Undoctrinate Yourself - #19 - Anna Kurapey

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Dr. Anna Kurapey DO is an integrative psychiatrist, therapist, reiki master, and meditation and breath work practitioner. In this incredibly stimulating conversation, we cover a range of topics including an overview of some of the tools and modalities available within integrative psychiatry, the mind-body-spirit connection, the mismatch between modern humans and their environments, psychedelics as tools for neuroplasticity, and much more!Find Dr. Anna on instagram ⁠@integrativecarebydranna⁠and on her ⁠website⁠ www.modernpsychclinic.comSupport the podcast by becoming a patron www.patreon.com/undoctrinateyourselfpodcastFollow the podcast on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@undoctrinateyourselfpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Dr. Alexis on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@dralexisjazmyn⁠⁠

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Undoctrinate Yourself. Today I have an amazing guest for you. This is Dr. Anna Karapi. She's an integrative psychiatrist and therapist, and I'm really excited to dive into the world of integrative psychiatry with her today because it's not really a field that I was very accustomed with or even knew that it really existed. I feel like my experience of psychiatry from kind of the outside has been that there's so much dogma and so much like, you know, the biochemicals. view of the brain versus like the mind brain connection and so much of that mind piece that's missing often in the in the allopathic approach to psychiatry. So I'm really excited to talk to Anna about these topics today. But first of all, just want to welcome you on to the show and thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to have this conversation with you. Me too. Me too. So maybe we can start by just hearing about how you got interested in psychiatry and specifically also within the realm of integrative psychiatry, what made you feel like that was the root that you wanted to pursue? Yeah, so I don't think there's a simple answer to this

one. I think there's so many different parts of my life that led me to psychiatry. But I think when I started college, I was planning on going to medical school. Like I knew the doctor way was my path. I don't know why, but that was just the path that was going on. And as I was studying like biology and microbiology and genetics and all these things. I was like, okay, this is important, but it doesn't light me up. And then as I started taking psychology courses, I was like studying late at night, reading extra books. I'm like, okay, this is my path. This is what lights me up. And I realized actually I was being pushed that way like my entire life. You know, I'll share that my grandfather has bipolar. And I don't think it was really discussed in my family, but we would

see the ups and downs, right? We would see his emotions change. And I also had friends growing up who dealt with addiction issues and some friends who passed away from that. And so I think I was always wondering, like, why is this happening? You know, why are we 16, 17 years old and people are dying from these diseases? It didn't make sense to me. So in college, when I started really diving into the education of it, I started to see mental health as a disease, which I think, at that time, you know, that was, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, it wasn't really seen that way yet. So I think that's kind of how my interest got started, went into medical school, you know, had to study the whole body, which was important to my path. And as I dove into like my clinical work and doing my residency, I saw how limited the medical system was.

Like, yes, there's medications for things and, you know, we see patients for maybe 20 minutes or 30 minutes. but people were getting better on the medications, but three, four months later, they were coming back with the exact same complaints. And it wasn't satisfying to me, right? It's like, I want to be able to offer you a lot of different tools, and I'm just having one or two tools in my toolbox. I'll also preface that I grew up in kind of a holistic family. You know, we were using, yeah, we were using, like, thanks to my mom, like homeopathic remedies. And she was doing, like, energy work when I had like ear infections as a kid. And so I was already not necessarily on, you know, the Western medical path. I was already open to those integrative remedies. And so it just kind of came to me like,

oh yeah, like this can be done in psychiatry too. Yeah, absolutely. And so when you kind of had that feeling that you wanted to diversify your toolkit, where did you first look in order to do that? Did you find a specific school to continue your education or did you start just doing your own type of like your own homework and research to try to figure out what what tools you wanted to integrate? Yeah. So I definitely started my own kind of reading and, you know, looking information up. And then in my fourth year of medical school, which is like the year where you do all of your electives, you get to choose what your year looks like. There was a program through the University of Arizona. And they do an integrative medicine elective. And so that kind of got me to dip my toes in.

They did a huge overview of like energetics, homeopathy, herbal remedies, astrology, like all of these different things. And that's actually where I got my first certification to become a Reiki Master. There's like three levels and I got my first level there. And so I think that was kind of me dipping my toes in. And then as a resident, I did an integrative psychiatry fellowship through IPI, which is a program through the University of Colorado. And that's really where I got the bulk of my training. And what does IPI stand for? The Integrative Psychiatry Institute.

Wow. So, I mean, I think a lot of people probably don't realize that like Riki and energy healing and maybe like herbalism approaches or even astrology is taught in like a formal manner through like these major accredited institutions. That's that's probably something that's surprising to a lot of people. Yeah. And I think, you know, I got a lot of pushback like medical school, residency, even like out of residency. see, I get a lot of pushback of, oh, well, it's not evidence-based. And it is, first off, it is 100% evidence-based. You know, I think there are maybe things that don't have as good of evidence as some other things do, but there's still evidence to it. And I also think that

in the Western side of medicine, we maybe overuse research or evidence. So the point that we're not listening to our intuition anymore, we're not listening to our core selves anymore. So that's actually something I work on with my patients is how do we like strip away all of those expectations that were placed on us and how do we move through our life through a core self, authentic self way? And I think we need to be doing that in medicine too. I mean, absolutely. It sounds like duh, like no brainer when you're saying it. But then at the same time, the way that medicine's practice by and large is not like that. It's actually like the opposite of that. And it's something I also spent a lot of time thinking about because I did a lot of translational

research and like clinical trial design and things like this during my graduate studies. And when you're designing these studies and like analyzing this data, it becomes really clear. Like, there are major limitations with the way that we're conducting science to ask medical questions. Like, first of all, you know, we're looking at a population that's already kind of not necessarily a good representation of the general public. Like maybe we're choosing a demographic that's very specific. So that's one limitation. And then when we're collecting data from those, people we're first of all biasing what we're looking at by choosing our biomarkers or our you know end points ahead of time so we're not looking at like a broad scope of different

end points that could be affected but then when we do get that data we're averaging it all together and we can even use statistics to remove outliers which is like the outliers can be so important because let's say one person responds really well to a treatment or an intervention and another person responds terribly well that's really important information to have and if we can figure out, you know, why there's differential responses across people, that's, in my opinion, the most important aspect of medicine. It should always be a more n-equals-1 approach. And yet we're conducting these large double-blind placebo-controlled studies and pulling these data points together looking at the averages and making claims based on those. And it's like, well, no, I mean,

in science, it can be useful to look at averages. But in medicine, like, the main priority should be the end of one. Absolutely. And that's why when I work with clients, it really is an individual individualized approach. And I think that's part of integrative psychiatry's, creating these individualized plans for each person. The benefit of integrative psychiatry or how most integrative psychiatrist's practice is there's a lot more time in our appointments. And with psychiatry or psychology, therapy, like, you have to hear out the patient. It really is about creating a safe environment for that person to be able to be vulnerable, to tell you what's really going on for even maybe things to. come up that they've never even heard themselves say, right? In the Western system, you get 20, 30 minutes. How are you going to hear the person? You're going to be treating that superficial layer. You're not really getting down deep. And so when I see someone for the first time, I see them for an hour and a half. And that still is pretty superficial because it's the first meeting, right? We're just kind of getting to what you came for, but maybe not diving too deep yet because we're getting to

know each other. But that relationship. relationship starts in that hour and a half. And by creating that relationship, then I'm able to create more of an individualized plan using all the tools that I have in my toolbox. And as a psychiatrist, I'm always building up that toolbox. Like right now I'm taking an astrology course and trying to learn more because I know like the superficial things about, you know, astrology, but I want to know more. I want to guide people through that. So yeah, that individualized plan is super, super important. Oh, I love that so much because I went down the astrology rabbit hole like two and a half years ago and I just finished taking an astro-urbalism

