The Rich Roll Podcast - Zach Bush, MD Wants You To Let Go Of Your Story

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

He’s back! One of the most fascinating and popular guests to grace this platform, Today Zach Bush, MD returns for a third mind-altering bend around the multiverse. For the uninitiated, Zach's varied interests belie attempts to properly define him — but I'll give it a try. One of the few triple board certified physicians in America with expertise in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Hospice/Palliative care, he is the founder and director of M Clinic integrative health center in Virginia. In addition to his experience in functional medicine, longevity, autism, gut health, cancer, and many other areas of medicine, he is an avid environmentalist and activist involved in a multitude of projects that focus on ecology, regenerative agriculture, farmer well-being and spirituality. To advocate for soil health & food independence, Zach is also the creator of Farmer's Footprint. Seen through the lens of farmers and their communities, it's a documentary series & grassroots movement that evaluates the impact of monocrop farming and pesticide reliance on chronic disease and planetary health — while simultaneously exploring evidence-based solutions to rebuild living biodiversity and ultimately reverse climate change. But more than anything, Zach is a healer. A master consciousness. A gift to humanity. And someone I am very proud to call friend. Zach's initial appearance on the podcast (RRP 353) blew minds across the world. Our second conversation (RRP 414) was one of the most moving conversations of my life. So it just seemed right to invite Zach and his holistic health coach, consultant and yoga teacher wife Jenn Perell Bush to join us on our recent retreat in Italy. If you listened to either of our previous conversations, it would be reasonable to expect this discussion to further explore the impact of industrialized food systems on human and ecological health. However, that assumption would be wrong. Instead, we delve inside to explore our individual and collective experience with pain, both psychic and physical. We deconstruct our unhealthy obsession with comfort. We stress test the stories we craft that form our identity, stunt our evolution, and ultimately hold us hostage. And we explore a new path to freedom — liberation from that which ails us so that we can self-actualize, and together embrace our inherent divinity. Akin to the recent episode with Gemma Newman, MD (RRP 449), this exchange was recorded before a live audience of retreat attendees in Italy (thus audio only) and concludes with Zach leading a meditation, edited down for time and the sake of the listener. In closing, I want to express gratitude for our extraordinary Plantpower Italia community, who were collectively moved to donate $81,000 towards Zach’s Farmer’s Footprint organization and docu-series. On behalf of Zach, Jenn and the organization, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Peace + Plants, Rich

The cubicle you're really living in is your story. You're going to go back into an environment at home where everybody thinks they know who you are because you have very carefully created a cubicle that you show everybody. You are a multifaceted spiritual creature that has innumerable facets and faces to you. There is such beauty and complexity in you,

and yet you choose to show four faces of a cubicle. And you have created that story of your life and who you are through training. And I would say that's the biggest problem that all of us face in this room is the story that you now tell yourself of what your life has been. It's keeping you in a box. That's the great Zach Bush back for round number three. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. How are you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll.

I am your podcast host. Okay, he's back, people. Today, the man himself, one of the most fascinating, the most popular guests, by a long shot to grace this platform. Zach Bush, MD, returns for round three of the podcast. And I got to say, this one is a mind blower. For those newer to the show, Zach is many things. He is the founder and director of mClinic Integrative Health Center in Virginia. And I know he hates when people say this, but it is true. He is one of the few triple board certified physicians in America with expertise in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism,

and hospice palliative care. In addition to his work in functional medicine, longevity, autism, gut health, cancer, the list goes on and on. He is an avid environmentalist and activist involved in a multitude of projects that focus on everything from ecology, soil health, regenerative agriculture, farmer well-being, and spirituality. Along those lines, I implore all of you to check out his documentary series. It's called Farmer's Footprint. And it takes a look at the impact of glyphosate on human and environmental health, which is something we talked about in our previous episodes.

And it's done through the lens of farmers and their communities. You can view that on Zach's website, zachbushmd.com, or at farmersfootprint.us. And I'll put links to those sites in the show notes. I've said it before, but I think it's worth repeating. In my opinion, Zach is a master healer. He is a master consciousness, a gift to humanity, and somebody I'm very proud to call a friend. After Zach's previous appearances on the show, episodes 353, which was back in March of 2018, and episode 414 from January of this year, two of the most impactful and moving conversations of my life, we invited Zach and his wife, Jen Perelbush, to join us on our recent retreat in Italy. So today's conversation, which I think you'll find goes in directions quite

different from our previous conversations, is a product of that experience. 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

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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. 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 care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum 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, 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. Okay, Zach, Zach Bush, MD. So on previous episodes, we explored everything from the impact of glyphosate on degenerative disease to the importance of regenerative agriculture to what can be done to heal ourselves and the planet we share. And expanding upon those conversations, today we go in a few new and different directions. We talk about our relationship with pain, both physical and psychic. We talk about our unhealthy obsession with the pursuit of comfort, the stories we craft that form our identity and more often than not hold us hostage, and many other subjects, including some shared experiences from a group holotropic breathing experience that Julie

had taken the group through prior to the session, which I think you guys are going to find fascinating. Like the recent Gemma Newman episode, this was recorded live from our event in Italy, thus audio only, no YouTube version of this. And it closes with Zach leading this amazing meditation. And it closes with Zach leading this amazing meditation. And I should say that we edited out or truncated some of the long pregnant pauses or extended moments of silence during that meditation simply for the sake of you guys, the people that attended our Italy experience, on their own accord, have collectively raised and donated $81,000 for Zach's Farmer's Footprint organization and docuseries, which is just incredible. So immense gratitude. Thank you to all who attended and contributed. If Zach's message moves you to get involved, you can learn more and donate yourself at farmersfootprint.us. Okay, this is a deep one.

Again, perhaps a little bit different from that which you've come to expect from Dr. Zach. But I think something tells me you're going to dig it. I certainly did. So let's get into it this is me and dr. Zach Bush I've fallen in love with all you this week it's been awesome so beautiful every single one of you that I've had time to sit and talk with just blow my mind you're just beautiful talented extraordinary human beings that all walked into this week ready to fucking change everything and that's unusual

and I'm amazed by that I'm just amazed as I was just telling Rich as we were sitting here beforehand of like I've talked to people all over the world and all this but it's unusual to come into an environment where 40 plus people are here to change everything that it takes to be a better you and it's really an honor to be here and i just have extraordinary gratitude to julie and rich for including jen and i in this week it's a powerful opportunity for us to be human to show who we are and be vulnerable as well as learn from

the depth that's in this room the things that you guys experience during your breathing, the holotropic breathing is humbling to be witness to that not enough humans get to see other humans become buffalo laughter

that's true that's freaking unique and uh it's beautiful and uh i pulled the whale card um and that was an interesting journey just in reading that card and so uh these animals are one of my deepest passions as as the animals on earth and the devastating effects we've had on them in the last few decades is almost unspeakable. And I'm just so grateful that we can embody that and become perhaps part of a higher consciousness where these animals are not only respected on Earth, but they become part of us, and we become part of them. And you guys have embodied that really well. This is some of you more than others. Well, I think we can all agree that, uh, we're very blessed to have you and Jen in our presence. Uh, it's been a gift to just have you here, um, and to kind of, uh,

make today's Zach Bush day. Um, how many of you here, uh here heard one of the two podcast episodes that Zach and I did together? Yeah, almost everybody. It's a joke in our house. The regularity with which I get feedback like just months and months, you know, after like, I think yesterday somebody, you know, sent a message about it. So it's crazy how much, um, your message has connected with this audience and, uh, it's really cool, man. So I want to continue that conversation. What was interesting about what you just said, uh, about pulling the whale card. I don't know if you know this but like two days ago a giant whale i think it was a sperm whale washed on shore in italy really in italy and they discovered about 88 pounds of plastic in its gut and i think that kind of perfectly in caption you know it's like

it's interesting that you pulled the whale card you know it's like it's interesting that you pulled the whale card you know with that because it speaks to so much uh of what you're about wow that's a little overwhelming yeah wow um yeah that's very pertinent to what we would like to talk about today I think so well we let when we last left off the second podcast that we did kind of ended with this epic monologue uh that you blessed all of us with which really kind of pivoted on this theme of of the cycles of life and and rethinking you know what death means and how that impacts how we live our lives and i thought maybe you could expound a little bit on that since it was so impactful for so many people. Yeah.

