Erin 0:11

Here we are. Hello everybody.

Josh 0:13

What's up? What's up How you doing? Rewind. Let's do that again.

Erin 0:22

The number of times I wish I could do that in real life. Just like suck all the words back in that I wish didn't come out. Mm often. I'm sorry. Nothing. Okay.

Josh 0:33

I dunno. It's still glad you're here with me. There's no way to go back to the past. True.

Erin 0:39

Are you

Josh 0:39

okay I was waiting for you to say hi everybody so we can start over. Oh, I'm over here in like default mode. He's patiently waiting.

Erin 0:48

Hi everybody. What's up? What's

Josh 0:49

up? What's up? Welcome back. How you doing?

Erin 0:53

I'm good. I feel like just kind of coming down off of this morning, we made the mistake of going to IKEA on a weekend with our four-year-old. Terrible, you know, I mean, sometimes it's okay, but

Josh 1:05

the thought was a good Yeah. Idea. Yeah. That's where it ended.

Erin 1:09

Sure, sure is. Anyway. I'm coming down off of this morning drinking my king coffee. Welcome back. We're, I know, maybe, should we put a link? I need a, I need a

Josh 1:18

button. Oh yeah. Like a hip hop horn button.

Erin 1:22

Just to actually carry in your pocket. Always. Not just for the podcast. for Life, period. That would be

Josh 1:27

a very fast, if I have that permanently installed in all of my pants or I just like slap my thigh,

Erin 1:34

making a note in my brain for your birthday. Because Yikes. Buying your birthday presents is always tricky. But that,

Josh 1:41

that could be a good one. That is gold. But I feel like multiple times on this podcast already, I mean, these people are only hearing This is the second episode. But we've recorded multiple Yes. Multiple times. I've wanted to tap a hip hop horn. Mm.

Erin 1:52

Okay. Well, I mean, I'm sure we could make that happen.

Josh 1:55

I know, I know. And like there. You could edit it later, but that's I feel like pound. It's kind of like that Staples. Remember that Staples? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That easy button. The easy button. I just wanna smack it and go,

Erin 2:07

you know. You should have been a radio host, babe. I think they do I be a dj? Stuff like that. Oh yeah. Well he was a dj. People. Little, does everyone know I married a

Josh 2:14

retired dj? You are listening to a retired dj. Yeah. Not a radio

Erin 2:18

dj. No. You're like a hip hop. Yeah. Rave dj. I wasn't a rave. What was your genre of choice? Just rap. Hiphop. Yeah. I was like hip hop.

Josh 2:27

Yeah. Yeah. I was in the clubs. You were in the clubs. But a foot of bugs. My ma, what you need. Is that what you wanted to sing?

Erin 2:34

I don't know. I was gonna ask you what it was like to be in clubs. I went once in college,

Josh 2:39

kinda a, honestly, those were some of the best times of my life. Really? Yeah.

Erin 2:42

I just bouncing.

2:43

Oh

Josh 2:44

man. It was. Just a party.

Erin 2:47

There you go.

Josh 2:48

Y'all. We just saw a coyote in our backyard. We did, and it was the most exciting thing that's happened to us in years.

Erin 2:55

Best believe. I immediately Googled coyote sighting meaning,

Josh 2:58

and thanks to the

Erin 2:59

California, yeah, the very reputable source here, California psychics.com. According to them, it says, A coyote is generally a message to take a look within, to not take life too seriously. Lighten up and learn to laugh at ourselves and even our mistakes,

Josh 3:15

which we both needed.

Erin 3:17

I did need to hear that. Thanks Coyote. Thanks, California. Psychics. Wait, don't make fun of it. I'm not, I'm. I am on the same level as California psych.

Josh 3:26

I'm at least on the same level as that Coyote True. Oh, he looked lost and scared and Yeah. I felt so bad for him. He did. I'm not on the same level as the coyote. I'm not lost and scared right now. He looked lost and scared and I felt really bad. Sweet. But he just ran through our backyard though. He's

Erin 3:41

probably chewing up somebody's chickens right now, so I don't know. Cause he, yeah. Not to make light of killing chickens. Yeah. We're

Josh 3:50

not. This got really awkward, really fast, but

Erin 3:53

ugh, I just know that lots of neighbors have chickens and coyote on the loose. Generally not a good thing. Coyote on the hunt. Coyote on the hunt.

Josh 4:02

All right. What are we talking about today?

Erin 4:04

Yeah, so we had a plan for today and then we released our first episode. Thank you to all who listened, and we got some great feedback. We did. Yeah. Mostly people saying. I really resonated with your story. Thank you for sharing. That was helpful. And then also, I am in the thick of it right now. Not me personally. The feedback that we got, I am in the thick of it right now, dealing with chronic illness, and I feel dark and low and like there's no hope. So

Josh 4:33

yeah, I, I got more messages about that than I had anticipated. Yeah, it was fascinating. I'm super thankful that they felt comfortable to reach out, but, It was quite a few of them. So it felt unfair not to call an audible and make a podcast like this.

