EP 22: Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda & Living in Balance with Key Reteff

This episode is a wild ride and I genuinely learned so much. I've been naturally leaning into so many of these practices over the past while - warm drinks, steamed veggies, no more cold smoothies - without any real education behind it. So getting to sit down with Key, an expert in both Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, felt like such a divine download of validation and knowledge all at once.

Key's own path here is wild. A 14 foot fall during his time in the military that he fully accepted death through, years of numbing out through drugs, a sobriety journey that led him to feel everything he'd suppressed his whole life, and an ayahuasca ceremony where he pulled an oracle card that said "healer" and knew instantly that was his path.

We get into the fundamentals of yin and yang, the five element theory, why Chinese medicine treats the whole person rather than the disease, what your tongue and your eyes can reveal about your organs, moxibustion and why it's considered equal to acupuncture in China, the Chinese medicine organ clock, why eating late at night is wrecking your sleep and your liver, glucose spikes and why dessert should come after your meal not before, spleen qi deficiency (more common than you'd think), Ayurvedic self-massage and sensory rituals, and why going inward - through stillness, dark rooms, or simply sitting with discomfort - might be the most powerful medicine there is.

This one is packed with practical, simple shifts you can start making today, alongside some genuinely profound wisdom on healing, emotions and finding out who you actually are underneath all the conditioning.

Find and connect with Key here on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/holisticuniversity/?hl=en 

So good. So full. Enjoy this one. 🌿

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, guys, welcome back to the Elvolve podcast where we have interesting and insightful conversations. Ooh, I was just saying to the guest, um, I am so excited about this podcast episode and this conversation because I feel like I'm gonna learn a lot. And particularly, you know, the topics that we're gonna dive into and explore and learn about, I've been really naturally kind of leaning into without having any kind of knowledge or education or anything. It's just been kind of emerging as these little practices that I've been in integrating into my lifestyle. And so we're about to talk to an ex expert. And so, guys, welcome. Please welcome Key.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Thank you so much. So, I mean, where do we go? Where do we go first? Okay, let's just dive into Chinese medicine and Ayurveda. Is it like because this is what's really been emerging in my life very organically, and it's been super interesting to observe it happen. I've just been kind of going in the direction of these um these these modalities like without any training or anything. So I'm I'm interested in, I mean, maybe you could just tell us first what what is Chinese medicine, what is Ayurveda, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, great question. So Ayurveda is from India, Chinese medicine is from China, and they are both the oldest medicines in the world. So Ayurveda is the oldest, older than 5,000 years, and Chinese medicine is a little bit newer, and yeah, it is their style of medicine where it's it's Eastern medicine, so it's like connected to nature, and it's yeah, it's it's rooted in nature, it's rooted in patterns, it's rooted in cycles, the seasons. So it's like instead of like healing someone from getting sick, it's more so like not getting sick in the first place. It's like living in balance.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Ooh, that's that's amazing. That's what medicine should be, right? Yeah, uh, interesting. How did you find all of this?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Um, I had a 14-foot fall when I was in my early 20s. I was in the military and almost died. Uh, pretty cool experience, to be honest. Like I was free-falling through the air, looking at the clouds, and I 100% accepted death. My life flashed before my eyes. I had a crazy DMT release and seen all these things flash. And I'm like, okay, this is it. I'm gonna die. And then I processed everything, and then I had this deep rush of peace through my body. I'm like, wow, like it was a good life. Like I fully accepted death. Yeah, and then uh I hit the ground, didn't die. And at the time I was bodybuilding for like five, six years straight. So I I had zero flexibility. I could barely sit cross-legged without falling backwards if I didn't hold my knees. So all that tensegrity and muscle in my body like held me together really well, so I didn't get too messed up. And I had a pretty tough childhood that I like numbed out. I did a lot of drugs and numbing, and did that for like 14, 15 years, and basically the fall and led me to a healing journey and trying to figure out like, okay, how do I how do I help my back? And also feeling like super empty, like I hit rock bottom and using drugs for like 15 years straight, and realizing that it was starting to affect my life very, very negatively. So I decided to take the path of sobriety, and the military actually helped me pay for some different schoolings. They gave me a few choices. One of them was massage therapists, and in Canada, massage therapy is like a two-year full-time program, like it's quite rigorous. And I'm like, man, I don't want to massage people for a living, but I do want to learn what they're learning because we get more anatomy than a medical doctor, and we get amazing hands-on training, and I've always been into fitness, which has been a big player in my in my in my health in life. That's how I was able to stay healthy through all these this partying. But once I became sober and started school, everything came crashing down really heavy because I started to feel everything that I numbed out my whole life. And when that hit me, I I couldn't walk. And I was I was bedridden, I wasn't sleeping, and I like really contemplated committing suicide. Like it was really, really hard. And I'm so grateful for it. I'm so grateful because it's what led me on my path of like realization of doing what I'm doing right now, which is training people in the healing arts. But yeah, I'll backtrack a little bit. Uh, I had an awakening on Iowa during an ayahuasca ceremony, and I realized that I was supposed to be a healer. Like I everyone sat in the circle and I spoke out like I want to have a relationship with God and I want to figure out balance in my life. And this is the time when like I couldn't walk. I was I would wake up in the morning after a one to two hours sleep and try to move, and then like 10 out of 10, worst pain imaginable, and then I would just like feel stuck and I would like crying as like a fit-looking 26-year-old young man, and I couldn't walk. So yeah, it was it was pretty rough, and I would somehow like drag myself to school and go learn, but I was I was in misery, and um, so yeah, as soon as I said I want to figure out a relationship with God, I spoke it out. The shaman laid out some oracle cards. I picked up the one that I was eyeing up that nobody else took. I was the last to go. It said healer. I'm like, huh. Like that, that's my heart started beating fast because I knew it was significant. And then when I read the meaning of the card, it's like God works through you as a healing angel, everything is divine in perfect order, and a bunch of other stuff. But when I read God works through you as a healing angel, right after I was like, I want to have a relationship with God, I'm like, whoa, like I think I just found my purpose in life because too many synchronistic things brought me to that point. And what are the chances of me being in massage school at one of the best schools in the world that I didn't even choose myself? And then I'm just like, okay, you know what? I'm I'm taking this path. So from that moment on, I dedicated my life to being in service of humanity through healing. And I finished massage school, went to India to study Ayurveda. I already had done personal training and yoga teacher trainings prior to that. I did every little course I could get my hands on, and then I went into Chinese medicine, and that's what really opened my mind and resonated with me the most of any medicine that I studied. And I just I loved what I was learning and I felt the effects in school and and seen insane, crazy things happen. And yeah, since then I've just been following that path. And during my healing journey, I was lucky enough to have insurance money from being a disabled veteran. And I was able to go see all these practitioners, medical doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, and I would see so many of them, and none of them could help me. None of them could. And that was really powerful for me because it helped me take control of my life. I'm like, okay, if nobody is helping me, I'm gonna have to help myself. And I was actually kind of giving away my power. I didn't know, and I was like, maybe this person can help me. Maybe this person can help me.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Well, that's what we taught, right? Yeah, it's like this is the system that you go to if something's not right. Like, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

