrain with this is like, well, for whom and when, right? Like all of these things have to be conceptualized in a much broader way than the way that we currently think about it. Anyway, that was my rant. Go back to what you were saying.

That was a fantastic rant. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we can go all the way back to the oracle at Delphi, right? Gnosis se autu, know thyself. That is, that works on every level of being. And it's necessary on every level of being, and it's necessary on every level of being for every human being. From the simplest thing to what does it mean

to really nourish myself, what foods support my unique constitution the best, what types of movement support me the best, some people I know can function at a very high level on five hours of sleep a night. And it's not my place to tell that person, no, you have to get eight hours of sleep and you need to go to bed. I agree. I think going to bed early and getting up early, well, small tangent. I read this article in Forbes

not so long ago where they were doing a study of a hundred people who are extremely successful based on the criteria of affluence. And the one consistent practice they were able to pinpoint was they all got up early and had some form of time for themselves. They did something for themselves. And so I do think going to bed early and getting up early is a very simple but important practice. The types of food, so this is, we'll get in a little bit. The types of food that we eat by season is a principle that nature has shown us since time immemorial. And for example, and a lot of it's really just intuitive

and kind of obvious. It's hot out right now. We're going into the summertime. So a lot of the heavier foods, foods that are, you know, pastas and root vegetables and stews and sauces and things that are nourishing and warming and supportive during the winter

months where there's not as much mobility, you're not outside as much, it's more of an inward time, it's more of a time for cultivation and time for yourself or for quietude, is no longer necessary. We need more energy, lighter foods, clearer foods, foods that are more raw foods, and also foods that are hydrating because what does heat do? If it rains and it's very hot out, the water hits the sidewalk and it evaporates, all of that heat or fire causes dryness in the body. So things like watermelon and cantaloupe and pears and celery and foods that are hydrating and nourishing and drinking two liters of water a day and is just in some ways common sense.

And probably for a long time in history that came naturally because we ate what grew during that season. But now you can eat mangoes in the middle of December in Antarctica. So the point is that a lot of it is intuitive, but it is helpful to have some guidance with people who have actually studied nutrition and studied these different modalities. And it's also, I think, customized and tailored to individuals. Different people have different needs. And it's important, you know,

to listen to that and to find some support in finding what's going to help you the most. Cool. So, Jennifer, I had a session with you yesterday. And the first thing that you did was you took my pulse and you listened for an extended period of time. And then you looked at me and you said, you're really tired. So what is happening when you're listening to my pulse? And I know this is a traditional Chinese medicine thing. And Colin's taken my pulse as well. And I've gotten feedback from him as well. So what is that art?

And what are you hearing? And how are you divining this from that practice? Vast is the word I would use for pulse. Pulse is vast. And when I'm putting my fingers on the artery in your wrist, I actually feel like I'm diving into this flow, this river of prana, which is you. And anything there is to know about you,

if I knew how to listen properly, I could find. So wow, it's huge, vast. And there are very specific techniques that we learned of, let's, in Ayurveda we have seven layers of pulse depending on how much pressure I'm placing on the vessel. If I'm occluding the vessel altogether and then I come up slightly and just feel pulsation, that's your constitution at birth. When I raise up to the top, so it's just the beginning of pulsation without much pressure,

that's the imbalance happening right now. Organs are all in between. I can feel emotional states, lots of different things. In that case, sometimes I'll just go into the pulse and I just ask. I just open myself and say, what do you have to tell me? And lots of different things will come.

But that's like a witch talking. So there is an intuitive side, but there's an objective and a subjective. If I had no access to my intuition at all, and my intuition, I feel like it comes and goes. It's cyclical. So sometimes I'm on and sometimes I'm not. If I'm not on, I have skills to be like,

okay, when I'm pressing here, this finger on this side, is there a pulsation? And what is the quality of that pulsation? And I have all these ways to have an analysis from a very objective point of view. So when you were listening to my pulse, what was it that was telling you, like, Rich is tired? So the tissue, which is called russa,

is the plasma or the lymph, and that's usually our feeling of juiciness in the world, of vitality and juiciness from a yin kind of way. It was feeling depleted. It was low, and so there was actually less of a uplift in my fingers when I went to that level. So it was an objective thing, but then I put my interpretation onto it of like, okay, why would riches resa, which is usually plentiful, which I've felt before, why would it be low? And I'm like, well, I know what the subjective, objective sensation would be of, like, exhaustion

when that is present. So I reflected it back to you. Is this the case, Rich? Are you feeling tired? So, I don't know. Does that answer the question? Yes, Jennifer, I was feeling tired. No, it's amazing.

And I've had this experience, Colin, when I went and saw you at the the clinic where you used to work host it's called hosan yosan right um not only did you take my pulse but this elderly chinese gentleman who i presume on some level is a teacher a mentor of yours who yeah like that guy like you know you were like yeah this guy could like basically tell you everything about your life by listening to your pulse yeah i know right so there's like this amazing tradition and art that dates back you know millennia with this practice and it's fascinating is there anything more you want to say about that? Yeah. I don't know about Ayurveda, how they take pulses.

I know that they're going to the same area in the radial artery. There's a reason we go to that pulse. Traditionally, we would look at pulses also at different areas in the body. But similarly, we're looking to the state of the blood. We're looking to the state of the body fluids. And we're looking to the state of the energy, the vitality, or what we call qi in the body. And also, so there's three levels of depth. And at each level, you're looking at different organ systems. So the left hand, you're looking to the blood organs, the liver and the heart, the gallbladder, we look at the small intestines and the kidneys.

And then on the right hand, you're looking more to what we'll say the Qi organs. So the lungs, large intestine, the digestive system, spleen, stomach, and then the kidneys in the right. And so, as Jennifer was saying, at different depths, you're reading different information and you're gathering different feedback. And she made a good kind of subtle point there at the end, which is that while a really skilled practitioner will gain a lot of information just from the pulse and the tongue and can base most of their diagnosis just on that, there's also a dialogue with the patient.

And that's something that is lacking in Western medicine. I don't know what the average time is, I think it's eight to ten minutes with a patient, but that's not a dialogue really with the patient. It's that you know like talking to different friends who are doctors, they're looking at a piece of paper and reading some feedback from some machines, generally speaking, and maybe checking in for a minute and then, you know, coming up with the diagnosis, prognosis, and then leaving. Whereas as you're reading the pulse and you're gaining all this information, you're also dialoguing with the patient and there is a collaborative effort happening there that's also part of the treatment. Because for a lot of people,

just talking about what's going on with them is therapeutic. And, you know, we like in a reductionist model to think the mind for the psychiatrist and the psychologist and the soul for the priest or whoever. And, you know, really it's all these things out, this collaborative effort, which starts with pulse taking, is in and of itself a therapeutic practice. So... Is there any sense at all in asking the question, like, what's most important? Because you guys are in this macrocosm, it's an interplay, it's a dance between all of these things. But when I think about

these different areas that contribute to our wellness or lack thereof, sleep, mindfulness, diet, movement, community, faith, like all of these, is there one that stands out as more important or one that is most overlooked in our culture that you think is important for people to kind of think about in a different way? Mind if I say something on that? I think it's to have a way of life. You know, we don't have a way of life, generally speaking, or we do have a way of life, but it's not really a way.

