[00:00:00]Luke Storey:  I'm Luke Storey. For the past 22 years, I've been relentlessly committed to my deepest passion, designing the ultimate lifestyle based on the most powerful principles of spirituality, health, psychology. The Life Stylist podcast is a show dedicated to sharing my discoveries and the experts behind them with you. Welcome to episode 317 of the Life Stylist podcast. I am your host, Luke Storey. 

[00:00:30] And today's episode is a community Q&A solo cast, where we cover the following questions from our private Facebook group, dealing with death and grief, insomnia due to detox, handling anger issues, what to do in a career crisis, solving lower back pain, treating bipolar without meds, and ozone therapy for mold. You can get all the show notes and links to this episode and every episode of the Life Stylist podcast by going to lukestory.com/newsletter, that's lukestorey.com newsletter, or if you're lucky or unlucky enough to have a US phone, you can simply text the word, lifestylist to the number 44222.

[00:01:13] So, crack open your phone and shoot me a text. The number again is 44222. The body of your text is going to say lifestylist, then enter your name and email. And magically, every single week when I release a new episode of the show, you will get all of the show notes, clickable links, and even a link to the complete transcripts. If you don't want to text, again, go to lukestorey.com/newsletter. Now, today's questions are called from, as I said, the Life Stylist podcast Facebook group where listeners and fans like you can join each other in community until we find a more neutral, less tyrannically communist platform at which to meet and mingle.

[00:01:50] But for now, you can join me and 6,000 other free thinkers just like you by simply searching the Life Stylist podcast on Facebook and joining the group. Now, before we get into today's episode, I want to invite you to tune in to our regular programming next Tuesday with the show called, The Neuroscience of Stress: How to Meditate Like a Monk in Minutes with NuCalm featuring our second time guest and my friend, Jim Poole. So, if you're someone who wants to learn how to alleviate stress in these trying times, you definitely want to tune in on Tuesday. 

[00:02:24] And to make sure you don't miss that episode or any episode to follow, here's what you do, just go down to your podcast app, whatever you're listening to my voice on and click subscribe to this show. That way, each and every episode of the Life Stylist podcast will be magically uploaded to your device. I get messages sometimes from people on social media thinking that one of my episodes has been deleted or censored, which has happened on YouTube on a couple of occasions.

[00:02:49] I found a way around it, it's called BitChute. But oftentimes, what happens is someone's just not subscribed, and so their feed doesn't refresh rate. And so, they're missing some of the episodes they want to listen to. So, please subscribe to the show to ensure that that doesn't happen. Alright. Let's go ahead and pop off some of these questions. But before I do, I'd like to issue the following disclaimer, just because it feels like the responsible thing to do, you should know that I'm only sharing my views based on my subjective experience and research.

[00:03:16] And you should always consult a health professional before making changes to your diet or lifestyle. This podcast is for information, and hopefully, entertainment purposes only and does not imply medical advice or diagnosis. The first question I'm going to get to is from Kimberly, and she asks, "Has anyone dealt with insomnia coming on during or after a detox? I'm struggling to fall asleep during the second part of my cycle. Any tips that I can try? 

[00:03:42] Now, Kimberly, this could be any number of things. The human biological organism is so fragile and so many things can tip the scale of our nervous system and neurotransmitters, hormones, et cetera, to one side or the other, our environment, EMF exposure, all of these things, what we're eating. As you said, you're detoxing, your cycle. All these things can throw off our sleep. So, I'm going to go ahead and go for some of the low-hanging fruit here based on my experience because I'm always trying to optimize my sleep.

[00:04:11] In fact, it's probably the most important regimen in my own personal journey with health. Without sleep, we ain't got nothing. My grandmother, her name was Mae, on my dad's side, she lived until she was 99. Now, she's pretty good in this day and age, and she was pretty with it up until maybe the last couple of years there. So, hopefully, I inherited some of her genes, but she used to always harp on me about getting enough sleep. And of course, when I was younger, I thought, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Granny, thanks anyway.

[00:04:43] And now, as I just turned 50, man, I can't tell you anything I value more in terms of just feeling the way I want to feel during the day is getting not really enough sleep but really quality sleep. So, here's a couple of things for Kimberly or anyone else listening that could be useful. You've got to get really hard core with the blue light. And what I'm talking about is any lighting in your house on your devices that is not amber, orange, or red. So, the way I like to think about it is, when it gets dark outside, sundown, that beautiful sunset we might get from some vantage points on Earth, the sun also goes down inside my house.

[00:05:22] And so, I'm sitting here recording this episode at a lovely Airbnb in Sedona, Arizona, as my fiancee, Alyson, and I traveled the country, figuring out where we're going to live outside of the totalitarian regime known as California. And at the time of this recording, the reason I say that, I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but they just instituted a 10:00 PM to, I think, 5:00 AM curfew. It's out of control. Anyway, when I got here to Arizona, I went on Amazon and I was so excited to find that I could, in fact, ship incandescent amber-colored lightbulbs to the state. 

[00:06:02] Now, when you live in California, again, to support the point that I just mentioned, you're not allowed now to ship incandescent bulbs to an address within California on Amazon. It's not possible. There are certain rules like that, probably has something to do with the environment, God knows, we don't want to care about our health, but let's protect the planet even though we might not be here to enjoy it. I don't know. It's a funny thing. Anyway, blue light.

[00:06:26] So, what I did here is I installed—I mean, I'm kind of a nut, I admit, but this is how much I value sleep. I installed all of these incandescent amber bulbs. And by the way, those are like most things I talk about on the show, just because when I find something useful, I throw it on my website store. You can find it at lukestorey.com/store. It's just going to be an Amazon link to what I think are the most affordable and high-quality incandescent bulbs on there.

[00:06:51] And disclaimer number two, I'm going to make a small commission for anything that I mentioned on the show that I linked to in my store. That's what keeps this thing afloat, just to be transparent and authentic about that. Doesn't matter. Get your non-blue-light lights wherever you want. I'm not going to miss the 50 cents on that sale. But point is, in the Airbnb here, I went around to every lightbulb that was changeable in the house, I ordered a few boxes of them and I changed all of them to incandescent bulbs.

[00:07:21] When I need to turn on a really bright light to see something, I've got my blue-blocking glasses from either Ra Optics or BLUblox, or one of the brands that I support. And a little hint here, someone with the initials, LS, will soon be launching his own blue-blocking eyewear brand, so stay tuned for that in 2021. And if I need to turn on a bright light, or open the refrigerator, or something like that, then I'll put on those glasses. And this sounds like a pain in the ass, and it kind of is at first, I'll be honest, but nothing has done more to improve my sleep than really being hard-nosed and super hardcore about blue light exposure at night.

[00:07:58] And again, when I say blue light, I'm talking about light that appears to the eye to be bright white. It's actually in the cool spectrum of blue, and in nature, we have not evolved to see the sun at night. You know what I'm saying? So, when you open that refrigerator or you walk in the bathroom, it's 11:00 PM, 12:00 AM, flip on a bright light or you're looking at your phone, laying in bed, that sends a signal to your brain that it's the middle of the daytime.

[00:08:23] And you know what that does? That causes you to immediately produce cortisol and stop producing melatonin. Now, I know a lot of you die-hard listeners are well-aware of these issues because I've done so many podcasts about toxic non-native light. But in case Kimberly isn't hip to that, it's worth mentioning. Just nonnegotiable, no blue light from the time the sun goes down until the time you close your eyes and attempt to go to sleep. Another big one with insomnia is sleeping in too late.

[00:08:51] And this one is really difficult for me because I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I work for myself, which, by the way, sounds pretty cool if you're in a job that you don't like, but it also means that you are your own boss. And if you don't whip yourself into shape, you don't make any money. So, it's kind of a double-edged sword, being the content creating, entrepreneur type like myself. And sometimes, that means like I don't have to get up. It's just that I have a lot of deadlines.

[00:09:18] And if I want to live a stress-free life, I probably should wake up. But I do sleep in sometimes until 8:00 or 9:00. And I'll tell you what, man, if I sleep in past like 8:30, 9:00, if I just go nuts and sleep in until 10:00, I'm going to sleep like crap the next night. And so, one of the ways you can break this cycle is by actually correcting your circadian rhythm. And how you do that, well, there's a number of ways, but I think the most powerful way to do that is by watching the sunrise every morning for a few days.

[00:09:47] And when I say watching the sunrise, I'm referring to a practice, an ancient practice, we don't even know how old it is, probably as old as us humans, as long as we've been here, and that's called sun-gazing. Now, I want to give my third disclaimer, when sun-gazing, you must be careful. It's something you want to study. Don't just go stare at the sun without taking some precautions and educating yourself on how to do so. So, sun-gazing is something that can be really powerful in terms of resetting your circadian rhythm, resetting your body clock.

[00:10:18] So, just be careful doing it, study up on it. There's ways that you can do it that are safe. You can work your way up, depending on where you are on the planet, and where the sun rises, and falls on the horizon is going to really dictate how effectively you can sun-gaze. But that said, just waking up super early in the morning for a few days, just forcing yourself to, even if you couldn't sleep, is going to help reset your body clock and make it so that you actually get tired when you want to at, say, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 PM.

[00:10:46] I know in the winter, it's much easier for me to get to sleep earlier. And if I get up early in the morning, it gets that much easier. Next thing is keeping your room pitch black. I mean, you want to put those little true, dark red stickers over any LEDs or any lights that are distracting you. You want to get blackout curtains. I mean, I'm talking, you do not want to see any light in your room, even light that gets on your skin and hits the photoreceptors in your skin will interfere with melatonin production and your ability to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep.

[00:11:18] Temperature control. So, keeping your room cool and also using something like an OOLER or ChiliPAD to keep your mattress cool under your body. Most mattresses really radiate heat. They trap heat from your body and you might be sleeping poorly because you're overheating and you have no idea. You just wake up and you know that you were restless during the night, but you have no idea why. In many cases, especially for men, I would say not so common for women, but for men, we overheat very easily.

[00:11:46] So, we're just wired that way. My lady and I, we each have our different sides of the OOLER mat and she'll keep hers kind of warm and I keep mine freezing on 59 degrees or something like that, and I sleep like a baby like that. If anyone else slept on my side, they probably wake up in a coma because they'd be freezing to death, but I love it. So, be mindful about temperature and just know that deep sleep loves cold temperatures. Don't do work after dark.