Erin 4:48

Yes. Yeah. So a lot of people were asking, what did you do essentially to get through those really dark days,

Josh 4:55

so, huh. What didn't I do? Yeah.

Erin 4:57

So that's what we're gonna talk about today and keep, keep in mind, we have been on this journey together for. Over five years at this point. Well over collecting tools along the way. We, started with a lot of kind of foundational things, changing our diet and replacing. Products as they ran out with healthier non-toxic products. And we definitely

Josh 5:18

went through the foundational period of kind of chucking everything out of our house and starting fresh. Yes. Soaps. Deodorants, yes. Anything

Erin 5:26

filters. Yeah. Our diet got real clean. And anyway, just I want you to keep in mind that everything we talk about today is, An invitation for you. It's not a mandatory to-do list. You must do all of these things in order to heal.

Josh 5:39

just like healing is bio-individual. So are the tools that you're gonna choose to use to heal?

Erin 5:43

Absolutely. Yeah. So choose what feels manageable. We're not gonna talk so much about the physical stuff today that we did. So that's the diet and lifestyle, all of those things. We're gonna talk mostly about what helped you get through dark, dark days. Yeah. So I mean, what? What did you do

Josh 5:58

Well, I think, okay, so backing up a little bit. You're right. We kind of took care of all the foundational things, we were just saying, all that to say, I tried so many different things to find out what resonated with me. So I encourage people to not get discouraged if something they tried doesn't work for them. Be open enough to just move on and try something else. I have connected with so many people, even just recently, who so many different types of tools help them through their darkest times. I appreciate the conversations I'm having with the people that are currently in some of their darkest times and hearing. Has been helping for them. But it, what it starts to happen is inside of those moments you start to grasp for just about anything, cuz you just want relief. So I encourage you not to get frustrated if something I say today doesn't fully resonate or you try it and it, you know, doesn't feel as impactful as it was for me, that's completely okay. I'm not saying what worked for me was right, but many of the conversations that I was having with people last week, It seemed to be helpful. So I didn't really have something like this when I was going through it. I kind of was just constantly on Google trying to find different ways to regulate my nervous system or find different impactful tools that would give me any sort of relief inside of one of my symptoms out of the 35,302.

Erin 7:24

So that being said, there is. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there is some degree of persistence or Absolutely. You know, you start meditation, it's not gonna help you overnight necessarily. You may notice a re some relief of anxiety or whatever it is that you're dealing with, but in a lot of ways you gotta play the long game a little bit. Yeah,

Josh 7:45

there is, there's for sure a component of consistency. Is required in order to see if it works. Speaking of meditation though, let me start there. It's not on my list of what we were gonna talk about, but meditation is, if somebody asked me mindfulness in general, what has been the most impactful that doesn't exist? The reason I say that is based on the Evolution of my mindfulness I've been able to determine what's the most impactful inside of that given time. Meditation inside of my darkest times was one of my more impactful tools At that time, meditation calmed my mind. I was able to figure out what looking inward looked like and really started to engage with my body in a different way than constantly. Fuck you. You're my enemy. Why are you eating me? So meditation was huge. I'm not gonna go too much into that today because I feel like there's 30,000 podcasts that talk about meditation and everyone knows the benefits of it, and. What I would encourage inside of meditation though, is to find what type of meditation works for you. At the very beginning, I was using something like Headspace that was super guided and I didn't have to think about much, cuz if I thought about much, I was overwhelmed at baseline. But as that evolved, I started to create my own and then it turned into unguided. And then I was picking my own types of music per each segment inside of my own meditation. Just allow it to evolve. Be open to what that looks like, and the idea of meditation is really the main goal inside of meditation, of identifying ways to calm down your mind, be more inward, be more focused. Take the chaos out of thoughts. And how that works for you is gonna be individual. That's all. Yeah. Sorry, I know that was a little bit of a rant, but No, I'm I, to make sure I said it,

Erin 9:35

it's funny I've heard people say regarding mindfulness that it really oughta be called mindlessness. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's like flexing a muscle, it takes time and effort and consistency, but it allows you to enter a space where your mind is not running you. It's not controlling

Josh 9:53

you. Yeah. Mindfulness one is such a hot word right now. Yeah. But meditation five, six years ago was also super huge Headspace. Oh, there were so many different apps coming out a couple years. that it was almost impossible to not hear something about meditation if you were struggling with any type of mental illness. For sure. So there are pieces of that, that mindfulness is always going to exist inside of my life now. meditation was my gateway drug. Yeah. To that. And I have talked to many that it is their gateway drug into more steady awareness into everything. We will talk so much about that incoming podcasts of what awareness looks like to me now and to you now, but just know that that's where meditation exists inside of my journey. It was. Impactful and powerful. Let it look how it needs to look for you as an individual and then let it evolve. Sorry, rant, but thought it was needed. Yeah. Inside of meditations where the first level of evolution began was mantras for me. if I could identify one of the most impactful pieces inside of my darkest points of my healing, I wasn't even healing. I was just sick. Inside of my sickness was mantras. Mantras shifted my brain into what I now know. Scarcity mindset versus that spiritual abundance mindset. When I started mantras, there wasn't an ounce of believing anything that I was saying. but I started reading things and I started identifying the impact of mantras and recognized fairly quickly that if I didn't believe any of the things that I wanted, it was never gonna happen.