And that monologue came from you, really. I mean, I do want to point that out, that much like the energy that you guys have accomplished this week, what you guys have accomplished in your self-transformations this week have come out of the space that Rich and Julie have chosen to hold for all of us to be transformative in. And that's why your podcast has become a worldwide best, is because you hold extraordinary spaces for people to find things in themselves that they didn't know was ready to be spoken. And so you gave me an avenue. And by the time somebody sits with you for 90 minutes, they don't know how they got to where they're at, that's for sure. And so that was a real tribute to what to what you do really more than myself but that that moment i think is worth

as a wonderful starting point is the monologue was based on my experience in the icu of watching patients die and then be resuscitated and give report as to what they just experienced. And it came around to this single line, which was that what they experienced, the very first thing they said in their experience wasn't about, I saw the white light or I saw Jesus or I saw this or that. They all said, I felt completely accepted for the first time in my life. And in all of the sessions that I've been in individually with many of you this week, this becomes a theme for each of us

is we don't feel seen. We feel no matter how much we do or produce, we feel unseen and therefore unrecognized and therefore unaccepted. And we go through all kinds of ridiculous social machinations to try to reconnect and get some sort of affirmation from each other that we are seen or respected or loved and it's ethereal and it's a chasing after the wind because ultimately the human mind is no more capable of seeing you each for who you are than it is figuring anything out you know the human mind is a very weak

agent of conception and a very weak agent of analysis because it works in such a black and white physical plane when in fact you know you know, much of, I think, many people that you work with on your podcast, Rich, are coming to that podcast out of having reached flow state somehow. And so our athletes are phenomenal at demonstrating what flow state looks like. And that's what you, I'm sure, got into in your chasing ultra there, is that you moved from a state of disconnect, I suspect, at 49 or whenever it was that you were in that moment of crisis and that transformation. turn it back on you for a moment and just ask what, if in the lens of, am I seen, where were you at when, as a lawyer and in that, and not necessarily just seen by the world, but seen by yourself, like what aspects of yourself could you see clearly at that point

in your life and what was hidden? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, certainly I didn't feel that I was being seen. I was unable to truly see myself other than glimpses of the possibility of what I knew, you know, I could be, I guess. Um, but without giving myself permission to inhabit that, but without giving myself permission to inhabit that. So I felt strongly that I was living the wrong life. I didn't have clarity on what the correct life for me would be. And I definitely had a powerful sense of not only being not seen, but not being able to see myself. And I had to create painful moments for myself

in order to compel me to confront certain things about how I was living in order to force me to work through it. In hindsight, do you think there was parts of you you could see clearly? That could see clearly? That you could see clearly of yourself? Was there parts of your character psyche yeah but i think it was clouded by fear you know oh interesting which

made it murky it was too scary to really look at that um but you know julie was incredibly helpful as a support system in helping me you know have the courage and the fortitude to be able to not only begin to expand that aperture, but do the work required to walk towards it. I think that is one of the most profound statements that we can all hear is that even the parts of us that we can see clearly are clouded by fear, which is so true. I think we are so afraid of ourselves, which is so bizarre that we've been set in fear of ourselves. And, you know, it brings, I can't remember who the famous quotes were that have been around this subject, but, you know, you hear the theme of the thing that you should fear the most is your own power

because you're not connecting to it. And that's the fearful part is what are you doing disconnected from your power? And do you have a sense where that fear was coming from? What was the origin of fear and all that? Or was it too vague to even pinpoint? Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know that I can identify the locus of that other than to say

that perhaps it had something to do with the power being located in a place that was so far askance of my sense of what was socially acceptable for somebody who had had my experience that the fear had to do with stepping outside of what I knew even as dysfunctional as it was to try something completely outside of my comfort zone and experience. That's spot on. And I think we can all relate to that in different ways. We would rather stay uncomfortable in the knowingness

than jump into the unknown. Yeah, there's a sort of common refrain in recovery circles, which goes something along the lines of, when the pain of your current situation exceeds the fear of the unknown, that's when you change. Right? So that's that thing where, you know, the pain that you create for yourself can actually be the catalyst for the change that you seek. Not that pain is necessary for that transformation, but it can be a useful mechanism for it. And so it's not always to be avoided, but rather to be understood and leveraged. And I think the pain is perhaps necessary on some level for change and

transformation. And this is what I get terrified as a physician of and I saw it in spades in the hospice world which is our dependence and overuse of narcotics and so the opiate stuff and everything else that we're on this opiate explosion is dulling pain. Yeah, it's a barrier to confronting the pain that can be that transformative vehicle. And what if we did that at the end of life to everybody? So you couldn't make your ultimate transformation.

And that terrifies me about our current hospice movement, which is based on pain control. What a ludicrous goal, ultimately, for a species to dull the exquisitely developed sensory processing that would suggest pain. And it's interesting that we can have a sensory experience of pain from emotional stress. Yeah. It doesn't have to be biologic whatsoever. And the Chinese in their 4,000 years of wisdom in the medicine there have done a very good job of showing us where pain shows up biologically as always has an emotional, spiritual underpinning. So to play devil's advocate a little bit as compassionate beings,

we don't want to see the people that we love suffering. And if somebody is in that place nearing the end of their life, what is the appropriate compassionate response that doesn't involve overly medicating people? It's pretty beautiful. That's a great question, obviously, and critical. And the answer is touch. And human touch has an extremely powerful way to reduce pain. And in the same rate at which we've started to overuse narcotics and the whole addiction process here, we've stopped touching our patients. And we've stopped touching our loved ones who are dying. we've stopped touching our patients.

And we've stopped touching our loved ones who are dying. Somewhat out of just an untraining of what that touching looks like from family members. Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite authors out there, modern writers out there. And he's so brutal with his simple descriptions of a scene. And he loves the topic of brutal death and pain and horrific scenes that he paints. His most benign book got the most accolades,

which was All the Pretty Horses. But Blood Meridian is worth a read. It's an incredible book. That one just is brutal in its depiction of human violence and what you see depicted often and even i think the beginning of uh all the pretty horses is this stark scene of somebody just died and their their coffin is in the home for days. And that was normal back then, you know, just even at the beginning of the 1900s,

death happened in the home and the family was intimately involved with that. There was a process of picking up the body and wrapping it up. And, you know, it wasn't a sterile process. There was nobody that came swooping in to rush that off to the corner and, you know, it wasn't a sterile process. There was nobody that came swooping in to rush that off to the corner and, you know, all of this. And so there was an experience with death and not just on the human plane, which you also see in Cormac McCarthy's work

is the brutal, you know, death that was happening around them on the farm. You know, there's horses dying and, you know, animals, you know know falling into traumatic endpoints and and death on all kinds of levels we were intimately involved with that for all of history and perhaps most of all in war and one of the things that terrifies me right now is that we haven't as americans been immersed in war in a long time and that's it let's just pause on that for a minute because that's a that's a gnarly thing to say right i think it is gnarly i think i'm afraid that

that history repeats itself when we don't pay attention to history and i'm not the only person afraid of that obviously it's been said by a lot smarter people than me, but if we look at World War II as an obvious outspring of World War I, which was an obvious outspring of some of the wars that were happening in Europe at the end of the 1800s, we start to see that there was, again, a familiarity with brutal, brutal violence with war on their soils. As Americans, we just can't even fathom World War I.

We lost 60,000-some soldiers in Vietnam over a 25-year period. And so if you imagine that and then keep in mind that that had to be done at nearly face-to-face levels of combat where men were within 10 to 30 yards and cutting each other up with machine gun fire, razor wire, explosives, literally body parts raining down on each other. literally body parts raining down on each other and being covered in each other's blood and feces and living in each other's feces and this trench warfare that went on for years in the same trenches. You all have not experienced pain.

You haven't experienced suffering. You haven't experienced the extremity of what the human mindset and body is capable of receiving and witnessing and perpetrating. Yeah. To say one thing about what you just said, there are interesting parallels between warfare and this relationship with death that we have in the sense that what was once tactile and personal in the Cormac McCarthy sense has become whitewashed and sanitized. So warfare is no longer hand-to-hand combat in the trench like World War I. trench like World War I, it's a shot from a drone or it's cyber warfare from 3,000 miles away that moves economies and impacts lives a little bit more indirectly. And death has been removed from

our visual and emotional field and put behind closed walls because we're so afraid to look at it because it would force us to look at ourselves. So what do we take from this shift in how we manage these two things in terms of how to inform how to live our lives better? Thank you for reeling that in. I'm going to take it back to that war just for a second, just so we can loop that back. So I want you to realize that those men,

after two million people dead, were still marching into that warfare, knowing exactly that they were going to die. And they wrote some of the most heart-rending stories or letters back to their loved ones in preparation for their death. And yet, at no point was there fear in there. And so how is it that 100 years later, we're sitting here and what we're afraid of is ourselves. We're afraid as two men sitting on a couch together that our highest fear is that we don't know ourselves and that we don't know why we're here and that we might not be doing enough and that we don't really know how to connect to the people that we love. And where, where did we, how did we get there you know to the point where we

we lost the the fear of death historically we could we could divorce from that and then we lose the experience of real pain through this pursuit of a comfort lifestyle ultimately which has been this you know hundreds of year march towards that. But obviously in the last 50 years, there's never been a faster march towards such a massive portion of humanity living in comfort, only to experience higher pain. And it's interesting that our chronic pain rates accelerate as our lifestyles appear to get more comfortable. Yeah, that's the great irony, right? That comfort and luxury is actually creating the pain that we then need to medicate ourselves against.