[00:12:14] This is a lesson to myself. So many things I talk about on these solo shows are, I wish I had a mirror on my computer monitors, I record this going like, Luke, you're giving yourself this advice. Sometimes, I get very activated at night. I get creative, I get productive, and I'll jump on the computer at 6:00 or 7:00 PM after meditating, and I get a burst of energy, and I might find myself working past 8:00 or 9:00 PM. If I work past 9:00 PM, it's pretty much guaranteed I'm going to be really restless all night and sleep like shit.

[00:12:46] So, I would recommend not doing any work and building a real nighttime practice, spending quality time with your family or loved ones, doing some reading, doing things that are really mellow, stretching, doing yoga, doing some light breath work, whatever it is that winds you down. I highly recommend that. Of course, mitigating EMF by turning off your Wi-Fi router if you still have one in your home. Of course, it's best to not have Wi-Fi in your house at all, but if you have to, for whatever reason, make sure that you turn that off once you go to bed. 

[00:13:19] You can get something, I think I have it on my site called the Wi-Fi Kill Switch, where you can just get a Christmas light timer and set your Wi-Fi to go off every night. And also, consider having your home inspected for EMF by a building biologist or EMF specialist. You might, Kimberly, be sleeping on the opposite side of a wall where there's a smart meter or something really whack like that, and you'll have no idea until you have someone come out and actually do a proper screening on your home to determine if EMF is interfering with your sleep.

[00:13:50] I remember once I took a trip to a place called Pagosa Springs in Colorado, beautiful little town there in the southern part of the state, just a bit north of New Mexico, where they have some amazing hot springs, as the name would indicate. And I remember one night, I was staying there with my dad and we rented some little kind of townhouse or something, and I could not sleep the whole week I was there, and I was waking up with hot flashes and my heart beating out of my chest.

[00:14:18] I mean, I could not figure out what the hell is wrong with me. And then, on the last day, I wandered out into the front yard and I saw that there was a bank of smart meters pointed right at the living room where I was sleeping on the little foldout bed. And that's when I learned the hard lesson of smart meters. Now, not all smart meters, by the way, produce that hardcore radiation, some of them, pulse radiation, intermediate, what's the word? 

[00:14:44] Every once in a while, and some of them just pulse constantly, some of them are really strong, some of them not, and you can't really tell unless you get someone to come out and scope out your house, and hopefully, you can get that removed and just pay an extra fee to the power company to have them come out and read it, OG style. Next up, avoid eating anything within a couple of hours of bedtime. Now, again, preaching to myself here because I get the munchies sometimes at night and something that's helped a lot with that is drinking electrolytes after dinner.

[00:15:13] Now, if I eat dinner at, say, 7:00, 8:00, I'll be full for a while, then if I'm not asleep by 9:00 or 10:00, which of course never happens, I'll get the munchies again and I start craving carbs, or fruit, or sugar, or something like that, and I'll get up and have some electrolytes. And there's a brand that I like, I can't remember the name right now, I'm so sorry, it's made by Robb Wolf. It's funny because I take these things like five times a day, especially here in Arizona, where it's so dry and easy to get dehydrated.

[00:15:40] But whatever kind of electrolytes you can get into you is going to help quell that appetite before bed. And the thing is, if you're using blood flow and energy to digest food while you're sleeping, it's going to rob from your sleep because your body thinks it's supposed to be awake and work on digesting that food. And that would especially be true of red meat. Man, if I red meat late at night, I am toast. I think it's just all of the hormones and all of the nutritional density in red meat that just gets me crazy hyper at night.

[00:16:15] And likewise, during the day, by the way, if I find myself low on energy, if I eat some red meat, even just a quarter pound of some ground grass-fed, humanely raised beef, and just throw that in a pan and eat that, it's like an energy boost for me. And so, I'm learning over time to not do an energy boost meal at night. Next tip would be get some hydrocortisone licorice root extract from Dr. Craig Koniver's site. Now, he's been on the show before, we'll link this in the show notes. 

[00:16:44] Again, to remind you, if you want to get all of these links emailed to you every week, go to lukestorey.com/newsletter. Craig Koniver's website has some of these things available and you can contact him. And the hydrocortisone and licorice root is a great way to give your adrenals some rest so that you don't wear them out during the daytime. It also helps regulate your circadian rhythm. So, if you were to do that with sun-gazing at dusk and dawn, you'd probably be sorted out pretty quick.

[00:17:11] A couple of the great products for sleep are the product name, Dream, by sovereignty.co, and they're one of my sponsors. You've probably heard me talk about them before. I also use the sleep formula by Quicksilver Scientific, it's got GABA, melatonin, some other things like that. Now, I kind of don't like to use melatonin or anything that the body produces itself all the time. I use it sporadically. So, that's something to keep in mind. When it comes to bioidentical hormones, or glutathione, or things that your body actually produces, I'm all for supplementing them some of the time, but not all of the time.

[00:17:48] It's just a common sense thing to me. I don't want to send a biosignal to my body saying, hey, guess what, we're taking melatonin every night so you don't have to make it anymore. I want that pineal gland to keep pumping out the derivatives of melatonin naturally. But that sleep formula by Quicksilver is bomb and it will knock your ass out. Next thing, of course, is using a full-spectrum CBD like the one that I prefer from Onoda Wellness. You can find all of that stuff, of course, at lukestorey.com/store or wherever you want to find it from.

[00:18:20] I don't want these episodes to feel like a giant commercial, but I also know people are going to hit me up, like where do you get that CBD? So, know that it's there. So, that's, I think, all I have to share on sleep right now. Again, I just want to emphasize how important it is. And if you have clinical insomnia, I mean, it will wreck your life. And I don't care how many supplements you take or what kind of fitness regime you're into, how much you meditate, how much you work on yourself interpersonally, emotionally, spiritually, without sleep, based on my experience, you just cannot operate as your best self out in the world and your life will definitely reflect that.

[00:18:59] So, I'm all for doing anything and everything I can to improve sleep and I'm definitely a sleep advocate. So, try some of those suggestions, Kimberly or anyone else listening. Our next question is from Stacy. She says, "Embarrassing question, but does anyone have any successful ways of dealing with anger issues? I'm normally pretty mellow, but when I get into something heated, I feel like I have a hard time walking away and I keep it going. P.S. This only happens with boyfriends, never family or friends."

[00:19:30] I get it, girl. I get it. Yeah. Well, it can happen with family too. I love the Ram Dass quote where he says, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your parents, but that can definitely be said of our romantic relationships. And I know from experience that when you're opening yourself up and becoming vulnerable to love and intimacy, that those relationships can definitely trigger unhealed trauma and bring up negative patterns that cause one to access those lower emotional states.

[00:20:01] So, it makes perfect sense to me that that's where she's experiencing this. So, here are my recommendations based on my own experience as having been someone who was extremely rageful, angry, and resentful for at least the first half of my life. So, as I said, I'm 50 now, when I was 26, I started to really work on myself, and it took me quite a few years to really overcome that reactivity. Now, I still get a little bitchy and moody here and there, like any normal person, but it's not very often where I'm thrown into that hypnotic, negative, emotional state of just being pissed off, and angry, and ruminating over all of the ways I'm going to kill the person that I'm pissed off at.

[00:20:49] And I'm not even kidding. Not that I would ever follow through with it, but that's how my mind used to work. I used to be that toxic and that poisonous. I would just sit there, and ruminate, and soft talk, and have conversations with myself about what I should have said to the person that I was pissed at or what I was going to say to them to make sure that I was right, and so that they felt guilty and punished by my wrath. I mean, this is the kind of brain I used to have.

[00:21:15] So, I've done a lot of work around anger. And I don't want to claim that I'm cured of it because I'm sure there is the potential within me, but a lot of that core wounding has been healed. And it's very rare that I get too pissed off. And the good news is that if I do, and I'm so grateful to God, and to all of the work that I've done, and all the grace that's been bestowed upon me, when I do get really pissed off, it's normally very short-lived and I'm able to pull out of it.

[00:21:42] And that is such a gift and I'm so grateful for that. And part of that is through my own efforts and all the things that I'm going to talk about in a moment to offer as solutions. But I'm telling you, most of it is just being really willing to surrender those type of expressions, and sensations, and emotions in the body, in the mind to a power greater than myself, and allowing them to be removed from my experience. And the more I'm willing to let them go, the more they are.

[00:22:12] In other words, like as much as I want to hang on to a righteous indignation, self-righteousness, being right, winning, being victorious, all of those temporarily fulfilling states, that's how long I'm going to keep them. In other words, like as soon as I'm willing to surrender it completely, poof, it's gone. But it's taken some work. So, here are some of the things that I would recommend, most of which I've done a lot of, doing trauma work. 

[00:22:39] Of course, to get to the root of your triggers, there's a lot of ways to deal with trauma, and there's a lot of ways to bring it up and have realizations. Some of the practices and modalities that have been most effective for me have been doing deep breathwork, not just doing a little Wim Hof set for two minutes, but doing holotropic breathwork and all the different modalities that I've tried where you go in for 45 minutes, hours, sometimes, 90 minutes, and just uproot all of those trapped emotions and memories, and really getting down to the core of what caused that pain to begin with and what's causing me now to project that onto the people in my life, especially and unfortunately, in many cases, the people that I love. 

[00:23:20] So, breathwork. And that would also include Kundalini yoga, through many years of practice. And I'm a bit out of practice right now. I go through phases with things, but it was a good seven, eight years where I did Kundalini yoga four or five days a week for 90 minutes a day. And a lot of that anger was brought up. There's even a Kriya called Fists of Anger, and there's a lot of different sets, and different mudras, and mantra, and things like that within, well, a lot of the yogic traditions. 

[00:23:47] But in my experience, specifically through Kundalini yoga, that released those trapped emotions of anger and the root cause of what might be causing someone to be combative. And of course, must give a mention and a huge disclaimer for plant medicines. Plant medicines for me in the past couple of years have been extremely healing. And I've gotten to so many of my core wounds and healed so much trauma that I experienced as a kid, and even at my own hand as an adolescent and a young adult.

[00:24:17] And with that, and I've done a lot of shows about psychedelics and plant medicines. I'm sure I'll continue to do so. But I also feel the need to emphasize as I talk about those things, that those are not blanket recommendations. You really have to exercise discernment and prudence, and have a good guide, and set and setting, and all of those things. So, when I mention, just know, if you ever hear me talk about plant medicines or psychedelics, there's just a baked-in disclaimer that you really want to be mindful because these are powerful, powerful molecules and they can change you forever.