Erin 11:40

Yeah, sometimes I think the idea of a mantra it feels like some oversimplified, magic spell. Like if I say I'm healing, then I'm healing. But I think what people don't understand is at a cellular level, like if your body doesn't believe that a thing is possible, it's not gonna happen. And so this, repetition of. Belief, and it's different than a thought. I think that's important to note too, when you're repeating these mantras, which you'll share yours mm-hmm. in a minute. But as you're repeating those, I think you were really focused on internalizing the feeling of those things. And so we've talked on Rudy's social before about the difference between heart and head and how. Scientifically, now we know that there's more neural traffic traveling from our heart to our brain. and that our heart actually emits the

Josh 12:35

electric field. God. If I would've understood that, I know when I started mantras, whew. Yeah. It would've been crazy.

Erin 12:40

But the field of our heart is four or five, maybe even six feet outside of our body. That's how powerful it is. And that's measurable. That's not hippies, just saying a thing. And then our scientifically proven. Yeah. And our brain has a field of more like two or three. Both of course, are important, but a lot of people think that your thoughts dictate your emotions, which then kind of create your behaviors and therefore your reality. And that's still true to a point, but it's actually you have more neural traffic traveling from your heart, which is your emotion. The two are connected. That's not metaphorical Right. Necessarily. We know the HeartMath Institute has done so much research on this. They can predict, I think with like 90% accuracy or something, somebody's emotion based on their H R V, their heart rate variability mapped out on a graph. So the two are linked. And so when you are able to feel a thing, even if it's not true yet in your life, if you were able to feel a thing, for instance, I'm healing. It's gonna send messages to your whole body, but also to your brain telling it that that's true. And so it will allow you to more easily shift those thought patterns and those limiting beliefs that hold a lot of us back from things that we want.

Josh 13:50

Yeah. Which, if I'm honest, was not something that I was even remotely recognizing inside of my mantras. Maybe that's why it took so long. To believe the mantras that I created More recently, I've for sure tapped into that emotional state of feeling certain things. I'm into this spiritual side of abundance right now and constantly navigating through that feeling what abundance feels like to me has just opened up Pandora's box. If I would've believed that or even just understood that inside of my mantra. Oh, it would've been like a cheat code. Yeah. I felt like I would've had a fast pass to the evolution of what I believed. Okay. So what I started with was I am powerful. I am strong, I am confident, I'm content. I am full of genuine joy. I am healing. My body is healing. I will get back to full health. Every single one of those. Were all things that I was struggling with.

Erin 14:47

Things that you didn't believe were true or maybe even could be true.

Josh 14:50

Yeah, they were very limited. I think that, if somebody knew me, they would be like, what? He's so confident. Mm-hmm. all of it was fake or he's content Absolutely not, was not even remotely. But then the second half of that, I'm healing. My body is healing. I will get back to full health. Wasn't even remotely on my radar of existing, and I knew that, especially once I started the Healing Journey through Bio Energetics, it was going to be mandatory that I had some sense of confidence inside of myself. With the healing component, that was going to be what makes the impact. I am not under the opinion that that's the only way you're gonna heal. I had to get there for sure, and it was one of the components of the thousands that was needed in order for me to get where I am today. But it for sure was another gateway inside of my health journey.

Erin 15:48

Yeah, I I mean, it's complicated. This trio of physical, emotional, spiritual, it's all required. Yeah. I, in my opinion, to heal

Josh 15:57

Well, maybe it's is just in my healing, there's a timeline that exists inside of that where I didn't have. ounce of capacity to give to my spiritual or mental side because I was so sick. My mental side in and of itself was completely compromised. I wasn't even having sane thoughts, you know? Yeah. I was suicidal for a lot of that time. I needed to heal some way. Before I could tap into that spiritual side and even the mental side, the meditations, the mindfulness, the mantras, they were helping to some degree. But I remember the times where all of a sudden it was, I tapped into it on a deeper level and I was like, oh, let's go. it was a different time the other thing to consider inside of the mantras is you have to allow them to evolve. Because if you don't allow them to evolve, you're just gonna get stuck in the ones that you're saying over and over. Mm-hmm. So there was a time, maybe six, seven months into my healing journey where I started to notice insane Progress and I switched the last. Three, to, I am healed. My body is healed. I'm back to full health and I wasn't yet, but I knew that I needed to be a step ahead Inside of that belief, I needed to start training what I thought I needed to start training my brain. But really what I needed to do was feel those emotions to tell my brain that I was healed. Yeah. Which is for sure probably why it took so long for me to believe it, cuz I wasn't identifying the emotional state of the. But allowing that to evolve felt like a shift. Mm-hmm. that, okay, I'm a hundred percent agreeing that I'm healing. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm healing and I will get back to full health, but it feels like it's taken longer than I thought it was going to to get back to that full health. Oh wait, I am not even remotely considered that I am back to full health. and yeah. That opened up a whole new portal into my healing journey.