And so that's where I think we have to reevaluate our concept of pain. Is pain actually a bad thing? Is it something that we need to avoid? And I would argue that not at all, because in an endocrine system, so as an endocrinologist, it's my favorite field of medicine, and that's why I went into it, in the sense that everything is a feedback loop. And so if you eat sugar, your insulin goes up. When your insulin goes up, glucose goes into the cell. When your blood sugar drops, insulin goes back down.

And so there's a feedback loop that achieves all of that. There's this constant communication. So parathyroid hormone goes up to release calcium from the bone and then it drops down to get calcium back into the bone. And so you have this constant regenerative cycling of tissue, of genes, of proteins, of all of the mechanics of cellular health are always in transition they're always in this given exchange there's push and pull give and take kind of communication and our whole neurologic systems are loaded with pain receptors

systems are loaded with pain receptors. And we have this very natural mechanism that releases opioids from our own cells. And we call them endorphins and we call them a lot of different little molecular terms, but these little molecules all have relationship to morphine. The structure of morphine is very similar to endorphin itself. And those endorphins that you achieve when you're running are hitting all of those pain receptors. And so it's very likely that you wake up with more back pain than you will have an hour into running. And so you'll hit that threshold where the first half hour is just misery when you're trying to get moving. And then suddenly you hit that threshold where pain just goes away. I'd be curious when you were running all those, those ultra marathons in Hawaii, what was that journey like?

I mean, you did it over and over again to yourself. Like there must have been so much pain that week. Yeah, but it's a different, I mean, there are different kinds of pain too. You know, psychic pain, emotional pain, you know, the physical pain. And then within the physical, is it acute or is it, you know, there's so many ways to calibrate that and dissect it. So I don't know. Like, I don't know how to answer that other

than to say, A, to your first point, yeah, like I have some like back stuff now and I'm a little creaky at 52 and I get out of bed in the morning. I'm like, I'm not moving so fluidly. But yeah, half an hour into the run, that's like all the pain goes away. You know, basically, that's the best that I feel like, you know, all day when that's happening. And I think, you know, one's relationship to pain is similar to one's relationship to time, in that it's malleable and flexible depending upon your experience right so your exposure to it allows you to acclimate to it and develop a new and different relationship to it that that um in my experience allows you to kind of overcome the fear around it like once you embrace it rather than run away from it um you realize that it can be this crucible for growth and

progress. And by progress, I mean personal growth, things of that nature. Which would you rather have? You just laid down a bunch of different types of pain. Which would I rather have? Physical pain, psychological pain, spiritual pain. Well, I mean, physical pain is is very like binary you know i think there was some study i stumbled across some article about a study that said um that you know the psychic

and emotional pain that we have is you know is is we underestimate it it's actually just as as impactful and profound as the physical pain but but we don't think about those two things in the same way, nor do we treat them in the same way. So I think you're exactly right. And in my personal experience, but definitely my experience as a physician, I see the psychic pain having far longer ramifications and more detrimental ramifications to function than physical pain.

Physical pain is actually a neurologic experience where you have a neuron that's sensing a stimulus and it's sending a signal to your brain that's just gonna that's then going to send the experience of pain to your your sensory you know processing center whereas emotional pain is so vague, you know, psychic pain is so vague in its trigger that your body can't prepare the same way. You don't have the same warning systems. You don't have the same coping mechanisms. And so it's this insidious thing that creeps in. And suddenly you're in, you had an incredible term the other day, I think it was the crucible of suffering. And we can find ourselves in these moments of, for you it was the crucible of suffering. And we can find ourselves in these moments of, for you, it was a couple of nights missed sleep and you find yourself in the crucible

of suffering. We've all missed those nights of sleep and we all have sensed that. It's so interesting how vulnerable the human brain is, right? Like we are all on the brink of insanity. You miss three nights of sleep and you get a little alcohol on top of that. And you have a little bit of, you know, emotional stress or that you don't understand where it came from and all that. And pretty soon you're, you're pretty much psychotic. That's the reassuring part of being human. And so just, just know you're not alone in that. That's, I guess, where I meet you there. We are so vulnerable. And I see this most in my journey with my psych patients.

This woman that has been with me the longest now, I've been her doctor for almost 20 years, and she came to me, she was on 35 medications, and 16 of those were essentially acting drugs for her brain. Mood stabilizers, antispasmodics, you know, she was on every freaking drug class that we have. And usually two and for most of those two or three from a single drug class. And so she had so much redundancy in her drugs and she spent, you know, from age like 16 on to about, you know, when I

met her, she was about 46. So she spent, you know, 30 years in psych wards in and out of psych hospitals and lived more time in psych wards than she did outside of them. And then was in, you know, a section eight housing and all this kind of, you know, disability and all that between that was 2002 that I picked her up, I guess, so, um, became 2002. And by 2012, 10 years later, I had her down to two medications and she hadn't been in a psych ward in two and a half years. Over the last eight years, she's bopped into psych wards twice, but it was only because she was homeless in those moments. And she knew how she could work the system to, to get, get a bed under her. And so she basically faked neuroses and got herself into a psych wards twice since then.

And, um, she's not psychotic. She's not a psychotic person. Um, but on those psych wards, um, she, she was a terror, like she's a relatively short woman, but you know, quite overweight from all the drugs that she'd been on. All of them were causing obesity, shutting down her metabolism. But she had been famous for blowing through armored doors. She could run herself through armored doors and psych units. And so she had this like preternatural strength in her psychosis that she was scary violent. She's one of the most gentle people I know. And she's one of the most gentle people I know and she's one of the most intuitive people and I call her my oracle now

because she'll call me up and be like Dr. Porsche something is about to happen to you next week that's going to be really interesting and great in this way and sure enough next week something happens she's very tied into the spiritual realm she can see things that we can't see and so when she becomes vulnerable,

when she becomes weakened, she looks floridly psychotic in a different way than you and I would because she's closer to this veil that we can't really, that is harder to approach for people with more biologic faculties in place perhaps. And so I point to her as an example

of this threshold of is pain good, is pain bad? Because basically she was on 32 drugs to dull her experience of depression and anxiety to just a fog. And she was kept in a fog for 30 years and suffered despite all of the fog. And in the end, she just wanted to be seen. And so what I ended up being able to do as a human being was just really listen to her story over and over again. And she had to tell it to me until I was so tired of hearing her story.

And it took me a long time to find out that her story ultimately was her biggest problem. And I would say it's the biggest problem that all of us face in this room is the story that you now tell yourself of what your life has been. It's keeping you in a box. So her story is obvious to look at.

Her box was she's a psych patient and she's there. Once I had listened to her story enough times as to how she got herself there by 16 into psychosis, it turns out in that situation, it was her, she, her father runs a service station over in the Stanton area in the beautiful Shandoa Valley of Virginia. And by the time she was 12 years old, he was allowing his employees to give him some money so that they could rape his daughter behind the service station. And this happened for a decade of her life. In and out of psych ward, she'd come back and be raped again.

And her father was perpetrating this situation around her. And so you hear that story and you're like, well, that's horrific. And that's what psyche could possibly handle that. And the answer is she could have handled it because she does now. She handles that story without any drugs because it got heard.

And she was able to process that enough times and realize that it wasn't her. She was a much bigger entity than that story. For a moment in this biologic body, she had been raped many times. Her father was somebody she could not trust, but she's much bigger than that. She's a spiritual being. And she got to this largely through her own, you know, kind of Christian mindset faith. And, you know, some interesting people came into her life to kind of, I think, you know, infuse this with, you know, her knowledge of finding that bigger self. But she now sees herself as this energetic entity, this woman in the bigger sense of the word. She's a nurturing creative force

on the planet that is tied into all of the history of God and spirituality and humanity. And as long as she can stay grounded in that, then the short traumas that happen in her life here don't hurt her. It doesn't cause pain. That's an amazing story. I mean, what I hear in that is just the tremendous resilience that we all have and that we're born capable and we have everything that we need to not only survive, but weather whatever life throws at us. But we've developed an insulated culture in which we disempower people by treating them as if they're powerless or incapable of handling these certain things. And it's delicate because you want to give people the support that they need to deal with something as traumatic as that. I mean, I can't possibly imagine.

But to say to somebody like, okay, this is like, you need to be on all these pills or you need this and that is to tell somebody that they are not capable and it's to strip them of their power, right? And so what is the long-term implication of that message that you're sending to people? And to what extent is this epidemic of people desiring to be seen and not being seen being driven by loneliness and like what Johan Hari would call lost connections? Like we're just, despite the internet connecting us all,

we've never been more separated from each other and more alone. Like we're not living, like this week has been on some level an experiment in alternative communal living and it feels good. I think everybody here would say like we all feel so connected to each other

and there's a life force and a vitality that comes with that that we don't get to experience in our daily lives when we go back and we all immerse ourselves in our various you know forms of cubicles in which we all live right so how can we restructure this to create you know to recapture those connections to see each other to allow ourselves to be seen and communally to support each other so that we can feel empowered and be empowered and provide empowerment to others. So how can we solve all the problems of society?