course which completely blew my mind. I hope that you have the chance to take it one day if you haven't looked into it already. It's so, so good through the school of evolutionary herbalism. And it just goes so deep and really the way I see it. And I think a lot of people view it as this like weird woo like method of divination or like future prediction. But it's really, I mean, in my opinion, a study of archetypes. And I mean, archetypal nature of reality is so important. especially when we're dealing with issues of the mind and like these features and these themes come up like in these like cycles. And if we can kind of look at them in an objective way and it can really help to, you know, look at them through the lens of astrology or other modalities as well,

then I feel like we can develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and that just can lead to such incredible growth and transformation. Absolutely. And like what I'm seeing with the astrology work and like you mentioned like those archetypal patterns is we're, just a mirror of the stars, right? Just like I'm a mirror to you and you are a mirror to me. And so if we can start understanding ourselves by understanding others, understanding the stars and the planets, we're going to have so much more empathy and compassion for ourselves because we're more likely to show compassion to others, right? Like that's usually what's easier for my patients. Like, and then once they start accepting that, they can accept that within themselves. And so

using astrology in that way of it's just a reflection. It's not necessarily predictive. You still have control of your life. You still have control of, you know, how these stressors affect you, but using it as a reflection, I think, can really teach people about themselves. Yeah, I love that you said that because one of the first things that I noticed as I started diving into the world of astrology is that I felt like I could cultivate compassion for others much more easily because I feel like it gets really old to think about everybody's behavior is just like trauma and conditioning. Trauma and conditioning. It's like, I mean, at some point, like somebody has a core nature that's going to be different from the person next to them. And I think being able to understand that core nature and just like the forces that are coming together to shape who that person is, it's like a very profound look into just like the individuality of people and how beautiful that is. And I think it's also a really like cool and fun way to be able to highlight that individuality and show how like beautifully different we are. Though at the same time, we're also have so much in common as well.

So it's nice to see that like dichotomy. And I think I, you know, was drawn to astrology for my own reasons. I mean, I think I'm in this field because I love doing it for myself. And so then I love doing it for others, right? And I dove into it for myself. But then I started seeing these patterns. Like I would have a week where like every single patient would say basically the same thing. Right?

Or like the next week, all of a sudden everyone's in a really good mood. And I'm like, okay. like what is going on there has to be like a bigger picture to this and so then I'll like look into the astrology maybe at the end of the week and I'm like oh now this makes sense or I'll look at it at the beginning of the week just to like prep my mind like okay people might come in with these concerns or you know these stressors and then I see it play out and sometimes I'll even like laugh in my sessions I'm like you're right on time you're exactly reflecting what's in the sky oh my gosh that's that's too funny are you willing to

share a little bit about your chart with us just for like some context. I would love to learn about you. Sure. Yeah. I can share like my sun moon and rising. That's usually what people, you know, understand the most. But my son is Pisces and I am a Pisces at my core, like very spiritual out there. I can sometimes need that grounding. My moon is in Gemini. So for people that don't know your moon is like how you experience your emotions and Gemini is kind of that communicative planet. So definitely, you know, in my work and also in the way that I experience my emotion just through talking. And then my rising is Virgo. So that grounds me a little bit into like that organization. You know, it's really, really funny. But I, for some reason, I have a Virgo moon, but I really attract Virgo risings in my

life. You're literally my 12th at this point that I have like in my sphere, which is just so, it's mind blowing to me. I love it. I seem to like, I feel like I really resonate with you guys. I feel like we just understand each other. And actually, I've been trying to, like, find some patterns around that. Like, I think that moon and rising pairs and, like, sun and rising pairs or sun and moon pairs, like, they tend to just, like, understand each other at a different level, which makes, like, rapport really easy and just, like, conversation flow. And it makes things so fun, so I love that. Yeah. What are your sun moon or rising? So I'm a tourist sun, a Virgo moon, and a tourist rising. I'm a tourist stellium. So I also have tourists in Mercury and Venus, too.

So lots of tourist energy going on. that's awesome though that's a good one yeah i love that especially as it relates to um connecting people back to nature which is one of my biggest platforms that i'm on like on social media and just in general and i work with people as well like doing what we can to reconnect with nature and there's just so much healing and medicinal value to doing that and people tend to also see results really quickly so i love that that also you know came to the forefront as i was learning about myself through the astrological lens and just like everything making more sense when when we're on like a self-discovery journey really. I think it just it's really, really cool to be

able to put those pieces together and develop a deeper relationship with ourselves because, I mean, I think it's easy for people to get kind of stuck in their ways and be like, this is who I am, this is how I am, and this is just how it's going to be. But we have so much autonomy with regards to like how we show up in the world. And I think the more we can come to terms with that, the more pleasant our life becomes as well. Oh, 100%. And I think, you know, going back to kind of what my training was, and how I practice now, when I learned therapy during my residency, we learned psychodynamic therapy, which is, you know, looking back at how you grew up, what your patterns are, maybe childhood trauma

you experienced, what really formed your thought process and your behaviors today. And I think that that's really important. But again, I feel like that's just like superficial, right? This is how I grew up. This is why I am the way I am. And that's important to understand. But then it's like, how do I change that? How do I actually become the person I know that I am?

Because I always say like when people are like, well, I want to be like this and I want to be like that. It's like if you are identifying you want to be like that, you already are that. So now how do we strip away all of those things that were placed on you in childhood, either by your family, your friends, the environment, society at large. Now with social media, like that constant comparison, how do we strip that all away? create what you know you already are. And I think that's really where the work starts. And I think that's a big difference as well when someone just sees a therapist and sees a therapist who has

either an integrative or like a holistic mindset is it is a little bit of life coaching. Like how can we change your behaviors? How can we change your lifestyle so that you are more aligned with your authentic self? That's, that's beautiful. Actually, you just brought up something for me with regards to astrology and like the early life traumas or experiences that I mean was kind of a realization that I had somewhat early on in my studies and that is that like I mean if we subscribe to the notion that there is a soul and like you're a soul inhabiting a body and that perhaps your soul chose a specific time place and date to inhabit that body because it needed to have specific experiences to facilitate its own evolution versus like life is just happening to me I'm a victim

to it and it's all just like against me versus like this is all for me and for my growth. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so I'll, I'll plug a book I just read that I'm, like, obsessed with. I mean, I already love Dr. Lisa Miller, but I just read the awakened brain. Have you ever read that before? No. Okay. It's been recommended to me a million times, but I think it came at the exact right time that I finally opened it. And she has done so much research on the field of spirituality and mental health. And she talks about the awakened awareness versus achieving awareness.

So awakened awareness is this connection to spirituality, this connection to soul, believing that there's something bigger out there versus achieving awareness, which is kind of like a one-track mind, you know, getting things done, maybe a goal you have, your motivation, right? And you need a balance of both. But we find that when people are more in their awakened awareness, when they are connected to their soul, they're able to see that life is happening for them, right? They're not seeing all these stressors or things that are coming up as, oh, it's happening to you and feeling hopeless and hopeless. Like they can't control things. It's like, you take a step back and you're like, oh, wait, why is this coming up for me?

