E042: Our Dis-ease Is Not A Death Sentence

Melissa Deally: 00:00:07

Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you?

Melissa Deally: 00:00:18

Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call.

Melissa Deally: 00:01:07

Welcome back to the don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am your host Melissa dealey and I am super excited today to be bringing you another fabulous guest speaker. Dr. Tom Acklin. Welcome, Tom.

Dr. Tom Acklin: 00:01:22

Thanks so much, Melissa. Hi.

Melissa Deally: 00:01:25

I just want to introduce you to Dr. Acklin. He is an MD he's worked in the fields of regenerative neurology, immunity and cancer, microbiome reconstruction, food as medicine, therapeutics, Mind Body, the gut brain integrity, plus stretch fascia Philea neurogenesis. Dr. Tom, there's so much that you have been working on throughout your career, and I would love to invite you to share your story What led you down the path of medicine in the first place?

Dr. Tom Acklin: 00:01:59

Well, I think almost every healer would say, I love helping people. I don't know that I actually knew that and believed it. Even though that seems to be a mantra early in the education process. I'm the conveyor belt. And it took me about 30 years to come back to the idea that taking care of me is actually taking care of others. And I love love i So resonate with your work in self care is the best care. And don't give people the best of you, instead of what's left of you. Is that and I get all right.

Melissa Deally: 00:02:37

Almost self care is the most selfless act, because it allows you to give the world the best of you instead of what's left of you.

Unknown: 00:02:48

I love it that rings so true. And the and the don't wait theme is actually I think most healers would go there as well. Right? And we we have we've built a mechanistic and interventionist system. And it's not bad. It's not to be demonized. But it really is predicated on the idea that something happens, some sort of trauma happened to the body, it could have been physical trauma, it could have been athletic trauma, it could be the ongoing inflammation of antigenic recognition and a new infection of some sort. Or just normal cellular turnover, right, the body makes half a trillion cells every day and loses half a trillion as well. And we have to let the let the debris go. As we even even though we're focused on putting the right macronutrients the right foods, I work in synergy medicine and functional medicine. And it's important that we have a conversation that's a community conversation about ecosystem health in the soil, such that there can be a vibrant, happy, thriving metabolically flexible plants, such that if you eat animals and an animal that ate of similar sort of holistic, right, and all of that's not, you know, all of that's preamble to be able to answer your question, which is to say, I think what, what really healers want is to be able to put the body in a position to handle whatever that inflammation is, in the moment. I call that metabolic flexibility. That's the space where we're not going to be the same, right. And when I went to med school, they taught us about how to put the body in a place and look at serum levels it was me and find the quote normal and restore the normal. And, and again, it's fantastic that we have emergency interventions to restore to normal, but a healthy thriving body in that sort of an ecosystem dynamic that has think of it as an abundance mentality, right? There is nothing to be feared and there is nothing to be proven and there is nothing to be defended against, it's a body that actually can meet life on life's terms. And in the in back to the theme of don't wait, it's, it's a wonderful way to stay in a place where we're constantly thriving, we're constantly evolving.

Melissa Deally: 00:05:18

Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I like that term metabolic flexibility. And you talking about, you know, bringing that body to norm, I like to say bring the body into balance, because that body in balance, doesn't get sick, doesn't harbor disease doesn't hold on to excess weight. But what I see, and I'm sure you do, as well that in our modern world of Do do do go go go, and, you know, depleted soils that you mentioned, which leads to, you know, depleted nutrition. And then we have high stress, and we have poor sleep, that the body is out of balance and is depleted, we're running low on, you know, much needed minerals, vitamins, etc. And we're breaking down the health of our microbiome with the poor sleep high stress, and the body doesn't have enough to bring itself back into balance. And so that's where we need to help people come back into balance. But we're looking at the whole being in that process, which is what you had alluded to as well.

Unknown: 00:06:18

That's very, that's brilliantly said I was just having a conversation this morning about, would you rather have the million dollars? Or would you like, would you rather know how to make the million dollars? And so then we layered over physio, physiology metaphors over it? Would you rather be healthy and strong? Or would you rather know how to get healthy and strong, right? Would you rather like that, and we have such a narrow window now of operative, both biomechanically, you know, we sit quite a bit all day, we don't get the kind of physical activity we used to, and we don't work on the farms, unfortunately, right. And so not only do we not have those sort of interactive mechanics, but we're also not being exposed to all of the variety of microbial life that comes along with that. And so we've got a very narrow place. What's a good way to say this, we've taken we've taken our sweet spot, to be the truth, right? The real truth is, do you want to get really excited and have a sympathetic drive, can be able to come back and do want to get really relaxed, and then be able to come back, right? That's the normal circadian rhythm of life affect the synergy of serotonin, and melatonin, which are the wake up and the go to sleep? Part, same chemical, it's just a matter of do you have the ocean of nutrients in the central nervous system that actually in the pineal gland, that can actually be bioavailable at the moment? Right, that's, that's on on the spot, Johnny on the spot, kind of, you know, light hits the retina. And there are supposed to be some cascades that happen in the body. And they're supposed to be a certain conveyor belt that we get on. Right, and a cascade of things. Yeah, that's the don't wait, that's the Do you have a body that can that can say yes, in the moment to whatever's happening.