Erin 17:45

Yeah. So you gotta stay a, a step ahead, kind of keep yourself leveling up with those mantras. So now that you've tapped into this kind of power of emotion mm-hmm. tied in with things like meditation and mantras and changing thought patterns, looking back if you could, because you were miserable, right? Very none of those days terrible felt true. Mm. How does a person embody an emotion that they haven't felt in maybe 10 or 15 years?

Josh 18:10

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't necessarily know if you are able to identify it in that state. I think it comes over time. and that's kind of what I was saying about, there's a timeline inside of that healing journey that I had from like just me specifically, where I couldn't tap into that mental or spiritual state yet the emotions that I were feeling. Intense and very negative. Mm-hmm. And that's where inside of those times, I know I'm like taking a left hand turn here a little bit. But another component inside of what really helped me was finding somebody that can hold the hope when you don't have hope for yourself. Because it's guaranteed that if you're as sick as I was, or sicker or even not as sick as I was, there are going to be times where you lose hope. And that's when it got really dark and dangerous for me. And if I just had somebody to reach out to at any given point and just say, Hey, like I've got nothing left. What you got for me? Mm-hmm. it would. Change all thoughts and there are components to sure, like you were for sure there for me. But what I think is so important is having somebody that has gone through the journey of healing from chronic illness in some way, shape, or form. So I encouraged everyone that reached out to me. I was like, yo, I've got the hope. I've got the hope. Now I'm walking proof that this is possible. Hit me up anytime you're feeling down and I will make sure. To have something for you that changes everything. My mantras were there, those existed. Those are super powerful, but having somebody just lean on when you need it, that completely understands what you're going through. Maybe their experience was totally different, but cronies those chronically ill people like myself, that was. You go through a different type of hell. Mm-hmm. it's a hell that I don't wish on anybody, but I'm so thankful to have connections to people that have gone through that, to more identify with my experience. There's a just a different type of connection.

Erin 20:16

Yeah. Yeah. I can be rooting you on cheering you on all day, supporting you, but I don't, I don't have the right lived experience of being chronically sick, so I could see how that would be. Super huge. Yeah. And just for anyone listening, if you don't know Josh, Josh, even when he was sick. God bless you kid. Yeah, you are just the biggest hype man. The biggest cheerleader. The best encourager. It's for sure. Like one of your best giftings. Thanks, babe. So it's fun now to be able to watch you to use that with other people. I

Josh 20:46

am in my zone. Yeah, I mean it's on my Instagram. Literally people will joke saying I'm a professional encourager. I fucking love encouraging people, hyping them up and now giving them a little bit of hope or just holding it for them. While they don't. Mm-hmm. I'm not intimidated by that anymore. I very much was. You couldn't have slid into my dms and I wouldn't have never responded to you. I would've just not engaged because of how traumatic it was for me. And there's a component to that. For me, 2022, I still considered part of my healing journey because, everything up to that point was so traumatic and I had to work through how I could receive and not absorb other people's stories and be that beacon of hope for them. So

Erin 21:37

Yeah, 2022 was kind of your year of learning your new identity without chronic illness. It felt like, it felt like it was something you had identified with for a long time, and then you healed, and then, I don't know. I feel like you've, that's been a journey for you the last year.

Josh 21:54

Yeah, that's a great point. I think in your healing journey, it has to become part of your identity. You don't know if you're ever gonna. be different ever again. Yeah. And so there is that kind of breakdown where you have to let go of that. And I even felt like I had a season of mourning that identity because it was all that I knew for years for most of my adult life. That was something that I identified with. And for a while I didn't have. A diagnosis of any sort, but chronic illness still was my identity. And then I started to get, not diagnoses, but I was able to start identify things that were causing problems inside of my body. Answers. Yeah. Yeah. And so then I attached to those because I was like, finally, I have a fucking answer now let's go take care of it. And I got into communities and that was really great. But. There's this point in time where you're like, this isn't me anymore. Yeah. You gotta let go. Yeah. So yeah, that was super, super huge. I

Erin 22:57

think that is probably a pretty common story, especially for, I don't, so much chronic illness is just very confusing. It's misdiagnosed or undiagnosed or you're made to think it's in your head. And so often when people do finally get answers, whether it's through something like bio energetic testing like we did mm-hmm. or even just a. Diagnosis of whatever chronic fatigue syndrome or something, which in my mind is really not, it's just another naming of symptoms. Yeah. But a lot of people feel this sense of validation and that they have an answer for all of this pain that they've endured. And I think it's really easy to become fully identified. Whether it's a list of diagnoses or whatever it is. Yeah. And in some ways I'm almost thankful that we didn't get the conventional Lyman co-infection diagnoses. We probably could have if we would've pursued it and done all of the, we had spent enough money. Yeah. It wasn't worth the money. And in my mind, you know, we had had enough, proof from the bio, energetic testing that we. I didn't need a blood. You felt confident enough with it? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't need a blood test to confirm a thing that we were feeling made a lot of sense. And it was working. Yeah. And I just remember being like, I'm kind of thankful that we didn't get those diagnoses cuz it just feels like it would've been a harder thing to strip away. You may have identified with it more strongly. Mm-hmm. interesting. But I don't know if that's true.