And you go there and you're like, why the fuck? What's going on? And you're not, yeah, why is why aren't things getting better? I've had the blood tests, I've had the scans, I've done the exercises, and still this is where we're at.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, it's it's crazy. So, yeah, that's actually what showed me the path of like what I'm supposed to do. Because I had a private practice during this time, and I was treating people in school, and then most times I would do a treatment. Someone would like, you know, come up to me wide-eyed and be like, yo, like that was the best treatment I've ever had. Like, that was amazing. I feel I feel amazing, my problem is gone. And then it kind of clicked in my brain, I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe I got something here. Like, I I don't want people to have to go through what I did and not get results. Like, if if this is working, I need to share this with the world. So I really dedicated my life to helping train competent practitioners to practice and get results because I don't want someone to have to pay $100. And it's like, think of someone that saves up and they like they don't have a lot of money, they're in a lot of pain, and then they're like, okay, I'm gonna finally go see a chiropractor, I'm gonna try chiropractic. And then they go and the practitioner sucks, and they don't do anything for them. And they're like, okay, see you next week. Crack, crack, crack, see you next week. And then they're just like, wow, I don't like chiropractic. Chiropractic sucks, but it's not the modality, it's the practitioner. So I don't want people to judge whole modalities on incompetent practitioners that are just doing what they learn from a book and not actually treating the person as a person and just like going through the motions. So, yeah, that's that's my mission right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Okay, wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. That's incredible. Like going back to that fall that you had, I learned about this. It's called, I think it's called Nature's Mercy when you have that DMT release. It's like uh there's a study that um from Africa or something where the people that were attacked by lions and survived explained, uh, describe that it was actually a very peaceful experience because they have that rush of DMT and like the body's like, oh, this is what's gonna happen, and then it just it responds in that way. It's incredible. I'd love to I'd love to explore, I guess, some like what what can you tell us about Chinese medicine in terms of like the fundamentals if there is such a thing?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, so it's a great question. We use two theories to diagnose. We use the yin-yang theory, which is all about balance and comparison, actually. So it's like a cat is yin to a dog, but a cat is yong compared to a sloth. But when we look at the body, it's like is it internal, is it external, is it hot, is it cold, is it above, is it below? And you can tell if someone's young if they come into your practice and they're just like that talking and laughing, like ha ha like that. They're very young. If someone's like very yin, they're like, hi, yeah, like, you know, it's my life's okay. You can tell if they're yong or yin.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

So it's like you can feel the end from where the energy is coming from. Yeah, and the yin is a little bit more inward and reserved and lower, and the yong is a little bit more ba ba ba.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Exactly. Okay, so it we balance that out. So it's like if someone's too yin, we need to nourish yang. And if someone's too young, we need to nourish yin or sedate or tonify. So there's four different ways to go about that. Then the other way we use is the the five-element theory. This is a really beautiful theory. There's five elements in Chinese medicine, a little bit different than Ayurveda and Western. There's metal and wood along with fire, air, and water. So there's multiple sequences, and what we do is we figure out what's going on in the person's body. So, an easy way to understand this, it's like the generation sequence. It's like fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water, water generates wood, wood generates fire. So that's the generation sequence.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

And then there's like the control sequence. So if you think of an axe chopping down a tree, that is metal controlling wood. And then there is also the overacting sequence. So if you look in nature and you look at a river, you can see earth is controlling water. Because like the earth, the the river's flowing and it's controlled by the earth. But if the the water floods, then that is water overacting on earth.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah. So we have our yin organs and our yang organs, and they all have an element. So we can see using this nature sequence, the five-element sequence, the five-element theory, we understand what's happening in the body, and it's like, okay, liver's overacting on spleen, that is wood overacting on earth. So maybe someone will have like diarrhea, then we need to sedate, tonify, just rebalance everything. And we do that through herbs, through massage, through moxybustion, through gua sha, through just talking, acupuncture. You know, sometimes someone needs to nourish sadness. And so I've I've even prescribed someone to go watch a sad movie. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Wow. This is fascinating. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So interesting, right? Um so with the yin and the yong um organs, what's what?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, so the yin organs are the big players in Chinese medicine. So there is the heart, which is fire, and every organ also has an emotion that's related to it. So heart is joy, and this is the only positive emotion. I'm making quote signs here because in Chinese medicine we don't say there's positive or negative emotions, they're just emotions. Yeah, they all tell us something, they all you know share deep, deep wisdom within them. So heart, fire, livers wood, kidneys is water, lungs is metal, and spleen is earth. And those are the five yin organs. So those are like the big players.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah. Okay, cool. And what other emotions associated with the other organs?