It's, you know, as one of my teachers said, you have to choose a program, or what I'm saying, a way of life. Otherwise, everybody's got a program. But if you don't choose one consciously, and you don't have a path or a practice or a way of living your life, somebody else is going to choose one for you. And that is largely going to be determined by, you know, advertising agencies and social media and whatever collective cultural trends are happening.

And those don't always have your best interests in mind. I'd say, in fact, most of them are feeding on your desire to find a sense of self through something outside of you, which is not going to, it's never going to happen. So finding a, we'll call it a program or a way of life and sticking to it and anchoring yourself to it or tethering yourself to it and following it with diligence and focus,

I think is absolutely essential to living a meaningful life and a connected life. And, you know, there are a lot of different ways of life, but finding one that really speaks to your heart and that makes sense to you is, I think, essential to navigating a very complex world that's increasingly and rapidly becoming more complex. I think it's a very astute observation. You know, if you interact with people, they'll say, oh, I'm trying this, or I'm trying that, or I'm doing this diet, or I'm like super into the climbing gym, or I'm doing CrossFit right now. But it's like, what if you were to say to somebody, what is your way of life? You know that go over at the cocktail party? So tell me

about your way of life. But in truth, that should be a question we should easily be able to answer. We should have a grip on that, right? Jennifer? I have a different angle on the same thing, and I sound like a broken record, but being established in the self. And there's lots of ways to get there. So it could be talking with a friend where it reminds you of like, oh, right, that's who I am. That's what I want to be doing. It could be

meditation. It could be being in nature. There's lots of ways to get there. But when we do that, especially, I have an experience of when I'm meditating, it's inverting the senses so that I'm focusing inward towards the self rather than looking outward to find the self. That something profound changes biologically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and biologically. So that we talk about how prana flows in the body in certain

directions. When digestion is strong, then there's a lot of energy in the center. And when we're meditating, we have a lot of energy in the center. As soon as our attention goes outside of us to look for our identity, our prana starts to flow outward, and any imbalance that's happening in the GI tract will start to carry toxins and dosha energies into circulation. That circulation of those things then lodge to create physical problems. So the antidote to that is bring your attention back to the center, and the energy will follow. Prana follows. And then all of a sudden the molecules reorient themselves to be in balance

without doing anything from the outside. It's profound. And it sounds so simple, but I can't say it enough. No, it's cool. It reminds me of what Julie was talking about the other day about like being a Jedi. Like the Jedi is not leaking his or her energy to seek validation externally. The Jedi knows exactly what the Jedi is doing and is very

conscious of containing their energy and not leaking it, right? The power is in that containment. Exactly. And being in your still point in the center. Well, let's open it up to you guys. Who has a question they would like to ask? So I think with Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, we have the knowing that everything that we need is already here. But I think for a lot of people, getting to be able to work inside a daily practice is really tough.

Because if we want to be able to feel, we have to be able to try and stop thinking. And one of the biggest challenges in modern society is overthinking. So really interested to know from you guys, what is the basic, simple advice that you give to people to develop a meditation practice? Because for a lot of people listening, it's a huge thing. So how do you break it down to its most basic form and develop something really simple that you can continue to show up for every day? Yeah, it's a great question. continue to show up for every day? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the current state of humanity is lost in thought.

You can see it if you are communicating with people or just walking down the street and you're really attentive to what's going on around you. We spend most of our lives in our head. And our thoughts are generally in the future or the past and associated with some form of craving or aversion. And there's a very robust economy bustling around us that is based on continuing to maintain that state, This feeling that you need something else to be whole. So a lot of people come to me and they say, I'd really like to meditate. I think it would help me. I've got depression or anger or irritability or this thing or that thing.

Then I say, okay, so life, you have life. And they say, and I can't sit because my mind just goes crazy, so I can't meditate. And I go, that's precisely why you need to meditate. But for a lot of people, they don't have a practice. So I was talking about a way of life recently, and you say, well, you can't just make up a way of life, which I would agree with.

There are some very profound traditions that have been on this planet for a long time that can provide the structure and framework for what a way of life is. Of course, for me, I have a practice of tea. And that means just to try to do one thing at a time. One description of Zen is doing one thing at a time. And that could be as simple in life as creating a space in between your activities. So try to eat a meal. We ate a meal in silence the other day, and it was probably pretty weird for a lot of people because we're mechanized to, or we're conditioned to do things quite mechanically. The know, the way that we drive a car, we don't think about it. You know, sometimes it terrifies me when I drive from one

location to the next, and then it occurs to me that I don't even remember how I got there. And I was like, well, who's driving the car? That was, that's a little, you know, scary. It is possible to navigate the entirety of life mechanically and asleep unconsciously. That begs some questions, which is who then is living your life if you're kind of going through the motions? Some people go through the motions and become extremely successful, which is also, you know, begs other questions. So what does it mean to actually establish oneself in a practice that they can carry into their life and they don't need to go disappear to some monastery or something?

I would suggest a really good place is to start with drinking three cups or bowls of tea in the morning when you wake up and to do that without your phone or any technology around you and to bring the totality of your attention to what you're doing. So feeling the texture of what you're handling, learning to study water and fire and some of these basic things that we've forgotten. One saying I heard recently was we've forgotten our dependence on nature because we turn a tap and the water comes out, we turn a flip a light switch, the lights turn on. Everything is so convenient and so easy

that we've actually forgotten what it means to be alive in a lot of cases. So doing one thing, whatever your practice is, which, you know, it could be combing your hair. It doesn't really actually matter what the thing is. It's how you do it. But doing it with the entirety of your attention, with awareness of your body, and making some effort to allow your mind, your emotions, and your body to operate as one unit, which is way harder than it sounds, you know? And that's why it's called a practice. A practice, by definition, is something you have to do over and over and over again. And over time, that starts to change in some subtle

way. So, you know, this sort of work for attention, which is being stolen from us all the time, this work for consciousness or attention, it's an abstract practice. You know, it's not, we would like to think in the world of Googles and apps that if you meditate for 22 minutes a day and imagine the blue light and think about this thing, then after 22 days, you're going to have some transcendent experience or achieve something. But it doesn't work that way. We never know what's going to happen. That's where faith comes in.

