Merry Christmas 2022. What a great year we have been blessed with. As we enter the Christmas season, I have a special gift for all my listeners. I hope that today's episode blesses you abundantly and you may take time over the next two weeks to reflect on just how great 2022 was. 

Once you go to a Chiropractor...you always go to a chiropractor...or something like that. There is something odd about this statement in the western world. It is almost as if they are spinning this off as a bad thing. Meaning, you never really "get better." Now, if you were indoctrinated into the western mindset of "if I have a symptom, I have a pill" I would completely agree with you. However, it is my goal to disrupt this philosophy and this paradigm. Lets try this statement another way...once you take an anti-depressant, you always take an anti-depressant. Or...once you take a blood pressure medication, you always take a blood pressure medication. Truthfully, I think there is a bigger undercurrent here that needs to be addressed. That current: how we view health. The idea of one symptom one pill is archaic. It is broken. It is a lie. The body is not a system of silos in which an organ acts interdependent of the body. Actually, the exact opposite is true. The human body is a system. That system is a connections of parts that work together for the betterment of the whole. The problem we run into with western theory of medicine fails to address this very simple principle. You see, the body is broken down into cycles. Cycles of healing, regeneration, repair. Cycles of sleep. Cycles of wakefulness. Cycles of digestion. Cycles of rest.  I like to refer to these cycles as seasons, and throughout the seasons of life, your health will go through many different cycles. The problem we encounter is when we take a cycle of life that is particularly hard (financial crisis, new born baby, relationship stress, death of a loved one, etc) and decided to numb it or medicate it away because the world tells us there's a pill to take it all away. I dare say that to medicate this cycle is a trap into keeping you from ever actually successfully navigating this season. In today's episode, I challenge your indoctrination with a different approach. One in which we look at the seasonality of health, instead of focusing on the mountain top experience that western pharma sells. 

A rule that all of us have heard is to keep it simple stupid. In today's meditation, I highlight how spiritual simplicity can yield fruit that will bring peace to all areas of your life. 

There is a difference between living in the mountain top experience and experiencing the seasonality of life. While the western world will sell you the mountain top experience. The more prudent world will share with you the raw reality that seasons of life are to be expected. Many of us will attempt to silence the moments of suffering and loneliness in order to supplement a constant state of unattainable mountain top experiences. In today's episode, I dive into the truth behind living in the seasons of life and how if you can truly embrace the suffering and process the experience, you will come out with far stronger wisdom than you would if you were to numb yourself to the experience. Ultimately, the choice to endure is up to you. Will you choose to live on the mountain and embrace the lie of the western world? Or will you choose to let yourself fall from the mountain and go through the experience of having to fight to climb back to the top? 

For the last three years I have started this podcast with the definition of health - being a complete state of wellbeing. Yet, I have failed on one front that I have been hesitant to address, that of spiritual health. Today, I take a dive at the first episode that will begin this format called meditations. In it, I hope to read through various meditations that have helped me in my life spiritually, especially in times of battle. I find that most people who encounter Hope are deeply wounded on multiple levels and that a majority of them need spiritual wisdom and guidance. I hope this format provides a foundation for you to begin to regain hope. 

It always amazes me how siloed we are in the treatment of the human body in America. Our focus is always on treating a symptom without every looking at the root cause. Often times you will hear a story of how for the last x-amount of years I have been trying to find a doctor who understands what is going on. I have gone to multiple conventional doctors and all say the same thing and treat me the same way yet for some reason I still do not improve. Then they go down the rabbit hole of finding non-traditional doctors who are able to finally shed some light on the root cause as opposed to treating the symptom. This is becoming increasingly common for those who have sustained a mTBI or more commonly known a concussion. Tune in today to learn how a simple fall can have implications far beyond your brain. 

It is incredibly easy these days for people who aren't taking chances, sharing their passion or exposing themselves through their words or actions to sit back and criticize those who are. Outside of the "health pandemic" we encountered a new pandemic of fact checkers and keyboard cowboys at the ready to crucify anyone who attempted to speak hope into the world during a narrative that provoked fear. These critics are the same throughout the ages of time and will never change, in fact, I believe it is their ignorance and self-hate that has led them to tear down statues of people who actually stood for something. In today's world of social media, my challenge to you is to learn to not care what somebody else thinks. Who cares how many likes, comments, shares, upvotes or clicks you get on YOUR story. If you are seeking those very things, then I can challenge you and say your goals really aren't your goals - they are nothing more than the pursuit of approval from an audience in which 50% of them aren't going to be on board with you regardless of what you say. In seeking to please everyone, you will ultimately please no one and as a result, you will likely become one of the critics that you seek to prove wrong. So, instead, how do you choose to pursue your vision? What steps can you take to not care what somebody else thinks? Ultimately, the critics will be forgotten and those who chose to stand for something will forever leave a legacy. 

The rules of a finite game have a beginning, a middle and an end. As opposed to the infinite game in which there are perpetual cycles of play. When western medicine chooses to approach your health in the finite realm, it leads us yearning for more and asking more questions of why. Too often we treat our health as a 7 day z pack or a injection or a "minor" surgical procedure (not sure any surgery is minor...we just sugar coat it to make ourselves feel better about it). Unfortunately, our health cannot be reduced to this finite mindset. This is exactly why chronic disease is running rampant through the Western approach and leading us to a state where we loose trust in the system, we refuse to follow recommendations and we end up sabotaging both doctors and patients. However...there is a better way to play the game. What if I told you that in the Infinite game, when we approach health, you have choices to pursue health on your terms. Tune in this week to see the recommendations I have for pursing this method as opposed to failing in the finite game. 

The western approach to medicine has lead us down a path in which we either:

A. treat the body as a machine - aka spit out the bone.

or

B. medicate the body to a point it is "comfortably numb."

or

C. Some combination of both of the above.

However, in the last 50 years we have lost an element of the human experience of pain and suffering.

We have chose to use the western approach of medicine in which we treat our body like a machine and when it stops working, we medicate to the point that we virtually feel nothing.

No emotions.

No pain.

No "suffering."

In fact, this is causing one of the greater pandemics of this day and age.

A pandemic in which we believe we can avoid death itself by treating our bodies this way.

In this weeks podcast, I dive into why the comfortably numb approach in conjunction with treating the body as a machine leads to one of the greatest detriments of human history: a loss of what it means to be human.

One of my favorite equations from Navy Seal Jocko is Discipline = Freedom. A second favorite quote from him is "all your excuses are lies." In a day and age where the idea of relativism is the chief cultural belief, I am determined to instill in the people I meet a disciplined life. The question becomes, what does discipline look like for you. For some, they are disciplined in habits that wreak havoc on their spirit, life, family, business...For others, they are disciplined in the virtues that create freedom. This is why it is my belief that discipline can either be a path to freedom or a path to slavery. Ultimately, the choices you make surrounding discipline in life will determine which path your life becomes.