SPEAKER_01 14:15

So liver, you want to guess?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Anger.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yeah, you got it. Yeah, I've seen your goddamn nice, nice. I love it. Yeah, and kidneys, you want to guess that one?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Kidneys. Uh spleen is fear.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

No, kid is kidneys is fear.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Jumped into my mind and then I then I second guess myself. Nice. Interesting. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Uh spleen is pensiveness, which is like overthinking.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

So if we're like thinking a lot, it'll slow our digestion. So it's like good to have a calm mind. Yeah. And uh lungs is sadness and grief.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Okay, okay, okay. So with Chinese medicine, I'm bringing in something rogue here. Is is this are you looking at different pathways and like meridian points and like pressure points and stuff? Is that is that include is that everything. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

We look at the that's the beautiful thing about Chinese medicine is we look at the whole person and not the disease. So, an example of this, it's like Western medicine is like, okay, this person has diabetes and they do their one diabetes protocol for them. They'll give them this thing and they'll tell them to do these things, and they and it's like pretty, you know, in a box. It's from a book. Chinese medicine is like we asked a lot of intricate questions. It's like, hey, what does your pea look like? How your poop, your sleep, how do you eat? What are your habits? Like, we ask everything about the person. And we're looking at their their posture, their shen, which means uh that's the spirit posed in the heart. So also every organ has a spirit that it's related to as well. Yeah. So we look at their their spirit, their eyes, like does their eyes have shen? Does their eyes have life? So it's like if they're if they're glowing, they're open, then it's like they have good shen. If they're like crystallized over, they're a little droopy, and you can tell they like they're they're lacking that life luster. So yeah, so we can there's so many different ways to diagnose. We use the tongue, we use the pulse, we use visual, we see their face. We can just with the eyes, you can see things about every single organ with just the eyes, and every part of the face is related to something. And then there's microsystems of every part of the body as well. So each part of the hand is related to something, each part of the foot is related to something, and in the ear, there's like over 200 points in the ear that's a direct connection to every single part of the body.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

I've been seeing this thing actually come online about ear seeding.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Is that it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah, is that Chinese medicine?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

That's Chinese medicine.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Of course it is. Everything I say is Chinese medicine these days.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, you can put uh you can put an ear seed on a specific point for uh a really popular one's called Shenmen, which means spirit gate. You can press it and it helps drop you into that parasympathetic state, rest and digest, which we all need to be in there a little more than we are, I'd say. So yeah, that's amazing. And this point's also in a protocol called Nada, which you do acupuncture to five specific points, and it helps people quit smoking.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Wow. So what are the different modalities that are involved in Chinese medicine? So these acupuncture acupuncture is one, right? You said gua sha before.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Gua sha.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Massage.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Massage.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

You said a f- Yeah, you already listed a few things, but we didn't.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

The one, the the big one that people don't really know about is cup or uh not cupping. Most people know about cupping, that's also Chinese medicine. We do fire cupping, we do bloodletting as well. Uh but the big one that most people don't know about that's amazing, is called moxibustion.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yes, you did say that word, and I wanted to come back and ask you what that was.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, and it's really powerful because in China they don't say acupuncture, they say acupuncture, moxibustion, as in they're equal, like one's not better than the other. So the cool thing about moxibustion is it actually puts something into the body essence, it gives us jing energy, which jing is the like the spirit of the kidneys kind of thing. So jing is like your your life force energy. Yeah. So we we want to save our jing and hold on to our jing. Like there's a saying in Chinese medicine, it's like you're burning the candle at both ends. And that's if someone is like not sleeping good, they're partying, and they're just not taking care of themselves, they're burning out their life force energy. Like our life, represented as a candle, only has so much wax. And it's up to you to choose how big the flame is gonna burn. And it's hard, it's harder to bring back wax, you know, it's not an easy practice. It's possible with things like qi gong and yoga and things like that, but it's it's not easy. So it's better to live a life in balance and with the seasons of nature, and you'll burn the candle much slower and preserve that life force energy, that jing. Yeah. So, what was your question? I forget. Oh, moxibustion. Okay, okay. So, yeah, moxibustion, it's a herb called mugwort, and we burn it on or around the skin. So, you can do direct or indirect. You actually can burn the skin, that's a part of it as well, or you can do it and away from the body. Sometimes you can do really cool ones, like it, for example, like a dragon boat. So, like someone's laying in prone position, and you do this whole giant boat of like ginger on the back, and then you'll burn all this moxabustion on the ginger, and it'll penetrate through the ginger, it'll burn all the ginger juices in the spine, and all this beautiful moxa smoke will go into the body and help with burn away dampness, it'll help with parasites, and it'll help boost your life force energy. Like it puts something in the body that is outside of yourself. Acupuncture, for example, we put the needles in, and the way it works is the body will bring signals to the area and it'll promote a healing response there. So it's actually not putting anything. Yes, the needle goes in your body, but you're just bringing your own body's awareness to heal that area. That's why acupuncture works. Moxibustion is actually putting something external into the body. And from the book Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Moxibustion, it's like one who does moxa on these points that are direct connection to the stomach, the belly button, the low belly. For any acupuncturists out there, it's ren 12, ren 8, ren 4, and um LI4, direct connection to the kidneys. This is not large intestine 4, I mean the um lumbar, lumbar, L3, L3, L4, L3, L4. Yeah, so these points, it's like one will easily live to 100 years old. So the the reason this works is because it puts energy in the body, this heat, and it helps all the organs function better. So both Chinese medicine and Ayurveda say drink warm liquids. And the reason for that is because it helps your organs function, it helps digestion. If you drink cold liquids, liquids liquids, liquids, liquids, it shocks the body. So it like it the spleen loathes cold and it doesn't like raw vegetables either.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