Yeah, like basically solve them. That's super good. I love those questions. It's like, okay, succinctly, let's... Yeah, in some ways, I think that the fastest way to get there is let go of your story. The reason why you guys have had such transformational events this week is because nobody here really knew your story, and there wasn't time for us to all meet each other right where each of us without without any preconceived notions of who you all are or what faculties or experiences or accomplishments you've had and just say i'm human sweet i am too like let's like just do this thing let's just start breathing and see where this goes and suddenly people are turning into other animals and and you feel vulnerable

enough to share that and you express the horrific things that's happened in your life that would have led to being an animal and embodying that experience. And so how can we do that? How can we create a society where we don't fall back into our cubicles? The cubicle you're really living in is your story. You're going to go back into an environment at home where everybody thinks they know who you are because you have very carefully created a cubicle that you show everybody. And you get frustrated

when they can't see all four sides of your cubicle. You're like, well, you don't even know me. You are a multifaceted spiritual creature that has innumerable facets and faces to you. There's such beauty and complexity in you, and yet you choose to show four faces of a cubicle. And you have created that story of your life and who you are through training.

We do this with CVs and the curriculum vitae and the resume and all this stuff. We build this long story of what we've done in our life. Isn't it ridiculous that I could look at a resume and then suppose that I know anything about this human being that's applying for a job? Isn't it ridiculous that you would actually put something up on a dating website that you would think would show some face of who you are? Isn't it ridiculous that your partner in life who knows you better than anybody else can't see you because you won't let them? That's weird. What are we doing? What we're doing is acting out of fear. We're afraid to let down those four walls because we're afraid there's nothing inside. Or perhaps we're afraid that what would be discovered inside is tantamount to being unlovable.

Yes. And if there was something inside, we wouldount to being unlovable. Yes. And if there was something inside, we would have to be lovable, right? And so I think it's this sense of hollowness. And so is it possible that you're unlovable? And for me, I had to face this very brutally. Well, compared to World War I, not at all brutally. But again, sometimes that psychic pain can be greater than any physical threat. Had a great marriage, I thought.

I was married for 18 years, together 20 years. I met this woman when I was pretty young. that. I was married for 18 years together, 20 years. I met this woman when I was pretty young and had two amazing kids and never really had a fight in 20 years, no conflict in the marriage. But the adversity that we dealt with as a couple was really around extended family. So her whole family, including herself, suffered from major depression over their lifetimes, many, many times. And a couple of her siblings tried to commit suicide. One of them protected them many, many times. So we rehabbed her siblings in our home for years at a time. And so those were the challenges that came up in those. And so from my rational brain, I was like,

I've got a great marriage. It's amazing. Like no conflict. We can support other people, you know, all this. But there was this huge loneliness developing in both of our lives because we were showing each other. We were building stories. We were building these complicated long stories of who we were becoming. And we could know each other less and less over time and i did that to myself i i created a story that was so complicated and it had to do with being a doctor ultimately and you know she knew me before i was a doctor and watched me through that journey

and the whole stupid thing that everybody always introduces me as is parts of my story, which is triple board certified. I hear that so many times. I'm like, if I ever hear triple board certified again, I'm going to kill somebody. I'm just so sick of hearing that sentence. And I've asked my employees to stop sending out that bio, just like, say, just, Zach, he's kind of a confused guy. He's here to talk

to you, you know, just like send out something that's a little closer to the mark, you know? Yeah. Yeah. He's just like lost. He's just like wandering around. He just ran into, you know, he couldn't find an end point. So he's still wandering. It's something more realistic, you know, than, than making it sound like a bunch of achievements. And so I built all these stories, this long story, and I was looking for self-worth in pouring out service and being an ultimate service machine. And I was pretty freaking good at it, and at the cost of complete alienation from my wife.

And there was no way she could have known me by the end of that 20-year journey. And she had respect for me, and she wasn't angry at me, but it was like there was nothing to touch. And that, you know, that was a number of years ago now, obviously, and the result in my life was largely that I couldn't touch anybody either. And so I had become untouchable because of the complexity of my story. And I couldn't touch anybody because of the complexity of my story.

I was so walled off in my cubicle of my story. And you mentioned this identity of resilience in this woman like you know what a resilient personality must have survived that and i've come to see that that identity of resilience be the most destructive self-identity that somebody can have because if your self-identity becomes I am resilient, what do you need to prove that your identity? You need difficulty. You need pain, suffering, difficulty, trauma,

so that you can be resilient again. You will keep creating trauma in your life if your identity is resilience. You will never become successful if your identity is resilience because you would have to lose your self-identity to find ease and success. Another one that I see all the time is the identity of fix it. And I think that's where I fall into. I can fix anything. I think that's where I fall into. I can fix anything.

The savior. I can literally fix anything. If you have a flat tire, no problem. I worked for a tire company, I'll fix your tire. Your refrigerator's down, no problem. I can fix your refrigerator. Your car goes out, no problem. I did car mechanics for years.

I can go fix your alternator, no problem. You need a house built, no problem. I have a general contractor's license license I'll build you a house I am a freaking pathetic fixer like to the nth degree fixer and if your identity is a fixer what do you need in your life every day

broken stuff you need a lot of shit broken and if there's nothing broken you'll probably fly off the handle and break something or you go into an existential You need a lot of shit broken. And if there's nothing broken, you'll probably fly off the handle and break something. Or you go into an existential crisis. Now you're in an identity crisis. Like, I'm useless to the world.

Fucking useless. I haven't done anything in a day. I haven't fixed a damn thing today. And so this is how our story becomes an identity that usually can be boiled down to one word. And each of you that I've met with this week have a one word identity that we can find pretty quickly. And be like, do you really want to be that? No, I hate that.

I hate fucking fixing things every day. In fact, that's what I bitch at most of all to my now wonderful wife. Why am I... Everybody wants me to fix shit. No, you my now wonderful wife. So I'm like, why am I, everybody wants me to fix shit. Like, no, you want to fix shit. You're creating this stuff. Like, don't put, you're projecting yourself on other people. Like, other people don't, they just mentioned something

and you suddenly make that into something you need to go fix. They were just reporting status. They weren't telling, it wasn't a to-do list. They were activating so how do we transcend these one word identity constructs that we create for ourselves

it's the hardest thing we can do and yet it is done instantaneously it's a decision that can be had which says, are you willing to let go of everything you think you are? Are you willing to actually become nothing for a moment? This is where pain can be powerful because short of pain, who's going to say yes to that?

Exactly. Exactly. And nowhere more desperately do we need that at the end of life, probably. If we haven't found self yet, we need to find it in those last couple minutes of life so that we can have closure on this biologic journey that we did in this body

and have a rise in consciousness. And I get increasingly excited about our clinic because we do no biology anymore. And it frustrates the hell out of a lot of my people that come into the clinic. The first time a patient comes in with cancer and they know that I've got an outside box approach to cancer and all this, and they want me to freaking fix their cancer.

And we will never talk about their cancer. And they keep trying to bring it back to cancer and we talk about something else. Because the cancer is not the problem. The cancer is a symptom downstream of this disconnect, ultimately, from themselves. And the psychic trauma that's been held in their body from not being themselves

has created massive disconnect at the physiology level. And there's profound loneliness happening down at the cellular level to achieve a cancer cell. I can't remember if we've talked about this before or not, but a cancer cell has been sliced off from all communication. And once it loses communication from the greater organism, it hasn't lost one thing, which is a drive for life. And so it's very fascinating that at the cell level, one of your skin cells has a drive for life. One skin cell independently, with nothing else around it, still has a drive for life. And it's going to try to make something bigger than itself. And so it becomes poorly differentiated, meaning that it doesn't make skin anymore. Instead, it makes what we would call a tumor. It's creating a pluripotent

or more multidimensional cell, and it starts to proliferate because it can't repair itself. The hallmark of a cancer cell is a lonely cell that can't repair itself. And so its only choice in its highest state of damage is to proliferate. But what's fascinating about that is that the malignancy is triggered by the disconnection from the community and the network, right? And this is something that operates at the micro level but is also ultimately very true at the most macro level of how we live. I mean, we can think of that guy

who climbed up the, you know, the hotel there to shoot all those people in Las Vegas. Right. It's like a, he's like a, he is a cancer cell who is activated in a malignant way through disconnection. And he's out to try to find self-identity through destruction of the environment. And I think that's why we create war. I think nations go to war trying to find self-identity because they've lost their core. And so they go kill other things to try to find some relevance or some sense of power because they lost it.