What is there to learn here? How can I show up for myself or show up for other people? And that really empowers people, right? And that book, I mean, incredible. Like the way she talks about the research and how there is so much evidence based behind spirituality and depression and anxiety is, I mean, I recommend it to everyone. I love that. I'm going to definitely check out that book. And I think it makes a lot of sense because we already know just at like a basic level. If people don't have community, they feel very isolated. They feel detached. They feel depressed or anxious. And so I feel like by that same extension, we, We need connection to some greater hole in general in order to have like a felt sense of well-being, whether that's like a community of people or just like a larger hole like the cosmos or to spirit or whatever you identify with. I think it's just extremely powerful for allowing you to get out of that kind of victim mindset that's so easy to fall into. And especially in our culture where I feel like there's just like this infantilization of the population where it's like we see doctors as like daddy figures and the government as daddy.

figures and it's like we're just supposed to do what we're told and we take these medications and we don't question authority and we don't you know we just trust the experts we trust the science we don't trust ourselves because what do we know like we're just completely disempowered and I think I mean you can just see how that is playing out with regards to our health as a country and in the West in general and I think it's I think people are starting to wake up to though since especially since COVID I think there was a lot of shifting that happened during that time and but yeah it's pretty wild to think about the fact that like we've gotten to this place and um it's it's really i i think about it like a

like a co-conspiracy between you know the the larger structures and the individual it's not like one or the other it's not like we only need top down or bottom up we kind of need both but i mean we can we can only start with ourselves and just like you know standing up for ourselves finding out what we believe in what sparks joy in us what makes us feel alive and following those golden threads and the more we can do that the more we are in alignment with our soul and then once we're in alignment with our souls, then we get more information coming into our field from our soul that's like, okay, this is the path for you. This is what you need to do. And having a trust in that like greater power is so also relieving because it's not done all on you to intellectually figure things out. Absolutely. And like you said, following those golden threads. I mean, even in that book, they talk about the science behind synchronicity. And once you can step into your awakened awareness, you start noticing those synchronities more and more. And that's what's going to really draw you to your purpose, your path, feeling fulfilled. But if we're in our achieving awareness and we're really zoomed in on our goal and it's just us trying to achieve the goal, we're not

going to see all those little clues that the universe is throwing to us and we're going to feel alone and we're going to feel isolated. And we can't carry the world on our shoulders. I mean, everything that's going on in the world right now, as an individual, you can't fix that, right? that is going to take a community mindset, a society mindset. I mean, it's just so much bigger than ourselves. But like you said, it starts with us. And actually, literally the patient I saw right before I hopped on here, that's what we were talking about is how do we start small?

Like what can we control in our inner environment, which starts with just our home, right? If you're living with someone or if you're living alone, how do you create a home that fulfills you, whether that's visually pleasing, whether that's like having an area in your home where you do your meditations or you do your spiritual work, you know, kind of like this cocoon that's comfortable and you're excited to go into. And then you take it a step further. Okay,

like outside my home. And that could even be like two or three blocks around your home. Like, what's your favorite coffee shop to go to? Who's a friend in your area or a neighbor that you always wave high to, right? Like starting to expand that more and more. And then you get comfortable with going to community events, going to state events, going to, national events, whatever that is. But it does have to start with you. And again, seeing those golden threads of what's going to interest you in following those. I love that. And it's reminding me of like Jordan Peterson saying like clean your room, like start at home first. You have to start with you before you can worry about tackling the goals of like the entire country or the globe. It's like you need

to start small. And then you build that momentum outward. And then you develop competency at each level. So the more you venture outwards, the better you're going to be able to actually be a to deal with larger problems. Absolutely. And if you're able to deal with those problems at home, if you're able to manage your emotions, then when something from one of those outer circles comes in, you can manage that emotion. It doesn't feel so big or so helpless. You're like, okay, I've done this on a smaller level.

I'm just going to do this on a little bit of a bigger level now. Yeah, actually, that's bringing up something for me with regards to like some psychedelic experiences that I had that were quite challenging. and it required me, honestly, I liken it to surfing because it felt like I was on like the edge of a wave and I could like collapse into the sea or I could like surf it. And so there's like this delicate balance of like navigating energy moving through the body. And I mean, on one hand, it can feel very scary. But once you like at least personally, I mean, I don't necessarily recommend psychedelics for everybody at all. Like I think it's it requires a certain skill set to be able to navigate those more challenging experiences. And it's probably better to build up those skills in the of meditation or other modalities that are in like a more grounded state. But I realized that those experiences when I was having a lot of histamine stuff coming up for me in 2022 and there was just like this, there would be like these bursts of energy like my throat would be closing and it's like a lot of post-COVID and like parasite stuff going on for me at

that time. But I realized that the skill sets that I had developed in self-regulation and navigating and moving energy in my body served me so well during that time because I was able to do those same techniques and those same strategies that I learned in those other experiences to help me get through these challenging experiences in my normal waking consciousness. And so, I mean, just even if it's through meditation or other techniques maybe that you want to talk about with regards to energy, moving energy and like moving stuck energy in the body or anything that feels like dense or like sticky, being able to navigate that terrain is so helpful in like a variety of different contexts and just makes you be able to self-regulate to

a much higher level. Yeah, and self-regulation is really what we're working towards, right? And that's what I work on every single session with my clients. But again, like in all different modalities, because you never know how something's going to come up for you and what tool will be helpful in that moment. But the one thing I would recommend is creating a practice for yourself every single day to listen. I think our world is so busy right now. And there's so many demands. And there's so many like with the change in COVID, with people being able to work virtually from home, I feel like there's even more demands on us. Like you're always at your computer. You're always working. Family always expects you to be able to step away from your computer because you're just at home. You're not at work. So you can come over for dinner and do all these things. There's not that much quiet anymore. So I recommend people create a listening practice. Whatever that looks like for them. Usually it's some kind of a meditation or a journaling practice and just sit and listen. and hear what your intuition is saying. Maybe it doesn't say anything that day.

That's not the point, right? We're not looking for information. We're just creating a space for it to come to us if it wants to. And then from there, you can learn to self-regulate. Because if you can't hear it, you don't know what you're regulating anyways. But if you can hear it, then you start listening. Okay, today maybe, and this is very simple, like doing a body scan, right? So starting from the top of your head to your toes, closing your eyes,

and breathing into all different areas of your body and seeing where it feels a little bit more dense, where it feels a little more stuff. Maybe your right shoulder is a little higher than the left shoulder and breathing into that space. And then I like people to ask, what is that about? What is that energy about? Usually an answer will come to us, right?

And that's where the work starts. And then moving that energy is a whole other process. So that can be done through breathwork, like Kundalini breathwork, holotropic breath work, just deep belly breaths. That can look like somatic therapy exercises, which I can go into as well. That can look like exercise for a lot of people. It's a movement practice.

That could also look like journaling. That can move all of those things out. And then there's also Reiki, right? Like actual energy, healing, massage. There's so many different ways. So I like to not limit people. Like let's expand this as big as we can. and then meet ourselves where we're at each day.

I love that. So when you're, let's say, empowering people with these modalities, do you do them in person in the clinical context, or do you, like, give them homework assignments to do at home or both? Yeah, both, for sure. Because I think if I just explain this to you and you've never done it before, how are you going to go home and do it? Right.