[00:24:50] And in some cases, there's no turning back. And so, my experience has been largely positive and I've healed so much, but that doesn't mean that that's going to be the case for everyone. So, make sure to do your due diligence and choose wisely if you take that path. But I can't be inauthentic and say that plant medicines haven't been a huge part of my own healing, and especially when it comes to the root causes of anger, which is really what we're about.

[00:25:16] It's not about behavior modification and suppressing the anger, and I think I'll get to that in a moment. I have some other bullet points in my notes here. Sometimes, the anger just needs to be expressed, right? So, it's not about not being angry, it's about really doing some self-inquiry and getting to the root of why I'm having these eruptions. Another non-plant-medicine way to get there would be EMDR, and also, hypnosis. I've done a bit of both of those. 

[00:25:42] Now, personally, I didn't find either of those modalities to be groundbreaking and revelatory, but I definitely think they have their place. And I believe that I benefited from those treatments when I did them. And I recommend them to people all the time, especially people that aren't in a position to experiment with something like a clinical psychiatric dose of ketamine, or psilocybin journey, or going to somewhere to do an ayahuasca retreat.

[00:26:15] These types of things are not for everyone. So, some of us can use like breathwork, Kundalini yoga, hypnosis, therapy, all of that, to really get in there and heal the root causes. And speaking of root causes, I would highly recommend to anyone that really struggles with family of origin issues to checking yourself into an emotional rehab. I mean, they're not called that, but that's kind of how I think of them. So, I did a couple stints at a place in Nashville called Onsite, did a lot of family of origin work, a lot of just emotional-based therapy.

[00:26:50] They do all kinds of crazy stuff there like role-playing, where you act out your parents. And I mean, I can't remember all the stuff, but just experiential therapy, I guess you could say, where you're really getting in, and screaming, and punching pillows and just, ah, vomiting out all of those suppressed and repressed emotions. And there's a lot more to it than that, just learning about the family dynamics and the things that warp us in our early years. 

[00:27:15] So, Onsite was really powerful. They also have a couples program that was fantastic, that I also participated in. And another recommendation would be The Hoffman Process in Napa, California. I did a podcast on that. We'll put it in the show notes. The Hoffman Process, very similar, kind of a combination of therapy and spirituality in a group setting. You go there, you're sequestered away for a week. So, my onsite experience and Hoffman Process experience were definitely transformative and helped to alleviate a lot of those anger issues, as did doing a lot of fourth-step inventory and 10th step inventory writing.

[00:27:55] Those are principles that come from the 12-step movement. And they are an amazing way to discover really your part and how your instincts play a role in not only how you feel, but how you react to your feelings. So, really, this could be said of journaling or any other deep self-inquiry-type writing exercises that really get to see the root of the problem. So, in this case here from Stacy, maybe Stacy is pissed off at her partner because he or she said, X, Y, and Z, and will react as such without having the ability to look inside, and see, oh, okay, well, perhaps they said or did that thing that caused me to be angry, even though, really, no one causes us to be angry, we decide to be angry ourselves.

[00:28:47] But with some inquiry, one might find that I set myself up for that conflict because I was being condescending, or sarcastic, or brought up something that was sensitive to discuss or a problem to be worked through with my partner at a time that was not convenient for them or it wasn't inappropriate in terms of the energetics between us, whatever the case may be. There's a million examples of how that might play out. But I know that for me, really digging in and doing writing about anger issues and my resentments has been extremely powerful, especially from the standpoint of discovering my own responsibility in those matters and what I did to actually create them.

[00:29:29] Taking responsibility is a huge way, a very powerful way to alleviate resentment. And as long as we're mindful than not then to transfer that resentment onto ourself in the form of guilt or shame, but it's much easier to forgive someone when you realize that you played a part in that conflict or you set yourself up, because you were acting selfishly, or acting out of ego, or whatever the case may be, you're acting out one of your patterns and that put you in the position for someone else to seemingly wrong you, and then you got pissed off.

[00:30:04] But if you really trace it back, it's quite common that many of us have done something to help facilitate that trouble. So, that's something that's really powerful, just any kind of inventory. And in my lexicon, I would call it doing a 10th step, or doing a fourth step, or journaling, just getting down to doing the writing. And also, another great principle to alleviate conflict is when you are agitated, to just remove yourself from the situation until your limbic system calms down because that's really what this is.

[00:30:36] If you want to get down to the neuroscience of it, it's that there's a situation in our subconscious, I think it's stored in the hippocampus. Don't quote me on this because I'm no neuroscientist, but I have looked into the brain quite a bit and interviewed many experts who are, and we store these memories from childhood, wounds that we have, traumas that we experienced. And then, something happens in our adult life, which is very similar to that situation, and it triggers our brain, our limbic system, to start producing those stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline.

[00:31:08] And we become adrenalized and we can't get out of it. We're stuck in that. We're stuck in that fight or flight. And that's such an uncomfortable place to be. And from that point, the prefrontal cortex is completely immobilized and incapable of having a logical conversation and arriving at forgiveness, and empathy, and compassion. We're just stuck. We've drifted into that reptilian brain and there's no way to get yourself out of it.

[00:31:35] So, I know for me, when I sense that Incredible Hulk that's rising up within me and wants to fucking break the furniture over someone's head, which, as I said, every once in a while, still happens, luckily, I know, oh, now is the time to just shut your mouth, Luke, walk away, take a breath, tell whoever it is that I'm about to have conflict with, hey, listen, I just need to go cool my jets for a moment, be right with you. So, just having that stop gap button on our reactivity is hugely useful because we can step aside, calm down, go for a walk, take some deep breaths, settle down, and then only approach that person and begin communicating when we know that we're calm again.

[00:32:22] Another amazing body of work is, incidentally, called The Work by Byron Katie, a former guest on this very podcast, one of my most prized guests of all time, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, someone I've had the opportunity to sit in workshops with quite a bit. That would be another recommendation in addition to something like Onsite or The Hoffman Process. Man, I mean, right now, travel's weird, COVID stuff, strange, bizarre. People are canceling their live events.

[00:32:50] But one of my goals, it's been on my vision board for years is to go to Byron Katie's nine days for The Work, I think it's called, where she teaches people how to be practitioners of her work. And the work is really just a way to help dispel the stories that your mind tells you about what's happening in your present reality. It's a radical shift in your perspective, and extremely direct, and hard-hitting self-honesty. So, it's like a 10th step or a fourth step that I just described earlier on steroids.

[00:33:22] I mean, it's really, really looking at things from all sides and learning how to observe objectively, and not listen to the stories in your mind. So, the work of Byron Katie, I think, is a really powerful way to overcome anger, again, by a lot of the same mechanisms of accepting responsibility for your part in how you perceive in a given situation, because after all, life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. And that really is true. We create our reality through our perception.

[00:33:54] So, we have to find ways if we want to change and evolve, that is, and be free of things like anger that are so uncomfortable and harmful to us on every level, but also, that have the tendency to undermine our most cherished relationships. We really have to dig in there, and learn how to change our reactions and our perceptions, and heal anything that we have in terms of underlying causes that are going to instigate us to react inappropriately, and in ways that are harmful to ourselves and our loved ones.

[00:34:26] Next would be doing deep intimacy work around relationships and discover why you're acting out those patterns from the past. So, get into the work of John Wineland, really studying codependency. Melody Beattie and Pia Mellody, I know their names sound very similar. I always get them confused. Both of those ladies are brilliant when it comes to codependency, love addiction, love avoidance, all things relationship. They have numerous books. I tried to get them on my podcast.

[00:34:55] They're a bit older and have retired, but I'm really into those topics. And of course, I've had John Wineland on before and he deals a lot with the masculine and feminine energy. But there are people out there that have experience in teaching us how to relate with others in a healthy manner. And when it comes to anger, they definitely cover the gamut of that emotion. Another firm recommendation would be to listen to all three of my John Gray interviews. He's the author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. 

[00:35:24] And like John Wineland's work, not so dependent on whether or not you're in a same sex or opposite sex relationship, really, about masculine and feminine energy. Now, John Wineland, especially more so that way, John Gray really deals with hormones. So, it's about understanding the male and female endocrine system, and how that drives our personalities, and, of course, our relations with others. But John Gray's work has been extremely influential on me.

[00:35:51] I've had the opportunity to not only interview him, but spend some time one on one with him, and even did one of his workshops last year. And I mean, I don't think I would be engaged and have such a wonderful woman in my life if it wasn't for the work of John Gray. And I'm not at all exaggerating that. I mean, I really learned so much about communication and just all things understanding the female species from John Gray. And oddly enough, I learned that from a man more so than a woman.

[00:36:20] But he's someone who's just done so much work over something like four decades in teaching people how to relate in a loving way and how to improve their intimacy. And of course, that includes learning how to deal with conflict in a healthy, productive way, and not undermine our relationships out of our own unhealed shit. So, check out the John Gray episodes. Those will all be linked in the show notes. Another recommendation be going to Al-Anon to learn how to take responsibility for your emotions and your part in relationships.

[00:36:51] Al-Anon is an amazing program. It's one of the 12-step anonymous programs. And it's really about learning how to get along with other humans in a healthy way. And the program was founded, I believe, back in the '30s due to the fact that the early men in Alcoholics Anonymous were getting sober and they had done so much emotional harm to their female partners, that the female partners formed their own 12-step group in order to learn how to recover themselves from the emotional damage that had been done to them at the hands of their alcoholic husbands, and also, to deal with their own addictive tendencies, and trying to fix and rescue in a co-dependent fashion their alcoholic husband.

[00:37:38] So, that was kind of the origins of Al-Anon, but it's really evolved into an amazing program that just teaches us how to really create boundaries and have a healthy relationship with ourselves. It's about self-love and building a relationship with God and living by spiritual principles. And as a result of that work, Al-Anon can help some people learn how to navigate relationships in a healthier manner, and, of course, overcome and mitigate anger issues.

[00:38:05] I would also definitely recommend doing Joe Dispenza meditations one to two times per day to learn how to access your higher self, and as he says, break the habit of being you. Joe Dispenza has been on the show, of course, before and just does such great work. I mean, I have all of his books. I've listened to them on audio over, and over, and over again as I have many of my favorite teachers like David Hawkins and Ram Dass. I mean, I have my go-to teachers and I just can't get enough of their content.