Josh 24:21

Yeah, I definitely think. I was just looking for answers and I was ready to identify with just about anything something that resonated. Yeah, that's for sure. When Lyme co-infections, all these things started to come back and then you were seeing all of these symptoms, you were like, oh, this makes so much more sense. Mm-hmm. not anything the doctors were telling me. Yeah. You know. Yeah, there was a big piece of that. The other component inside it piggybacks off hope is just giving yourself grace. There are going to be days where it just fucking sucks. Yeah, that's plain and simple, and you're gonna have really dark thoughts. You need to have people that are holding you accountable inside of that, but you have to acknowledge that healing isn't linear. Something that was asked a bunch last week was, this is all great. One. What helped you in your darkest times? Two, how long did it take you to feel better? With Ruti, we say it typically takes about two months per year. You've been sick and that was fairly accurate with me. That doesn't mean that you're not going to start to feel better, but from me being bedridden to running a half marathon, it was pretty consistent with two months per year that I was sick.

Erin 25:28

Yeah, so that's not saying. Two months per year before you start to feel better. That's your whole journey.

Josh 25:34

I mean, I was running a half marathon, right. I felt like Superman, right. Compared to what I felt like six years ago, Yeah. So the other component to that that needs to be recognized is something that was confusing to me at first and then seems to be something that is misunderstood inside of how bioenergetics works, is you take a scan, it gives you your most pressing things that. Your body's struggling with right now, and then with Rudy, we give a list of remedies that is going to help balance you out based on what your body is struggling with at that given moment. When you are chronically sick and you've been sick for years, there are so many layers. the, The analogy that we give is pulling back the layers of an onion. When you are that sick, it's going to take time for you to get back, and that requires multiple scans, multiple rounds of remedies. And so that was my experience. That's what I did. I didn't remotely believe that this technology worked. At least for the first three scans and I was progressing. I was even, I was passing parasites. Yeah. And I still wouldn't put hope into this technology. I refused. But there would be times inside of the rounds where one round would destroy me. and I'd be like, what the heck? I was feeling so good. You have to recognize that healing isn't linear. You're gonna have your ups and downs. You'll feel like you're taking a step back, but it's still being productive. You're

Erin 27:01

peeling back those layers. Exactly. Layers are gonna stick a little more than than others. Yeah.

Josh 27:06

Which just requires grace. The expectations that you put on the healing journey are going to be thrown out For sure. How I thought I was going to look. Didn't remotely come true? Yeah. The journey itself was way different than I had anticipated or expected. And, three scans in when I started to believe and start to put hope in the technology, I was like, all right, I'm gonna be awesome by Christmas. And that was like scan four And little did I know I had six more ahead of me to be running a half marathon. And you just have to be okay with it. Don't put expectations into it. Give yourself grace. Understand healing isn't linear. And then when you lose hope, just DM me.

Erin 27:44

There you go. Yeah, grace. And then there is this element of. To some degree, as much as you can to trust the process a little bit. I think we see a lot of people. Yeah, good point. I get it. I mean, we tried so many things and we're let down by a lot of them so I understand coming at things with skepticism and not wanting to get your heart broken again. But like you said, this took several rounds of peeling back the layers before we. We're able to see tangible results. And so often what happens is people will come, they'll do the scan, and for whatever reason, they're just not ready. They want, they're not gonna buy the remedies and Sure, that's fine. Like that happens often. Often. Yeah. And I think it's, for me, I. Very much believe that if people are able to really go deep and inside and kind of tap into that whatever, deeper, knowing, higher self God, whatever you wanna call it, I think people know what they need to heal.

Josh 28:43

You have to trust your intuition in this.

Erin 28:45

Yeah. Yeah. And. For us. It was small, but it was a spark of something that just told us to stick this one out. Like just keep going with bioenergetics.

Josh 28:54

For really the first time ever inside of my healing journey, there was a consistent level of progress that was noticed, and in some cases it may have just been one symptom that subsided. Sure. Or just decreased. And I was like, whoa. I don't have that shooting nerve pain in my face anymore. Right. Whoa. I mean, I'm completely depressed in bed but like my face isn't hurting anymore. Like, okay, this has to be something right. All that to say too, I want to piggyback on that for a second. bioenergetics is what worked for us and we truly believe it, but we're not in the business of convincing you that this is the route you need to take.

Erin 29:28

No, that's what I was just about to say. It's like I'm not going to try to pound this into people or convince or

Josh 29:35

when people are ready and if they choose to do bioenergetics. We're

Erin 29:38

here, they'll do it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And we will happily, embrace you and hold your hand through it, but mm-hmm. Yeah. That's why I don't really push it on people, because I just think. people know what they need. Yeah. And if you're not ready yet, you're not ready yet.