So what I'll notice is, let's say someone will come in and they'll start talking about whatever happened that week. usually, you know, it starts as like a verbal thing because most people don't give themselves that time to process their emotion, so they're processing them in session. And then at some point, I'll notice this shift where I'm like, okay, they're ready to get into their body. And then that's where the work really starts. You know, okay, I see that you're getting more intense about this or more emotional or this emotion is coming up. Let's stick with that. And then we get grounded in our body. Either that's through taking deep breaths,

putting a hand on your chest, putting our hand on wherever we feel that emotion, and we start breathing into that space. And then we start working with it. So for some people, they have a really good breathwork practice. So I'll take them through some breathwork. For some people that might be doing like cat cows or like somatic therapy exercises, like the simplest one I like is like self-holding. So you kind of give yourself a bear hug and you might like sway from sides to side or you might rub your hands up and down, that repetitive movement is going to activate your vagus nerve and put you in that state of rest and digest. And once you're in that state, your intuition can come to you. You can start processing that emotion and start self-regulating. So we definitely do

that work in session. And then, you know, we give homework assignments. I love that. And actually, you just reminded me that I wanted to mention something that you brought up earlier, too, about like people getting stuck like just with their blinders on and like just very myopically focused on whatever problems they've got going on or whatever work things they have going on or whatever it is. It just made me think that like there's so many stimuli for our sympathetic nervous system in modern society, whether it's like artificial lights or looking on screens all day or, you know, just stress, family stress, work stress. I think we have a lot of demands on our, like as modern humans. And I feel like we actually have to actively pursue a more parasympathetic state in order to achieve it today.

I think it's kind of an unprecedented time for our species. And we really have to like re-engineer those more like rest and digest, like calming experiences into our day-to-day life. And the ramifications of not doing that are huge. Like just obviously from like a digestive standpoint, you're not assimilating nutrients as well. You're not able to digest your food as well. then that has implications for things like sebo and fungal infections and blood sugar dysregulation, which can lead to things like brain fog and like, you know, issues with cognition, which could lead you to make poor decisions, which kind of has this like spitball effect, right? And so the more

that we can get into that parasympathetic state throughout the day, it's going to create huge wins for us like down the line. And I think one thing maybe I didn't mention with working as an integrative psychiatrist, I work within like the bio-psychosocial spiritual model. So we look at all of that, right? So biologically, like, what's going on? How are you eating? How is it affecting your nervous system? Also, what are you genetically predisposed to and what do we have to take into consideration there?

And so how common is it that we like rush through breakfast, lunch and dinner, right? Because we have to get to work. We have to get back to our work. We have to run to the next thing. And you're not chewing your food. You're not visually like seeing your food, which we know just. visually seeing it and smelling it is where our digestion even starts. And we're missing that whole thing. And then we're like, why am I bloated? Why am I not having good stools? Like, it has to start

there. So actually, I do a full evaluation of like, what are you eating like? What are the foods that you're intaking? Are you drinking enough water? What's your caffeine like? Caffeine use like, right? Because I get a lot of people that come in and they're like, I'm so anxious in the mornings. I'm like, you've had three cups of coffee. Like, of course. Right. So we got to start at the groundwork. Like, are you sleeping well? How's your digestion? You know, how's your water intake? All of those things first. And then we can start like self-actualizing. But we can't get there if we don't have the groundwork. I love that you mentioned that because, yeah, stimulants and like overuse of stimulants is something that I personally see a lot in my practice. It's also something I've experienced myself in the past,

just burning out from overusing things like caffeine, adderol, etc., which are very depleting to your dopamine systems and just like to your brain chemistry in general. And it's weird because they're such like socially normalized drugs. Like the same person who like demonizes psychedelics and other drugs will be like, you know, having their coffee and maybe their nicotine and maybe their adderol and like throughout the day. And it's like we have like this cognitive dissonance in society around drug use.

And this also ties into like a whole other can of worms. with regards to like the light environment because it's something I think a lot about because the lack of sun in people's lives and the excess blue light is really depleting also to that dopamine system. It's driving them to want to seek out these stimulants to like keep them up when their like bodies are just really needing a break. And so I think that stimulants can be used in like a conscious way. But I think they're often abused in in our culture. 100%. And I have so many clients that come to me who have ADHD who are either both on stimulants or not on stimulants. And they're like, it's not working. I can't stay on task for two hours

at a time. And I'm crashing at the end of the day. And I'm like, let's look at our expectations of this. Right. Like you didn't sleep well. You didn't wake up with the sun or didn't like take some time in the sun before you started working. And now you want to sit for two hours and stare at a screen and get things done. It's like, no, let's provide some education around that. And actually, thanks to you, I've started implementing like the circadian rhythm changes with my clients. And it's been so helpful for me in my energy levels, in my sleep, my sleep has completely changed. I mean, I was already a pretty good sleeper, but it's so deep now in my aura ring, you know, says it is as well. So yeah, I think that there's so many other modalities than just using medications, people come to me with sleep issues.

And I'm like, let's look at your sleep hygiene. Let's look at your light environment. let's look at, you know, when are you eating your last meal of the day? Before we decide that you need something to go to sleep and then something to wake up in the morning. And I think that's how Western psychiatry looks at it, like a sleep aid and then something to wake you up. And that's just messing our bodies up more. Right. And the crazy thing about it is like once you get on that train, especially when like surgeries start to get involved, like then at some point you might become dependent on that system. because now like your body is literally not the same that it was.

And it can be like a scary, like slippery slope that people can go down. And I know so many people who have had like organs moved, like removed preemptively. Like that was like a really, I mean, it's the same thing. Like if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I feel like if you're going to a surgeon, I've had so many people coming to me without gallblatters. And like they get their gallbladder removed and they still have the GI pain that they had that the doctor said was caused by the gallbladder. But it's like like people can have sludge and stones in their gallbladder. and it's not actually causing symptoms.

So I think people or physicians and surgeons are really quick to remove organs. And then you kind of become dependent on that system because now it's like you have to completely change your life in some cases. Like without a gallbladder, you're not absorbing your fat soluble vitamins very well anymore. You're not able to get your essential fatty acids in as well anymore and can cause a lot of issues with diarrhea and like nutrient absorption in general. And so my heart always goes out to people because a lot of people just don't know because we're brought up in this system where it's like this is the norm.

But the thing is, like, if we consider that the norm, then we need to be okay with getting the normal diseases, which are like, you know, the whole host of diabetes, autoimmunity, cancer, etc. Yeah, absolutely. And going back to people becoming dependent. I mean, I have a lot of clients that come to me that are dependent on benzodiazepines, right? Like Xanax or Ataband for sleep, because at some point their primary doctor had no other option and they put them on this medication. And now they've been taking it for five plus years. And what happens when you try to go off of it is you get rebound in some. It's just literally what our bodies do, right? That's the chemical properties of GABA. And I try to help them get on supplements, change their circadian rhythm, like, work with, work with light, and try to get them off of those medications because otherwise you're stuck in the system that you don't want to be in. And kind of what you said about like the gallbladder or just looking at the gallbladder,

it goes back to like that one track mind, right? They're not looking at a patient holistically. they're not looking at the entire environment or how all of their systems work together. And, you know, I don't want to blame these doctors because it's like I went through the system. I know what it's like. It's just that the system is so stuck in this form of education and people are so resistant to any other views. Like I remember even when I would bring up wanting to study integrative psychiatry or study these other modalities, I got a lot of pushback. You know, a lot of like, okay, this is an evidence based. People aren't really going to be.

be interested in it. It doesn't really help. And at some point, you know, your intuition is like, all right, it doesn't matter. You're doing this. You have to do it. There's no other way. And I started asking my patients, like, hey, are you interested in learning about this? Or, hey, I just learned about this integrative modality. Is that something that you want to know about? And I got an outpouring of support from my patients. And that's when I was like, all right, if my patients are coming to me and they are literally saying they need these alternative methods, then it doesn't matter what the system says. It's actually my responsibility to provide that. I love that. And I think it's beautiful that you really appear to have been taking to heart the concept of like first you know harm, which I think a lot of, I mean, there's just a lot of perverse incentives in medicine sometimes. And it can be easy for docs to fall into that. And a lot of it is also normalized again. So it's like people don't even think they're doing the wrong thing necessarily. But a lot of it comes back to the structural issues with the way medicine is taught and the siloing of medicine and how you're,

like if you become a specialist, you're literally just meant to focus on this one area. And the pieces never get put back together. So you can't, you're not even equipped with the information and the insights to actually understand your area of specialty within the context of the whole, which is like you were just alluding to is it's a like it's not doing anything positive to the patient. If anything, it's going to be causing unintended harms. And I want to also circle back to the Benzo conversation too because I have a client who was on Benzo's like prescript. for anxiety for over a decade and he tried to get off of them and he did but he said that it took him 10 years to feel like himself again after that process which is just like mind blowing. It is. It's so hard to get off of them and that's why when people come to me and they're on those

medications that's like one of my first goals. I mean first like let's ground and like calm your nervous system but let's get you off of that as fast as we can because the longer you stay on it, the more it's going to wreak your, you know, wreak havoc on your nervous system. Does it actually change like the structure of the brain in any way, do you know? Or is it mostly like a chemical issue? I'm really not sure in terms of like the actual science behind it. But I know like what I see in my clients is like that person said.