You have to have faith that if you continue to do something and something in you knows this is good for me, it will ultimately at some point lead to a deepening in the quality of beingness with which you're living. So enough of that rant, but that's what I have to say. If I could just editorialize there for a second. I mean, what I kind of take away from what you just said is that rather than, in response to Justin's question, rather than think about meditation as something that you do discreetly for a period of time throughout the day that is separate from how you're living your life. It's taking the idea of meditation and mindfulness and attention and bringing that into your awareness throughout your day. And with practice, becoming more proficient at just being somebody who's paying attention all the time, right? As

opposed to, oh, here's my 20 minutes. Ping. Okay, I did that. Now I go live my life. Is that fair? Yeah, I'd say that's fair. And it's so much harder than you've just made it sound. Sure. And also that 22-minute process is also part of how you develop that awareness for the rest of your day. Yeah. I would say without an actual practice of meditation, the idea of, I'm gonna integrate this into the prosaic moments of my life is almost impossible, especially because we live in such a profoundly distracted reality that without having a very rooted anchored well well-versed or well tread baseline and reference point I think it's almost impossible it's it's an idealistic

nice idea that you're going to find it in these moments in the day. You know, but you can try to sort of hack it a little bit in the sense that you could sit down to a meal with the intention of in between every bite. You know, like one advice for how to eat is, or like, you know, when you ask, like, what do I eat? One is chew, chew, chew your food. So in between bites, I eat really fast, like a barbarian lunatic. But so I was like, I need to try to eat more mindfully because the food we're putting in our body is the basis of all of our nourishment and metabolic function. because the food we're putting in our body is the basis of all of our nourishment

and metabolic function. So I, for a long period of time, would attempt to put my fork down in between every bite. I can't tell you how many meals, when I was really consciously trying to do that, I'd eat the entire meal and be like, oh, fuck.

I totally forgot what I intended to do. So I switched to chopsticks. That helped, you know? That helped because it was harder mechanically. So you can... Like I take, for example, my girlfriend and I, which this is a secret of intimacy as well, we don't allow our phones in our bedroom. Because our tendency is to check out all the time.

It's easier. But what is going to allow us greater happiness and connection is not to check out. It's more consciousness, more awareness, more connection. And so in order to achieve that, sometimes we have to fake it till you make it or find ways of, you know, leave the phone out of the bedroom, then you have to connect with your partner or meditate or whatever. So, you know, finding

little tricks sometimes can be helpful, but ultimately we have to do it for itself, not because we've created some weird rule, you know. Jennifer. So everything that he said. Jennifer. So everything that he said. And just a couple things to add to that. The goal of continuous mindfulness is beautiful. Yes. Yes. And to start with a small practice that seems doable, manageable, as we break our addictions to our screens and to looking outside of us for validation. The body is going to help. So sensation, focusing on the sensation of the body is a good place to start. We can't be in our minds when we're feeling our bodies. We can. We can do both. But anyway, it's a good place to start. Sensation, sensation, sensation will force somebody who lives from the neck up to take a little glance down. Breath is another thing.

Breath work, pranayama, there's so many yogic techniques that are there for humanity for a reason. They are a way in. So asana, pranayama, it's the foundation to learn how to settle the body and the mind enough in order to sit and then get still. So asana is the first thing. If you look at the eight limbs of yoga, it goes in a progression and it doesn't go, oh, samadhi's first. No, samadhi's last. Asana's first, pranayama. We need to learn how to breathe and we need to learn how to sit and that our body is flexible and comfortable enough that we're in our bodies enough that we can sit to then still our minds. And profound, pranayama, every emotion is connected to a specific type of breathing, a pattern of breathing. And so I know when I'm sitting in front of my client

and I want to gain rapport, I match their breath. And what that does automatically, because I'm a human, is that I start experiencing the emotion that they're experiencing. Because every breath is connected to, every emotion has a specific breath. So if we learn how to slow that breathing down, we actually, our emotions will follow.

That's wild. I'd never heard that before. That every breath, every emotion has a specific breath. That's sort of like the pulse, right? Right. Yeah. And every emotion, whoa, that just got really loud. Every emotion is associated with and has an effect on a different organ.

So people who are suffering chronically from grief or sadness, it's not surprising then that their lungs become weaker and they're more prone to respiratory infection or diseases. So to think that our emotions are not having an influence and effect on our physiology is completely bananas. So you talked a little bit about how, like in treating cancer, Western medicine and your practice can be complementary.

I'm curious if there are certain diseases where both Chinese and Ayurvedic are complementary, or are there certain conditions where Chinese is better suited than Ayurvedic or vice versa? Chinese is obviously so much better than I have been. Yes, absolutely. I think that they complement each other, can be used interchangeably. One thing that I do recommend is if you decide to work with a practitioner, that you should stick with them for a while, that it can be confusing to get too much information. And that's the only thing that would say, oh yeah, pick one or the other. Because I think that they're beautifully harmonious and can be used simultaneously. I use both myself. But it can be confusing if there's too much input with just slightly different wording.

Yeah. One of the reasons that the modern medical, Western medical establishment has disavowed at times or not taken seriously Ayurvedic or Chinese medicine is that a patient can come in, two patients can come in with very similar symptoms and receive totally different treatments, different herbs, different acupuncture points, or other modalities that we use. And for Western medicine, it's if two people come in, isn't there an ubiquitous way that you have to treat both these people? And the answer is no. For whom and when? Yeah, for whom and when and under what circumstances. And we're taking a lot of things into consideration when we determine a treatment protocol.

And that's also something that's going to change over time as you develop a relationship with a patient and really get to know them as a human being. The types of treatments are going to evolve and change and shift. And so there's not just one size fits all, which is kind of the basis in a lot of ways of Western medicine is everybody who comes in with X condition, you give them X. And dosage oftentimes might not even vacillate that much. And that causes some problems over time. Well, it's also, it's buttressed and fortified by our overly

litigious society, right? So when you have a system that's just trying to cover its ass and avoid getting sued, you want to make sure like, okay, I'm the medical practitioner. Somebody comes in with problem X. We have to ensure that they undergo a battery of all these tests. So if something goes wrong later, we can say we did all of this, right? And if you're having patients come in with similar symptoms and you're giving them different protocols, that's inherently problematic within the way that we kind of think about these things. So standard of care, yeah, exactly. So here we go. Let's go with, I want to hear what Gemma has to say as a Western medicine doctor. Hi, is it on? Yeah. Well, firstly, I just want to say thank you

so much for the session because I've had a lot of curiosity and I find it fascinating that there are so many correlations between what you both do. Secondly, I wanted to just say about how important it is as a GP in the UK to try to integrate some of the principles that you've talked about. When I see patients, they're often looking for something. They come in with a symptom, they're expecting a solution, and they know deep down, as well as I know deep down, that I'm not going to be able to offer them a solution within 10 minutes. They're looking for a doctor, they're looking for a priest, they're looking for a friend, they're looking for a relative, they're looking for everything in that consultation, whether they know it or not. So it provides a challenge and it's really good for me to learn a bit more about how I could step up to that challenge in different ways.