[00:38:35] And Joe Dispenza has really cracked the code on a lot of the ancient modalities of yoga, breathing, meditation, et cetera, and kind of created a mainstream approach to it, which in many cases, to me, would mean that it's watered down. But Joe's work is extremely powerful. And I've witnessed it firsthand at his events, and also, just doing his meditations. I wouldn't say, right now, I do them every day. I actually did one this morning, the 20-minute morning meditation, but I go through phases of it.

[00:39:03] I'll be obsessed with Joe Dispenza meditations, and then I take a break for a couple of weeks and get back on it. But if you want to learn how to manage your emotions, I would say that his work is one of the most powerful ways because he teaches you how to rewire your brain. And that's where that anger is coming from. And of course, a lot of it's stored in the body, but it activates due to signals to and from the brain. And that's what you're going to fix with Joe Dispenza's work.

[00:39:29] I would also recommend along the same lines doing a live or online DNRS program, that's Dynamic Neural Reprogramming System by Annie Hopper. Been trying to get her on the show for a while. We're trading emails, and hopefully, it'll happen one of these days. But DNRS can retrain, and program, and heal your limbic brain, and definitely reduce your reactivity and anger. Similar to Joe Dispenza's work, we're going after the subconscious. So, DNRS. I bought the program.

[00:39:59] The online program is 300 bucks. It's still sitting in my inbox. I have not logged in. I'm a jerk. I'm going to do it someday. But my dad's been doing her work for a couple of years and it's been extremely powerful for him. And he's someone that used to suffer a lot from anger back in his earlier days. And then, I would say, lastly, to our pissed off friend here, each time you find yourself at war, whether within your own mind or with someone in your life, to repeat the mantra, would I rather win or be happy?

[00:40:30] In other words, do I want to choose victory or do I want to choose peace? And that's a principle that I'm sure comes from many spiritual teachings, but I know it from A Course in Miracles and just that one sentence, however they phrased it. I'm probably paraphrasing it, but the essence of that principle is really in that moment, making that decision. Alright. It's just feeding me man to win, I got to win this argument, I have to prove them wrong, I want them to know that I'm right and I am the victor.

[00:40:58] It's like in any given moment, you can just go, you know what, maybe you're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I love you, please forgive me, thank you. Whatever that that prayer is, I think it's an indigenous Hawaiian prayer, but something to that effect, right? Now, I want to think of what it is. What is that one? I'm sorry, I love you, please forgive me, thank you. I think that's what it is. I mean, really, any disagreement you get into with someone can really be solved by just being willing to allow them to win.

[00:41:30] And when things have cooled down, yeah, maybe you go back and have a conversation, and assert yourself in a healthy way, and create boundaries or whatever it is that needs to happen. But when you find yourself in that fight or flight limbic system, adrenalized state, it seems like it's going to feel the best if you win, if you walk away the victor, but you're really not the victor if you're suffering from anger and hurting someone you care about, right? 

[00:41:58] So, do I want to win or do I want to be happy? Ask yourself that. The next question in the Facebook group comes from Joanna. She says, "To anyone who has lost someone close, what have you done to help process grief? Any therapies, books, meditations?" She also adds, "This is the only group in which I ask questions on Facebook as I feel the members of this group are my people." Well, I'll tell you what, Joanna, you're my people, too. And thank you so much for your contribution.

[00:42:24] And by the way, everyone that is in that Facebook group, thank you for going a bit deeper recently. I've made some comments on previous shows that I get a little bit bored in the group when all of the questions are about, hey, I have a wart on my toe, what verb should I put on it? And we talk about health on this show, so it's all good, no shame, but I just like doing the deeper work. So, when we're talking about death and grief, Joanna, you got my number.

[00:42:46] It's something I relate to deeply and admittedly don't have a lot of experience with, but I'm going to give you all of what I've got because I had a recent experience dealing with this myself. Okay. So, I've had a lot of trauma and loss in my life, like many people have and many microdeaths. They say, death by a thousand cuts, That's been my experience, especially earlier in life. But in terms of losing people that are close to me to death, that's not something that has been in my experience too much yet, although I'm getting older and it's to be expected as the years wear on.

[00:43:24] I think the number one principle here is that one must feel whatever there is to be felt, that the only way past it is through it. The bypassing of emotional pain and discomfort only causes it to perpetuate, to fester, to grow, even if we're able to avoid it for a little while through distractions, or addictions, or self-medicating or however we might do it, it has to be dealt with. And so, I think for me, in light of a recent loss that I had to cancer, taking some time each day to pause in the beginning throes of it at least, to pause and be compassionate with myself, to just allow myself to feel whatever came up.

[00:44:06] My good friend, David Solomini, who I probably have talked about on the show and definitely have posted a lot with on social media over the years, he came down with this really bizarre case of cancer, and went through a number of different horrific surgeries, and hung in there, and got better, and then it came back. It was just a pretty intense human melodrama. And I was doing everything I could, of course, with all of my biohacking tools to help him through that.

[00:44:34] And it's difficult in that situation when someone's kind of got one foot in the medical system, which can be great, and there's so much value there in some cases, and then also, one foot in the natural healing world. And so, he was kind of doing both and it was difficult, but I gave him all I could. And eventually, a couple of months ago, he died, or left his body, I guess, could be a better way to state it. In my system of belief and understanding, if people are essentially made of energy, as a soul, right? 

[00:45:04] It's not you have a soul, you are a soul, you can't die. But he left his body. You can't kill energy. It just transmutes and becomes something else, right? So, during those first couple of weeks, even first month, and at his memorial out on the beach, where we tossed his ashes into the ocean and all of that, there would be times where just during the day, I'd be working on the computer, clicking away on the keyboard, and all of a sudden, I would just have a thought.

[00:45:30] I thought back to one time, it really got me, where he came over, and he was so sick and frail, and I held his hand and just walked him through my yard, and put him in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, and gave him a treatment. And there was just something, oh, so sweet about just being a dude holding another dude's hand. And as Ram Dass says, we're all just walking each other home. And I remember walking him up those steps in the backyard to the Zen den, where all my healing tools are, many of them, and just thinking, man, this guy might not make it.

[00:46:09] And then, having the realization, of course, yeah, son, you're not going to make it either, Luke. There's going to be a time when someone's walking your frail hand, hopefully, if you're so lucky to live long enough for that to happen, someone's going be holding your frail hand and walking you to one of your last walks in life. And becaure there would be moments just like now that emotion came up, and I would just think of moments like that, and I just start bawling.

[00:46:35] And I knew, because of all of the things that I'm going to be talking about here in this section and all the experiences I've had in my life, that grief needs to be felt. And to that end, there is also something to look out for. And that's kind of, when you're milking grief and really overemphasizing it, I don't know. It's hard for me to articulate. It's like feeling your feelings is a slippery slope, because if you really want to get into it, and allow it to express itself, and get those emotions out of your body, and to really face painful thoughts or thinking about a memory about someone that's passed and you love them, there's the healthy side of it, which is really feeling into those emotions and allowing whatever it is that wants to come to the surface to be purged.

[00:47:26] But then, there is the emotionalism, kind of the addiction or the attachment to that experience, and the propensity for self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself. Woe is me. Why do people that I know have to die? Why do people have to die? Oh, why do I have to be a person? It's so hard because it is fucking hard. If incarnating was easy, everyone would do it. So, for me, I think I just have developed to some degree of success the ability to know when the feelings are real and legitimate, and they need to be walked through. 

[00:48:03] And when I'm starting to kind of milk something and get stuck in that morass of self-pity or just giving too much energy to the grief. And I think that is also more likely when one hasn't really developed a spiritual framework of understanding in terms of how the universe and the human experience works. It's the work of David Hawkins, and Ram Dass, and every high-level spiritual teacher in history. I think I'm mentioning Ram Dass a lot today because he's done so much work around death and dying. 

[00:48:36] So, I just recommend that as a starting point too, just anything you can study on Ram Dass, books, podcast, recordings of his live talks. He's someone that spent a lot of time with people in hospice and was with people at that twilight moment when they're in that transition from this form to the non-physical form. But I think for me, having the understanding that when my friend David dies, that he's not dead. And it sounds like an empty platitude or kind of whistling in the dark, like, no, he's still here, I feel his spirit, I swear, to help yourself feel better, but I mean, I have to just state it plainly that I just know this to be the truth, that you don't die.

[00:49:17] The life force that was you embodying that physical entity has moved on to somewhere and something else, kind of an interdimensional type thing. And so, I think in having the discernment of what the healthy emotional response is and how to deal with grief, has a lot to do with the spiritual understanding and framework we have of the human experience, the universe, God, the nature of karma, and all of these things. And so, to find that deep and radical acceptance of someone passing becomes much easier when we understand the bigger picture.

[00:49:52] I know that my friend, David, that just passed is here with me right now. I'm sitting alone in an Airbnb in Sedona, Arizona, Alyson's in the other room doing a Zoom call, working on her book. There's no one here, but trust me, there's someone here, and my friend, David, who's not even David, he's just a spirit that has no name. He was in a body called David. He's here with me. And I find that to be so comforting. And I just know that to be the truth.

[00:50:23] And I don't need him to come in the room and knock over a lamp or something in order for me to know that. It's just the way things are. I don't know how else to say it, just to say it as directly as possible. So, when it comes to feeling the grief and feeling the feelings, even some of them that I'm feeling right now, it's like I welcome it. I just, okay, whatever we got to work through here, let's work through it. And in times, for me, even working through grief, whether it's losing someone or just the loss of an attachment, which is really what losing someone in their human form is, it's a deep attachment.

[00:50:56] I can be attached to a job, to a bank balance. I can be attached to a car. I can be attached to any material inanimate object, or I can be just attached to a position, or a way that I view myself, or any type of relationship, romantic, familial, et cetera. Any loss is an opportunity to surrender attachment. And the more we do that, even with the smaller things that we have microattachments to, the easier it becomes, I think, to surrender our attachments to those things that we really hold dear. 

[00:51:30] And to those people with whom we have longstanding memories, and experiences, and a closeness, I mean, God, I can't imagine the day when my parents passed or anyone in my immediate family, my brothers, my fiancee, I mean, it's just it's hard to even fathom that. And I don't want to fathom that. But I know ultimately that either I'm going to go or they're going to go. And that's just the way it works. So, I think just facing with reality the fact that this is how God created the universe and the human experience, and it's done so with purpose.