And this is what terrifies me, that we haven't had a war on our soil in over 100 years with the Civil War being our last major one, is that we're going to do that again to find ourselves. Well, one of the things that's interesting about your work

is that the path forward involves creating connection, but even more so, it's about discovering the connection that's already there. quorum sensing that you talked about like we are already more connected than we're consciously aware of and developing a means of of kind of understanding on an intuitive and unconscious as well as conscious level the connection that we all share is a way of overriding that sense of disconnection that is creating all of these problems it's perfect transition um so quorum sensing is a description of uh a hyper intelligence in my in my reading of it so bacteria and fungi can create massive communities which suddenly take on a ultra-intelligence that's far beyond the capacity of any individual within the community. And so in the fungal world, we can see chemical responses to a nutrient load, for example. So if you deposit a bunch of fertilizer on one corner of a farm,

the entire mycelial colony starts to sense an imbalance in the ecosystem across many acres. And you go and biopsy the soil on the other side of the farm a few weeks later, and you find that the nutrients you just dumped in here have suddenly appeared over here. And so there's an intelligent distribution of resources through very complicated, very distant systems. And so that's one way in which we watch quorum sensing happen. But a bigger one can be seen as we kind of keep moving up the biologic chain. And a good example is trees. And so if you let cattle into a new paddock that they've never been in, they all go for the trees first. We think of them as grass eaters,

but they always shoot for the trees first. And so they'll go for the trees and they'll eat all of the lower leaves off the trees. And suddenly the trees, sensing the damage being done, will wait for a period of time until it reaches a point where it realizes that there's going to be a detrimental effect.

Which is interesting that there's a rate of loss that's not detrimental, it's probably good for it. So the tree is getting pruned by the cow and it recognizes that as being beneficial to encourage more crown growth and more growth up top. And then it suddenly senses, okay, that's enough. And it puts out a chemical to make the leaves bitter and the cows will immediately stop eating the rest of the

leaves. So they then move on to the grass. The giraffes do this in African tree systems as well. And so the giraffes will come in a new space and start eating and they'll eat an entire tree unless of course there's sensing happening, and the tree suddenly exerts this new chemical shift, and it gets bitter. But interestingly, they've now recognized that an entire grove of trees will sense that one tree's response,

and the entire grove will go bitter simultaneously. And so there's intelligent communication happening between trees that cover large square mile kind of spaces. And so there's this hyper-intelligence that happens when organisms start to cooperatively recognize themselves of being able to achieve a bigger network of sensing, communication, and ultimately processing and information processing and therefore intelligence. and ultimately processing and information processing and therefore intelligence. And we see this repeated in nature everywhere we look, from the hive mind and the way that bees, you know, colonize and operate from the migration of birds.

And we kind of tend to look at it and say, wow, wouldn't it be cool if, like, humans could communicate like that, like the Borg in Star Trek? Yes. And that's the dark version of that, I suppose. But to what extent is the human organism able to communicate in a more networked fashion like this? Yeah, so before I get to human to human,

actually, it just came to me that there's something maybe you can help me create this actually that would be fun to do together I had a moment when I was snorkeling off the coast of Tulum Mexico many years ago now but I was in

this was in my alone phase I had decided I was going to become a monk my first couple conversations with I had decided I was going to become a monk. My first couple conversations with Jen was how I was a monk and I was never going to be in another relationship and all of this. And so she apparently saw through all of that bullshit story that I was creating for myself and this cubicle that I had created for myself. And so I had a new identity of I'm a monk. But I was in my monk mode and I was feeling disconnected and wanting to connect in my life. And where I often feel most connected is floating in the ocean alone over a coral reef and just watching this civilization below me that I don't really feel any belonging to,

but I just watch it in all of its beautiful connectivity. And I'm fascinated by the tiniest things in coral reefs, right? Like the big fish are cool, but I'm just fascinated by the little hair-like structures that wave back and forth. And what the hell are those doing? And like, well, yeah, those things are finding purpose and just being a hair that waves back and forth

all day in the ocean. It just goes back and forth and back and forth, a hair that waves back and forth all day in the ocean it just goes back and forth and back and forth back and forth back and forth and that little hair like thing on the coral reef has never woken up with us an identity crisis it's like no this is what I do man I'm in flow I'm like I got the ocean and it's the waves

and I can sense what's going on on the other side of the ocean because there's ripples that happen through and I can sense that and connected on on the other side of the ocean because there's ripples that happen through and I can sense that and I'm connected. I'm the sensory system for the entire planet that's 70% water. And I'm like, God, how beautiful is that to be a sensory fiber for the ocean itself and to know what's happening on the planet

and I am coral reef. And you get into that state and it's like, okay, this is freaking beautiful. You can just start to get yourself in there. And so I decided decided you know i there was a day where i didn't have time to go travel to one of the reefs that i always loved traveling to but i just wanted to get out in the waters i just like started swimming out with my snorkel and just going out just there was no expectation of reef because it was just all sand and it was out there and swam and swam and swam and then i started to find you know not really reef per se but chunks of coral and chunks of you know some amazing

uh you know those fern corals that are out there and stuff like that and so i found some cool things and i was like that's nice and popped my head back looked up and realized i was way further away from the shore than i had ever really been and And I got a little panicked because I'm not like super swimmer dude or anything like that. And just had that little moment of like, oh my God, I hope I can get back. Like that's a long ways. And so I started back and I'm swimming back and quickly got over that little panic attack. And I was like, okay, I'll just keep at it and got my head back down in the water and just cruising. And suddenly I got surrounded by a massive school of sardines. And this went on for 45 minutes that I was in this swarm of sardines.

And it's more life than you can even really begin to describe. I mean, this thing must have been a quarter mile in length, at least, you know, this massive school of fish and uh interestingly as soon as i i saw it coming and i didn't you know at first know what it was it looked like you know a ship or something like that like it looked like a big solid structure coming to me and look above the water there's nothing there and it's coming at me so fast that it wasn't like i'm going to run away from this thing it was like i'm going to get hit by this thing and by the time they were about 10 feet away i could start to pick out that they were all these silver this is all the silver heads of all these fish and then they swore came around me and they respected my field to i'd say probably almost

exactly six inches like they were just completely around me and i was completely engulfed and had very quickly lost orientation whereas you Whereas you lose sense of up and down because there's no sunlight. You're just in silver, just flashing silver up, down, all around. And I got so excited. I was like, they can see me. And I could push my hand as fast as I could out in the water and I couldn't touch a fish, you know? And then it was like, I'd go that and they'd be six inches all the way around my arm. And I looked and I'd pull my arm back and I couldn't even see a hole. Like they would close in on that space so fast that my eye couldn't sense the speed. And so they were this ultimate quorum, right? They're this ultimate organism made of probably

hundreds of millions of fish. They're all like a few inches long and they cover you know and so they're moving past me pretty quickly over this 45 minute period and then you know swarm by this thing and some minutes into this i start to get really panicked because i'm i think that i'm starting to become sardine i'm starting to have so much sardine energy around me that i'm like it's it was exciting for those first few minutes it was like this is i'm having a once in a lifetime moment and you know you all have had those moments where you're like this will never happen to me again i'm probably the only human experiences right now on this planet and you're in that elated sense and then pretty soon you're like

you know i i don't know what life is going to be after this moment like nothing's the same after this moment and i would say that many of you this week are in a sardine moment of you're starting to sense an energy field there's an organism that you're starting to plug into that you've always been craving, but you're feeling a fear of loss of identity because nothing's going to be the same when you go back. If it is, you missed a big opportunity. You need to become sardine here, okay? You need to become Buffalo here as you have. Did anybody pick the sardine card yeah is there a

sardine card and so sardine was such an interesting experience and one of the i didn't even realize this but this is freaking profound it comes right back to where we started which is about you know some minutes into this experience i had become become sardine. I had become relaxed into that, that, okay, I'm probably still going to be human on the other side of this. I will be changed, but I'm not actually sardine yet. And so I got past that panic attack. And then suddenly there's these explosions of bubbles around me, just massive micro bubble explosions. And I couldn't figure out what it was for some time. And then I happened to have a little clearing in the fish long enough for me to see pelican feet on the water surface

around me and realized that the pelicans were bursting in, but their traverse through the water and then back up with a fish in their mouth was so fast that my eye wasn't quick enough in that 10,000th of a second to see it. Your eye wasn't quick enough in that ten thousandth of a second to see it your eye can perceive it about that ten thousandth of a second rate and so by the time i was sensing something all i could see was bubbles and so i couldn't track their trajectory through the water because it was beyond that that speed at which my eyes are capable of capturing neurologically what i was seeing and as soon as i saw the pelican feet in a split second, I figured out what's going on. I feel this immediate emotional reaction of my friends

are getting eaten. Like, this is terrible that we're having a loss. And I said, and, and I, I went there for just a split second and sardine said back to me, like somebody screaming at me, screaming at me, no, like wrong. And I tied back into that energy and there had been an elation event in this group of fish. They were elated in this moment of pelicans hitting. And there was this rise in energy happening in this thing as transformation was happening at a very, very high energetic level.

And so there was zero empathy for the loss of their brethren. And you see that same thing when 1 million men march into war, there's a loss of empathy for the individual. And there's only a sense of there's human suffering and there's human victory. And I want to be a part of that. And I'm just as willing to be part of the human suffering and loss of life as I am to be part of the victory. And that is just the blind. And so I think in warfare, we can reach this state of non-empathic presence. And so our challenge now as humans is, I believe, to reach non-empathic presence without war. What if we can non-empathically witness loss of life?