My thoughts are that what you said earlier about learning is very true. I've spent a long time learning Western medicine and I can see a lot of its gaps now that I've spent so long in it and practiced it. And I feel as though if I was to learn more about Chinese or Ayurveda, it would take me another lifetime, two lifetimes, three lifetimes to be proficient in it. But where I see the, you're asking about how to integrate these principles into everyday life for people. The way I see it working in medicine is through the lifestyle medicine movement, yes, but also through an understanding of epigenetics and microbiome that is the way in which the principles that you learn so much about can become more palatable both I think to the

medical profession and to the public when you talk about how your breathing and your sleep and your nutrition affects your genetic makeup in each and every moment this is something that is now starting to get measured and it's starting to really become an area of deep scientific research and the same with the microbiome where you're you talk about the macrocosm and the microcosm and the same thing applies to the gut you're talking about how what you're eating contributes to your epigenetics and what you're eating contributes to your well-being and it's the same thing like what you're putting into your gut and the biology within your gut and how that then manifests in illness that's something that people can begin to understand when they

have a more so-called scientific mind and that's maybe something that can bridge the gap between so-called modern medicine and ancient tradition, I think. Yeah, thank you. That's great. I think, yeah, I agree with you. And I think it's getting to that age of personal healthcare now, which is great. So our diagnosis is becoming so much more specific, you know, as we're collecting big data and AI and everything else. And it seems that we're on this inflection point in the next couple of years where medicine and personal

healthcare is going to really take off. Taking a step back from that, I think it still comes back to that core thing that you guys were talking about before, you stated some theories as far as finding yourself and those quiet impulses that just don't go away and if you don't give them the attention, then they are going to roll up in certain toxins and sickness in your body. Be interested to hear your personal experiences, if you will, and if you feel comfortable.

You know, I look at Rich and I think, you know, finding he found himself perhaps in ultra, it seems, and that was his meditation. That's who he was. Are you willing to, and you could add to this too, Rich, if you wouldn't mind, your personal experience in what you do today, and it seems you're very centred. Both of you have this aura about you that you're comfortable with where you're at. What was your journey?

What switched you? Because I think people then relate to, oh, shit, yeah, I feel that way, or that impulse, oh, that's how you got there. So if you wouldn't mind sharing your stories, I think that would be great. I was born on a snowy night. Yeah, well that's...

Sure. And I don't know what the most salient details are that you would like to know about because that's a big question like what's where You know, I'm a crazy person. So I've like traveled a lot and I've done a lot of things so And I know you know, she's hanging out in India and Wyoming and so is there something could you refine that a little bit and ask something more specific? So there must have been an inflection point in your own life or something that forced you to make some big changes rather than being a nice linear thing from when you were born. Where was it that there was a sort of point

where you got to be thought, something's not right, I've got to change it, and how did you go about finding, I guess, who you want to get close to? Yeah, I mean, just to really drill this down and distill it, like, and knowing both of you, you know, Colin, you grew up in a very traditional family, you know, structure. So what was it specifically, if you know, that compelled you to take this kind of left-of-center path?

And then similarly with Jennifer, like, what drew you to Dr. Vasant Lod? You know, like why were you compelled to study underneath this pioneer or this legend of Ayurveda? You know, what do you think was within you that drew you to this calling? Yeah. Really two things. The first being that when I was quite young, when I was 16, I had a couple experiences that begged the question, what's wrong. And what I mean by that is I've got an annoyingly inquisitive mind, and I felt like there was just something off in my internal functioning in terms of the

relationship between my mind, my emotions, and my body, because it seemed to me that they could all be doing totally different things simultaneously, or that I would have some intention or some aim, something I wanted to do, and then it would get hijacked, and I'd find myself doing something else in the same day and couldn't quite understand how that happened. Or I'd have a feeling about something, and that feeling would change maybe in a short period of time without my even noticing or understanding why that was happening. So it all, I started to ask this question of like

what's going on inside? There's this interior life that seems to be happening that's very mysterious to me and that's happening involuntarily. It seems very active, and it has a life of its own, another life than the life that I seem to be living. And there's something about it that doesn't seem to be quite right, namely that I'm not here for a lot of what's happening. And then who is this here that's supposed to be here for this? So this is my life, and this thing is happening, and there's degrees. There's my external reality. There's all these things happening internally, and then there's this awareness that can actually

ask those questions. To me, that was a really curious situation, that all those things seem quite separate, and that it all seemed to be happening like a dream, like I wasn't aware of really what was happening. And that got me asking a lot of big questions. And then my grandfather, who was a devout Catholic his entire life, gave me a book, Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. And when I was 15, and I read that book, and one of the basic premises is that there's no such thing as a self. I said, well, that's a wild concept. And so that led to, again, more and more questions.

And then I studied Asian religious studies and philosophy and was trying to answer some of these questions in university. And that led to the study of Chinese medicine and to an interest in herbalism and the ideas of health and healing and what is this self and why are humans suffering and why do we insist on bombing each other and going to war and trying to wipe out the existence of other cultures. I just had a lot of questions. And for me, Chinese medicine and Taoist thought offered a lot of, after looking at a lot of different traditions,

offered a lot of suggestions that felt really, they filled in a lot of holes for me personally. And when I realized that I could study that and actually use it as a means of supporting other people in their healing process, that seemed like a really great idea. And that combined with, I was working on a company with some people in my 20s

and got very, very ill. And that was the final. And there was no solution, Western, Eastern, anybody. And it was ultimately a Chinese doctor who helped me. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I don't know. Is that the right way to say that right there? Maybe that healed the camel's back. It was the straw that made the camel feel complete. It was the necessary impetus for me. Powerful straw. Yeah. It was the necessary piece for me to say, let me stop flirting with these ideas

and actually engage them in a very serious manner. Beautiful. I think I came in feeling really connected to nature. So that was a way in for me. I didn't know how different I was from my family until I was much older. I also had a lot of questions. Seeker, like I knew that I wanted to be helpful.

I wanted to help in some way. And then I got to the question like, well, who am I to be helpful? What could I offer? I don't know. I noticed one summer, I think it was a summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, I feel that I'm compulsed to do a whole number of things, and what would happen if I just didn't do them? So I was kind of doing these yogic things without knowing the context. I was just making it up. I'm like, okay, when I have a feeling,

knowing the context, I was just making it up. I'm like, okay, when I have a feeling, I want to eat something, I want to call my friend. It was before cell phones, so I wasn't on my cell phone. But I was noticing all the ways that I would avoid myself. And I spent a whole summer basically locked in my room most of the time trying to be. So I was asking these questions and I didn't have really clear answers, but I was working the material. I'm like, okay, I want to be helpful, but I don't even know how to help

myself. So let's see what is in here? Who am I? What's going on? So that journey progressed and I felt like lots of things chose me. I was asking the questions of like, what is human and what is culture? So I was studying anthropology. I became an environmental educator. So I was like, okay, our relationship. Okay, I know I'm all about relationship. This is really important. This is a thread I'm going to keep pulling on. I don't know where it's going to lead me, but my relationship with people are number one. And my relationship with nature? No, no, that's number one. No, no, that's number one. No, no. So equally important. So that was propelling me in my journey, and I was growing. But what really changed everything to make it a full, committed, embodied experience is a breakdown. experience is a breakdown. So once I had studied Ayurveda, I had found that there was a name for all these questions that I had and that I was an environmentalist and a body worker and I thought