Melissa Deally: 00:08:20

Exactly, and understanding that our body is talking to us all the time. Right? And that we need to listen to it, and not simply write it off as what is just age, it's my genetics for seasonal allergies, and keep going and ignore those signals of our body talking to us and asking us to do something different. And again, that comes back to education. And, you know, would you rather be healthy or know how to get healthy and stay healthy, right, which is the whole point of this podcast, and you know, giving people tips and educating them in their health journey, because I find that personally, I find it lacking through public health and our education system. When I was in the corporate world, I had no idea about any of this, and I had to go back to school full time to learn it. And most people don't have time to go back to school full time to do that. But if we can share this information, then people can start to you know, make those small changes. And it just takes baby steps, right? of understanding what you can do 1% better every day leads to a huge positive outcome in your health.

Unknown: 00:09:39

And it's always been that way, right in the in the interactive system in the dynamics of Mother Nature. There is always a collaborative effort going on. There's always a conversation going on. And if we have a body that's constricted and living in a scarcity and and inflamed, protective, we're not ready to hear those messages. So you're talking about that body that can receive. And in fact, the body politic is the same way. Right? The wisdom traditions talk about food as leadership, almost any kind of sacred nourishment. When I say sacred nourishment, I mean, the things we chew and swallow for sure. You know, now, of course, we've got almost mandatory supplementation. And the things we drink, of course, and sacred nourishment is also what we choose to pay attention to, and what we think and what we, what we let in, right, there's convergent focus, to the things that we think are important. We've been educated into the, into those. And that's not to be demonized either, right? There's nothing good or bad about that. It's simply the path we're on. But there is a beautiful spiritual readiness. That is a divergent focus, which lets you bring that meditative state lets you bring a mindfulness state and an abundance mentality into very clearly doing the work that's right there in front of you. Alright, without thinking that it's important because it's about to change. As you mentioned, we're always evolving and there will, when we are there, then that 1% is actually not only sufficient, it is it is the vehicle of thriving, right, we have a very subtle understanding of interface and progress. I do a lot of work with barrier systems, I you know, I work in gut health and gut brain rebuild neurogenesis as a result of putting the microbiome back together. So I talk a lot about the gut lining. When we chew and swallow something, it's not in our body yet, it has to be digested and recognized to the bugs do the work, right, it has to be absorbed, and then it has to make it to the target tissue. But all of the same things happen at every barrier system, the lining of our respiratory tract, the lining of our sinuses, the oropharynx, or surface of our tongue surface of our eardrum, etc, etc. Right. So every place we're interfacing, and that's just the outside of the body. Think of that same dynamic on the inside, right? So your cartilaginous interfaces and everything, always changing, always, in conversation, always very subtly redefining themselves, we're very different creatures today than we were 24 hours ago, we change with every breath, the air we breathe right now is different than the air we brought breathed at the beginning of the interview. Right? And so the the healthy, thriving, ever becoming tissue has to become something different in conversation.

Melissa Deally: 00:12:30

Exactly. And I, I really, like, you know, that description of the gut health, right, because people are starting to understand their microbiome, their gut health, the balance of it, and how that all is working, and the importance of keeping that in balance. And but there's still so much more education in this area that can be done for people, but we're still scraping the surface of what we know as well, right. So a lot more to be to be learning in that area. So that's an area that you're working in today. But as you went through your journey as an MD, you, you know, made some changes, and you've added to your training as well. And I would love you to talk about that part of your journey.