Like it's so hard to feel like yourself. And there's this disconnection that happens. And almost like, so what Benzos do, right, is they act on GABA. So they're relaxing. your brain. And so it's so hard to then get into like a glutamate state, which is like the opposite of GABA that activated state. It's hard to like go back and forth once you're in GABA all the time. And I think it takes so long to get there. I will say I think psychedelics help. And again,

psychedelics are not for everyone. We do really have to look at like your history and like your family history and what kind of grounding work you've done before you have that experience. But I do think when people are doing the work, that is something that can really, like, quicken up that process of feeling back to yourself. Yeah, it was actually, that immediately came to mind for me because you were talking about this struggle of getting between like glutamate and gababestates. And it's like, that seems like a neuroplasticity issue, right? And we know the psychedelics help to facilitate neuroplasticity, maybe even in microdosing

form. Like, I know there's a lot of research coming out, like, microdosing psilocybin mushrooms and stacking that maybe with something like Lions Main that helps with, like, neurons, spine formation and helping to facilitate that neuroplasticity so that it could could potentially expedite not only like issues or like maladaptive circumstances in the brain, but also like in the peripheral nervous system too, like rehabbing injuries, for example. Oh yeah. And that's super interesting that you bring that up. You know, I work, we work, I work a lot with the body, right? Like the somatic therapy aspect is basically seeing how you feel those emotions in your body,

but it's also the opposite. Like people come in with chronic pain or these injuries that keep getting flared up. And a lot of times those are emotions getting stored. And so the psychedelic work can help with both, right? It can help with the emotions being stored as pain or pain coming up as emotions. And you could do that kind of work through somatic therapy, you know, through massage therapy. There's all these different modalities. But I think psychedelics help a lot with it. Yeah. Do you, I don't know, you said you're located in Chicago. Is there any, like, legality issues around using psychedelics in your practice or is it something that you have to kind of do separately? Yeah. So in Illinois right now, ketamine is legal. So a lot of people do

ketamine assisted therapy. I don't personally provide the ketamine, but what I'll do is integration sessions before and after because what I'm noticing, there are some really great clinics right now that are coming up that actually have therapists that sit with you during session. But most of the time, these clinics just administer it and then you leave after it's, done. So I'm like, okay, do you want to do that? Just make an appointment with me after so we could do the integration process. And then they're working on getting psilocybin approved as well, but that's not approved yet in Illinois. Yeah, I think that will be really powerful. I know, I mean, just anecdotally from some friends who have gone through like ketamine therapy as they were

trying to get off SSRIs and like just trying to stabilize off of meds, I heard from them that it seemed like the ketamine might be a short-term solution, but instead of like allowing you to integrate those traumas or any sort of internal feelings of like conflict that you were having, it kind of separates you from them. I mean, it's a dissociative drug and I think there can be some at least acute comfort that comes from that separation, not identifying fully with the thing that happened if it's like a PTSD situation. But do you have any thoughts of like, does that seem like a long-term strategy. Have you seen like cases where people are having long-term success or is it more of like a medium or short-term benefit? Yeah, that's interesting that that was the experience that

they had. I don't know if I've gotten that type of feedback before, but actually I think it helps people step outside of themselves. Like if they are on that one-track mind and they're so identified with their trauma or their stressors, they're able to kind of step away from it and see things as one, which I think is really helpful to be able to kind of step back for him in and identify as something else. I guess I don't see it as like creating space as in like a dissociation, if that makes sense, right? But I could see how it could go that way. I'm not sure, you know, in terms of like short term versus long term because I don't think it's been around long enough, at least like in mainstream right now.

but I am seeing people who get like a certain amount of sessions done and they're good for like three, four years at least. Wow. How that'll look like down the line, obviously. But again, I think that integration process is the key to it. I think if you're just doing ketamine, yes, it's going to be short term. Even a short term is just a week, right? And you're going to need it again the following week.

But if you're doing the integration session and you're talking about, okay, what came to me during that session? and how do I work with that? What did the medicine show, basically? Then it can be integrated into you, and then it's more long-term. I do think, you know, from what I'm seeing, again, anecdotally, like through some of the research being done, but then also just like clients who go to Oregon to get it done.

But I think psilocybin maybe has more long-term effects and maybe doesn't have to be done as often. But again, we'll kind of see how this plays out. out. Yeah, yeah, I was thinking that as well. And also, I mean, there's a whole part of the story with MDMA, too, which I mean, I personally, uh, the first MDMA experience I had my eating disorder and body dysmorphia just like literally were gone after that day. And it's been that way for years now. And it was such like a important moment for me where I just was able to reframe my experience and be like, wow, like, why am I torturing myself? Like, I'm literally doing this to myself.

And being able to just like see that in context was so powerful. And I think I, I'm in, no way surprised that the trials have been so tremendous for like soldiers with PTSD, for example. And I think there's going to be a huge area of like impact also within like couples therapy and just like individuals trauma too. I think there's a huge application for this substance used in like a very like conscious way and used with like the right care and mindset. And what I love about MDMA is it and I don't know if you had this experience. But I think it creates this like community feeling like all of a sudden and you feel so much relation to everyone else. And with COVID, I mean, I feel like that's our biggest issue right now is people feel so isolated and they don't know how to get back into community.

And so I think that's going to be super helpful that MDMA piece too. But yeah, of course, all of these things also have, you know, so many risks that come with them. And, you know, just like medications, it's, you know, it's individualized. It has to be. Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely love that. So you mentioned earlier about somatimatic. therapies. I wanted to circle back to it because you said it would be one way that you can

like move energy or help a client move energy. What do some of those approaches look like? Yeah. So at the simplest when I'm interacting with patients, it's about creating that space. So you know, this feels different than this, right? Like if you're really close to someone or you're giving them space. And so creating that kind of energy already in the room, I think helps people realize their own body language and then be able to take that into their conversations and connections with other people. So that's like at the smallest. But then doing like somatic therapy techniques, a lot of it is activating that

vagus nerve. So through like repetitive movements and through I really like, you know, undulating the spine, like a cat-cow situation. In Kundalini, that's a really big movement as well, right? Moving that energy from the root chakra through the crown chakra. So to me it's like two different modalities that use the same. same thing. Like, why wouldn't we do it? So moving that energy in that way, I like to have people, like I said, identify where they're feeling it. So let's say they're feeling a heaviness in their

chest. We can start with as simple as doing like deep belly breaths, right? That diaphragmatic breathing, really accentuating our breath, feeling it in our chest, opening up and then constricting. A lot of times people haven't even taken a deep breath that day or that week, right? So that's like where we start. And then we start feeling it. it through our entire body. Like I said, like the self-holding, moving from side to side, rubbing your hands up and down. And then we start moving up even more, standing up, doing like shaking meditations where you're powering that energy through you. In Kundalini, like the breath of fire, I think is really powerful where you're activating your abdomen

and you're mostly exhaling and the inhale comes in naturally. And so creating that kind of breathwork in you where you're activating your abdomen, breathing that. out, I think that moves energy as well. And part of it is also just meeting yourself where you're at. So if those big movements don't feel good, if it's just gentle holding that you need, meeting yourself there. If it's like, I'm angry, I have shame. I got to like let it out, getting up, moving that energy, making it bigger.