You mentioned, how can we possibly not treat with opiates somebody who's suffering at the end of life because we feel for them? Well, that's where we fuck things up, I think, is we start having all these emotional responses to this situation, which inevitably is selfish because your emotions have nothing to do with that person's journey. And you're putting your journey on that person's thing, projecting all your crap on that situation of somebody who's in a train. And what is that going to do to their energy field? It's going to drop their energy, and they're going to suffer more for it. And so my nurses on the hospice environment did the best thing in the world, which was touch patients,

and the most powerful ones used Reiki, which is an age-old technique for not touching them just with skin, but touching them with energy, and raising their vibration. And pain goes down immediately. Immediately. And so a non-empathic approach to pain and loss of life raises vibration.

These fish demonstrated this in an incredible way. They realized that there was a cycle of life happening right now. And they wanted to be a part of that. And they were not afraid of that cycle of life. They in fact were excited. They were thrilled by the opportunity to be engaged in the cycle of life, which was death and rebirth. That same story takes me to a thought of Victor Schauberger. If you haven't heard of Victor Schauberger, you've got to look this guy up. One of the greatest minds of the 20th century

and probably one of the most unheralded geniuses of that century. He was a forester, and that's why he didn't get much attention. Austrian forester, fifth generation Austrian forester in the same forest. So imagine the intelligence that would come into a human being that for five generations his dad, grandfather, grandfather, grandfather, grandfather, had been observing the same section of Austrian highland forests. What intelligence would come from that kind of quorum sensing, multi-generational intelligence?

And when you read Victor Schauberger, you see what comes out of that. This man as a forester had more profound discoveries of human biology than any physician or scientist in that century. He discovered that the heart is not a pump for blood. He discovered that how fish can sit dead still in a fast running river and not move, not be swept downstream. Have you guys seen that before?

Isn't that the weirdest thing? Have you even asked yourself, why is that happening? Fast-running stream and the fish is dead still, not moving. No effort, but he's not being swept into the current. And he figured out that the shape of the fish scales are designed in those river fish to create a sweep of energy across the scale that creates a negative charge on the backside of that scale

that pulls the fish forward. And so the fish is creating a magnet that is equal exactly to the speed of the water. And so if the water flows faster, it pulls forward faster. If it slows down, it slows down at the exact rate such that it doesn't move. And it doesn't need to move

a fin to stay in exactly the same velocity as the water that's traveling by it. That guy figured that shit out. Without any devices, without anything, he figured it out staring at nature and observing nature at this exquisite level. And one of the observations he made

that ties back to the sardines and where I would love for you and I to get to as human beings is he had long witnessed and wrote about even this phenomenon that in these high mountain lakes of Austria, he would see an eagle circling a lake. And it would go into a tighter and tighter circle in that lake. And then he would see a fish following the shadow of the eagle. And the eagle would pull it into a tighter and tighter vortex.

And then right at the center of the lake would grab the fish and take off. a tighter and tighter vortex, and then right at the center of the lake would grab the fish and take off. And so he had this whole amazing theory that he observed of how eagles go fishing. And they create a vortex of energy and pull a fish into the vortex. And then some years later, he happened to look down. He was high enough and at just the right trajectory where he saw a fish swimming in a giant circle around the outside of a lake. He's like, that's weird. So he sat down and sure enough, kept seeing it come by and lapse

and did this for about 30 minutes before an eagle came and started following the fish and got tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter. And he said, I've seen this dance before. And he realized this time that in the last couple of split seconds, the eagle never reached inside the water. The fish jumped out of the water into the talons of the eagle. So he realized all those years he was not observing eagles fishing. He was observing fish jumping to a different plane. That's so interesting to me. What if we saw death as a heightening of our experience, an opportunity to go four-dimensional,

release ourselves of these 3D environments? Can you imagine the fish that was limited to that lake for its entire existence and then got to soar into the sky for a few seconds to witness what the mountains looked like? See down at that lake that it had spent its entire life with and be like, oh my God, that was the freaking box I'd been stuck in. That was it. A little speck of water down there and these grandiose mountains. And oh my God, there's lakes all over the place. I didn't realize. Oh my gosh, look at the freaking expanses of life around me. And that's exactly what my patients come back from the dead with. Why the hell did you pull me back here? You brought me right back into the box and I am in pain and you've stuck a latex tube in every orifice of my body. And I don't want to be here. And you keep touching me with those a latex tube in every orifice of my body, and I don't want to be here,

and you keep touching me with those goddamn latex gloves, I just want to be connected back to universe and connected at a high level to nature. You're yearning for that, and you'll get there. We're running a pretty good rate of pretty damn near 100% death for humankind. And so you can get to that expansion. And we're cruising there now as a species. Jemma talked so well yesterday about this speed of the loss of life that we're now in.

She wasn't so beautiful yesterday. I was just so blessed to listen to you yesterday. There's such hope in somebody finding truth in their life and being willing to blow up their paradigm. You're the only freaking crazy doctor in all of that freaking crazy island of the UK willing to be as crazy as you are. That's ridiculous and brave and interesting. And you're breaking apart cubicles that people have put you in and you're breaking

apart an education that built a box for you to be in and you're blowing that apart. And I think that's what makes your whole podcast compelling is you interview people that have had to, I think that's what makes your whole podcast compelling is you interview people that have had to, through often real hardship, blow up their paradigm and blow up that cubicle to find themselves larger than what they thought they were before. But there's so much beauty in that destruction, right? And I think it does relate to these stories

that you're talking about with the fish and the eagle and the sardines in the sense that we, maybe we need to blow up this paradigm that we've constructed around empathy for suffering and the life and death cycle, right? So it's like through your lens in these stories that you've just told, the most empathetic thing that we can actually do is to suspend our empathy.

And the rationale behind that is to broaden the aperture through which we perceive life and death and suffering and growth. One of the things that Julie talks about a lot is not depriving people of their divine moment. Like this empathy that we have for pain and suffering at the end of life can easily be applied to how we approach people in their various suffering moments throughout life. To suspend empathy is also to respect and empower the person who's going through whatever they're going through so that they can fully embrace what's being presented to them so that they have the, um, the facility to undergo that transformation for themselves, to blow up their own paradigm about who they are so that they can

get to that next place. It's hugely important. And I guarantee you that each of you who are in a relationship right now are in some ways palliating your partner. And you're trying to salve their pain and therefore keeping them from transformation. And we do this out of altruism, but it's a broken model of altruism. There's misguided. Misguided altruism. model of altruism. There's misguided. Misguided altruism. And so we show what we think is compassion to one another, which in the end is selfishness because we're exercising our moment to redefine our self-identity as a compassionate person or as a giver or as a server. And also, I mean, we're selfishly using that person's pain to buoy up our self-identity.

Which is vampiric, really. It's completely vampiric. And you will come to feel this in your life. When you get good at recognizing these patterns of your own behavior, you'll suddenly realize that people are literally vampires on your energy. And they're sucking life out of you. And you created those. You literally walked up to the vampire and was like, you want to suck on this?

It's just like, here's my carotid. Here, just take the radial artery. It's right here. Oh, you too. I've got another one, no problem. Here, you can suck on my ankle. You are draining yourself intentionally to maintain some belief system about why you're valuable.

You know, don't empathically approach the people around you to support your sense of identity. It's the most awful thing that we could do to each other, is to leech on to a moment of pain and suffering so that we can feel better about ourselves. And so you need to stop being so abusive to one another in your self-professed care for one another. We were talking before the podcast and you were telling me about this study among college students solving this puzzle and how that kind of applies to this super consciousness that we have. Can you just share that? So I think that you probably felt it though, but in the description of the sardines, for example, or the coral reef,

did you have a moment where you felt that extension of intelligence? Like you suddenly feel like, oh, yeah, I could literally stick my toe in the ocean. And if I sat there long enough, I could sense everything that's going on on the planet. There's that level of connectivity. And so quorum sensing, as we started with there, is that philosophy that in the end, everything is electrons and everything's electrons interacting with protons. And so this is accounts for about 0.0001% of the space that we live in. And so we are 99.9997% vacuum space. And so is everything, the planet, the microbiome,

everything's vacuum space. And so we have almost nothing solid. But what is solid is these little protons that have recently been recognized to have the same structure as the black hole that's in the middle of our galaxy. And so these black holes are these massive energetic centers of gravity

that pull in everything, including light energy and kick stuff back out. And so Stephen Hawkins became known for many great discoveries, but one of them was the Hawkins particles that got named after him. And he recognized that black holes out in outer space are putting out all these particles of information and this digital data that's just flowing out of black holes. And he yelled for a long time that that was just chaotic information. And then more recently, a lot of astrophysicists all came to the agreement that, no, that's structured information. And through other work in astrophysics,

they've realized that all the black holes are connected through wormholes and the like. And so black holes are all connected. There's a black hole at the center of pretty much every galaxy out there. And so we have billions of galaxies throughout the universe. And so we have these billions of black holes that are all connected. And that's all fascinating. And when you start to think about what would be the structured data coming out of black holes throughout the universe, does that start to resemble what we might call the universe, does that start to resemble what we might call the intention of God or the information of a supercomputer? There's a super intelligence that is processed through all of the black holes in the universe. And so there's a stream of information, of data, structured, coming out of

all the black holes and flowing into the entire universe. And from that, we see the organization of plasma and matter and planets and solar systems and galaxies and ultimately organisms on those planets and then humans. And then we rush down into the cells within your hand. And then you look down into your hand and you realize, okay, that's all atomic structure. And you zip down deeper and it's like, yep, this is all made out of these little tiny protons, ultimately.