Unknown: 00:13:22

added to my training, and I've also subtracted from my training. Okay, share that, too. If I could very quickly find the quote, well, I won't, I won't gather it now. William Osler, who was one of the fathers of medicine, said something like, it is better to claim ignorance than pretend speculation, something like that. Right. And in the, in the world of scientific exploration, there is there is both of course, healthy, thriving, subtle, that 1%. And peer reviewed science usually lags behind wisdom by several generations. So we know the truth. And yeah, so without getting too far down that road, I'll come back to it. So I was trained as a, as an allopathic neurologist, I actually thought it was going into psychiatry as I was going through med school when the first SSRIs were coming out. Educated back in the late 70s, early 80s. And the the idea that we could take a molecule synthetic, and change the brain that was fascinating to me. I hadn't been exposed to I was gonna I was going to say, in medicine, there was no there was no understanding yet that natural molecules could change the brain. But of course, through antiquity, we've known that's true, and all of the ancient traditions, but I wasn't exposed to any of them. So all I had to answer the question, well, what can change the brain what can change the brain of a second? adequate can change the brain of a mood, mood disorder patient, a manic patient, the drug addict, etc, etc, looked like it was a molecule that was synthetic and therefore a drug. So I studied neuro chemistry as an undergrad, went into, went to medical school thinking that I was going to go into sleep medicine and addiction medicine. And then went to Georgetown for my residency, and got lost in one of the best seizure management academic centers in the world. And so started studying seizure management and neurogenesis. And they also have a very strong autoimmune program. So I, I was an MS specialist at Georgetown for many years. And I don't regret that although I do say out loud sometimes that I wish I could take back everything I told my patients over those years because I would newly diagnose an MS patient and I thought I was being very responsible by telling them, here's when you're going to be in a wheelchair, here's when you're going to be in a walker, etc. And that's just not true. About 15 years ago, so I did that for about 15 years. And then, as the universe will, It tricked me. And a buddy of mine asked me to buy a yoga studio with him. And I didn't know anything about the world of yoga. But I had, I'm also with the Center for mind body medicine at Georgetown. And I had gone to one of our trainings down in New Orleans and had done yoga 6am Yoga before the sessions there. And I remember coming back just feeling great. And I called my buddy Dave, who's not not my business partner in in

Unknown: 00:16:47

and he said, Okay, let's buy it. Let's my teacher selling your studio. Let's buy it. So I said, I said, Well, okay, then all of a sudden, everybody in the DC metro was calling us the local paper ran a headline that said, Doctor and lawyer by Great Falls Yoga Institute. And all of a sudden, anybody who wanted to sell yoga studio was calling. So we ended up owning three. And that was a brand new conveyor belt. I also was going through my son and wife were up in New York, and I was living in DC. So I was flying back and forth. And at that same time, I went on us what I thought was a six month sabbatical from Georgetown. That was 15 years ago, I'm still on sabbatical. And, and I've learned all kinds of new languages. And in the world of being trained as a yoga teacher and a meditation teacher started to learn energy work, like Reiki and chakra balancing and other Mind Body techniques. And it, and then I started paying attention to food as medicine, therapeutics, and realizing a lot of these dynamics that we just talked about, which is the energy of the food, the energy of the sacred foodstuff that we are consuming, is 99 plus plus percent of our competence to meet the moment enter into continue to regenerate. If we're constantly in a nourishing state. It's the environment, right? The faculties knew that. And Doc's have been speaking that in theory, but not in practice, how do we optimize the environment, right? It's the petri dish in which you live that determines who you are. And the body's always doing the right thing. I always I always say inflammation is the pointer. It's inflammation. It's where the body pays attention. And inflammation is the place where the body says, Okay, Let's mobilize some resources here. And if you can meet that challenge in the moment, then all of a sudden, you've become the next thing in conversation, right? Has an evolutionary creature, and that 1% that you pointed to, that happens, because all of a sudden, you've met a challenge. And you've, you've emerged as a new something. So the bacteria know this brilliantly, right, I started hearing the word microbiome, I probably would have gotten it right on a on a board exam. But I can't say that I spoke it out loud to anybody, you know, while I was practicing. And I realized that the the bacteria, the small so microbiome, for those who don't know, is micro small biome life, it's the fingerprint of all of the genetic code in this thing called Tom. That is not human code. And it's actually 99% of all of the genetic communication, DNA, RNA, everything comes from bacteria, virus, parasite, fungus, probably even things that we haven't identified yet. Right, all living in community in that same sort of holistic evolution that we're describing. And so I realized that the and the microbiome is a reflection of our foods. It's a reflection of how real was the thing It came off Mother Earth. Alright how recently this happens I just got back from a trip up to the northeast. And this happens to be a Catskills apple. I'm in Frederick, Maryland, right. But I brought back a huge bag of apples from the Catskills. So this one's been off the planet probably for two weeks or so. Probably still, you know, pretty nice delivery vehicle for mother nature. So how many different varieties, right, each food comes along with the magic that it was imbued with. And it comes with a competence that we can't possibly create if putting together a synthetic food comes along with and most importantly, it comes along with its bugs, its bacteria, if it and that's why, you know, it's it's great to pick your own food is great to garden, it's great to be close to the Earth, wide variety of foods equals a wide variety of bacteria. And some people. Conventional wisdom says there are several 1000 Different species which are not just important, but mandatory for the metabolic functions of the body. And many think it's many more and I think it's probably, you know, 10,000 plus, plus plus species. And like I said, things we probably haven't even identified yet. So those bugs come from a variety of foods. And when we talk about prebiotic fiber, prebiotic is you can think of it as the canvas.