And then, like I've said a bunch of times, it's the integration portion right after. right so standing there in mountain pose and just giving yourself a pause seeing what your energy feels like in your body or sitting in meditation and giving your body time to feel what it's like to let go of that stuck energy if you don't have that second part of it then what are we releasing from right like we have to feel both things the heaviness and the lightness to know that it works so that integration portion is really important yeah absolutely and I mean, I think something that's coming up for me is that like I've always been somebody who cries really easily, like when I'm laughing, when I'm sad, when I'm angry, like there's always just water coming out of my face. And I think crying is like a really underrated tool for moving energy.

And it also, when I had that realization a few years back, I would say, it also made me sad because especially like men in our culture are so like stigmatized for crying and like how much stuck energy is resulting from something as simple as that is like kind of mind. blowing. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why, you know, it's my job as your therapist to kind of catch those emotions and catch when you're repressing them, right? Like when someone gets those glossy eyes or, you know, you start seeing their shoulders kind of shake and like ready to cry, I'll ask people to stay with it. Like, let's stay with that emotion. You don't even have to speak. Let's just feel it together because you're right. That release of emotion is actually what we're looking for. The more that we like repress it and put it in a box, store it within ourselves, that's when we're not regulated. That's when it starts exploding at random times that you don't

want it to explode at. So creating that space to really feel it, that's going to help you regulate. That makes that makes a lot of sense. I'm sure you probably have people crying all the time in your practice, right? Oh yeah. I think it's like a daily thing. And I always say like this is the place to do it. This is what we're here for. I love crying. I'm the same. I'll cry with everything. Like a happy commercial, like, giving a baby and a dog and like, I'm crying. Oh my goodness. I love this so much. So you mentioned supplements earlier. I would love to hear maybe some of your favorite supplements that you reach for that that you find that people benefit from or like common deficiencies that you see that are related to like poor mental health or issues with nervous system regulation. If you have any that you'd like to share.

Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I find. is people will come to me and they'll have tried a bunch of SSRIs and they don't work or they get a ton of side effects to it. That could be for a lot of different reasons, but one thing that comes up is the MTHFR deficiency. So I'll test for that. And if someone does have a deficiency in that enzyme, then I'll supplement with methylfolate for that. But again, I would get that testing done. I wouldn't just start taking methylfolate for people. I like to use L-thianine for. anxiety, for circadian rhythm, and for attention as well. So for people who don't know, L-thianine is actually a part of the green tea plant. So like when you're drinking green tea

and you feel kind of this like energized but calm concentration, that's where the L-thian comes in. So people who have anxiety or people who have ADHD or concentration issues or even have trouble with sleep. I'll start them on L-thianine. Another one is magnesium. I mean, I'm in the camp of like everyone's deficient in magnesium. Everyone needs magnesium. And I think it helps so much with sleep, you know, relaxing muscles, which when you're anxious or when you're stressed,

that muscle tension is just so uncomfortable. So it helps with your mental health, your physical health, and then with sleep. So magnesium glycinate is usually what I go for because it helps with that mental health. And more studies are done on the glycinate for mental health. What's another one?

anositol is a big one for anxiety. And that one I love for my kiddos, too, because it's usually flavorless and you can put it in water. And you can kind of, I like to like microdose it through the day. So like put it in water and then slowly kind of sip on it through the day. And it helps kind of create this, I would say like take the edge off kind of feeling if you're super anxious. And again, like helps regulate your sleep cycle as well. So that's a big one for sleep. I'll do like enocetal, magnesium and altheinine. I love that. Actually, so the now brand of the anositol in it, and I swear by that. Actually, I think the serving size is like one capsule. It's 200 milligrams of the anine. But if I take three of those,

I take 600 milligrams of the aninine with the anacetol, it's like so magical when it comes to like, if I'm ever feeling anxiety or like tightness in my chest or just overstimulated, it's like a game changer for those types of situations. Yeah, absolutely. And I think people, want these alternatives. They don't want to be on a medication all the time. And so still with supplements, I like to use them as needed. Of course, if there's like a period of time where you need to use them all the time, that's okay as long as we're doing the work. And there's, I really like to approach like my sessions with like there's no judgment, right? Like what you need is what you need and we're just going to meet you where you're at. And then I want my patients to do the work. There's homework.

Like we got to put in the effort. We got to change our thoughts. We got to change our behaviors. change that neuroplasticity, right? So we're just using any tools that we need to support us and the supplements are there for support. I love that. And actually you saying that there's no judgment, you know, you need what you need is really reminding me of what I learned in my astherbalism course, actually regarding like TCM and I areveda in those schools of study in those areas, they often look for what substances people gravitate towards in order to better understand the needs of that body. because like if you're gravitating towards, you know, caffeine or stimulants, then there's probably some core need that's not being met that you can then find a healthier way to address.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Like when I have people that come into me with addiction, whether that's cocaine or, you know, marijuana or alcohol, it's like, why are we gravitating towards that substance and that specific substance, right? Yes. There are, of course, times where people come in and they're addicted to all of them, but more likely than not, it's one that they're always gravitating towards. And so what are we deficient in, whether that's like a micronutrient or just deficient in our life not being fulfilled, that needs to be supported so that you don't reach for that substance? Absolutely. I mean, so in the case, let's say in the case of like alcohol, would you have like a specific like hypothesis about what might be an underlying issue? Would it be like related to GABA? It could be related to GABA, which then makes me think that people are moving too fast, right?

There's not pause in their days, and that could come from trauma, right? If you grew up in a household that was very chaotic where you were always on edge, you didn't know how that parental figure was going to react when they got home from the day, or, you know, if there was a lot of yelling in the household, your nervous system gets dysregulated and you become more hypervigilant, right? So if you're living in a hypervigilant state, I see that a lot of times with people who use alcohol because it just kind of calms you down.

But as we know, when the alcohol comes out of your system, you're hypervigilant again and maybe even more so than you were before. So that's where we would do the work to kind of help with the hypervigilance, help clear some of that trauma doing inner child work, inner mother work, and supporting them that way. do you do any work with family constellations i'm not super familiar with it but i've heard good things from people about it i don't really know much about it oh i'm not sure i've never heard of that oh okay we should maybe we should look into it together i've heard really good things um actually

so organic olivia i don't know if you do you know her yeah yeah so olivia has told me really good things about it and um there's a practitioner somewhere here in the new york area but she said that she does work with horses so she like goes there's like horses in a paddock Climb therapy. Yeah, and then you like assign each horse, like a person in your childhood environment, like a mom, a dad or whatever, grandparent. And then you like act out your childhood kind of with the animals. And it's like this interesting dynamic that goes on. So it seems really powerful. I would love to experience it personally. Yeah, that reminds me of like empty chairwork. Have you heard of that? Oh, no. So I use it a lot like when we're working with like a family member. Like let's say you've had a difficult relationship with your mom. And even. Even now, as an adult, that relationship isn't good. But you have to heal that for yourself, right? You can't wait for your mom to be ready to heal that. So we set up an empty chair and then you show up as, depending on what we're working on,

either as your adult self or your child self or your teen self, whichever age you need. And then I ask you, what would you want to say to your mom? Then you say it. And then you switch chairs just to help with like the understanding. And now all of a sudden you're the mom. okay, what did your inner child or inner teen need to hear from you? And the mom speaks. And you kind of go back and forth. And then you're able to heal that relationship without needing that external person. I love that. That makes a lot of sense. And also I feel like this would be another way of cultivating like that empathy or compassion like for your parent or whatever figure that you're having this conflict with. You can try to like put yourself in their shoes and provide that like alternative perspective, which could be very enlightening in and of itself. Yeah. Absolutely. And creates connection without, again, needing that person that maybe caused some trauma to you or cause a difficult upbringing to you. Absolutely. I meant to mention earlier. Do you work with herbs at all? Are you dabbling in that area?