Josh 29:50

One thing I do say for, people that are ready to take that plunge, give yourself a couple scans mm-hmm. and do them fully. Your body commits. There is this level of intuition, but there, like you're saying, there is this level of trust that you have to trust your body, even your body is giving. The information that is giving the results, nothing else. Yeah. Trust that your body knows what it needs in that given time, so the remedies that come back, those are the list of remedies that you have to do in order to get to the next step. Some people will choose to do one remedy or two, and I totally understand that even for financial reasons that totally makes sense. But your body wants all of that right now. Some of it is to aid the progression of the more potent remedies that exist inside of that list. I tested that out for sure, where I would be like, I don't think my body's ready for this and I'm only gonna do one or two. I ended up regretting that in many ways. So

Erin 30:47

it's kind of a, a pay now or pay later mentality. I do understand because we, I mean, we get it. We were paying so much money for a lot of these. Therapies that we tried before, functional medicine, et cetera. So for us, bioenergetics and the remedies cost a lot less actually. I mean, significantly. Then, so that wasn't as much of a barrier for us, but I know a lot of people are honestly medically bankrupt. Yeah. Like that's a huge problem. That's what we were starting to feel like. Yeah. So I get it. But it's, for us, at least in our experience, it was a pay now or a pay later thing. Do we wanna pay now? In both financially and our commitment to this process. Yeah. To, you know, our time and things like that. Do we wanna pay that now or do we wanna pay that in five or 10 years when you're still miserable? So it just made sense for us.

Josh 31:33

So, yeah, you're right. Trusting the process was a component that needed to exist inside of this.

Erin 31:37

Yeah. Yeah. Good point. So I do have one more question for you because, and I'm, I'm curious to see how you answered this one. Yeah. I'm reading Eckhart Tolls, the Power of Now. Right Now. Shout E T. Yes. Love that guy. He is, I mean, it's just blowing my mind, but he talks a lot about presence. Obviously the book is called The Power of Now. Mm-hmm. and it's, he would argue that presence is kind of the key to what he calls enlightenment, but whatever. Ultimate peace. Yeah. Yes. How does a person do that? How are you present when your life? In shambles when you have physical pain. Yeah. Like how do you, because I understand the power of that when I'm having anxiety or some mood stuff where I am able to be back in my body, be present, et cetera. But what happens when you are in your body trying to be present and it's excruciating pain?

Josh 32:24

Yeah, that's a great question. That's a tough one to answer. I think there were levels of it, at least in my experience, where the worst thing that I could do was be present inside of all that. And I think. Partially that was because of. How my brain was functioning at the time. It was constantly deep, dark thoughts. And so if I went in this loop of here I am right now in bed, I can't get up, I'm in excruciating pain, I have no energy, I have, dizziness, a B C D E F G H I J K L P, that I would just have deep, dark thoughts and those thoughts would kind of. Teas. Dark thoughts and then they'd get dark and then they'd get darker.

Erin 33:06

Yeah. Well, Eckhart calls that almost like feeding the beast of the mind. And so that's less about being present in your body.

Josh 33:13

Totally. I didn't understand that. Yeah. Until now, so. Yeah, it was difficult for me to, without that understanding, and I don't even know if I had the capacity to choose to understand that in those times. It was significantly easier for me after I was healed or even halfway through. I think I read what was that? Bud? Untethered Soul. Untethered soul, six months into my healing journey. And it just resonated so much with me. And I remember picking that up. Somebody had recommended it six months before and I read like chapter. I was like, fuck this. Not ready for that. Yeah, I wasn't ready. And I think it was just because of the season that I was in I understand what Eckhart is talking about now. Now. And that is something that impacts me and is such an incredible tool for me now But when I was at sick, it was so difficult for me to latch onto anything like that. So, and

Erin 34:05

I can, I mean, I don't have the same experience as you, but I did have a touch of postpartum depression. Yeah. And I do remember, gosh, those dark thoughts, it's like you have no control over them. Sometimes it feels like, And I remembered just really trying to think my way out of it. Yeah. And being like, I can't change it. and feeling so frustrated. Yeah.

Josh 34:23

And the emotions sometimes inside of that were even more dangerous for me. Mm-hmm. So if I started to feel all of that and recognize all of my symptoms and even start to interpret those thoughts, it got dark girl fast. Yeah.

Erin 34:35

You're feeding the beast. Yeah. So instead of feeding the beast, did you have something different