this makes no sense. It's one path. Why do I have two careers? I picked up a book and started reading. I'm like, oh, there's a name for it. So I was practicing Ayurveda before I knew it existed. So I went and studied formally, was super jazzed, loved it, but at the time they told me, this is illegal, you can't practice it, because we're about 20 years behind politically from Chinese medicine, because the Nixon era opening the door to China trade, there was all kinds of political things that went through to help practitioners practice, and there's never been an equivalent. So there's people trying to catch up now. But anyway, it was like, you can't use herbs, and you can't practice. No, it's illegal in every state to practice Ayurveda. So I'm like,

what am I doing? But I just had to follow the thread. So anyway, I'm trying to be a practitioner, and it means educating. You don't diagnose and prescribe. Be very careful in your languaging. educating. You don't diagnose and prescribe. Be very careful in your languaging. You can only educate. Okay. And while I was going through that process, I decided I needed Western medicine in order to marry the two to be safe to practice legally. And, you know, back in my mind, I totally wanted the validation of my family. They thought I was crazy, following all these weird things. I'm like, who are you? Why don't you just settle down and get a job? So I thought, okay, if I'm a

physician's assistant, that was like the quickest way to get a medical degree. And I could combine the two. That would make it safe to practice. And I would get the validity of this title. And my parents would be so proud. They could actually brag about me. So there was motivation. I didn't even realize that was running when I made that choice, because I have a very strong mind. I'm a good student.

I'm like, this will be great. This is fun. I love getting the knowledge. So I went fully into that. I became an EMT to get my clinical hours. I was fully in my schooling when my body said no. My left hand side of my body stopped working. I couldn't take one more step.

So I had paraplegia, one-sided paralysis, basically, and weakness. And they said, oh my goodness, it looks like you had a TIA, a micro stroke. Basically, I blew a fuse. I was trying to single-handedly bridge the world. Because when I was in my genetics class, I'm like, oh, oh, gunas. You know those gunas I was telling you about?

There's one-to-one relationship. And every strand of DNA has to start with a command to make the protein. So it has to be a motion that does that. And so it has to be the Guna called Chala. And it was like, oh my God. So I was, I blew a fuse. How old were you when you had your micro stroke? I was 35. Wow. So I didn't have a micro stroke. They didn't know what it was. They did some more testing. And in the end, they diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis. And the doctor, he was a young doctor, newly not really practiced at giving bad news.

He was very gingerly telling me about, well, there's this thing called myelin sheath. And I was like, oh, shit, I know what you're saying. Before he used the words, I knew what it meant and started crying. Thought it was the end of my journey, my life. I thought, okay, that means I definitely can't travel anymore. That means I'll probably end up in a wheelchair. That means, that means, that means. I had this whole story. And I thought, you know, I was devastated. The next, they were also encouraging me to do all kinds of Western things and I'd already had my

Ayurvedic training. So luckily I said, no, I did say, okay, I know I have an inflamed brain right now that's causing the half of my body not to work. So I'm going to take some steroids. I'm not into steroids. I'm going to take them. I think it's a good idea to lower this inflammation. But I was negotiating with the doctor. He's like, so you're going to need six days of intravenous steroids. And I'm like, how about one? He's like, how about five? How about two? So I think I ended up with three. And it took me about two years to gain full strength. So six months to recover from the steroids. And then I went full into, like, this practice I believe in, Ayurveda,

I'm going to do that, and I went Panchakarma every year. I did all of my practices of what I know to heal the body and rejuvenate the nervous system, and I didn't believe the diagnosis, and to this day, I think it was a misdiagnosis. I'm not saying that I treated and healed myself of MS. I'm saying I think there was a misdiagnosis and I healed myself from whatever that was. Because since then, I haven't had any symptoms at all.

And I've refused to go down the Western medical route because it just didn't feel right for me. Not that I had... medical route because it just didn't feel right for me. Not that I had... It's powerful. It's amazing. So what is the... Let's presume for a moment that the diagnosis was correct. What is the Western medicine prognosis for somebody who is diagnosed with MS?

There's different forms of MS. It's a very unpredictable disease. So my neurologist would probably say, no, you still have it. It just hasn't caught up with you yet. So you could have degenerative or acute. So it could be that I lose eyesight at one point and I could heal some. I could lose the function of one hand and then it could come back. And that over time, when you get to an older age especially, that those things don't recover. That you slowly lose function of each body part.

Both strength, sensation, and nervation. Many people die early because of MS. Many people are in a wheelchair either sporadically or permanently. The Western medication that they were recommending me at the time,

things change really quickly and I think there are better options now to moderate the... It's an autoimmune disease so trying to control the immune response is part of the process. But I was instructed to take a medication that I would be injecting myself every day and that I would be guaranteed to feel like I have the flu with a 30% chance of reduced lesions in the future. And I thought, even if I have MS, I don't like those odds. A 30% chance to feel sick all the time. I'd rather have a quality of life. Thanks for sharing that. I'm a Western-trained doc too,

and I've been doing it for over 30 years. Unlike you guys who think that there's the miracle of Western medicine, I'm a total cynic, complete cynic. And Gem and I had a good conversation on the way home from Siena yesterday. Colin, you said that the emotions is, I really believe that this is all about consciousness. And consciousness and energy are together. And even what you guys are talking about, I mean, I'm such an advocate for the truth of complexity. And anytime we're reducing, we're getting into a reductionist perspective, even if it's from the subtle plane. I think if we expand further to what the truth is about complexity, I think we're probably getting closer and closer to the capacity to heal fully. I agree with you. I think they'd misdiagnosed. I think that the problem is about

trauma and emotions. And it's not only from, it could be from today, it could be from childhood, it could be from other lifetimes, it could be from other entities that are going on around us now. I really believe that. I know that sounds like witchcraft, but I've seen it happen in a lot, a lot of patients when the awareness comes to, you know, really comes to fruition, that you get immediate healing. I mean, really immediate. And it looks like miraculous stuff, but it's, I think it's, I don't think it's a miracle because I just think it's, you can call it a miracle if you want to look at it that way,

but I just think it's reality. And being able to let that in, and we talked to some about, at the Tea Ceremony, about that non-dual place, and it's hard. It's hard to get to because we're so enmeshed

with all of our patterns, our psychological patterns, you talked about the things that society brings, throws at us constantly. But I think we're vulnerable to that because of the earlier patterns and the other patterns that are present. And if we, and Western medicine and unfortunately most forms don't really get to the psychological and the energy and the emotions that are associated with that. And I think that's really, it kind of makes me crazy. Even for the plant-based docs, which I have tremendous regard for around lifestyle, most of them are not mind-body

people. And I think it's really critical to be able to synchronize all of that, to be able to come up with the most effective, most powerful healing. Because I think everybody has the capacity to heal because it's all there. It's all perfect. And it's just allowing it to happen, getting out of the way. Any thoughts on that before we go to the next question? I'll say one thing. I mean, thank you for sharing.