[00:52:01] And there's an intention, and a wisdom, and a love behind it. And there are no accidents in God's world and in God's creation. And so, on the karmic wheel, the cycle of life and death, this is just part of the game, and it's part of our growth and our maturity as a soul, as a spirit, to learn how to approach and deal with loss, and grief, and birth, and death, death with some equanimity. So, that's my take on it. And I think in a positive sense, the more I can really reflect on my own mortality, the less seriously I take myself, and my life, and my problems, I know at any given moment, I could leave this body, and I know that at some point, I'm going to have to.

[00:52:51] That's how this game is set up. And so, cherishing each moment, looking at my dog, and just petting my dog, going, wow, this dog is going to be gone. I'm going to be gone. This microphone is going to be gone. The Life Stylist podcast will be gone. You listening to this will be gone in the physical sense, in the material sense. The love that I share with my partner will someday be gone in the physical sense, in the sense that I experience it now in its current form.

[00:53:18] And so, facing death, I think, is one of the most healthy things we can do. And I think as a culture in Western culture, the way we view death is pathologically disempowering and not at all in harmony with nature. And there are many other cultures that view death differently, and it's something that we don't want to face, we don't want to look at. We don't celebrate someone passing on to another dimension, as many other cultures do. Of course, there's sadness, there's loss of attachment, but we hide death in the nursing home.

[00:53:59] We hide death in hospice. We don't want to face it. We don't want to face the fact that all of this is temporary. And so, facing my own mortality has been a really healthy practice for me and something I do more and more all the time as I get older. Just going, man, savor the moment, Luke, we don't know how long you're going to be here, buddy. So, I hope that helps. And I think in closing on that, it turned into kind of a much deeper answer for me. 

[00:54:25] And thank you again for posting such meaningful questions here, and also being so vulnerable and willing to put yourself out there, but I think in addition to reflecting on my mortality, it's just building a healthy, trusting relationship with God, whatever you want to call God, however you label it, whatever your belief system, your religion, your lack of religion. If you're an atheist and you believe in something, you believe in not believing in anything.

[00:54:55] So, believe and trust in that, that there's no meaning to any of this, right? You can still hang onto that and trust in that. I mean, I'm kind of joking, not really, though. But I think for me, it's just having that relationship with God and also being around a few years now where I can look back at situations in which I didn't get what I wanted, things didn't go my way. I was attached to an outcome. It went in another direction. I didn't get what I wanted.

[00:55:22] And some time passed and I saw, aha, now, I see, in hindsight, thank God things worked out the way they did. And so, I can see that there is a divine order in this universe and there is a way in which things work out. And it's not always possible from my current vantage point or perspective to see the deeper meaning or the reasons why things come to pass, including people. So, building that trust in that relationship with God, I think, is what gives me strength to get through anything.

[00:55:52] And I've been through some shit, like I'm sure you have, anyone listening. Man, we've all been through our own suffering, our own trauma, our own loss, some more than others, but we all feel it the same. Every man's burden is the heaviest, as Bob Marley says. So, having a rock to lean on in the form of that knowingness that there is a power that is pervasive and omniscient in this universe and beyond that can help us find stability and strength when we can't find it within ourselves, that's the key.

[00:56:24] And if I can hang onto that, I can probably handle just about anything that comes at me in this lifetime and beyond. I feel like that's kind of a mic drop. Like boom, that felt good. I mean, I'm just being honest. It felt from the heart. It's just where I feel right now. And I think it's so important. But alas, there's more questions. So, I'm going to keep going here. We're at about an hour. I try to keep these things an hour. It never works. They're always 90 minutes. So, here we go. We've got another question.

[00:56:48] This one, from Jasmine. This is a good one and thank you for posting this again. It's kind of a lifestyle question, more so than, hey, how do I cure colitis or whatever, and keep those coming, too. If I have any advice there, I find the metaphysical a bit more interesting and fun to answer on these solo shows than I do the physical. At any rate, Jasmine says, "I need advice on how you guys without a regular "job" earn money. I haven't had an income in several months and it's getting scary. I live in a place where there's not much work. It's not close to a city."

[00:57:21] Well, good for you. You're not close to a city, low EMF and all that. "I have a kid, one five-year-old, and I've been thinking about starting an Etsy page. My friend has also recommended me to join her with doTERRA." That's cool. I like doTERRA. Sometimes, it's funny I didn't put that in the answer, but I've always been a little weird about kind of multilevel marketing companies and whatnot, but I think of the ones that I've joined, and I've joined a bunch of them, doTERRA is probably one of the more integris, as far as I can tell. 

[00:57:52] Although I didn't really pursue that avenue myself, I think there is some value in that type of marketing, and it enables some people to work for themselves, which is great. So, companies are going to spend money on marketing one way or another, right? So, they're either going to pay people in their sort of pyramid system of commissions, and enrollments, and things like that, or they're going to pay outside companies to do marketing and advertisements. 

[00:58:15] So, it's an interesting model, one that I've not ever really been too into, but it's something to consider. So, I'll throw that in there. And also, she says, "I'm in serious need of help and money. What are your suggestions on what to do?" And great question. So, I'm going to rattle off a bunch of possibilities here. Some of them, just practical, and some of them, more based on mindset there towards the end. So, I would recommend looking into working as a remote VA, a virtual assistant.

[00:58:44] My VA is freaking awesome. Her name is Rachel. I love her so much. If you ever hear this episode, Rachel, couldn't do it without you. Props to you. She came from an amazing company called bela.com, that's B-E-L-A-.com. And some of these VA companies also have training programs or they'll train you to become a virtual assistant, and then find you work. Now, not everyone's cut out for that kind of work. It's detail-oriented work and you're obviously working in a subordinate position to someone else above you who's going to tell you what to do all day.

[00:59:14] But if you work for someone cool like me who's super chill, sometimes, I am, sometimes, I'm not, it could be fun if you have those kind of skills. You could join upwork.com if you have any special skills, like graphic design, audio/video editing, copywriting, research, data entry, bookkeeping. Anything you can do remotely, I'd be looking in that direction. Again, if you live in a city that's been hammered by COVID or there's just a low population density, there's not a lot of work there, high unemployment, et cetera, you definitely want to see if you have any skills that can be applied remotely using your computer.

[00:59:50] And if you have any skills that can be applied in person, I don't know if they'd have this in a smaller town or city, but there's an app I use called TaskRabbit. And if your city has that app, it's pretty cool. So, if you're good at organizing, running errands, putting IKEA furniture together, yard work, hauling, any kind of manual labor per se, even though some of it's not so laborious, there are services like TaskRabbit that you can sign up for. It's kind of like Uber, right?

[01:00:15] It's kind of like driving Uber, and, hey, maybe do that if you're in a pinch for a while, whatever you can do to bring coin in. Again, in a smaller town, they might not have Uber, but TaskRabbit and services like that where you're an on-demand worker, I think, are cool. I think the Etsy store that was mentioned is a great idea, using your creativity. Etsy store, running an eBay store, finding vintage clothes, or vintage trinkets, or art, and selling them somewhere else, and making a little profit on them, things like that are cool. 

[01:00:47] On online businesses, I would study the online marketing masters like Amy Porterfield, Joe Polish, Russell Brunson, Gary Vaynerchuk, Brendon Burchard, Pat Flynn, all those folks, they have free podcasts, and of course, YouTube videos. They all have online programs to teach you how to become an online coach or online entrepreneur or businessperson. I think now is a great time to get into that type of work. If you have a niche interest or expertise, you could create content like your old pal, Luke, here does. 

[01:01:17] Build an audience and monetize that via brand affiliate relationships and sponsors, using the marketing tools of the aforementioned experts. You could produce a podcast, a blog post, YouTube channel, social media channel that allows you to get paid for content. And the key there is just obviously having compelling content that people will find sticky and interesting, and being very consistent as you build your audience. And when you build your audience, they're going to want to buy things that you recommend to them.

[01:01:45] So, that's one way to do it. You can also research online programs for starting your own home business. I'm all about online learning. I own another business that I never talk about because it doesn't apply to the topics here on the Life Stylist, but it's called School of Style and it's a fashion school that teaches people how to be a fashion stylist or personal stylist. So, it's something I did for 17 years. And in 2008, I started this school called schoolofstyle.com. 

[01:02:11] It's still alive and well. It's now an online business. And I took online programs to learn how to turn my in-person school into an online school. And I studied and studied, and with the help of my ex-partner, who was really good at that kind of stuff too, and we made that transition. And now that business is there and for the most part kind of runs itself. So, I'm really into online businesses. I guess Luke Storey, Inc. is an online business, although I still am happy to show up, and do public talks, and workshops, and things like that.

[01:02:44] So, it's not completely online. But content creation is a great way to earn a living. I'm having a great time doing it. Sitting here talking to you guys right now, looking at a computer screen, having my eyes get sore and my head start to get scrambled after an hour and eight minutes. But still, I'm digging it. I love it. And as I've been here in Sedona, what's been really fun about it as well is that I've run into so many people just at the health food store, of course, and the local juice spot, they're like, oh, my God, you're Luke Storey, I listen to your podcast.

[01:03:13] And then, they know me, especially some of them that have listened for five years, they know everything about me. It's kind of embarrassing. And then, all I have to do to catch up and become their friend is just get to know them. But producing content is a really cool way to reach people and have a positive impact on the world, and also, in a strange way, get to know people. You can travel, and when you go there, you kind of have a built-in family or tribe.

[01:03:37] Next, what's up? Okay. Get out a whiteboard and brain-jump every possible skill you possess and put them on paper. So, anything you think you might be interested in, or good at, or even just something you want to pursue, write it down, then make a list of people you know personally who have monetized any of those skills that you think you might have or those interests that you want to pursue, and ask them for mentorship or support. Now, of course, without knowing your skill set and passion, it's tough to give you a blanket fix, but this could be a great place to start.

[01:04:08] Just start to get creative, and just throw some ideas out there, and think if something just comes to mind. You might start writing, you're like, what do I like? You're like, I like horses, shit, maybe I could train to be a horse trainer or whatever. I mean, that just popped up. And I've done things like that a bunch of times when I feel stuck in my career. It's like, what do I even like? It's a great place to start. Not like, how can I make money, but what do I enjoy doing? What am I passionate about?