Josh 34:38

that you did? Yeah. So I don't know if you remember, I started the gratefulness. Oh yeah. Yeah. That grateful in the series was huge for me. I started it early in 2020, as soon as I got sick, which was probably in like what July. So what I would do is I would have three things that I was grateful for each day, but each day had to be something different than anything else before. Hmm. And. That became such a huge anchor inside of my mindfulness because I was able to focus on the good, even in the little things because my life looked like shit at the time, So it could be as little as I'm thankful for fluffy clouds. Mm-hmm. to Zoe's goofy laugh to. The way Nola wags her tail, mm-hmm. What ended up starting to happen inside of that is when I got my really dark thoughts, I would go back to my gratefulness series and start at day one and just read them. Oh. And what it allowed me to do was identify the good. That is constant in my. Even when life is shitty. Mm-hmm. And it was a way for me to go back to memories cuz some of them were like on the boat at the lake house or the ripples in the water or whatever. And I can kind of feel, smell, experience those memories over again and. even though it wasn't, it was taking me out of the present, it was allowing me to sit in something good. Yeah. Because a lot of my memories weren't good. so yeah, that was impactful. I posted on Instagram. Every single day. But all that to say, I wasn't on Instagram a lot because it got really dark but Instagram helped hold me accountable. People would message me and be like, I love this gratefulness series. And then I started to see multiple people start their own gratefulness series. Yeah. And so there was this encouragement and accountability that I needed to constantly do this. It would be, Part of my morning routine of meditation and mantras. And then I would finish all of that and I would sit there and just identify three things that I was grateful for for the day before. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going through life completely unaware of the good that was around me. Because what would happen, at least for me personally, was I would be so. And so dark that I barely remember Zoe. Infancy. Yeah. I was so gone, and I barely remember her at the lake house when we were living there for a while. Oh, she was so cute there.

Erin 37:05

Thank God for iPhones, Yeah. True.

Josh 37:08

Yeah. The videos were a lot of what, help me with that, but I wanted to make sure that I was identifying some of those things inside of this journey. Mm. So yeah, that gratefulness was huge for me.

Erin 37:17

Yeah. And I think that gratefulness is a great place for people to start. So we were talking. Kind of embodying an emotion, a positive emotion. Yeah. Be it. what might it feel like to be healed, or to be healing at least? Sure. If you can't even start there, if that's too far, a lot of people can start with gratitude and like you said, just focusing on one, two, or three things. I know what it feels like to feel grateful. Yeah. So I can start there.

Josh 37:38

I did a full year. I did 365 days of it. If you. Wanna see examples or something. I think every single one of them is in a highlight of my story on Instagram. Yeah. Also out of that, I made just a book. It was easier for me to do that. So if anybody wants a book,

Erin 37:53

there you go. We got some great books. First of all, I think we need to bring back the gratefulness series cause I loved doing it. I, it was really great. Yeah. It was really great. Full fullness, Yeah. I remember doing it when we moved here. It was, yeah, the winter of 2020, which was probably a dark time for a lot of people. But it's winter. It's winter and it's 2020, and we had just moved to a new state and I was raising a toddler and we didn't know anybody. Very sick husband. We had no community. and yeah, that gratefulness series helped me a lot too. I remember going on walks with Zoe and just looking at a tiny flower with a drop of rain on it and being like, oh, I'm so grateful. Yeah, life is so beautiful and it's hard, but it's so beautiful.

Josh 38:35

Going back to what we were talking about earlier, there is this level of consistency. A hundred days into the gratefulness series, I had a filter looking for things I wanted to be grateful for to post. Amazing. Yeah. So yeah, there is that level of consistency where you do start to see raindrops on pedals. sounds like Sound of music. Raindrops on roses. It is the Donna Music Huh? That, you know, you start to constantly look at life with a different lens, and that doesn't mean that your life is all raindrops and, and roses, raindrops and roses and whiskers on kittens, I feel like every podcast we have to insert a random song. This is a kind of our thing now. Anyways, that didn. It shifts your perspective. It did not disregard that my life sucked in so many different ways and that I was so sick, but I would be able to pull myself out in various ways and be like, that is beautiful. Mm-hmm. I'm thankful that I'm experiencing that even in the hard. Yeah.

Erin 39:38

So, Both can be true at the same time. Yeah. If anyone's familiar with Glennon Doyle, she loves the word, brutal Life is brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal. And it's beautiful. Yeah, totally. And if you can only see one or the other, you probably don't have your eyes open.

Josh 39:52

Sometimes my eyes weren't open because I was sleeping when that, when that

Erin 39:56

EBV kicked in. Yeah. Okay. So yes, I do wanna bring back the gratefulness series. That sounds like fun. Maybe we could do it through or something. That's cool. Do you feel like there's a difference between and we maybe just answered this a little bit with the, the brutal concept, but do you feel like there's a difference between embracing the experience of being chronically ill and accepting it? Because I do think a lot of people. are told to accept however they're feeling, whether it's brain fog or Yeah, depression or sorry, this is just your new normal. You know, we don't have a way to fix that. I don't believe that I refuse to accept that. Yes, I don't believe that's true or helpful, but do you think there's an element of E embracing an experience that would be helpful or no? I don't know.

Josh 40:37

Yeah, that's a great question. I was never willing to accept this was my life. Yeah. I think when I creeped on accepting it, my thoughts got really, really dark because Those dark thoughts, dark suicidal thoughts. Where when I started to accept what I would consider my fate, but not accept that I was gonna live like this for the rest of my life. Does that make sense? Yeah. And so it was this balance of I'm not about this, I can't do this for the rest of my life. But is this the rest of my life? Yeah. Kind of deal. So there was a level of me not accepting it that was, for me, healthy and saved my life. It's impossible to just completely ignore the fact that you're sick. Mm-hmm. So there is a level of acknowledgement or else you're not gonna do anything about it, for me, I wish I would've recognized it fucking years earlier because maybe I wouldn't have gotten to this point. But yeah.