This is literally see, these are some of the examples of what has just like emerged into my life. Like, drink, like I used to drink a lot of cold stuff, like cold smoothies, cold, you know, cold fucking pre-workout in the morning with ice in it, like cold, cold, cold, cold. And then one day I was like, oh no. It just kind of started to shift. It's really bizarre. Like it's it's it's very interesting and amazing, right? And now I start the morning with tea. I end the I end the day with tea, like before bed. I have a beautiful like chrystanthemum tea before bed. Um, I drink warm water throughout the day. I don't eat raw stuff anymore. I eat some raw like fruit, but like I'm not eating raw veggies anymore. Everything's steamed or everything's baked, like changing the timings of my meals and stuff. Actually, this is the question I'd like to ask you. And I think this is gonna be super helpful for people, I guess, to just create, um be able to make some changes. their life. How would you incor how would you incorporate and how do you incorporate Chinese medicine and and Ayurveda into your life? Like what does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah, so more of more of a Chinese medicine guy for sure. But Ayurvedic practices, I'll drop a couple right now. My mentor in in India is like, do something every day for your senses. And Ayurveda is huge on oils. Like you know, Chinese medicine does moxibustion. Ayurveda heats up oils and they'll do like oil massages with like nice warm oils and they'll like do a head pool and put it in your eyes and in your nose and all these things. So do something every day for your senses. And one thing you can do is snort a drop of oil in each nostril. What kind of oil? Sesame oil, coconut oil, depending on the season. So if it's winter you want to do a warming oil and if it's summer you'll do a cooling oil. Yeah so a drop in the nose for the smell drop in the ears for the hearing. You can do eye rinsing so like water or they even do ghee in warm ghee in China in India. And then tongue scrape and oil pool for the for the taste. And then for the feel abyanga which is a full body self-love massage which is amazing. Like it's so good. So yeah so from from Ayurveda like this these self-care techniques are amazing helps helps all your senses stay strong and resilient for a long time. And yeah a simple one to add in really easily is just as soon as you get out of the shower just give yourself a nice full body loving massage.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah it's amazing it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And like what I actually do is I get fractionated coconut oil and I put my essential oils in it. And that's how so I'm kind of doing the I'm unconsciously doing the Ayurveda as well. Nice. So interesting.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Amazing I do the same except with uh sesame oil.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Ah sesame oil that's expensive where I'm living at the moment in Costa Rica it costs like $15 for a bloody thing of sesame oil. Yeah. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

It's expensive there's expensive here too.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Why sesame oil?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

It has it it penetrates really deep high vitamin E content. Of course you want to get like cold pressed good quality organic but yeah high vitamin E penetrates really deep to the bone level and it has it's like a superior massage oil. Like it glides really well. And for mine specifically I'll put some castor oil in there and I also add my own essential oils that I make.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Okay I just bought all of Kay's essential oils and we're excited to talk about that in a sec to wait is it very oily though? Like does that sit on the skin or does it go in?

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Um no it it it goes in it depends how dehydrated you are but yeah like I I massage it in pretty good and then usually like aero it a little bit I'll walk around the house naked for a bit and just like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Amazing okay okay okay okay okay back to the Chinese medicine then because you said you're more of a Chinese medicine guy. How does that incorporate into your life?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah so um I'll share a little bit about the most common pattern that we see in Chinese medicine. It's called spleen chi deficiency. And you know I talked about diabetes so maybe that might manifest in someone as spleen chi deficiency and symptoms of that you might have a really swollen tongue with teeth marks or you might have a crack in the center of it in the stomach spleen area. And this is from dietary habits. So I would say the most important thing that you can do is I mean there's a lot of them depends on where you're at but like of course clean up all your food a highest quality organic grass fed food that you can get cleanse your water and then yeah drinking warm liquids. And then I would say the number one thing for people and this is really big for liver and anger and sleep is stop eating so late at night. That is like because the later you eat at night the closer you eat to bed the less deep you sleep the more energy you have to use to digest. So you're missing out on deep sleep you're missing out on REM you're spending all this extra energy to digest instead of your blood going back into your liver and nourishing and recovering. So that like in my opinion that's the number one thing that a lot of people need to do for their health. And there's this thing called the Chinese medicine organ clock. So there's a time of day when every organ is working at its strongest and at its weakest. Yeah it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

It's really cool I'm obsessed with this information. I'm just loving it and I'm like oh it's so interesting. Yeah and it's it's it's I'm like trying to find the right questions to ask because I I don't know anything about it. I just know that there's interest there and there's like energy like pushing me in that direction. So I'm like really like what questions can I ask where can we go here?