Unknown: 00:21:32

And it's the growth matrix for the bacteria. So when you're swallowing a probiotic capsule, for example, those are colony forming units, many, many creatures in there, but really not enough to make a difference. If there's fiber in the body on which those colony forming units can form a colony, then all of a sudden, you've got, you've got expansion, and you've got growth of that colony, and a persistence of that species.

Melissa Deally: 00:22:00

I've always said it, the prebiotic is the food for the probiotic. I love how you explained it, because it's actually a lot more than that. But in terms of just people understanding the necessity of it. And having them understand in a very, you know, layman's terms, because we're not all medical doctors, that that's how I've explained it is is that correct? Or is that too simplified?

Unknown: 00:22:26

I think, oh, it's definitely correct. And I don't think we can get too simplified at this point. It's it's very interesting how tenacious we're holding on to the old ways, you know, and when I say that I had to deconstruct a lot of my training. A lot of Doc's don't speak this language. The good news is a lot of Doc's and healers do speak this language. And probably more than we know, they're probably very silent. Even though most healers are very open and very transparent, and very vocal about what they do. They're not the ones with the microphones right now controlling the institutions and whatnot. And so we still hear very strange equivocation from one of my favorite guys was a Parkinsonian. Doc. I won't mention his name, but pretty famous guy. And I learned from him I saw him early on in my about 10 years ago, and I saw him at a Barnes and Noble. And I was just learning about microbiome, and I was just realizing, wow, autoimmune disease really is healable. MS is healable. And everything from cancer to rheumatoid is curable. And with microbiome reconstruction, and I really thought he was gonna win the Nobel Prize. He was Parkinsonian guy. And I see him in public these days. And he's very interestingly, soft spoken about what he was very excited about 20 years ago with this research, saying things like, well, it looks like there might be some evidence to support Parkinson's could be reversible. Right. And so, I don't know how that happens. And I suppose that, you know, we don't need to branch into a political conversation or why there's a squeezing, but it probably is important to say, you know, a lot of Doc's who really do know, that almost everything we're calling the Chronic Disease is a healable condition are probably the majority of people practicing and you don't need letters behind your name, by the way to be a practitioner, probably everybody watching this as a practitioner, right. And just because they follow you, and they that means they're interested in knowing something empowering. Right and being an empowerment professional is is the best, the best kind of healer, I think.

Melissa Deally: 00:24:49

I love that statement, being an empowerment professional. And that's actually what I feel like I do is I'm trying to empower people in their health Journey. Because I know for myself and many others, we were raised to believe that, you know, we didn't have to worry about our health, if we got sick, we go to the doctor, the doctor would give us a pill and make us better, and we'd go on with our lives. And that isn't working today, as you've pointed out, when it comes to chronic illness, right? The pills being provided for chronic illness or leaving people in a state of chronic illness. versus looking for that underlying root cause. And figuring out where, you know, the body needs support. And it's very often, as you said, a microbiome reconstruction that allows the body to then be able to heal when we create the right healing environment for the body, it can heal, it is designed to heal. But it needs us to give it that to create that environment for to be able to heal. And that too, is multifaceted that is coming down to the nutrition which is impacted by the soil, but it's coming down to mindset, it's coming down to our stress levels. It's impacted by our sleep. It's impacted by you know, how deplete we are, and crucial vitamins and minerals. And do we have the microbes there that are breaking down the food properly to get this good nutrition to the cells that need it for healing?

Unknown: 00:26:21

That's well said, Yeah. And one, one little addendum, because I'm a big fan of meds, people hear me talk. And they think sometimes that I'm anti meds, love, love, love them, as I mentioned. That's why I went into medicine in the first place. And I found just exactly what you said, over the course of my career practicing allopathic systems, I saw one medication lead to another one. And I've realized now in the past decade or so, there's a there's a responsible part to and that's one of the things I'm most excited about working with practitioners all over the world right now. The part to have the conversation with a patient is, thank God we have as medication to take care of this issue right now that your body can't handle. Let's talk about the way what you've been doing for the past several years to get to the point where your body wasn't capable. Right? And let's find a way to get you off this medication, period. Instead of hiding the next thing that shows up, all right,

Melissa Deally: 00:27:23

exactly, exactly. So yeah, and then the medicine is needed. But it's not it shouldn't be prescribed as you need this. And now you have to take it every day for the rest of your life.