A little bit, like Ashwaganda, rodeola, but I haven't fully dove into it yet. It's a whole wormhole. It is. Yeah. That'll be fun, though. So are there any other modalities that you would like to speak about that you reach for? pretty frequently and maybe people who are dealing with things like anxiety or depression as examples. Well, I think one important thing to mention is I want people to view their anxiety, their depression, whatever their mental health is, as a sign. So, you know, in Western medicine, like, we look at these things as symptoms or as diagnoses, right? You put on someone's chart, they have depression or they have anxiety. But I want people to actually look at it as a sign. Like, okay, I'm feeling anxious and I've been

feeling anxious for months, but what is it actually showing me? Or I've been having really depressive days. Again, what is this showing me? What do I need to heal? Rather than I have anxiety and I need to heal my anxiety. So I think that is a modality in and of itself. I don't think there's a name for it, but I think it's really important. And then starting to just meet yourself where you're at and kind of taking away the shoulds or the coulds and really being okay with where you're at. not putting a mask on, not putting a brave face on, I think that starts letting people get into their vulnerability and stripping away the shame and the guilt.

And then the somatic work and, you know, looking at astrology to have more compassion for yourself or more understanding of yourself than building community. I think that's really important. That's beautiful. Did you see the show Lucifer by any chance on Netflix? No, I haven't. So I really loved the way that they depicted hell in that show because it felt like it was really true and just like in the way that it resonated with my system.

But basically in that show, they depicted hell as this place where you put yourself when you were unwilling to like let go of your guilt and shame. And it's like these loops that you get stuck in. And there's actually nobody keeping you there but you. But it's like your inability to get out of that loop and that like self like blame and guilt and shame. And so like I just really like that perspective that it reminded me when you were talking about like not identifying with the problem necessarily, but like trying to just view it as something that's telling you something. And I think, yeah, like you mentioned that in itself is healing. And I know so many people personally who very closely identify with like, let's say their diseases, like whatever the disease is. And then at some point it becomes like almost like a crutch and like so ingrained in their identity that they actually wouldn't even know who they are without it. Yeah, oh, I love that, like, metaphor of hell because I do, I think people come in and they're like, I'm unhappy, but then they're not willing to change it. They're so stuck in their patterns. They're so stuck in their identity.

And it takes work. It takes work to get out of that. And I'd like to equate it to, like, if you're going to the gym to change your body, you know you have to go multiple times a week for many weeks at a time for things to change. So why would we expect our mental health to change after just like one appointment or admitting one time that we're not feeling well? It's all work. So yeah, I love that metaphor. I might start using that. It's so good. You should watch this. Honestly, the entire show is incredible. It's very deep. I think you'd probably enjoy it just from like a psychological standpoint. I think there's a lot to learn or just like a lot of like things mirrored in there that we've basically been talking about. Yeah. And I love the work that you've been doing. I mean, it's been. so helpful for me. And like I said, I've started using it with clients. And it's so exciting to hear another tool to put in the toolbox. Like, and it's so different from what I've been learning. So, yeah, I'm really excited about that. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. I mean, it's been totally life changing for me. I really only went down this rabbit hole,

literally about 12 months ago. It was last April. And when I started learning about this, like, everything just completely changed in the way that I was thinking. Because prior to that, I really thought like the microbiome like is the thing that's the most important thing that nobody's paying attention to and we get that right then we're golden but then i was really learning about like the fundamental nature of light as a regulator of our biology and it just made so much sense because it's like the one thing that we're probably doing the most wrong and that's saying something because we're doing a lot of things wrong in the west but like this is like a really fundamental thing just like the disconnection from nature the not only like not going in the sun but like an outright fear of the sun and

demonization of the sun and just our, you know, device addictions and just being an artificial light 24-7 essentially 365. And I think it just reflects the kind of all aspects of our reality and also creates this very like burned out low dopamine system that's not able to critically think that well. It's going to be more sympathetically driven. You're not going to be as flexible in your thinking. You're going to be more dogmatic and rigid. And we see so much of that like tribalism and that just like like fear mongering and appeal to authority and like all of these weird issues of like cognitive dissonance and like rigidity in our culture and I think so much of that is just a reflection of people's light environment yeah and that just made me think too I think in like the health and

wellness space there's this idea of like we always have to fix something or you know we always have to heal and recently this came to me and it's like if you're healing it doesn't mean you're broken because I think that's what people think and then they identify with that like oh I'm broken I constantly have to heal and now with social media so many people are talking about so many different things right it's like the age of information which is wonderful but we also have to kind of decide when we're going to intake that information and if we're constantly identifying ourselves as broken our subconscious hears that right and then you end up being broken or sick or mentally you know having a hard time. And so I really want people to also see that if they are healing, if they are

using these modalities, they're not broken. They are still abundant. They are whole within themselves. And they are just bettering themselves. And I think that's a way better way to heal and also talk to our subconscious. Like we have to love ourselves. Absolutely. Because if you don't love yourself and you're not coming at this with like a perspective of just like wanting to do the best for yourself and wanting to actualize your potential, then you're probably not coming from a place where you're trusting yourself either. And if you can't trust yourself, then, like, where's your guiding compass? Like, what are you using to actually navigate through life? It's going to be basically, like, appealing to authorities, essentially, finding your, like, guru, so to speak and just, like,

doing whatever they say. And at the end of the day, that's highly disempowering. And, you know, when kind of the blinds are, like, opened and you see, like, this person isn't necessarily, like, as great as we thought or whatever, like, things happen. Everybody's human, you need to be able to trust in yourself first and foremost because nobody's going to understand your life and your body and your experience better than you. You're actually living it. So if you can't have that like close relationship with yourself and with your soul, with your subconscious, like that's going to be a very scary way to live life and it's going to be very destabilizing in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, I get so many people that come in and I'm like, okay, well,

what do we want to do? They're like, well, that's why I came to you. Tell me what's do. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That is not the type of doctor I am. Like, let's sit with it. Here are our options. Even if we need to sit together in meditation during that appointment and see what comes to you, even if you need to go and do your own research and come back to me, like, I'm not making the decision for you. I'm just here to hold space and provide information because I want people to feel empowered. I want to give them their power back. Mm-hmm. And I mean, so much of our culture, too, is like trying to conform to some norm that's already set and like you feel like you have to fit into the mold in order to be successful versus like following what you're really passionate about

and what feels like it's like your spark and what you need to do, but feeling like that would be unacceptable, whether it's from family pressure or societal pressure, community pressure, that people feel like they can't express themselves authentically. And it's really sad because then you have to suppress a part of yourself and that's, you know, then you're not whole. Yeah. And I'll share a little bit about myself too. Like, I am a child of immigrants. I mean, I was born in Belarus, but I was two when I moved. So technically I'm an immigrant, but like I grew up here.