That was awesome. And there's a lot to thing. I mean, thank you for sharing. That was awesome. And there's a lot to say, I think, in response or to explore. There's tremendous amounts to explore there. One thing I would say is that a static, fixed, rigid model of reality or of the human experience of human health is just that. It's static and it's fixed and it's rigid. And if to some degree it works, we have a tendency in our hubris as human beings to say, this is the truth. This must be the truth. But we've said that throughout history over and over and over again about all sorts of totally absurd things and then rectified that stance later on when we find a better solution. And so it's kind of a curious thing of why we can't seem to get that straight, to be a little more fluid and open to

possibilities, because there are levels of reality, and not to get too far out, but each of these are models. They're stories, ultimately, that human beings tell. Human beings are, by our nature, storytellers. From the beginning of man's ascent in the development of consciousness, if you go all the way back to the caves in France, we tell stories. And all of our different disciplines are stories. And some of them are really good stories, but they're still stories. And they're still evolving. And when you look at the basis of a reductionist model, you can go all the way back to Euclidean geometry, up through, you know, Newtonian physics into Cartesian duality. If, you know, ergo sum cognito, right? I think therefore I am. So thought is given the primacy as the absolute mark of what it means to be a human being and to exist. And if you go up through the reductionist model, it's based on some fundamental assumptions about reality and about

man's place in it that we don't question that much anymore. We go, oh yeah, this is definitely the case. And I'd like to suggest that we should really hold a lot of those up to the light of inquiry and skepticism and faith and consider that there are other models, other stories that are necessary and should be integrated into that, to a larger metanarrative that would allow us to, as a species, move forward in a good direction. Especially with the advent of the technologies that are coming out right now, because it's starting to raise ethical questions

that we should be asking and we are not. Should we do these things? And ethics is another world. But if we're not asking those questions, we'll continue in a mechanical way and likely become the endangered species. I feel like we do kind of ask those questions, but it doesn't really matter

because the gestalt of progress is inevitable. Like we're moving forward no matter what whether we ask the questions or not yeah okay all right so the question here colin jennifer thanks for this you have in front of you someone who when he goes to a doctor because of i impatient i'm the impatient patient and asked how many antibiotics he needs and it tells me six I'd say can I take eight just to speed it up because and I know it's wrong but but it's a reality because if if I have a for example a sinus infection and I can't breathe properly that means I can't swim I can't run so it's as much as I know that ideally, and thanks to my wife,

who's the opposite of me, I know there are natural remedies that can help, and there's the lifestyle. But then when you have an injury, when you have something, the impatience to treat it, because it's a balance of impatience and trust because then not treating it it's putting me in imbalance on the other side because if I can't train for example it's putting me in imbalance and

and this is where I struggle this is where I know that turmeric is a natural anti-inflammatory. For example, correct me if I'm wrong, but then when I have an injury, then I find myself going rushing to the pill. If I have a migraine, then okay, I know that the lifestyle you need, but it's easier said than done.

When you have something and it's easier said than done. When you have something and it's limiting you from other things, then when do you resort? And I don't want to simplify it, but it's a reality I face. And we live in a life of instant gratification because of technology and this. And sometimes

these quick fixes, I don't know if it's placebo or not, work. I know they might be doing other damage, but yeah, that's where I struggle. So yeah, that's my question point. And I've had tea with you last Tuesday.

And I've had my pulse on Tuesday. Yoga need run between. I don't get many Tuesdays like this in my life so yeah hmm it's a good question and that so much in the western model is very

much pitta and in the Ayurvedic system pitta is driven, focused competitive and really identity is connected to achievement In the Ayurvedic system, pitta is driven, focused, competitive. And really, identity is connected to achievement. So this is a pitta model. It's not the only one.

There are other ways to live life. You know you live with one. Your wife. So it's good to have the self-awareness that that is your drive to get back to training because then you can feel accomplished and that your identity is attached to it. And I just want to suggest that identifying with anything outside of us leads to suffering. So it's worth taking a moment to just consider like, hmm, what would happen if you weren't an athlete? The identity

of athlete. What would happen? You know, just what would happen? And that I believe that when we have injury and illness, that the body is speaking to us and it could mean anything. I don't know what it means for you, but that is time to listen. And sometimes the message is to slow down, not to train. I'm not saying that is the truth for you. I'm just saying that's one possibility. So something to consider. Yeah, I would submit that perhaps you should question your premise, submit that perhaps you should question your premise, your premise being that your inability to train puts you out of balance, but it is the imbalance that led to the injury, and the injury

presents the opportunity to re-evaluate what you're doing and to create a balance to prevent injury in the future. And I say that as somebody who identifies completely with where you're doing and to create a balance to prevent injury in the future. And I say that as somebody who identifies completely with where you're coming from. I understand that mentality. You know, it's push, push, push. And then when you tell me I can't, it's like, all right, well, how quickly can I get back to doing that thing that I want to do that I identify with that is part and parcel of who I am that makes me feel whole and yet to do that is to be blind to what is right in front of you which is this opportunity to grow

to like to expand beyond that sense of who you are to perhaps get a glimpse of something greater Also, just one point on the medical aspect of that. It's interesting to think about the unintended consequences of causing antibodies. Because there are lots of studies now that show that the more doses of antibiotics we take, it's not just about, you were saying, about antibody resistance, but it's also about future disease risk. yn dweud am y cyfres o ddod o hyd, ond hefyd am risgiau canfod y dyfodol. Mae llawer o bobl ddim yn gwybod hynny. Dwi ddim yn gallu cyfathrebu'r cyfran o ran y cyfran hwn. Byddai'n dweud, o hyd, rhwng 10-14 o achosion o adegau anhygoel yn yr amser byw,

neu'n cynyddu yn fwy drwy gwasganu caner ganer, ac yn ymwneud â cancer yn ymwneud â'r gwasganu eraill, a'r gwahanol anaflion y byddech chi ddim yn gallu eu cyfathrebu yn union, ac yn cael cysylltiad â'r achosion honno. Ond, o'r bwysig, oherwydd y newid o ran genhedlaethau, you have any connection with that course of treatment? But ultimately because of the changes in the biome, the genetics and all the bigger questions of self, you have to think about the unintended consequences of the fast pace. I've struggled with that question myself quite a bit.