Unknown: 00:27:37

And then the rest of your life part is important. Yes.

Melissa Deally: 00:27:39

Right. And unfortunately, I don't, I do have clients coming to me that are saying, This is what I've been offered one choice, here's the drug, and now I have to take it every day for the rest of my life, or is there something else that we can do. And people are looking for the or they don't want to take it every day for the rest of their life, or they're looking for their practitioner like you that will be like, Okay, your body needs this now. But let's look at lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, stress, sleep, all of these other factors. So that you're only having to take this for maybe the next four to six months or so, while you make all of these other changes, so that we can get you off the medication.

Unknown: 00:28:23

I think the title of your next book is people are looking for the or

Melissa Deally: 00:28:26

There you go.

Unknown: 00:28:28

You can put an A in parentheses, oh, a in parentheses are actually. And that's that's the other thing I wanted to bring up was, are you actually getting traction from the things that you're doing? And a lot of folks are forcing themselves, right, we've got to social conversation that says force yourself to sleep better force yourself to eat better force yourself to stop smoking, force yourself to be nice. You can't, right you can't force yourself, you're doing the thing that is appropriate for the body's current momentum. Right. And, but if we shift those lifestyles, and we put the microbiome back in order, then all of a sudden, the good foods that we force ourselves to eat, maybe they go to work, they actually can be digested and absorbed. The supplements that we put in our body, they can be digested and absorbed. And it's all it's all microbiome. dysbiosis is the destruction of that organ called the microbiome. And when we have a dysbiosis that's a second part to by the way. Antibiotics are fantastic when it's time glad we use those and been working with surgeons for a responsible part two, because mandatory in suite antibiotics, of course we need to have any kind of surgery. And post surgical microbiome reconstruction is now known to be a very, very not just functional, but almost responsible. And I I'd really like I have a commitment to actually make it malpractice. practice to not do responsible microbiome rebuild, after what we know is, you know, an enforced an imposed dysbiosis.

Melissa Deally: 00:30:10

Yeah, I really love that idea. I absolutely love that idea. Because in that healing process, if we have the gut reconstructed, again, the immune system is going to be stronger, everything is going to be functioning at a much higher optimal level, and now the body can properly heal. And I'd be interesting to see that, how doing that reduces the actual recovery time for patients?

Unknown: 00:30:39

Oh, it's dramatic. Well, so here's a good metaphor. Here's a good example. Alcoholic with end stage liver disease, you put a new liver in him, he's workable, right? If he continues what he does, he's going to need another one. And he's going to have continued problems. But all every organ transplants confers competence, right, you put a brand new organ in that, then you've got all you've got a new physiologic competence. The microbiome now we know is characterized very properly as probably the most important organ in the body. And we know about fecal transplants, they work and they're incredibly dramatic. And a lot of times people don't want to hear about that. But you can take a fecal transplant, it works to it works in in Stage cancer patients. It works in metabolic syndrome patients, it works for all kinds of autoimmune disease. It works for autism, very dramatic videos that again, you can't find on the web, you know, but 20 years ago, they were very dramatic videos when people were realizing fecal transplants were effective, have very severe head banging, very repetitive behavior, what we know of as autistic behavior, fecal transplant, and 24 hours, that's a normal child, that's a normal child at 24 hours. Same thing with any kind of neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, all kinds of dementia, and all kinds of psychosis, by the way, he, it's it's stunning, right? So that's a very dramatic intervention. fecal transplant is taking the microbiome from a very healthy person putting it in somebody who's been struggling. And with lifestyle changes, we don't need that kind of a transplant, although it's still a very good idea in in drastic cases. But the microbiome can be trained can be changed dramatically in weeks. And it is the first order of business is stop toxifying. Stop killing the bugs, stop eating foods with antibiotics, right, stop killing all the microbiome, sorry, the microbes. And then put yourself back into a place that you were describing earlier, where you've got a wide variety of prebiotic food, which is the growth medium for for the right species of bacteria.