So it's a little bit different. But there's, you know, there's a thought process that comes with being an immigrant, right? Most people are like doctors or lawyers. They're like some kind of a job that's looked at as high achieving. And when I told my family, I was going to become a psychiatrist. I mean, people's jaws were on the floor. They were like, that's not a real specialization. Like, why would you do that?

Like, that's not a real doctor is what they said, right? But my intuition was so strong at that time. It was like I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't even listen to anyone outside of me. And I was like, no, this is what I'm doing. And of course, people come around when they see your success, when they see how happy that you are and how fulfilled you are in your work, they start realizing like, oh, yeah, you were right.

And so I always encourage people to, you know, when things are hard, when it's hard to, like, step out of those external pressures, people will come around, but you have to do what's best for you. Absolutely. I had a similar experience when I was graduating from Princeton. I was supposed to go to a postdoc at Harvard. And it was actually in their integrative medicine program, which seemed incredible. I was so excited to go. But as the date was approaching to finalize all the paperwork, I just was waking up with this pit in my stomach that was like telling me, do not go to this program. like, but why? It seems so great. This would be an amazing opportunity. And then like the days were passing and it was just like I could like barely eat. I could barely sleep. It was just like this thing gnawing at me inside. And I was like, I have to call it off. Like I was physically becoming ill because I mean, I've always kind of had a strong like gut feeling and like literally feels like something's in my stomach. And not following that is literally not an option for me.

But I also can imagine like many people having this kind of experience, but then fully just trying to suppress it or numb it with whether it's opioids or something. alcohol or whatever it is to try to numb out that sensation of like, hey, you're not doing the right thing for you. You need to pivot and like not wanting to listen to that voice. And that can be an absolute just just raise hell from a mental health standpoint. Oh, absolutely. And even when I started medical school, I think I was still like in this like, I don't know, these automatic thoughts of like, okay, I went to college and then my path was medical school. So I'm just going to keep following it. Right. It was like on autopilot once a medical school. And in that first year of medical

school, I like started getting really bad anxiety, which I had never experienced in my life. And I started getting panic attacks. And even though I studied psychology, I was like, I don't know what's happening to me. Like what is going on? Because when you experience it yourself, it's very different than like learning in a textbook. And I remember every month I was telling my roommate, I'm going to drop out. I'm going to drop out. I don't feel like this is for me. Like that intuitive feeling was really, it was there. And finally it got so bad that I couldn't not listen to my intuition. I actually took a year off of medical school. Wow. And obviously that was not looked upon, you know, as good. Like my family was like, why would you do that? And, you know, even the school was like, okay, you can take a leave of absence,

but I don't know why you would do that. Like, why wouldn't you continue on this path? So many people want this path and you're giving it up. And I didn't know why. Like, I didn't know why my body was reacting that way. And I know we talked about synchronicities earlier and all of a sudden, all these synchronicities came in. I was getting all of these amazing opportunities to travel, to do research, to work at a yoga studio. Like all these things I really wanted to do that were fulfilling me were just like dropped in my lap. And I was like, okay, all right, we're going to go with this. We're going to see what happens. And I learned how to meditate. I learned how to regulate my nervous system. Like there was a reason for that time to take off.

right and then i went back to med school and not only did i go back i transferred to a different campus i lived in detroit at the time and i loved living in the city before that i was like at the college campus in east lansing um and it just wasn't serving me anymore and moved to detroit had an amazing friend group like people that i truly connected with who are like my soul sisters to this day and i look back on that time and i'm like wow like my intuition was screaming at me so long and after that I just vowed to like never ignore it like even the tiniest little whisper I'm like I don't need to know the why I just have to do it and then I have to like listen and see the why and now that I've like devoted my life to that I mean so many beautiful things have like

landed in my lap just because of that and that's not easy to do right that took so much work and work I still do today but it just proves like how much can come to us. when we really listen. Oh my gosh, yes. And I don't know, do you know Paul Check at all? I don't. Okay. So he's like a holistic healthcare practitioner. He's based out of California and he's been in this field for a long, long time. But he talks about on his podcast and like on interviews he does that it's great to start to cultivate a relationship with your intuition or your soul by asking it like really small questions, like what color socks should I wear today or what, like how should I cook my food? What do I want to eat? Like small things that's like low stakes.

And then as you can begin to better understand like what a yes feels like and what a no feels like then when the big questions come and like you need to make big decisions that are life changing, you can feel really confident in the answer that you're getting as like a yes, like a full on yes or a no. And I really like that. It always stuck with me when I heard him say that. I love that. I love starting with clothes. Actually, I like put this on this morning.

And then before we were about to meet, I like changed it three times. And then I was like, no, like there's a reason I put that out. I don't know why, but like that's, that's the vibe today. We're going to stick with it. Yeah, exactly. So just like even things, if they seem silly, if you can just use your intuition to guide them and not your intellect, the more you are able to access that part of yourself, the easier will become to just access that all the time. So I think it's a great tool that people can use to just enhance their life. And it also makes life more magical and more fun, too, when you can start to trust that there's like this larger guiding force that's, that's like benevolent and wants the best for you. I think that just like makes, everything just seems so magical. And so like we talked about earlier, it's like the universe is kind of conspiring in each of our favors and we just have to be willing to take things as lessons and not as like a punishment or like just becoming the victim to our circumstances.

Absolutely. And I think the biggest question I get about intuition is how do I know if it's my intuition or if it's like fear or something else driving it? And I always say that intuition will be like really quiet and calming and like gentle like it just wants to like cuddle you and let you know and if it's fear it's going to be like really aggressive it's going to be really in your head maybe like those repetitive uminating thoughts it's going to sound like i have to do this right now versus the intuition will be like maybe try this like it'll be really calming and so that's when you can also start kind of distinguishing between fear and intuition absolutely i totally resonate with that. And that's why, like, whenever I feel, whenever I feel like I can't necessarily

determine what the right thing to do is, I'll always pause and just wait, because, like, there's really nothing that requires that level of urgency typically. There's going to be some outlying circumstances that do. But most things, like, you can take your time and make a decision and then you can kind of eliminate, like, your specific emotional state at a given point in time as, like, a variable. And you can just ruminate on that question or, like, have that question sit in the background and see what kind of comes up over the course of a couple days. And then I think that we can feel a little bit more comfortable that the decision we're making is not out of just like an like impulse, for example. Exactly. Yeah. I love that. So is there anything else you want to share

before we wrap up? I've loved this conversation so much. I have as well. I don't think so. I think we went through so much today. We did. We did. I mean, maybe we should we should come back on after you you're continuing some of your really interesting studies in astrology and other areas. I'd love to do a deep-dive conversation on astrology sometime with you. I think it would be a blast. But until then, do you want to let people know where they can find you? Yeah, absolutely. So best place to find me if you want to work with me would be through my website. So that's going to be modern psychclinic.com. And maybe you can link that as well. And then I'm also on Instagram at Integrative Care by Dr. Anna. I don't post that much because just not a social media person, but I put some snippets out there

and it's a good place to connect with me too. I love that and I'll definitely link to your website and your Instagram and the show notes that people can find you. And can people work with you both online and in person or are you only in person? I'm actually only online right now. Oh, you're only online. Okay. But I have some big changes coming up. So I work with clients online and that's people that are in Illinois since that's where my license is.

But I'll be moving to Michigan this summer. And so I'm going to be getting a few licenses in different states and I'll probably be opening up a physical location in the Detroit area. area. So yeah, reach out to me if you're in those two states, but I might be expanding even further, and you can find that on my website. Yay, we love to hear that. The more people that you can possibly impact, the better. I think you have so much wealth of information to offer people, and I hope everybody love this conversation. Go follow Anna. Go check out her website. And thank you so much for coming on. Thank you.