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Well you're asking the right questions so like I'll I'll yeah so if you have spleen chi deficiency then which most people do most people have spleen sheet deficiency stop eating so late at night raw vegetables put them in the damage this they they damage the spleen so if you want to cook them like gently steam them or cook them another way if you steam them it's kind of the healthiest way to eat them and it's they're a little more cooling that way. If you cook them more boil them or fry them in a healthy oil like they're more heating more warming for the body. So could you please could you please tell us what spleen chi deficiency means yeah it means your spleen's too hot chi is essentially energy deficiency means like you're lacking of and your spleen is like our major digestive organ. So like you think of the spleen pancreas and stomach as one system basically. Yeah yeah so it's like your spleen qi deficient so means like your digestion digestive energy is deficient. Yeah which this manifests in fatigue heaviness bowel problem slowness like yeah and dampness is a thing in yeah bowel problems IBS like and like dampness is a thing in Chinese medicine and if you if like you don't know what that means just think of like feeling heavy feeling weak feeling slow feeling sluggish soggy yeah so it's like burning away that dampness getting that really good digestive fire so that's like an easy thing to to do to just like build more energy more creativity more all better sleep all good things in your life so I love working this one. So what we can do is stop eating so late at night drink warm liquor liquids don't shock your system with like super cold super cold drinks. I know if you like live somewhere like Florida and it's super hot it's really nice but like try to especially in the like the most important times it's like in the morning have like a really nice glass of like really clean water that's like mineralized maybe you put some lemon or apple cider vinegar in there to really get your get your stuff moving get the digestion going salt yeah yeah minerals right yeah uh clean Celtic salt or something like that. And then there's a simple so simple it's like a morning ritual wake up brush your teeth tongue scrape and then have your drink. So yeah you're getting rid of all that bacteria from your tongue and the thicker the coat is on your tongue in the morning the more food stagnation stuff you have in your body. So yeah that's that's not good. You don't want to wake up and have a thick white or yellow coat in the in the in the body. And if it's at the back of your tongue that means it's like really low in the intestines and if it's on the tip of your tongue that's like the heart area. So if you have a crack on the tip of your tongue that means you got heart issues.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Oh talking to you. Oh my gosh this is so fascinating. Okay there was a question come back to me quite what's the best time to eat at dinner at night time then like in the af afternoon.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah great question I just think the the longer you fast before bed the better the better. Like yeah because we we you know we aren't used to eating three meals a day until like what's that about pretty recent pretty recent what's that about yeah do you think we need to eat three times a day I personally eat two times a day I eat like a really big breakfast and I'll have like a snack in the middle of the day and then I'll have like a decent dinner and I try to eat my dinner while the sun is still up I know it I'm from Canada so in the summer the sun is up at like 10, 11 p.m sometimes but if you can finish eating by like five or six that's like that's that's that's really ideal. And the later you go to bed the worse it is. So ideally like 10 o'clock 10 p.m is the the prime time to go to bed for your circadian rhythm and of course I know we're living with the seasons right so some places like Iceland it's 24 hours of sunlight some days in this in like the the most young day of the year. That is the most young day of the year. Yeah summer solstice so of course you're gonna be living a little bit differently so you're gonna be more young we have more energy to burn and then in the winter we have to be more yin so we have more conservation it's like our time to hibernate and to build that energy like the animals all do it the trees all do it. We're supposed to do it too we're animals yeah exactly we're also animals exactly so yeah just don't overthink it just like make sure that you don't overeat and go to bed. I love how simple that is yeah it's so simple it's it's so simple it's so profound. And yeah you don't even need to like not eat sweets or anything but it's like when you eat sweets is important and it's like really good to walk after meals and eat your sweets after the meal. Don't eat it before you because your your glucose spike will be way less like by cut by half or more if you eat it after your meal versus if you eat the sweet thing first.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Tell us about glucose spike for the people who don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

If you eat sweet it will spike your glucose and make all kinds of things happen in the body. The pancreas will release it and we want to basically make that happen as little as possible. The more we can like burn that away and ideally like get into ketosis sometimes it's good for us to to burn away the excess fat and excess things and our brain is actually best run on fat versus carbs. And I'm not I'm not like pushing keto or anything. I'm a big fan of eating carbs and eating balanced but like sometimes it's good to give our body a break.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Okay that's interesting. So why would it be a bad thing for glucose to spike then? What what what are the kind of the bad things that happen or less desirable things?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

For example uh I myself notice in my own lifestyle that if I wake up and I eat a sweet breakfast I'm like way less sharp during the day. Yeah I can relate to that yeah so we're supposed to have like a nice savory breakfast a high protein savory breakfast and that's like best for us to function. If we wake up and we eat a bunch of fruit and sweet things then we we sp we spike our insulin and we're just it we're just less sharp.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

The the energy um I guess availability in the system is less consistent. Yeah you know it's kind of like bing and then you like and you feel depleted and you're like oh I need something else now.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Exactly and the way each flavor hits the body will affect the body differently so like there's Chinese medicine there's also five tastes so yin yang so like sour will actually like pull things in and drop it down. So that's like a yin sweet as yang yeah so we wanna we want to have balance with our taste too and sometimes you know someone's doing something too much we need to do the opposite of that thing or the thing that'll pull that down if they're going out too much you need to pull that in you know we need to do the opposite of what we're doing too much to balance out.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Wow like when you doing like an assessment on someone or in Chinese medicine how long does that take depends on the person.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Depends on the person they're coming in. It depends on the person but it like if if there's a time limit you know sometimes some people just need to talk and you want to give them the space if they need to talk and they don't have that space at home. So that might be the best therapy for them is to actually just process all the things and say it to someone. So sometimes people need that. So every person is different and that's why Chinese medicine treats the person and not the disease.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