And so then Nassim Haramein, who's an incredible physicist right now, if you haven't seen his stuff, you need to look up Nassim, N-A-S-S-I-M, Haramein, I think it's H-E-R-R, I'm going to butcher that last name, E-M-E-I-N, Haramein. And Nassim's work has shown that the proton is a tiny, tiny black hole and functions with all of the physical features of a black hole. And what's rushing in and out of the black hole is electrons.

And the electrons are speeding across environments and exchanging information. And how this manifests then is exchange of information at the atomic level. And at the atomic level of these atoms exchanging inside of protons, which are basically the central processing units of a computer, and so you've got this CPU that's processing all the information coming out of the electron. The electron reacts with its environment and then comes back into the proton

to tell the proton what it just experienced. The proton then just kicks out, oh, okay, this this is what's my environment and so it now informs all the other electrons that come in and okay this is what the experience is out there and then all the black holes are communicating what all the protons in your body which is billions and billions and billions and billions and billions are all communicating and the electrons are exchanging very quickly and so over this hour and a half or whatever we've been in this room together, we've all exchanged almost all of our electrons very quickly. All of the atoms in all of our cells and all of our molecules are exchanging electrons.

We have this huge cloud of electrons in here that have all exchanged and now transected into the protons and exchanged information. The speed at which this happens is proved in these experiments that we were talking about. And so they take groups of 30 or 40 students, college students, and give them a really difficult word puzzle. It's a crossword puzzle. And they time how long it takes

for this group of students to solve this puzzle together. And then as soon as they click the timer, okay, 45 minutes or whatever it was, they then wait five minutes and then they start a second group of students across campus on the same word puzzle. And every time they've done this,

the second group finishes a few minutes faster. And so even across the distance of a campus, electrons are exchanged fast enough that there's a universal knowingness that's developing in the environment. And you guys have all witnessed this over time. How many of you have grandchildren? No grandparents in the room?

That's me. One grandparent in the room. Does anybody have kids or nieces and nephews under the age of five? And so a few more people in the room. What is the reaction of that child to a small rectangular box that we would call an iPhone? That kid will learn to crawl just so it can get to the iPhone. That kid will scream bloody murder on an

airplane until mom finally hands over the iPhone. She doesn't want to because she doesn't want the kid to have screen time, doesn't want the kid to be holding a radiation device. But eventually mom gives in because the kid is fixated on this freaking little rectangle. This is quorum sensing at the greater level now as is these children are born into an environment where information technology is in such a high level of experience in the human consciousness right now, that the child knows that that's what it must want more than anything else, because their parents are spending more time on that little box than anything else, more than any relationship in their lives. They will spend more

time on that box in a day than they will talk to their own spouse. They will spend more time on that box than they will interact with their boss. It must be the most important thing. Our children can sense that. And so they don't know why it's the most important thing. One year old has no idea what the frick the box is. All they know is it's very important. Frick the box is, all they know is very important. And they have a facility in that technology that after decades of using those damn things, I can't match. A three-year-old is way better on an iPhone than I am

because there's this constant electrical exchange of information and experience. And so we should take massive pause and ask, what is the quorum sensing right now through my contribution? What is your daily experience contributing to this higher electrical state of humanity? Are you touching anybody in a day?

Can we do ourselves a favor right now and can we just hold hands just for the next however long? Let's just hold hands. That's just me and you, which will look awkward, but that's all good. Isn't it interesting

that we don't even do this very often, right? Like it's like the freaking simplest thing in the world. Like, hey, I've got a hand. I've got this opposing thumb. It's kind of cool. Us and the monkeys. And we just fix shit instead of touch each other. We just fix stuff.

You guys are all doing maintenance all day long, and you're not touching another hand. This is the best pain control not only that we go out of our way to avoid this this is very awkward and vulnerable yeah and frightening yeah we both got the black thing too i noticed that when we sat down like shit we must look kind of dorky up here but i got the got the men in black thing going on up here and now we're holding hands and and that you know on some level you think this is kind of awkward but on the other hand it feels really good like your hand feels really nice

rich it's not sweating yet it might start sweating it's really lovely because you have a softness to the palm that's like kind of hugging on the palm yes all right what are you doing after this uh yeah i'm free. My wife left this morning. Julie just gave permission, so I feel like, you know, got the hall pass, we're good. You guys are touching somebody next to you,

and in that touch, you're exchanging an amazing amount of information that's invisible. You can't see it, and you don't know it yet. You don't even know what you're absorbing from that person next to you yet. And I'm really glad I'm touching Rich's hand because he's talked to a lot of really smart people over the last decade,

and so I'm going to absorb all kinds of brilliance out of this hand. Let's just close our eyes for a second so we can more immerse ourselves in that feeling of that person's hand. Just send a little pulse of love out both hands now. Just a little pulse.

Don't have to get too dramatic about it. Control yourself. A little pulse. And now do something far more difficult that I don't even know if I know how to do yet, which is open up your heart right now and be willing to absorb all that other love. You have so many blocks right there.

You're walking around so protected, such a well-constructed cubicle around your heart. You're afraid you're unlovable. So just take it down. Take down the cubicle walls. I don't think anybody's really opened up their heart yet because nobody's really exhaling huge right now. So let's just try to take a deep breath in. Let it all the way out. Just let it out. Look back to your chest. And now turn your attention back to your palms and just gently ask for love. I just want some love. And let it run up your arms.

And let it start to fill your chest. Let's take another deep breath together and suck in all that love. you can in this moment experience everything that everybody else in this room has experienced all the knowledge they've collected all of the intelligence that they are capable of all of the service they've given to their loved ones. It turns out they're all just as good as you are at pouring love out. And they're just as bad as you are at taking love in.

And so the sheer amount of available love in this room is infinite. There's so much unabsorbed love in here. And I think that's why we are suffering so much as humanity is we've disconnected from the vortex, the matrix of love that is literally emanating out of all of us all the time. And we can't even figure out how to plug back into that. You are so loved. I want you to go back in time right now to the womb. Here we are right now. We're at some age and we're going to start traveling back swiftly.

Go through your mind's eye, whatever. Hit age 20. Man, it's great to be 20. It's such a cool. Now you're 10. You haven't had to go through the fucking puberty shit yet and you're just like still like in that wonderful magical moment of being 10 when life's still very simple like you just want to go ride bikes with your friends

remember when you're 10 and you catch a perfect hill on your bike, and you're just flying down it. There's complete freedom. No effort. Just wind whipping by you. I remember when you were five, digging your first big hole in the ground. I don't know why we're all driven to dig holes, but we do that all the time. When you were a kid digging a hole somewhere on a beach

or a backyard, but we do that all the time. When you were a kid digging a hole somewhere on a beach or a backyard. Just remember how tiny your hands are when you're five. It's so funny. Little hands are so damn cute. They're funny and almost kind of puffy. Fat little hands. And then you're like two

and you're just like so pleased with yourself because you can walk from the coffee table over to the shelf to rip something off this bookshelf and you're so pleased with yourself too and then suddenly you're this newborn and you're just blowing your mind over the beauty of the world you just came out of this like kind of glowy warm space

it was nothing very distinct to see. And you're just in this cacophony of color, sound, voices. You're just taking all that in in a brain that has no idea what it's seeing yet. But deeper down in that newborn is a very knowing soul and if we back up into the womb now where you're just an embryo not even fully formed yet i think there's still at some point in that transition between single cell and newborn baby you're animated by this energy field

and this energy field has a deep knowingness in it. It's been in the universe since the beginning of whatever creation was. And you're in the womb with this deep knowingness inside yourself. And you're the collision of a little bit of DNA from mom and dad that helps give structure to the interaction with an electromagnetic field that will then manifest a personality that can't be coded for in the genes. It's easy to feel like an amazing parent

when you have one child, but when you have a second child, you suddenly realize you have nothing to do with this process. It's so different. It is so impossibly different from that first child. And you're like, what? Because you're not actually from your parents. I would like you all to dwell on that for a very long moment right now.

You are not from your parents. So stop blaming them. They didn't create you. Are you kidding? No. They're just lost, confused human beings. You came from something much bigger. A much deeper knowingness.