[01:04:31] And then, are there any other people out there that are making money doing the thing I'm passionate about, and seek them out, and learn from them. Next, delve deeply into any teachings that explore limiting beliefs and subconscious patterns of unworthiness and lack. Oh, man, this is huge. I mean, I could have just answered this whole question with this piece. Our former two-time guest, Lacy Phillips, of To Be Magnetic is a great person to look to in terms of manifestation and really rooting out self-worth issues.

[01:05:04] Oftentimes, our limitations are self-imposed by these hidden blocks that keep us struggling financially. We get addicted to being broke, and addicted to being unemployed, and addicted to the idea that there's no work out there, and no one wants to hire me, that I'm too lazy, or stupid, or ugly to have a meaningful career about which I'm passionate. And these are lies that we tell ourselves, imposter syndrome, all this kind of stuff. And I'm telling you, man, I mean, I know this because I've had to work through this in so many ways.

[01:05:35] When I was a stylist for those years, as I mentioned, oh, my God, I had the worst imposter syndrome because it took me a really long time to get good at it. And it was just something I fell into. I never set out to do it. I started making a living at it, and then realized, wow, there's really an art to this and I have a lot to learn. And it was brutal. And starting a podcast, I mean, I thought, who's going to listen to my podcast? What if I suck at this? I mean, all those things we go through all come from those self-worth issues.

[01:06:01] And if we have a scarcity mindset and we don't have a relationship with God, if we don't believe that it's possible for us to be abundant, to be successful, and I'm not accusing the person that ask this question of those things, but I think most people, unless you were karmically gifted with super conscious parents who just completely boosted you up in the healthiest of ways, and told you how brilliant, and beautiful, and talented you were every day, and give you opportunities to cultivate your skillset and interests, you probably are going to run up against this at some point.

[01:06:36] There's another book called, oh, God, you should get this book, I hate to should people, but you asked the question, so I'm going to answer them, it's called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Oh, my God. Amazing books. I would actually really like to read or listen to this one again. In this book, he talks about a concept, I think it's called the upper limit. And it's like, when we achieve a certain level of comfort, complacency, or even success, that there's this glass ceiling that we place on ourselves due to our self-worth issues that we can't imagine breaking out of the paradigm in which we currently find ourselves.

[01:07:11] And that is the upper limit. So, he teaches you in this book how to actually stretch that upper limit to imagine yourself being incredibly successful. And then, of course, taking the steps, and the practical work, and planning necessary to manifest that as a reality. But so much of this, when it comes to being broke. And I've been broke and in debt. I mean, I've been a complete loser on paper so many times in my life. I mean, it's been a while now and I'm making progress.

[01:07:38] I've been more disciplined about this. And I think a lot of that has come from just doing all of the inner healing that I talked about earlier in this episode, and rooting out that trauma and shame from our childhoods, healing the abuse and things that we suffered at the hands of others or ourselves in some cases, and really getting down to that self-worth and sense of deserving. And that is all stuff that has to happen on the subconscious level. So, that's the real work here.

[01:08:05] And some of those other recommendations I gave are just practical ideas, just kind of spit-balling here, because I want to see every listener of the show and everyone in the world do something that they enjoy doing and make a good living at it. And I'm sure you're a wonderful mom to your five-year-old kid, and I want you to feel really good and confident about that, and be able to provide for your kid, as I know you want to. On the more practical tip, I recommend definitely creating a vision board, or a vision book, or even a digital slideshow that show the end goal of the financial success and security that you seek.

[01:08:37] So, we don't want to have a great, high-paying job because we want to do that job, we want what that high-paying job produces in our life or the end result. It's like the end why, not the immediate why because we have human needs that need to be attended to. But really, the end goal, where do we want to see ourselves in a year, in five years, in 10 years, et cetera? So, I have been periodically making vision movies, vision boards, vision books for years and years.

[01:09:04] And as crazy as it might seem, that shit works, folks. Kind of sometimes, I wish I saved my old vision boards because so many this stuff comes true. After it comes true, then when I make a new vision board, I don't put that stuff in there anymore. Even just weird stuff like I always wanted a hyperbaric chamber, got one. Wanted to live in a house that looked like this, or have a healthy relationship like the one I'm in, or whatever the case may be, bringing life to those ideas by manifesting them creatively is much more possible, A, when you've built up your sense of disserving that and being worthy, as I discussed a moment ago, but then also really being able to visualize it.

[01:09:45] So, sometimes, you'll have photos, sometimes, they're just words. It's like, I might even have on my vision board, I freaking love myself, I'm awesome. And as corny as that might sound, that affirmation, just reading that over and over again. I even will cut out photos of myself, and superimpose them in a place that I want to go on vacation, or somewhere I want to buy a home, or something like that. I mean, I've gone all out with this stuff and it really works.

[01:10:09] But of course, it's not going to work or it's going to work much slowly if you haven't sort of ferreted out the underlying issues that tell you that you don't deserve to have that security and that success. So, it's not really that we want the job or career. It's that we want what that experience promises, the fulfillment, the security, a sense of purpose and meaning. So, rather than putting all the efforts into the how of like, I need to find a job, although that's important too, I would recommend putting some energy, and visualization, and passion into the why, and build what the end result of finding that job, career, or business is going to be.

[01:10:47] Next question is from Louise. She asks, "Has anyone found anything super helpful for low back pain due to degenerative joint disease? I know this is a natural part of aging." I would disagree with that. I would get that out of your mental paradigm. No, it's not. The human body is designed to last a very long time and work very efficiently up until that time. It's a part of domesticated aging. I'm just going to throw that in there. She goes on to say, "I'm 36 and don't want it to get worse, as I like to be super active. Working with a chiropractor now and adding some acupuncture massage soon, but would love to hear other hacks."

[01:11:23] I mean, I like those three right there. They might not get to the root of it. We'll see what we can do here. I'm going to rattle off some of the most effective modalities I've used. Again, these will be linked in the show notes. Get them emailed to you every week at lukestorey.com/Newsletter. See how I do that? I throw that in all the time because I want you guys to sign up for the newsletter, not because I want to spam you, but because I want to send you the show notes to every podcast every week to help you, and to make it unnecessary for you to email me, and ask questions about what was in the show.

[01:11:52] No, just kidding, not really kidding. Alright. Acupuncture, amazing for the nervous system. I mean, I had some done here the other day, knocked me into Theta in the most beautific state ever. I love it. Acupuncture has not cured my back pain, unfortunately. I've done a lot of it. It's really good for everything. It probably is good for back pain, but it's not really moved the needle for me permanently, no pun intended. Next thing is called the Egoscue method, and this is something I think would really work if you were consistent with it.

[01:12:24] But, man, it requires a lot of discipline. You got to do all these exercises a couple of times a day, 10, 15 minutes. You got to really want to be out of pain. And I think Egoscue will work to correct your structure. It puts your bones where they're supposed to be, and then allows your skeletal system to reprogram your nervous system, tendons, joints, ligaments, muscles, et cetera, to support that structure. But, man, I've given it a shot and it really requires some discipline.

[01:12:51] But I do believe in it. One of these days, maybe I'll get back on the Egoscue train. A guy named Pete Egoscue invented it. He's been on Bulletproof Radio a couple of times. You can probably hear that. There's another modality I love called Alphabiotics. And again, like I'm saying, I'm telling you all this stuff, my back hurts right now. So, none of this, in and of itself, has cured me per se in a permanent sense, but it has alleviated some of the symptoms temporarily, and in some cases, for quite a long time.

[01:13:18] Alphabiotics is awesome. Chiropractic, of course, as was mentioned in the question. Next one is network spinal analysis. And I've done a show on that. It's also called NSA. Craniosacral therapy, high-intensity PEMF treatment by Pulse Centers. Now, I have to say, out of all the things here, I'm looking at my list, I would say that the Pulse Centers PEMF has probably—it hasn't cured my lower back pain to where like I never feel it anymore, but that's probably the one thing that's been most useful.

[01:13:50] I do it at a place called The Transformational—I've been talking, I need a glass of water—The Transformational Healing Universe with my friend, Dr. Har Hari on Robertson in Los Angeles. He's been on the show a few episodes back. We did a show with him and Troy Casey, The Certified Health Nut. And so, I was going into the center there and doing Pulse Centers. I've also done a podcast on Pulse Centers PEMF a couple of years back. You can find that to learn all about it.

[01:14:22] But I was going in there like two to three days a week, and sitting on that Pulse Centers mat, and using their little attachments for three hours a day. And I did pretty much fix my shoulder that have been injured and hurting for a long, long time, and really, really helped my lower back and hip pain. So, there are all kinds of different PEMF devices. I have a bunch of them at home. I don't have the Pulse Centers one yet because, well, it's like 40 grand, that's why. 

[01:14:50] I hope to get one one day. But that particular PEMF, unlike the AmpCoil, or the Halo, or the BioCharger, they all have their different uses and specialties. The Pulse Centers is really great for injuries and pain. So, I'm just going to emphasize the Pulse Centers as a treatment. There's various forms of laser treatment, K-Laser, all kinds of different cold laser treatments that can really help discs, as can stem cell injections. I had a full stem cell workup a couple of years back.

[01:15:20] You can see the procedure. You actually can watch the surgery if you like blood and guts on YouTube. You can see me naked as the day I was born on there, getting carved up, and injected, bloody as hell. I've never watched it because I'd probably throw up. But I did an episode with Dr. Harry Adelson and Dr. Amy Killen of Docere Clinics in Park City, Utah, and did a video, podcast, whole thing. Now, I did get benefit from that stem cell treatment, however, and it's no fault of Harry's, it did not cure my lower back pain per se.

[01:15:53] But he did inject my vertebrae—the discs rather, not the vertebrae. I think those are bones, but the space in between, those little gummy things called discs, mine were a little flat and smashed, perhaps one could say degenerative. And I haven't done an MRI since then, but I'm guessing that those stem cells definitely helped my spine. So, that is that. And then, there are all kinds of different peptide therapies. BPC-157 is one of the ones that I use all the time.

[01:16:21] It's great for inflammation and pain. Eliminating all inflammatory foods, gluten, grains, all that stuff. Getting on something like paleo, carnivore, keto, a low-inflammation diet. As far as I can tell, the carnivore diet is the lowest inflammation just because I know so many people have cured arthritis and other inflammatory disorders by only eating meat, as crazy as it sounds. I recently did an episode with Dr. Paul Saladino. You can learn all about that wacky diet there. 