Erin 41:36

Now we know symptoms are, really awesome. We love symptoms because it's our body's way of giving us, I'm thankful for them. For sure. Yeah. It's our body's way of saying, hoo Yeah, something's awry.

Josh 41:46

Right. And I was showing small symptoms. Yeah. For years, probably in high school. Mm-hmm. I started to have symptoms that I just completely ignored. Yeah. Which was my mentality. That was just me. Balls the wall, put my head down. Workhorse. The workhorse, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Erin 42:03

Okay. I feel like we need to wrap it up with a few things we're grateful for. Cuz now we Okay. Now I'm excited to, let's go. We should start that with Ruti. I know.

Josh 42:11

That's a great idea. Thank you. You're welcome. You first Oh gee. Thanks. I am so grateful. For our morning cold plunges. Mm-hmm. That's a good one. We recent, so we've been doing cold plunges for well over a month now. They've been fantastic. I think I'm grateful for the shift that we've done the past two days of moving it before breakfast, before Zoe even wakes up,

Erin 42:37

y'all, we are dipping an ice cold water at,

Josh 42:40

I mean, we wake up 7:00 AM wake, we wake up and we get into the ice bath and at first I was incredibly intimidated by. But now I find such beauty in it. I don't know there, well, one definitely wakes you up, but it feels like I'm awakening with the world a little

Erin 42:57

bit. Yeah. The

Josh 42:58

With nature. Yeah. Yeah. It's getting brighter. The birds are singing. You can start to see the squirrels like wrestling around. I saw a bunny. I don't know. Yeah. I'm incredibly grateful for the decision that we decided to do it a little, which is, we're only two days in, but two days in too. Being earlier, right? We are perro by jumping in cold water. How many days have we been doing that? Like, oh, probably close to two months. Crazy. We're down in the thirties. Burr

Erin 43:24

Burr. But it's my fun has been. Are we doing three each? I guess

Josh 43:28

we can. I'm grave on Vette Coyote. I know.

Erin 43:31

That was pretty cool. Coyote was epic. Haven't seen a coyote

Josh 43:34

since I was a kid. Yeah, that was awesome. I'm grateful for Zoe's sense of humor. Yes. It's coming out. It's been so funny the past couple days. It's been so good. Erin and I'll be talking and we'll laugh about something and then Zoe will like hop into the conversation and be like, yeah, and giraffes have feet And you're like,

Erin 43:54

what? I'm thankful she's moved beyond the

Josh 43:57

butthole and Oh my gosh, humor. Oh yeah, that was, that was a, A moment in time for sure. But her humor's been so funny and I think she's starting to identify what joy. Authentically. Yeah. And we're starting to see a little bit more of a personality in it. So yeah, I'm super thankful for that. Those are great.

Erin 44:14

Okay. Your turn. My turn. I am thankful for our backyard is kind of surrounded by. Trees and

Josh 44:25

Erin is in a tree pose right now, so I'm mirroring it. I didn't

Erin 44:29

even realize I was doing this.

Josh 44:31

I love our backyard. Yeah,

Erin 44:32

but specifically I am thankful for the pine trees that I'm looking at right now. It makes me feel like I'm. Not that Columbus isn't cool, but it makes me feel like I'm someplace cooler than Columbus Columbus. like Colorado. I don't know. It just feels, I love our

Josh 44:46

wooded backyard. I'm thankful that Pine, sorry. I'm dating more thankful. It's gratefulness. pine trees don't die in the winter. Yeah, so make, it reminds me of life still exists. Yeah.

Erin 44:57

Oh, I love that way to make it metaphorical, babe. Thank you. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is, I am thankful for the many tools that I now have in my toolbox that I don't always use perfectly, but I have been PMSing hard this week. That's a fact. Anyone else just feel like they're a completely different person the week before their period? I don't know it. Wow. I just feel so overwhelmed, anxious, things that I don't normally feel. But I did a little kind of recentering meditation thing this morning and. It helped a lot.

Josh 45:35

It definitely felt your energy shift. Yeah.

Erin 45:37

Mm-hmm. Yes. So I'm thankful for tools. I don't always choose to use them, but I'm thankful that I did this morning. Hmm. What else am I grateful for? Honestly, I'm grateful for Zoe's Space Buns this morning. Oh,

Josh 45:48

Zita Lapis. Zita Lapis. She wanted Zenon girlfriend the 21st century. Buns, which we're raising her, right. If we're, if she's watching xenon. But yeah, those were, those were something this morning. Zoom,

Erin 46:01

zoom, zoom, yeah. They were kinda crooked. It wasn't my best work, but it was cute. Yeah.

Josh 46:04

No offense. I'd rate it like a two outta 10 Like our poor

Erin 46:07

child, she really is beautiful.

Josh 46:09

Oh, anyway. Gotta love her. Gotta love her. Well, this was great. Yeah. Thanks for listening, moms. You can go back to doing what you were doing. Love you, mom. You made it all the way. Bye bye.