Melissa Deally: 00:33:00

I love you know, all that you've said there. And it's what's interesting in my research is the getting the health finding the healthy person to get the fecal transplant from can be difficult in today's time, is that true? In your experience, like I've heard, you're literally going to tribes in Africa that have never had access to an antibiotic in order to source that

Unknown: 00:33:28

the number of Healthy People is certainly declining. And we're also very interesting, we're changing the parameters of what it looks like to be, quote, healthy, which if people start paying attention, you'll realize almost never do we talk about what it means to be healthy. We talk about what it means to be normal. And your Doc's will talk to you about normal levels. And I just heard a practitioner the other day talking about the stepwise change in appropriate BMI, body mass index, right from I won't give you the numbers, but it used to be one number, you know, then all of a sudden, we had a higher percentage of the people who were obese in the modern world. And then it's now it's another number which is quote, normal. And yes, it is normal. But in order to shift the statistics, they actually changed what it meant to be healthy. So that they could say, well, this is normal. And I have another friend who just is famous for saying this is a terrifying place to be normal.

Melissa Deally: 00:34:27

Right? That's yeah, exactly. You don't want to be shifting as the as the society gets unhealthier that we shift our benchmarks to allow for that to continue. Yeah, versus helping people come back. Right. And, as you said, the body will heal so quickly, when we create that environment for it to heal. And that's powerful and all of the work that you know you're doing with the microbiome because the body always knows what it's doing. And it's trying to do the best it can, in any given circumstance based on what we're fueling it with. And, you know, toxins coming in included, even when we don't want that to be happening. But when we create that environment for it to heal, the body knows what to do. And it's very fast. And I love that because then people get the benefit of starting to feel better quickly. And then that gives them hope. And that motivates them to stick with the program. And when we can give people that hope, and have them motivated to stick with the program, and we guide them through it, they can drop out of that sympathetic nervous system state and into their parasympathetic nervous system when the body can truly heal. Because they know they're on the right path

Unknown: 00:35:47

now. It's a very creative and empowering place to be, yeah, to know that you've got resources to offer. And the, the body politic is always doing the right thing as well. And I have an idea that I like sharing that's called food as leadership. We have a nonprofit that brings yoga and meditation into schools. And I work in addiction centers, as well, and yoga, yoga teacher training programs, we have food as medicine modules for that. And a couple of years ago, it shifted into a farm to table school lunch program, because we're so toxifying our kids. So I thought it would be a good way to do microbiome education in the schools and do home gardening, which is probably going to become very important, right? Our food supplies are being threatened. And it's going to be important for people to have access, and then also have kids recognize, you know, some of this early physiology. And it results in happier, more clear and clever and motivated kids. So I've been using the phrase food as leadership, you know, where we are healthy, we're thriving, we're connected, we're able to do all these things that we've been talking about. And novel brainstorms show up, right, all of a sudden, you've got the creative ingenuity and the wisdom and the curiosity, that education is supposed to be an education, it's not supposed to stop a course, when you get out of school, it's that that's the nature of, you know, evolving creatures. But that the body politic is always a reflection of the functionality of the individual. So just the same way 10s of 1000s of species are collaborating and coordinating, right in ways that we probably don't understand a creative institution, or a family or a tribe, or, or a business, or a nation state is only as creative and flexible, and adaptive, and functional, as its individuals. And right now, we're in a lot of trouble because the our individuals are constricted, and inflamed and scared. Right, in some very unprecedented ways. And there's hope.

Melissa Deally: 00:38:05

And there's hope. And that's what I love is there's hope. And, you know, as you were talking there, earlier, you answered about the don't wait for your wake up call. And that's something that I always love to ask my guests. And you you talk to that at the very beginning. But I want to come back to a comment that you made when you were you know, thinking you were being responsible diagnosing with someone with MS and telling them this is how long it's going to be until you're in a wheelchair. This is how long it's going to be till you need a walker, etc. And you thought that was the right thing to do. I'd love for you to talk about why you now know that's not the right thing to be doing. And the power of mindset when it comes to healing.