[01:16:53] One of my favorites for all body paint. In fact, I want to do one right now because I'm sore from sitting in a dining room chair instead of my cushy home office chair is ice baths. I do two to three ice baths a day. I'm so cracked out on them. I'm jonesing so hard here in Arizona because I don't have an ice bath. In fact, the tap water here is pretty cold. It's probably high 40s, low 50s, not cold enough. I prefer my ice baths 35 degrees or so, two or three of those back home in LA.

[01:17:22] I have one in the backyard. I'll soon have a couple of ice baths on my website. They're quite expensive. If you want to make an ice bath yourself, you just do a web search or look at the show notes, Luke Story Ice Bath, you'll find a post that my friend Ben Greenfield did because I gave him my whole building plans to create an ice bath for about a thousand bucks in your in your home or backyard. Here in Arizona, what I do is I fill up the bath, and I go to the store, and I buy a bunch of bags of ice, and I make myself a cheesy, little ice bath.

[01:17:52] But it's a great way to just really knock out inflammation, and back pain, and all pain. Of course, infrared sauna is really useful. I did bring one of my biohacks here on the road with me, and that is this brand new thingy that I'm in love with, it's made by HigherDOSE, and it is their PEMF and infrared mat. So, it's got all of these different amethysts and crystals in it. It's kind of like a BioMat, but less expensive, and also, has PEMF. So, you can run like the Schumann resonance through it, so it creates a magnetic field, very relaxed and very healing, really good for pain. 

[01:18:28] And that thing gets so goddamn hot. Again, I'll put this in the show notes. And I think I have it on my site store. It's about a thousand bucks, I don't recall. This thing gets so hot because I'll turn it on high because I want it to heat up fast. I'm talking about, again, the HigherDOSE infrared mat, healing mat. I'll turn it up on high, and then I forget it, and I get on it, and if you feel like your bare skin, I think it might burn you. I mean, it's like, ah, you jump off it.

[01:18:52] It's so hot. It's really good for pain. It's not going to cure back pain, but it does alleviate pain. This might be, right here, I think, my top recommendation, and again, like Egoscue, something that requires so much commitment to really see a change that I haven't done it that consistently, but my brother Cody Storey has been trained in this modality, he's an expert in it, and he claims that it has—but he's very disciplined much more than I am when it comes to fitness and this kind of shit, he's like removed all pain from his body using something called, ready, drumroll please, FRC or functional range conditioning developed by a doctor named Andreo Spina up in Canada.

[01:19:32] And I think honestly, from all the things I've studied and tried, this is the most thorough approach and one that can actually reverse issues that we're talking about here by dealing with the root cause, which is joint health and mobility by increasing your range of motion, getting your range of motion in all the joints in your body back to how they are supposed to be pre-domestication. And it's just incredible. But it does take some work and it does take coaching.

[01:20:01] You have to learn how to do it, getting an assessment, taking online programs. It's a whole thing. But FRC is really, really powerful stuff, and I'd highly recommend that. Another thing that's helped me is inversion tables hanging upside down, spinal decompression, hyperbaric oxygen treatments for circulation, building new blood vessels, capillaries, et cetera, PRP, platelet rich plasma injections into various joints in the back. It's often done in conjunction with stem cell therapy.

[01:20:32] You can do Quinton sea mineral injections. Recently did a show with Robert Slovak about the Quinton sea minerals. I think they pronounce it, it's French, I think it's Quinton sea minerals. And there is a clinic in Mexico that is said to really help people out with back pain by injecting the Quinton sea minerals directly into the spine. Now, I wouldn't try that at home, folks, but I do. Now, I'm not recommending you do this. Again, remember my disclaimer at the beginning, but I do inject subcutaneously, not in my spine or discs, Quinton sea minerals just about every day, because why not?

[01:21:08] I'm injecting a bunch of other stuff. So, I just suck up some of the sea minerals in there and it actually helps to assimilate whatever I'm putting in there, the NAD, the peptides, et cetera. Good stuff. Another manual therapy technique, ART or active release therapy. Good stuff. Also, the Alexander technique. And out of all the things here on the list, I have not yet actually tried the Alexander technique, but any time I've complained about back pain here on the podcast, people have sent me recommendations, and one that's come in quite a few times is the Alexander technique.

[01:21:42] I sense this might be like FRC or Egoscue, something that requires some dedication. And I'm pretty disciplined and dedicated, but when it comes to like getting on the floor for an hour every morning and night, and doing some weird movements to fix my back, I'm like, meh, maybe someday when it hurts enough. I'm waiting for the magic healer, you know what I'm saying? I used to want to go to John of God before he was accused of being really creepy. I'm waiting on a healer that can just be like, boom, I touched you, it's gone.

[01:22:12] In the meantime, when my back hurts really bad, I will take something called kratom. A lot of people call it kratom or Kratom. It's an herb from Southeast Asia. It's actually a leaf that grows on trees in places like Vietnam and Thailand, et cetera. And it's a ground-up leaf. You can buy it online. I would be mindful of the source. I don't think I have that on my site because I haven't found a good affiliate that I really trust and like. But I buy it in bulk, and I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the place I get it from, but it's an amazing painkiller.

[01:22:43] But I want to say, you must be mindful because kratom, or kratom, or kratom is a natural opiate, and it hits the opiate receptors in your brain, and you can become physically addicted to it. How do I know this? Because a very close friend of mine who I turned on to kratom and warned his dumbass about this didn't listen, and he got addicted to it a couple of times, and then would have to spend one to three days feeling pretty uncomfortable to come off it. 

[01:23:10] So, you can get addicted to it, but it is a natural plant medicine, and I'm a huge fan of it. I'm a former opiate addict. I mean, like street drugs, opiate addict from back in the day. And I'm so grateful to be sober from those plant medicines known as heroin, that I used to get imported from Mexico in people's butts and buy in downtown LA. But when I got off opiates, I mean, I would have never taken something that was also an opiate. But I did a lot of research and I was very secure in my sobriety before I tried kratom.

[01:23:41] I remember asking my friend, Daniel Vitalis, about it maybe five, six years ago, he was like, dude, you can't take that, that shit gets you high. Like, do not enter. And I said, okay, okay. I wait a couple more years, and then my back hurt enough, and then eventually, I did some more research, and found that, in fact, many opiate addicts of things like fentanyl and heroin, whatever, a lot of vets and people with PTSD, et cetera, people with injuries that are strung out on pain meds actually use kratom to come off those meds.

[01:24:10] And I thought, oh, that's weird. So, anyway, long story short, with a lot of research, and much mindfulness, and caution, I did eventually try it. And I found in small doses, it treats pain very well, but doesn't get you high. Now, if you take enough of it, it'll slow your ass and you'll be super loaded like you can't drive, especially the kratom extract. I'll do a podcast on kratom one day soon because it is one of my favorite plant medicines, but I have to give a strong warning there.

[01:24:38] If you have a propensity for addiction or if you're in recovery, I would just generally not recommend it because you could go off the deep end and end up back on the street with a needle in your arm or whatever the hell you're up to when you went on to the dark side of opiates, but it is pretty incredible medicine. Okay. So, lastly, on the back pain, now, I haven't seen this doctor yet, but I hear great things about him, and that is Dr. Matt Cooke.

[01:25:03] I think he's up in San Jose, California. He's doing fantastic work with peptides, stem cells, all kinds of different modalities and treatments. He'll be on the show soon. I'm going to go up there, and get treated, and do an interview with him. And in the meantime, you can find his work on quite a few Ben Greenfield podcast. In fact, I think that's where I first discovered the work of Dr. Matt Cooke. So, if you get up there to see him before I do, tell him I sent you because I'm just trusting him based on listening to a lot of his interviews.

[01:25:30] He sounds brilliant, sounds really good at alleviating pain like forever style, like fixing it, which is what you want. Alright. Next, and I think our last question, goddammit, no, we've got two more, it is what it is, guys. One of these days, on these solo shows, I'm going to learn how to just put three questions in my notes, because then I do the intro and I tell you the questions I'm going to answer or I put it in the title, and it's too late. I don't want to go back and have it edited, so I just got to keep going.

[01:26:00] I'm going to try to make this one quick. Alright. We've got a guy here. This guy's name is Bob. Bob says, "Ozone water versus rectal ozone. Healing from mold illness and I want to use ozone, but money is tight. I already have an ozone water generator. Did any of you all have thoughts on just drinking a lot of ozone water versus going whole hog and getting them medical ozone rectal insulation thing?" I love that. Bob also asked about other mold recovery protocols.

[01:26:29] And I must admit this topic is not one I've done much research on. So, I'm going to take a stab at it. And I'm a huge fan of ozone. I just have not really worked with the mold thing, because as far as I know, I've not had to deal with it myself. And a lot of the things I talk about here on the show selfishly are things that I have figured out how to sort out and want to share with you, but mold has not been something I've experienced in a long-term way.

[01:26:52] But ozone, oh, man. I mean, come on. I don't have experience drinking ozonated water, but I am a huge fan of ozone therapy and all the forms because the benefits are just endless. If you're interested in getting a generator based on my research, the two best, not commercial, what do you call it? Consumer models being made by Simplyo3. I think theirs is a little more affordable, maybe not quite as badass as the mac daddy, which is Longevity Resources out of Canada.

[01:27:23] Those are both available on my site. I bring my ozone generator, which is an older handmade one I bought off some cat a while ago, probably not even legal, but I had it tested by Longevity Resources actually, and they said it's pretty good, it's good enough, it's safe. I bring this thing on every road trip I make, including the one I'm on now. It is sitting about 20 feet from me in the laundry room, and I've used it probably four times since I've been here.

[01:27:47] Any time I feel a little funky for any reason, I hop on the ozone and I also use it just for mitochondrial function, and gut health, and all kinds of things. So, I use ozone when I'm at home a few days a week. And honestly, I couldn't imagine living without my ozone generator. I don't know. It's a tough call. If I had to like, I don't know, only have one piece of health or biohacking technology, what would it be? It might just be the ozone generator. I mean, it's tough. It's a tough thing.

[01:28:16] If I could have an ice bath, even like a natural ice bath, like a river, lake, ocean that's cold as F, I'd take that and the ozone generator. Now, as I said, I've not had mold exposure, or Lyme, or anything like that, so I'm just going to kind of take a shot in the dark here. But if I came down with something like that, I'd be doing two to three home treatments per day and I'd also be doing a bunch of 10 Pass Ozone IVs immediately. And IVs can get expensive.