A much deeper wisdom. So sit in that for a moment. You're not from your parents. That's wonderful. So we have to stop blaming them for their shortcomings or their successes we can we can neither give them credit nor nor ridicule for whatever happened in the parenting journey and the dominant emotion that i find underlying most of the disease i take care of is abandonment at some point you had a moment where you felt abandoned and it can seem really trivial

and it was really trivial. Like your parents went out on a date and you woke up from a nap, you didn't know they were going to be gone and they were gone and you felt suddenly terrified and lonely like your parents had banned you and it turns out that the babysitter was just late and they showed up. And I hear those little things all the time. In fact, that's what engendered the first moment of you thought you were abandoned. And sometimes it's awful, horrific things, awful abuses and all kinds of things that made you feel abandoned. But I want you to realize in the same way that you are not from your parents, there's

no way they could have abandoned you, nor could they give you any actual companionship on a spiritual level. They are no more connected with their soul than anybody else. And so they were no more capable of really being present with you. They were there biologically for you, but they didn't know how to connect with you at that spiritual level. And my big victory of my last decade, it was really finding out that when my mom was pretty sick when I'd grown up she had severe epilepsy and was always having seizures and so I was in this

caretaking mode early on in my life and oldest child of four kids so I was kind of taking care of my siblings while she's having a seizure taking care of her and I remember being in a grocery store with her head on my lap and she's having a seizure and people are freaking out around me and just patiently waiting for her to stop having a seizure. Those kinds of experiences, I ended up holding within me that I wasn't being nurtured. I wasn't being cared for. I was lonely because my mom couldn't be there to take care of me. And I found out a few years ago doing some just deep work with a myofascial therapist, releasing grief and the sense of I wasn't nurtured, to find out the embarrassing and humbling and incredible reality

that there had been angels all over me in every one of those moments. At the soul level, nurturing my soul, never letting go of me. And that changed my whole perception of my story. My story had been a kid with a sick mom who had to take care of people. And that moment I realized I'm a soul that's ancient, that's been nurtured at the highest level of vibration since before I came into this body, and especially while I've been

in this body. So give up your story. Your story is not one of hardship, I guarantee it. Our forefathers' generations had some hardship that we have never known. But deeper than that, there is no hardship on the soul level because the souls move as a sardine would. Those souls, that soul within you is literally as non-empathetic and non-empathic as the fish. It's just seeking a higher vibration. And it's asking you to a higher vibration. And so you are an ancient soul wrapped up at this moment.

You are not abandoned at any moment. You have been cared for on a level that defies our understanding, our words. The word angel is not sufficient. These are beings of light. These are beings of energy that we have really no construct to understand in our human minds. And they're all around us and we don't even understand that. We don't know why. We don't know how to interact with them entirely. But life is not the way it looks around you.

And you're going to get there faster to this state of being willing to let go of your cubicle. What story have you been telling everybody that you have got to get gone? I want you to rebirth right now. You're in the womb right now and I just want you to come back into this world with completely fresh eyes. Travel down that birth canal in that dark tunnel. There's light at the end of that tunnel.

There's total chaos at the end of the tunnel for all your perceptive limitations because you're about to step back into the world without any of your previous constructed self-identity and that's going to feel like chaos you're not going to be able to make immediate sense of everything because you're going to keep checking yourself say is that my old story be willing to be completely rebirth.

And we need to do that every single day because you're so patterned in creating a new story and you're just going to go build another one and you're going to fashion a new cubicle and you're going to be very super pleased with it and think it's all shiny and cool and you'll be just as stuck as you were before. And so, what will the quorum manifest? What are we gonna do with our time

so that we set in motion electrons that would inform not just our fellow man, but the children that would come after us? What are the whales gonna sense right now? Can we connect with those fish and whales in the sea right now and say, I'm sorry. I am so sorry for all the plastic in your belly. I am so sorry for our selfish dominance of this planet. Thank you for your grace and your willingness to connect instantaneously with us.

Thank you for welcoming us in as sardine and buffalo and wolf, eagle, fish, egg, whatever cards you pulled this week, I want you to go to that space

for a moment. Go to your egg for a moment. Go to your card and think about that. What were you called to become this week? Have you let go enough of your story that you can become that thing? Bless you, Zach. Thank you for that beautiful

offering. How's everybody feel? Reborn? Appreciate you, my friend. Thank you. Appreciate you, my friend. Thank you. Thank you for being here with all of us. So grateful to each of you.

It's so ridiculous that you showed up. Seven billion people on the planet, and you guys showed up. Seven billion. This is the cream of the freaking crop right here. 7 billion rows right now, this week, to become something bigger than yourself. Tap into something deeper. And I love it that you guys pulled this trick on everybody. Yeah, we got this vegan thing

and we're going to eat some good food and we run. Bullshit. You guys are like a freaking wrecking ball of previous lifetimes. I freaking love this place. Thank you for the sneak attacks. Thank you for the well-designed trust. And that's actually what you've created in your podcasts. And we've come to trust you in the language and the information you share with us.

We've come to trust these layers of education you guys put out in the world. And that trust allowed us to come to this place where we could be in deep relationship without having even known each other before since you're a friend of rich and julie you're my friend too and that started us off on a really strong point and we've built some really cool friendships that obviously you can hear all the exchanges like there's a lot of these friendships that are going to continue on now you guys are going to keep touching each other and you're going to build build a fucking tribe because we need it so badly we are so isolated and uh tribe is rising consciousness is rising and i think that we can actually get to a sardine moment without that catastrophic death and disappearance of our species that we're cruising towards.

And so we got about 30 years to figure it out. If we don't figure it out in 30 years, we will see the highest level of suffering ever measured in human history as we collapse to our end point. And if that's our path, let's hold on to this moment too for that is that we need to be non-empathic non-emotional about the demise of our species as well and we need to know that at that point we're just one giant fish jumping into the talons of a bigger eagle that we can't see yet

and so we don't need to be overly dramatic about the end of our species or the sixth extinction it's okay, It's our path. Mother Earth saw it coming. And she's recovered from massive extinctions before. And life just explodes right back.

And so we should be in no question of the good stuff on the other side. But if in the next 30 years you guys start really being vulnerable enough to your whole communities and really seeking more hand-holding in your life, we're going to freaking create a new society. And I'm very excited to bring more stuff to you guys too

for what my tribe is doing back in the states and around the world now we have a whole team of thinkers that are going to keep bringing stuff to you guys so rich and i i think are going to have an opportunity to roll out one of the biggest stories of human history in these next couple months as we we start to tell a story about the rise and fall of empire and we're going to tell a story about what are the patterns of human behavior that need to be destructed because not only have each of us constructed a story our societies and our empires have constructed a story that is keeping us from our fullest capacity to become one and to become one species that would be a quorum and would act at an extremely high intelligence level

that's literally never been witnessed before. And we will connect to alien species and we will connect to all kinds of things in this universe, physical and non-physical, through an actual quorum event when seven billion people become one and are willing to share everything. Most of all, love and whatever that is.

And so I'm honored to be among you. Can't wait for the next chapters to unfold. Yeah. Boom. Boom, right? That guy just never disappoints. So cool. Such a blessing to be able to share his powerful message with all you guys here today. Hope you guys enjoyed it. For even more on Dr. Bush, check the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com.

Go to his website, zachbushmd.com. And I would also suggest visiting farmersfootprint.us, where you can watch the first installment of his docu-series and learn more about the Farmers' Footprint mission and, should you be so moved, contribute to the cause. Again, I want to thank everyone who attended our retreat in Italy for collectively raising $81,000 for that project. You guys are amazing. And finally, let Zach know how this one landed for you by sharing your thoughts with him directly on Twitter at DrZachBush or on Instagram at ZachBushMD. If you want to support the work we do here on the podcast, just tell your friends about your favorite episode

or about the show in general. Share what you're listening to on social media. Take a screen grab, tag me. I like to retweet that stuff or share it on Instagram. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, wherever you listen to this or watch it. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, wherever you listen to this or watch it. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you can support our work on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. Great appreciation to everybody who helped put on this show today.

Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. My stepson, Tyler Pyatt, who handled the audio engineering in Italy to record this, to capture it. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin. There was no video this time, but hey, Blake's with me today doing audio engineering work. So many thanks to you guys nonetheless.

Jessica Miranda for graphics, DK for advertiser relationships, Leah Morasevich for photographs of this episode in Italy. And theme music is always by Analema. Appreciate you guys. I love you. Without you guys, I'm nothing. I will see you back here next week with a great conversation with my friend, the actor, Titus Welliver.

He's one of those guys. You see him and you're like, that guy. This guy has been in everything. You're like, I don't know if I know his name, but he's that guy. You you see him and you're like that guy this guy's been in everything you're like I don't know if I know his name but he's that guy you probably know him

from Bosch the TV series on Amazon he's a great dude we had a great conversation you're not gonna wanna miss it so stay tuned

until then as Dr. Bush says pain can be a great teacher become comfortable with being uncomfortable peace plants namaste can be a great teacher. Become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.