Unknown: 00:38:47

There is almost nothing that we're calling disease today. Nothing that we're putting DSM codes on in calling pathology that was there when we were six months old. If you had a disease, if you came out of Mama's womb at six months, you may or may not have a lifelong condition, right? Even many kids who were born with something wrong, obviously get well. But if if you didn't have the disease when you were six months old, your body remembers right? Back to the petri dish conversation back to the ecosystem environment conversation. We are perfectly responsive of the things with which we surround ourselves perfectly. This this is a brilliant, vibrant, perfectly reactive organism. It's never doing anything wrong. Rage is the proper response. If something right if the the the if the menu of of conditions has suggested you're supposed to be ticked off, you'll be ticked off properly. Right. So that's that's a great wake up call is to be able to look in the mirror and say Emma there's nothing wrong Hear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with who I am or how I got here. But there's there is an investigation to be done right? If you don't like what you see in the mirror. And if you if you got scary news with a diagnosis, then there's some investigation to be done about. Okay, so what have I done to destroy the normal, the normal environment, the healthy, thriving environment, and it might be glyphosate in the soil and we and we're eating poison, it might be trans fats might be that you're eating a lot of antibiotics and hormones and disrupting the normal flow, you know, the normal bioenergetics. But we are electrical, and electrochemical and spiritual, spiritual, chemical, and many other things which I won't go down that ladder. But were a reflection of all of the different dynamics that are going on in this planet. I happen to notice that today was national mushroom day. But I didn't know that last week I was doing a broadcast and the mycelium are the root systems of the mushroom and actually make up a majority of the crust of the earth that's a mass, it's about 20% of the mass of the Earth is the root system, which is essentially the brain of the of the Earth, right. And the the the button mushroom, or the stocky mushroom is just the fruit of that. And just like our brain is a synthesis organ, it's just a reflection of all of the different dynamics that are going on. And it's it's, it is recording. And similarly, the mycelium the mushrooms are recording. And a friend of mine was saying, Yeah, well, that's that's exactly why you don't want to eat a mushroom that was grown by the side of the road, because it's got oil, and it's got they are they are the proper digestive assimilators. Right. All of that as a long preamble to answer your question, why do I? Why do I do that is to illustrate for people that there is always, always, always hope. And the first order of business is to stop shaming ourselves to stop saying that we've done something wrong. Some of it was by choice. That, you know, we got ourselves into trouble. And some of it was by somebody else's choice. Where we got ourselves in trouble, we can change our habits and put ourselves back into a place, right, where we can be making better choices. And where it looks like somebody else made the decision. The very powerful exclamation point on this whole thing is the number one thing to regain his personal sovereignty, and realize that our choices are our choices, and that there's nothing anybody else can do or say or create or mandate that can affect who I am. personal sovereignty says, Hey, I hear you. That's a great idea. Yes, I think I'll do that. Right. But we've gotten into a place I think, by default, where a lot of folks have decided that there's an expert over there. And there's no expert over there. This this is the expert. I'm not talking about Tom, I'm talking about, you know, each of us gets to look in here and go, You are the expert.

Melissa Deally: 00:43:13

Yes. Yeah, I often tell my clients that you are your own best doctor, because you've lived in your body your entire life. Right. And that's not to say that you can't go to the doctor for their expert advice. But if they're telling you nothing's wrong with you, because they run all the labs, and it all shows up normal, but you still feel like something's wrong with you, then you need to continue that investigation.

Unknown: 00:43:38

Brilliant. Yeah, that's the worst thing we can do is, you know, somebody goes to the doc and says, Hey, Doc, I'm off. And we look at something, we look at the scan and look at the blood and say you're fine, go home. That's not being of service. Yeah.

Melissa Deally: 00:43:51

Unfortunately, it is happening. So the you know, for those that are listening, that are in that space, to know that that's just an indicator to keep looking for the practitioner that you know, can guide you. Amen, because your body knows and your body talks to you and you need to listen. People are

Unknown: 00:44:11

looking for their or

Melissa Deally: 00:44:12

people are looking for their or exactly. I had another I had another book title lined up. I'm not a writer, I do the podcast because I'm not a writer. But my other book title was is we don't know what we don't know until we need to know. Nice. So I think that applies as well. And I know certainly for me in my journey into becoming a health and wellness practitioners like I just had no idea how much information was readily available that could allow me to improve the way I live my life so that I can show up and give the world the best of me and have optimal health and that I'm in control of that. And to your point earlier, we can stop giving up control to someone else and take that control back for ourselves. So, as we wrap up here on that note, I would love to ask you a to share how people can get hold of you, if you would like that and you would like people to be reaching out, I don't know, you know where you're at with your practice. Now, if you're looking for very specific clients, maybe you can talk about your ideal client. And then finish up with a message for the audience to inspire them to take action in their health journey today. Beautiful.