[01:28:45] I'll be honest there. Bob said he's a little low on cash. I get it. Many people are right now. To me, the investment is worth it to just get your own generator. I can't speak to the efficacy of the ozone water. I'm sure it's got its uses, but based on my research and my own experience, I would not rely on the water if I was dealing with something serious like mold. That's just me. I'm just taking a stab at that. I would recommend studying the work of Dr. Frank Shallenberger, who's one of the foremost experts on all things ozone, the different ways to administer it, the different issues that you can use ozone for.

[01:29:22] And you might even be able to get into his clinic in Reno and get treated or just call them up and see Bob if they have a solid mold recovery protocol that they could share with you or actually treat you. Again, might not be cheap, but you might just call them, and they're like, are you kidding? You need to do rectal ozone every day if you have mold. I don't know, but I would give that a shot. The next and final question is from Cody. He says, "Does anyone have experience in curing/helping bipolar without medication?" 

[01:29:51] Man, this is a tricky one, and I'm going to answer this carefully and with some prudence since I have not overcome this issue personally, although I have overcome quite a few mental health issues, some diagnosed, some not. But bipolar, I don't know a lot about. But this could be caused by a number of underlying issues. It could also be misdiagnosed. I've had close friends that were told they have this, told they have that, they do some work on themselves in the various ways, and they're fine. 

[01:30:22] So, I don't even know where to begin. I'm going to go to the experts. I would definitely study the work of Dr. Kelly Brogan and get her book, A Mind of Your Own. I know through being friends with Kelly and also interviewing her that she has not only personally witnessed, but also personally treated and helped loads of people with bipolar, schizophrenia, et cetera, using protocols that she had uncovered in her practice. And most of them had to do with lifestyle changes and not pharmaceutical medications.

[01:30:55] Having said that, as someone who used to be on pharmaceutical medication in the form of antidepressants, I would not recommend to anyone listening to ever just up and stop your medication. It can be really problematic and dangerous in so many different ways. So, while I'm not an advocate, generally speaking, of taking pharmaceutical medications, sometimes, it's necessary. Sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, you can get off them. Sometimes, maybe you can't.

[01:31:24] I don't know. But Kelly would be the person that I would look up if I was having this issue. And I've also met many folks who have recovered via deep transformational healing work, breathwork, plant medicines, all kinds of therapy, dietary changes, lifestyle changes. I mean, just getting your sleep right, ice baths, et cetera. However, I have to say this again, I said it before, I'm going to say it again, but especially here, be extremely careful if you have mental health issues and are on prescription drugs if you're considering plant medicines. 

[01:31:56] And if you go to any qualified shaman or retreat center, they're going to absolutely screen you for mental health issues and any type of prescription drugs you're taking. However, just again, I have to be honest, and say, I have known people personally that have overcome mental health issues with the assistance of plant medicines, but it is not for everyone and something you have to be extremely careful with. I'm just sharing what I've witnessed.

[01:32:22] Alright. Don't shoot the messenger. An anti-inflammatory diet can work miracles, going paleo, cadio—paleo cadio. Toward the end, I get a little punch drunk here. Carnivore, even for just a brief period of recovery can be very helpful from what I understand due to the inflammation in the brain as being one of the possible root causes of some mental health issues. Again, I don't know about bipolar, but it's quite possible. I do know that in Kelly Brogan's book that she definitely recommends certain dietary restrictions if you want to have a healthy brain and help to alleviate the need for medication.

[01:33:01] And then, of course, adding meditation, brainwave balancing with technologies like NuCalm, neurofeedback to restore brain function, circulation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy to improve brain function and circulation, anything you can do. Again, we're not talking about treating bipolar here. We're talking about doing things that create a healthier brain and allow it to get back to functioning as it was designed to function. There's a lot of things you can do if you just start pursuing brain health.

[01:33:32] If I was dealing with this, however, I would probably put most of my eggs in the spiritual basket. I think I would really be pursuing building a spiritual practice as a way of life, not something I do here and there in a yoga class, I contemplate God for five minutes at the end of the class during the lie out, but something that I really pursue with great dedication. And for me, the mental health issues that I suffered from, just chronic depression, anxiety, all sorts of stuff that I had in my 20s and 30s, it's pretty much gone.

[01:34:08] And of course, I've done a lot of biohacking. I've done all the things. But really, what has moved the needle more than anything is just developing and cultivating a spiritual way of life and building a relationship with God. And I know so many people have dealt with really difficult issues like autism and all sorts of other things, really, by doing the deep, deep work spiritually. And a lot of the things that we experience mentally and physically, as pathology have their root in a spiritual discontent, meaning that we're disconnected from our creator. 

[01:34:40] We're disconnected from our sense of purpose, from our sense of faith, and hope, and all goodness that comes from a relationship with the God or higher power of your understanding. So, that would be my recommendation there to Cody. Again, sorry to be vague, but I also feel a sense of responsibility here and I don't want to give anyone advice that I don't fully—about a topic about which I don't fully understand. I don't really know about bipolar, and schizophrenia, and some of these other issues because I've not personally experienced them.

[01:35:09] But I do have full faith that it's possible for every human being to achieve a quality life. Sometimes, we might have to accept some of the things going on in our mind and body, and learn to live with them, and in some cases, we can indeed heal and transcend them if we are committed, and we're asking great questions like Cody asked here in the group. Alright. We made it through. Whoo. Hot damn. That's Episode 317, guys. Thanks for joining me. 

[01:35:35] Again, if you want the complete transcript of every word spoken on this episode, and every link mentioned in this episode, and everyone to follow, you want to go to lukestorey.com/newsletter, or if you have a US phone, text the word lifestylist to the number 44222. And the reason I keep plugging this, again, is because my team goes through great effort to link out to every book, every recommendation, everything I talk about so that you can read the show notes and just click on anything you're interested in.

[01:36:06] And the reason I put so much effort into that and requested that my team be so thorough is that I am a podcast listener and a podcast fan, and I find it incredibly irritating when I'm listening to a podcast, and there's a book, or modality, or something mentioned, and then I don't know where to find it or I have to stop and do a web search on the side of the road or something, because I'm like, wait, what was that? I got to look into this thing.

[01:36:29] So, I've saved you from the treachery of doing that by creating incredible and thorough show notes. And I want you to get them in your inbox every week for free. Alright. It's a cool deal for everyone. Share this information. And also, take a moment to invite you to join the Life Stylist podcast Facebook group community so we can all stay in contact until we find a less fascistic, corrupt platform on which to communicate and share space with one another.

[01:36:54] But for now, we're at Facebook. I mean, things are changing quickly in terms of censorship every day. I'm just wondering if I'm going to get kicked off the platforms and deplatformed as a heretic and pariah for simply asking a question about the legitimacy of the current, I don't even want to call it a virus, the current situation that we face. It's just crazy. The world is fucking crazy right now. All we can do is meditate, pray to God, and hope for the best.

[01:37:24] But seriously, join the Facebook group, and you can post your questions there, and I'll do my best to answer them. And then, we've got to thank our sponsors without whom this episode and every episode of the show would be impossible. Someone has to pay for this. The team's growing man, the Life Stylist podcast. We're doing all kinds of improvements all the time, on the video, on the audio. In 2021, I'm going to be redoing the music and a lot of the show formatting.

[01:37:45] I'm going to make it less annoying. Try and shorten up the ads, just really tighten things up, the intros, all that stuff. I've gotten requests from people over the years and I've listened. And so, I'm making all these changes and keeping this thing on the rails, does cost, surprisingly, quite a lot of money to really produce a consistent and high quality, at least what I believe to be high-quality podcasts, and videos, and social media, and all the things we do here.

[01:38:10] So. If you want to support your health, and support the show, and the work I'm doing here, you want to support our sponsors. And here they are for this episode. We've got Lucy. They make some amazing nicotine products. And again, I'm going to give the disclaimer, nicotine is addictive so enter at your own risk. Their nicotine products are lozenges and gum, and they're great for smoking cessation, right? To take the place of smoking cigars like I recently did, cigarettes, whatever your poison is, or medicine, I guess maybe it's not a poison.

[01:38:40] The poison is all in the dose, is it not? However, Lucy makes some great nicotine products and they're also really good for their nootropic qualities as well. So, really good for focus and concentration. Nicotine is actually great for doing focus work, sitting down at the computer, banging it out, writing, being creative. It's a really interesting molecule used with discretion. If you don't get addicted to it, I like it a lot better. But anyway, you can find Lucy at lucy.co. 

[01:39:07] You can save 20% off those nicotine products with the code Luke20. Next is OLIPOP. I think I have one of these in the fridge right here, Alyson bought one at Whole Foods. And you can go to drinkolipop.com/luke, that's D-R-I-N-K, drinkolipop, O-L-I-P-O-P-.com/luke use the code Luke at checkout, and you're going to get 20% off your order plus free shipping on some actually quite healthy soda. It's got prebiotics in there. No sugar or very low sugar. A couple of grams, doesn't spike your blood sugar.

[01:39:42] It tastes freaking awesome. The water is filtered. That was the first thing, of course, I checked with them, was like, what's your filtration? I think it's RO, so not a bunch of chemicals in the water that they make this OLIPOP from, which is great. Last but certainly not least is our friends at beekeepersnaturals.com. They make the most awesome bee products on the planet, really good to eat, really good for your health, a natural, nature-made supplement.

[01:40:07] And I love my bee products, and I love the way they treat the bees, and the way they do business. Amazing company at beekeepersnaturals.com, the audience discount there is 15% and the code is lifestylist. And again, you can find all of our sponsors, all the products that I use in my life, and always talk about, and promote at lukestorey.com/store. It's also a great way to just support the work here and get yourself some exclusive discounts.

[01:40:31] If you're going to buy the stuff from somewhere, might as well buy it on my site, get a discount, support my work, support your health, and support these amazing companies. No companies end up on my show unless I believe in what they're doing. And I vet each and every company that I feature on the show. And if they're not doing something unique and doing it right, they can go advertise on another show. There's plenty of podcasts out there. I only want the best of the best.

[01:40:53] And again, you can find that at lukestorey.com/store. And with that, my friends, I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for joining me on this episode. We are now at one hour and 48 minutes in. If you're still hearing my voice right now, you are a super fan of Life Stylist podcast. And for that, I love and thank you. Be back next week where we're going to learn how to alleviate stress from our life with Jim Poole. That's on Tuesday. See you then.

[01:41:27]

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