This is amazing it really like it it feels very it feels very um wait what's the word feels very broad and comprehensive right feels like it's it's getting everything and it's it's covering all bases.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah yeah I've only been studying it for five years and I like I feel like I'm like just scratching the surface like there's just so there's so much to it. Oh my gosh I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

I'm loving it. Yeah those are really those are really handy tips in terms of lifestyle and I think everybody can kind of start there and and maybe just like like observe yourself for a little bit and observe how you feel like with how things are going now and make a couple of those changes like bring bring dinner a little bit earlier um drink the drink the warm drinks and and notice what happens. It's funny though right like I'm just like hearing these um these tips and tricks tips and tricks but and then reflecting on what I grew up with and what was normal and it was like breakfast neutra grain and milk you know lunch veg mutton cheese sandwich with a packet of chips and like Veg yeah of course so Australian I love it. Yeah veg mutton cheese sandwich like maybe some lollies um or just shitload of cheese I ate a lot of cheese as a kid because I was so fussy and then dinner is like meat and three veg and then there's dessert and it's like that is not and then probably snacking in between because I was a chubby kid. But it's like that's kind of the it's kind of the blueprint a lot of people are working off and trying to reprogram and it's it's it's an interesting thing how like false the food pyramid is that we were taught in school.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Totally I get it I didn't even know sugar was unhealthy until I was like in my double digits numbers. Like as a kid I would make rice crispy cereal and my milk and right and white sugar would be 50-50 so it was like sludge. It was literally like milk sludge. Yeah it was so bad and yeah craft dinner and hot dogs and I like I didn't have a lot of food in the fridge too a lot of times so it's like I didn't eat a lot and what I did eat was definitely not good.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

Oh wow so I I guess what are what are the best things to eat? Like what does a good breakfast look like for you actually I wanted to ask you that question.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yeah for me I eat four eggs and I mean depends on the day because like I like to switch things up but I just I really try to get like 40 50 grams of protein and I I don't count calories I never count it calories but I make sure I just get like high protein and I'll like make a sauce on my own and what sauce I'll like blend I'll blend like pineapple with some like chili apple cider vinegar olive oil salt pepper and like that's pretty much it actually that's all you need to like make a really good sauce or like some kind of like sweet fruit and then give it that little zing on that side and then something hot and then apple cider vinegar and all extra virgin olive oil as the base salt and pepper and you have a really good sauce. Yum on eggs. Yeah I do it I'll be yum on pretty much on egg I can eat it every meal. Like I'll just dose it over whatever I'm eating I I love eating like bowls with just like a bunch of healthy things in it and I just mix everything together and just smash.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Can I tell you my favorite thing I hope I hope Chinese medicine loves it. So it's what I had been doing was having like steamed carrot and zucchini and then I make this like amazing roast um sweet potato pumpkin and like red onion like kind of thing in the air fryer which is great. And then one day I was like ooh what would happen I I had a mismatch of veg of ingredients and I had chicken instead of steak. So for lunch I was like okay I'm gonna chuck in some of those veggies so sweet potato pumpkin red onion that's all kind of caramelized together. I'm gonna chuck in the steamed veggies as well and I've got chicken like boiled chicken that I've just shredded chucked it in the air fryer and it like to warm it up because I don't have a microwave and then like the chicken would have these crunchy crispy bits. So you had this delicious kind of texture and this caramelization of the vegetables and then for the sauce is and I I think one ingredient isn't fabulous but that's okay. The sauce is Greek yogurt mixed with balsamic dressing and then like I just mix all that up together and it's like a warm salad kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

It's amazing I make a lot of sauces with the Greek yogurt as well or like coconut yogurt. It's yeah it's amazing literally hot sauce and yogurt makes an amazing amazing sauce for pretty much anything. Yum yum yum so good.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah and my favorite breakfast at the moment is two scrambled eggs a um a baked sweet potato and steak or sometimes just scrambled eggs and like chicken like mixed into it.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Nice. Yeah that's like that's a perfect breakfast. It's a perfect healthy savory breakfast. That's like something I would love to eat for breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yum I'm hungry like just thinking about it. That's why I kind of like went into the food stuff. But hey let's let's like dive into essential oils quickly. I think this would be a fun thing to kind of talk about I recently became an ambassador for a a brand like an Australian company called Eco Modern Essentials and they have all these beautiful essential oils and blends and they've I think they've done it in a really kind of interesting way in the sense that they have their pure essential oils and then they do beautiful blends much like yours except yours are different. Yours are therapeutic blends and I'm excited to to chat about them but I think they've done it in a nice way that it's like they'll have the the happy blend and the the mindfulness blend and the seduction blend and then they have like the four the five the sorry seven chakras or whatever. Seven?

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah then they have the chakras and they have all these fun things so that's great but where like is essential oils part of Chinese medicine or yeah we we use we use oils as well yeah it is for sure but yeah I made these ones of the yin organs actually so I talked about the yin organs earlier so I made a heart a lungs a kidney a spleen and liver so when I made them every organ in Chinese medicine has different functions than it does compared to Western medicine. So for example liver moves energy in all directions it's the only organ that moves qi and blood in all directions of the body for ex and uh like spleen will only move things up or down right so yeah it holds the organs into place. So if spleen chi deficiency quick side note yeah if things are falling you got spleen chi deficiency if like prolapse that's like you know your spleen is deficient so if it like you want to bring things back up tonify the spleen.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