And like Gemma was saying, I think it's hard always for us to understand the consequences of the quick fix. The reality is that most pathological states that we arrive at, we don't get there overnight or in a moment. Unless it's an acute injury or trauma. Like Jen was saying, if something happens, we've usually gotten there after a long series of little decisions that have led to us arriving at

that place. Of course, there are genetic conditions and injuries and that kind of thing. But we expect that something... We only see the doctor when we're in bad shape, which kind of flies in the face of what I was saying earlier about you stop paying the doctor when you get sick. So we also expect that if we have something going on, it's going to be fixed very quickly and we've become conditioned to think that that's the way it is. Whereas typically, it's going to take at least half as long as it took for us to get to that state to remedy it and to come back to a state of balance. And so, people think like Chinese medicine or Ayurveda or complimentary care of some

sort, it's not fast enough, it takes too long. What do you mean I need to take these herbs and change my diet for a year or six months or something? And that's the biggest issue I have in my practice is patient compliance. You know, for like three days, they're amazing superstar patients. And then it's, have you taken your herbs? Have you, you know, why haven't I seen you in two months? And they wonder why, they wonder why whatever's going on hasn't improved at all. And I say, well, this isn't magic. You have to actually comply with it. And it's harder. It requires showing up. Plant medicine requires participation. You have to be engaged in the healing process. And we don't, again, we don't really want to engage in something

because it requires work. Yeah, go. So in Ayurveda, we say that the root cause of all disease and maybe not all, not if it's genetic, but primarily all diseases is called

prajnaparad, and that means crimes against wisdom. Crimes against wisdom. Wait, prajnaparad, how do you say that? Prajna. Prajna. Parad. Parad.

Parad. It sounds Russian. It sounds great. Crimes against wisdom. So the tiny decisions we make of like, I know I shouldn't eat ice cream, but it's so good, I'm just going to have a little, it's a tiny pragnaparatha. And that those add up to creating illness. And that sometimes it's the small things that are about pleasure,

and sometimes it's a bigger thing that's about identity. And that's harder to get to. But that's what I was speaking to. Where when I had my episode where my body said no, all I was thinking about is how can I get back to class? I'm missing my final. What? My body just said no. So I actually had one of my mentors, I called one of my Ayurvedic teachers and said,

okay, okay, how do I heal as fast as possible so I can get back to my PA program? And she's like, you might want to reevaluate everything. And I did. And what I came to the conclusion is that I was pushing, my body was telling me, I was pushing in the wrong direction, that that wasn't my path. As much as I honor, respect, and love Western medicine ideas, and I'm grateful for the knowledge that I gained, it's not my path.

Mine is the softer path. Mine is the feminine side. And it was my feminine side that said no and went down. So anyway, that was me reassessing my identity in order to get back on my path and be really who I was meant to be, who I am meant to be. Cool.

So we have time for one more question before we have to wrap this up. So who's got the burning desire? Super awesome question. A lot of confidence over there. Are you sure? Pressure. Yeah.

Hi, guys. Thanks for that that sorry it's burning for me because hasn't really been mentioned as much because i feel like we've been addressing sort of disease in the physical sense but i'd love to get some insight into your different practices understanding of mental illness and i'm not talking sort of as a symptom to sort of depression or anxiety as uh lifestyle choices and things but sort of as a symptom to sort of depression or anxiety as lifestyle choices and things, but sort of seemingly asymptomatic mental conditions. For example, when I was 11, I had a psychotic break like out of nowhere. And my parents didn't know what to do.

So I was taking, I think, a cocktail of 13 different antipsychotics for five years. So Lord knows what that did. psychotics for five years so lord knows what that did um and i've sort of been trying to understand so from a spiritual and western and eastern understanding of where this comes from and how to treat it um without much progress um so yeah any insights you have into that from your different practices yeah that's of's, of course, an amazing question. And it's also the response to it. The question's multifaceted and the response is multifaceted. And we can't address it, obviously, in its entirety here because it's a big one.

And there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen. There are a lot of voices in trying to answer that question. A lot of different approaches because if I'm understanding correctly and clarify, it's maybe from our perspective, how do you address psycho-emotional distress or illness, basically. So in Chinese medicine, we call that Shen disturbance. So, it fits into a category of what we call Shen illness, Shen imbalance, or Shen disturbance. The Shen is really the spirit. And without getting into a whole Taoist cosmology and exploration of what the microcosm is, there is an idea that

there is at some point some wounding. And some of this work I'm finding echoed in the work of Dr. Gabor Mate. Have you done a podcast with him? I certainly have, Colin. You need to listen up and pay better attention to what's going on. So I've been paying attention to some of his ideas and some other modern thinkers who are talking about authenticity, they're talking about connection,

and they're talking about early trauma in life. And that trauma might not ostensibly... Oftentimes we have very traumatic experiences that aren't violent or vicious, or they can be very subtle. They can be family dynamics that are unspoken. They can be parents who haven't worked through certain issues. They could be hidden secrets in a family that are never shared with the children. They can manifest, they can be just neglect. So you could have a very loving father who travels half the year and that's perceived by the child as neglect. And their subconscious and their nervous systems are having an experience

that might not on the surface in reality correspond. So the point I'm making is that trauma can be very subtle. It can manifest in all sorts of ways. And oftentimes we develop egoic identity around those traumas. And later in life, that can manifest in a lot of different ways, even as pathological illness in the body. Why is cancer so prevalent right now? And to what extent is that related to a lot of emotional distress that as a culture, as a society, we're experiencing? So from a Chinese medical perspective, we do treat with herbs, we treat with acupuncture,

we treat with talk therapy, with communicating about what's going on because so rarely do people have really authentic conversations because they don't want to burden other people or whatever. So it's an invitation to communicate in a safe environment. But we also treat through lifestyle and through meditation and trying to go beneath some of these ideas. And the last thing I'll say without going into it is that, you know, in Eastern traditions, there's a term called samsara, which is this realm that we live in, where if we live in a constant state of trying to find our identity outside of ourselves, we are bound to both live in a state of ignorance, but also in a constant state of suffering. And so for some of these ills, what we could say psycho-emotional

ills, the remedy really is through wisdom and through, I'd say, practices of meditation and to come in closer into contact with reality as it is, not as we would like it to be. But again, that's opening kind of a can of worms where we're talking about a much bigger conversation then. So we can go offline on that. It's such a huge subject. Hard to just touch lightly on it. Because it's in the subtle realm compared to the physical body,

the practices are more subtle. We talk about creating a container for the mind, which is everything that we do. So our daily practice and our physical well-being is necessary to have the strength to have a holding place for the psyche to land. And so many reasons that it can happen. It's so individualized, as always, that trauma is often involved,

that there's some schism between the energies that they haven't blended properly. There's not a harmony between the body, mind, and soul. And why does that happen? We even go into past lives in Ayurveda. We talk about the samskara that happen in the samsara, which are patterns of what's happened to us before. So sometimes they're traumas that we can't remember because they're from another lifetime. It's complicated. But we do have treatments for it depending on what specific thing is going on, including herbs and lifestyle, yogic practices that will help create a stronger container for the mind. We believe that the mind