Unknown: 00:45:33

Well, we're gonna need another hour, I think, my contact information, feel free to email me Thomas Aklan, T Joe, mas AC KOIN, a yahoo.com. And I'll even give myself on 571-278-4326. Feel free to dial or text. Ideal Client really is somebody who resonates who watched this whole thing and resonates with your podcasts, great really gets, hey, well, I want to be in charge here. I want a lot of help. I, I want to be proven wrong. And much like that, will you ask their quote, somebody who's in touch with their air, their ignorance, their ignorance, I was gonna say arrogance, but that and that's probably true, too. Right? We all carry what we think are important constructs. And things are changing dramatically in recent times, and we're being faced with unprecedented pain, and some of that physical pain, some of that emotional pain. And a lot of institutions are will be dismantled here in the next generation or two. And similarly, the human body and the things that the human body participates in will be dismantled as our family dynamics change as our social dynamics change, etc. And so somebody who wants to take a spiritual approach, and that doesn't mean religious and it doesn't even need to mean anything organized. Spirit spirituality, to me is really that that ability to know, the coming version of myself is so shocking, so enlightening, so inspiring, that I will look at this someday, and I will realize why did I do that for so long? Right? That's, that's ignorance and arrogance. And we all are that. And it's I think it's healthy to claim that we are. Because there's a there's a better way on the way.

Melissa Deally: 00:47:33

I would agree. And you know, sometimes it's just that comes out of habit, right? This is what we this is the way we've always done it. This is who we believe we always are. And you know, we're busy in our lives. So we don't have time to be constantly looking in the mirror and challenging ourselves. But to your point for that person that is looking in the mirror and challenging themselves now, then you might want to reach out to Dr. Tom.

Unknown: 00:47:55

Look forward to meeting everybody. Yeah, so

Melissa Deally: 00:47:57

any, any just inspirational short tip to motivate someone to take action today on their health journey.

Unknown: 00:48:05

I work very deeply in the in the alcoholic and drug addict communities in the recovery communities. hitting bottom is when when somebody goes into recovery, they look back five years later, and they say that's the best thing that ever did. Right. And sometimes it doesn't take five years, sometimes it takes five hours. But we are all at a point where it would be probably one of the greatest gifts to the future of humanity and whatever the whatever the next generation emerging is to be able to say, Okay, let's just make this bottom. Let's from here, we go forward, and we go up. And even the good stuff, let's look back in 20 years and say, That was a great turning point. That was a great way it was a great place to stop, right. And then just pick one little thing that you're going to stop today. It could be anything. It doesn't have to be big, like quitting smoking or quitting drinking, or maybe maybe quit. Maybe quit driving past the Burger King, not to put a brand on apologies for that. But you know, maybe just once a week, maybe just once a week, decide, I'm not going to do that. I'm not something that you are going to do.

Melissa Deally: 00:49:18

Right to place that we want. To change the habit, we have to replace it with a good habit that is better serving for us. So I love that. Well thank you so much for your time here today, sharing with us just enlightening us in your work and you know, the way that our human body heals and what I really love that you're leaving us with is your comment that there is hope and that you know the chronic illnesses that we might have previously thought we would have for a lifetime. We can be cured from and so that's powerful for people to understand that and to know that and the only time we lose hope is When we give up and quit, as long as we're trying something and moving forward, there's still hope.

Unknown: 00:50:07

And the big, big, big reality is we were not allowed to quit. Right? That we will get through this unless Mother Nature just decides to shrug us as a species, we will we will evolve. And in the chaos, you know, a lot of what we talk about with metabolic flexibility, and autonomic flexibility is, can you handle the chaos? Can you handle the confrontation. And this happens to be the chaos and every major change every leap frog quantum leap forward in human being has come in times of revolution and chaos. And this happens to be one of those times, and we are going to get through this. And it's going to be very fascinating to see what's over there. So the best thing we can do is stay alert, stay awake, and put ourselves in proper, proper enough shape. So that we can so that we can pop out,

Melissa Deally: 00:51:03

come out the other side and enjoy the benefits of that. Amen. So yeah, so much for what you do. My pleasure, I'm so glad that we connected and to the audience, thank you for listening to another episode of Don't wait for your wake up call and reach out to Dr. Tom, if he has inspired you to do so through this podcast session today. So thank you very much. And see you next time. I'm excited to let you know about a new workshop that I'm offering is called the boost your immune system workshop. And I'll be offering it on December the first at 3pm. Pacific and then December 3 at 9:30am. Pacific to reach more people in more time zones. This will be a one hour workshop where I will be teaching you five habits that you may have that are actually weakening your immune system. And when we know better, we can do better, right? As well as steps you can be taking to be strengthening your immune system. Your immune system is like a muscle and every day. You're either weakening it or strengthening it. Well during the times that we live in. Now it is more important than ever, to be taking conscious action in strengthening our immune system, which you can do when you learn how. So it's an hour of your time for information that you can take and start implementing right away, share it with your family and loved one. And to me, that's priceless. So click on the link in the show notes to register. And I look forward to seeing you there.