Interesting wow it's I I guess is there is there preemptive I I guess there is because that's what Chinese medicine is right it's like living well like living well as a foundation rather than being so reactive to treatment and stuff. But when you said prolapse I was like ooh I wonder whether it would be handy for women I guess prior to having their babies and stuff to like check out all of their systems to be like oh could this help me prevent something like a prolapse?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah I mean I think if you're just living in balance massaging yourself eating well being happy because emotions are the cause of disease a cause of disease there's an emotional aspect to everything and they attack ourselves from within so I feel like if a mom is just doing the right things and is happy and self-caring and keeping the the stress levels low like it's gonna be a happy baby. And then but yeah there's some cool Chinese medicine stuff for that for example like if the baby's breach you can mock subbustion bladder 67 and it'll turn the baby around in the feet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

It's amazing wow that's fascinating and you know what I really want to point out there is the self-care part that you said you know like actually caring um I guess the emotional part that comes with that like actually genuinely like spending time with yourself and being like the beautiful Ayurveda um self-massage is is a really amazing way to do that. A lot of people aren't doing that. Like a lot of people think they're doing all the right things and they might be like they're like I'm eating well I'm I'm you know be mindful of my sleep um you know I'm hydrated blah blah blah I'm exercising like and I still feel like shit it's like okay well where's self-care come into that like is there any like I mean I guess that's the there's so many things to fit in a day right I think the major thing that we're missing is you know like working out is so important.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Movement is super important but what's just as important and we do less of is working in. So you know we need to go inward more because all the answers are within so we just need to focus more on ourselves internally what's going on figure out what that is and then fix it. So that's why there's no such thing as bad emotions or good amount emotions. Like if you have anxiety then that's usually related to the heart something past is coming up that got triggered and you have a beautiful opportunity to figure out what that is when you're feeling anxious. Because if you take a step back take a breath and go into that it's like oh this person said this thing so it triggered this from before and that's why I'm feeling this way. So if you process that happening again. Yeah exactly so if you actually process that and work through it And a good and easy way to do it is just focus on where it hurts for long enough, being still, and eventually it'll burn away, then you process that and heal from it essentially.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Oh my gosh, I really love I really really love what you said there. And yeah, that's amazing. Like doing like going more within. Yeah, there's a lack of that. There's a lack of that in a lot of people's lives. What's the what would you say is the best way for people to start doing that?

SPEAKER_01 44:30

I mean, my personal favorite medicine for that is a dark room.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

A dark room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, but no, that's uh where you go in a a dark room for day, two, three, multiple days, and you're just in pitch black.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

So it's so you're silent, like a you've done the dark retreat thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Yeah, I've done silent retreats like Vipassana and also dark rooms, and I just love the dark room because it brings things up so much faster without our without our other senses getting distracted. Like our eyes are most powerful sense, our vision. But when we take that away, it changes a lot inside of us, and it's so much easier to look within. It's so much easier to meditate, and these things arise much easier. So it's like much easier to process things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Is there a lot of like purging and emotions coming up in the dark room?

SPEAKER_01 45:18

For sure. Yeah, these weird memories that you never remembered will pop up, and then you have an opportunity to process them. Yeah. But to come back to your question, it'll look a little bit different for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Because that might be a bit advanced for some people.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Yeah, I mean, the ones that are scared of it the most probably need it the most, you know? So there's the most medicine and the things that we have the most fear around. Yeah. But exercise will be the best for some people to be able to just like move that energy, sitting in silence, breathing. But the like the most important part is like being able to quiet yourself down so you can actually go inward and actually see. For example, if you look at a lake on a windy day, all there it's wavy, and you go look at the water and you can't see a reflection. But then if it stills and the wind stops, and you look at the water, you can actually see a reflection perfectly. And it's like the same way inside of our body, if we're constantly moving, then it's like we're we're muddying the waters, and that's what, like, for example, like an itch is or a twitch, it's like the body is trying to create this safety mechanism around us digging deep to something that we need to heal from, but our nervous system is trying to protect us. So if like we're sitting in meditation, we have an itch. If you don't move and work through that, then we get to another level of our depths so you can see into yourself more. So the more you actually resist those feelings and go inward, then the more opportunity you have to see what your body is trying to protect you from, which the body, of course, is trying to help us, but it's not actually helping us because these are the things that we need to process so we can work through and become the best version of ourselves. Yeah, because a lot of us don't actually know who we are. Like who we are is not even close or who we think we are is not even close to who we actually are because we're so manipulated by society, by our parents, by our teachers, by the world around us, by the program. All of it.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

So the more we can release that, unlearn that, and recreate that within is the closer we'll become to ourselves, to our heart, to God.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

And that's what I think a spiritual awakening is. You know, when people talk about like a spiritual awakening, I think it's like actually finding out who the fuck you are. And like letting go of all of those um who you thought you were based off X, Y, and Z, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:44

100%.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Yeah, you agree with that? Yeah. I think that's what it is. Yeah. Um wait, you you were talking about the lake thing, and it brought something up in me. I thought that was fantastic. Um like, oh yeah, okay. Because we're so distracted, right? We can be easily distracted, and that's why the the eyes, like the eyes, whatever we're looking at, whatever we're consuming, it's very easy for us to distract ourselves. And I think um society at large is just distracted. They're just distracted based off like how life kind of just is, you know. You wake up and you do the things that you're meant to do, wake up, probably get on your phone, check things out, go to the gym, go to work, work nine to five, you're a bit tired, you eat, you watch some TV while you're eating, you go to bed. That's it. And then the weekends are just, you know, for some people, fucking partying and carrying on, right? Like I I lived a some I did something similar in in my time, but it's like that's all distraction. And it's all stopping you from actually looking within.

unknown 48:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

And finding out who you are.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

It's the classic autopilot loop that we live in. And one year turns into two, turns into five, turns into a decade, and before you know it, you're on your deathbed.

unknown 49:00

Fuck.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

How do people get out of that? What's what's something that they could do to kind of shift out of that?