lives inside of the brain. The brain, either way around. It's like our mind becomes more and more crystallized and becomes a brain, which then becomes more and more crystallized and becomes the whole body. The body is crystallized mind. So there's no way to separate the two out. So working with the physical body

can help strengthen the mind and vice versa. Sorry, it's really general but that's what i've got until i have the specifics yeah cool um all right well to kind of conclude this perhaps you could uh just leave us with one thought or one practice or one idea that somebody who's listening to this can take with them and incorporate into their life and perhaps catalyze their journey into more deeply connecting with their own power to heal and serve their health? Yeah, I'll say two things briefly, which is Yeah, I'll say two things briefly, which is, one, I think in our contemporary culture, addiction is a very serious issue. Addiction to sugar, addiction to social media, addiction to food, sex, cigarettes, alcohol, movies, it's an endless cycle. And people have different ways of trying to address and treat addiction. But I found that returning back to this idea of knowing oneself

and as kind of sentimental as it sounds, really loving oneself. Through that process, loving oneself in all of our vices, in all of our weaknesses, in all of our unskillful mistakes, in all of the stupid things we've done, but returning back to this place where we have an inviolable essence that can never be undermined, it can never be taken away from or added to. That is at the core of our being. You can call it a soul. You can call it your essential nature. But that part of every human being is pure. And it's untouchable. It is pristine. And it's also

the guiding force. It's the light within us through which we can navigate our lives from a place of love and connection. And those addictions are usually are trying to transcend the self. We're trying to lose ourselves in some experience. And to come back to this place of self-love or self-care, some experience. And to come back to this place of self-love or self-care, if, for example, somebody smokes cigarettes incessantly, and I say to them, well, just quit. And they go, I've tried that. I've been trying that for 10 years. And I've tried patches and gum and all these things. And I say, well, try to come back to really connecting with and experiencing the fragility of your lungs. And like really feel them.

Take a deep breath into your lungs. And to return them back to a really visceral experience of how fragile the lungs are. They're what's drawing in air, which is fueling your entire life and your experience. One might be able to come back to a little more subtle awareness of something in themselves that they go, oh, I really want to take care of these lungs and to actually connect their behavior with themselves that's anchored in the body. That's the first thing I'll say. The second one is a little briefer, more brief, which is we live in such a hyperdrive, like go faster, bigger, more society that we've lost the capacity to relax.

And relaxation, people go, are we going to talk about relaxation right now? Like, do we need a lesson in relaxation? And I'd say if more people were relaxed, I'd say, no, probably not. But let's wrap this up. Hurry. Come on. Okay. I can speed it up here, Colin.

Hurry up, all right? It's that we hold a tremendous amount of tension in our bodies, and in a tense state, we are not porous to life itself. And so there is a great skill in the art of relaxation. And so trying to find in your day-to-day moments, this is a practice unto itself, the ability to let everything in your body relax. Come back down to this moment and come back to your core. Return to your center. Live your entire life from that place. There's incredible wisdom there. And to try to allow life in, you know, and to not live, we live our whole lives from the perspective of my life. It's so important, you know, what I'm

doing today in my practice, and I'm going to do this thing and talk to that person. And what I said, that was very intelligent, yes. And on and on and on, we live our lives through the perspective of I, me, and my. And then we wonder why this I, me, my suffers so much. The common denominator of all that suffering is the I, me, and my through which we're living our entire lives. So coming back to this place of relaxation, we become more porous and stop taking ourselves so seriously. And there's a lot of freedom in that. There's a lot of joy and openness

in that experience. So we have experience all the time of cycles, of feeling like, oh no, I get it. Wait, wait, I don't get it. Our emotions come and go. We have storms in a life.

But just like clouds in the sky, because the clouds are there doesn't mean that the sun disappeared and that your being is the sun, that you are so much bigger than everything that's happening to you. To remember that and have a regular practice every morning where you touch down with you, you have time for you,

in any way that that makes sense to you. Honor yourself, honor your beauty, honor that you are the sun that's bigger than everything you are experiencing. In addition to that, than everything you are experiencing. In addition to that, spend time every day, or as often as you can, in a natural setting. Connecting with nature reminds us of the pace at which we were born to live, and it's much, much slower than what we're doing.

So being in nature can be a beautiful reminder of the pace. And third thing, this is it, third thing. Spend time with your tribe. Environment is stronger than will. And having like-minded people that lift you up will change the trajectory of your path so much faster than anything that you can will in yourself. It's a beautiful way to land this alternative health spaceship, bringing back down to earth.

So Colin, Jennifer, thank you very much. Let's hear it for all these guys. Thank you guys. Beautiful. Thanks, guys. Thank you, guys. Beautiful. You are both a gift to humanity, and we're very blessed to have you here. So thank you, keep doing what you're doing. Thanks, you guys. I always get so much out of listening to Colin and Jennifer. Hope you guys enjoyed that. Please let them know what you thought of today's conversation. You can find Colin on Instagram at livingtea. And Jen is at bloomingayurveda on Instagram as well.

While you're at it, check out Colin's company, Living Tea at livingtea.net. Listeners of this program can get 15% his seasonal tea club which basically sends out three to five old growth hand curated rare teas and reading material that details what's special about the teas how to brew them as well as ideal foods herbs and lifestyle recommendations from a chinese medicine perspective to avail yourself of this deal enter enter RICHROLL in all caps at checkout, and that's it. Also, subscribe to the Living Tea newsletter for discounts in September when Colin returns from Asia with new teas. Again, I get absolutely nothing out of this other than the satisfaction that you will

enjoy incredible tea. Another reminder, on August 23rd in Los Angeles, I'm hosting a screening of the new documentary Running for good. It's the Fiona Oak story, uh, directed by Keegan Kuhn. Who's the director of Cowspiracy and what the health it's going to be an incredible evening. We're going to follow up the screening with a live podcast that I'm going to conduct with Keegan and Fiona herself, uh, to grab tickets, which will go fast.

Check out the show notes on the episode page for this episode. Or click on appearances, the appearances tab on my website. Or you can scroll through my Twitter or Facebook feed because I shared it there. If you are looking for additional nutritional guidance, check out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. It's such a great program. We have thousands of plant-based recipes. Everything is super customized based on your personal preferences. We have unlimited grocery lists.

We have grocery delivery in most U.S. cities. We have insane customer support available seven days a week to answer all of your questions. And it's available for just $1.90 a week. To learn more, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. If you would like to support our work, share this podcast with your friends. That's it. Or on social media, hit that subscribe button on Apple podcasts or on whatever platform you listen to this show. And that's really it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Tyler Pyatt, my son, my

stepson for audio recording in Italy, Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music, Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for graphics and theme music by Annalima. Thanks for the love you guys. See you back here and on YouTube in a couple of days with the great Nimai Delgado, Nimai Delgado to talk all things vegan bodybuilding. It's a good one. Until then, be well. Peace.

Plants. Thank you.