SPEAKER_01 49:07

I mean, we're we're we're living it right now. We just finished a retreat right now.

SPEAKER_00 49:12

Oh, so I mean you'd say retreat.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Of course, of course. You have to take yourself out of your environment, or if you can't do that, you have to completely change your environment. You have to change the people you're hanging out with, you have to clean your house, you have to change whatever it is about you. And you know what it is you need to change. It's like, here's here's years of therapy and moments. It's like, what's the one habit that you know you need to stop doing? Stop doing that. What's the one habit you know you need to start doing? If you did those two things, you would radically change your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

Yeah. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

But it's really hard because it's we like to be comfortable, right? But the the discomfort is where the magic is, where the growth happens. But yeah, completely taking a risk, going to a place where you're surrounded by people that are doing the things that you want to be doing, that have achieved more than you have in in life, that can inspire you to get more clarity on what you want to do. That that's a really powerful experience that can really give you the epiphany that you need to change everything. Because it really takes a moment. Like anyone could have it in a second. It's like, oh my gosh, I just realized this thing. It's like that's why psychedelics can be so powerful because someone can take them, it takes down this veil that's in front of us at all times, they experience God in its full, its form, and you're never the same again. Because now you know from the depths of your heart and soul that things are bigger than you thought, or whatever, however, you experience that, because everyone experiences it differently. But it only takes a moment to realize there's something, there's something there.

SPEAKER_00 50:52

There's something different.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah, you know, and that's why rock bottom is actually a good day. Yeah. When you hit rock bottom, that's actually a good day because you will never go that low again. You will never let yourself get to that point again, and from there it's only up.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

It's interesting, like psychedelics. It it was funny. My my kind of journey in in life, it went from like partying a little bit and be like, oh yeah, I want to try psychedelics. That sounds groovy and fun, and like having some experiences there. And then that was kind of the gateway into being like, oh shit, there's some medicine here. And then I went into the medicine, and then that then all of the healing and the integration followed after that. And then now I'm kind of at this place where I'm like, life is the medicine, like life is the ceremony, you know, my ego is the medicine. Um, like everything is the I don't need psychedelics anymore. Like it's been really funny. Sometimes, like, if it feels, if it feels like a yes, yes, this is it. Like I might do a little microdose or something, like I'm not completely shut off from it, but like really ayahuasca kind of said, Don't come back to me. Tea and your womb, like that's where I've been directed to for for healing and and um I guess more psychedelic experiences because I've had some crazy experiences with nothing.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, just breath work, you can produce DMT. We are we are drugs. Like we can produce the most powerful psychedelic in the world by just doing breath work. We can produce oxytocin by hugging someone. We have a pharmacy within us, so we can tap into these states at any time. We have that ability, but we just love that instant gratification. I believe that if gratitude was a drug, it would be the number one selling drug in the world. It's like you take a hit and you just feel so grateful about everything, no side effects, nothing bad, all good. And we have that available to us right now at any moment. We can really dig deep within and feel so grateful. There's no limit to the amount of love, gratitude, elevated emotion that we can feel. We can go higher and higher. So I believe, yeah, like you you just said it and you experienced it in your life. Sobriety is a drug, it just takes a little while to kick in. You gotta detox the stuff. And then once you once you get past that, because usually we feel worse than we feel good as we're detoxing, the things are coming up. So it it manifests in many different ways. Maybe headaches, maybe you're nauseous, maybe you're bedridden, all these things that maybe scare people away. It's like, oh, I don't want to try that because it made me sick. But actually, it's no, it's making you well. You get sick to get well.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

It's and even the the other things that kind of come along with it, like the mental and emotional pieces around going like into sobriety. It's like, oh shit, like how do I socialize? How do I go on a date and not drink alcohol? How do I go and dance on a dance floor? How do I sing karaoke without, you know, a few drinks in me or shots in me? How do I go to a music festival? Like all of these different things. How do I connect with people and have deep conversations, right? How do I relate to people that are in my life that all drink? So there's all of that kind of stuff to um move past as well. And like you can do all of those things without alcohol. I can I can promise you that. I've I've traversed that bridge.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Yeah, me as well. But I also have tools that help me, like these essential oils, for example. I have something that I can use at any time of day to boost whatever I'm doing. Sleep, meditation, digestion, energy, anything I want, I have something that can help me enhance that. And they all smell amazing and feel really good to use these beautiful plant essences that have a lot of positive effects.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

They're so beautiful. Like scent, like this, this olfactory um the olfactory system and like using scent is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things to do to like connect back with myself. So I love it. Yeah. Um got Key, thank you so much. Like, this has been the coolest conversation. I'm really, really appreciative of your time and your knowledge and answering all of the questions and going on this little journey with me. I would love for you to share like how can people find you? What do you have to offer? Like, how do people learn more from you?

SPEAKER_01 55:17

Yeah, so my brand is called Holistic University. Uh, you can find me on Instagram, Holistic University. I teach people to start a career in the healing arts, or I train practitioners to get more clients, to get more results, better results in their practice. So you can find that at holistic.university. And I also host retreats at a retreat center in Guatemala called Maestro Valley, and we do a lot of in-person experiences, bodywork related or medicine-related, all kinds of different stuff. We're just tapping into that version of ourself that we need to do the work on, releasing that and healing from it. We just did a retreat right now, and you know, there was a lot of tears on the share circle and a lot of lives changed. So it's like this is yeah, this is my main love, main mission is these in person experiences where people are having their lives change. But yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Thank you. Yay.