This is episode 3 and today we're going to talk to Chris Mansbridge.

 

Chris is probably one of my favorite long-distance relationships of all time, and at the beginning of this interview, I actually take my hat off my head and I jam it into my mouth to try and suppress my laughter. Chris Mansbridge is quite simply the best the funniest. He's a Chinese medicine doctor and acupuncturist.

 

I don't want to spoil any of the interview because we got into a lot more of what he is. I'm not going to give you any more qualifiers but I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast recorded at my home in Squamish British Columbia.

 

Music: You are listening to the Lawless Podcast.

 

Andrea: Okay, what would be a rundown of you?

 

Chris:  Run down of me?

 

Andrea: Mhhmhmm

 

Chris: Mhhmhmm.   I guess there be a career run down, a personal rundown. So which do you want?

 

Andrea: Mhhmhmm

 

Chris: Let’s go personal with the career. Do you want me to do that?

 

Andrea: Yuh, you can do whatever you want. You are the boss.

 

Chris: I, essentially graduated high school and became a ski bum for quite seven or eight years, and that's how I met you in Whistler. I suffered a countless amount of injuries and you when I was 25 I was in a lot of pain and I decided I need to move away from hurting myself. I really respected the people who made me feel better. I moved into becoming an acupuncturist to becoming someone who deals essentially with pain, stress, indigestion and insomnia are the big things I work on. I kind of move my career in that direction.

 

As far as career, I've built this acupuncture practice around pain but I still wanted to have this character of the person I am.  I don’t know but I think I wanted things to be fun like healing doesn't have to be super emotional and sad. Is there even a word? But anyways it should not feel like a hobby, it should be an enjoyable process. That's what I want to create, an enjoyable process of healing.

 

Andrea: I get things about your character that are  funny like how you have telus believe that your name is Glenn Danzig.

 

Chris: They called me Glenn Danzig for proportional representation.

 

Andrea: Oh nice.

 

Chris: Somebody form proportional representation, sent me these automated texts. It started, “hey it's Kelly, I just heard you're voting for a rep, just make sure that you are getting your stuff in”. Some would say, “Hey Glenn Danzig, it’s Kelly”, and I was like, “hey Kelly I'm on tour right now with my band Danzig and I won't be back before the deadline. I was wondering if I could just get someone else to fill out my ballot and had it in for me.

 

You know voter fraud?

 

Andrea: Yes.

 

Chris: And she is like, “yuh, sounds good! Why don’t you do that? Is it a family member?

No, it’s going to be Rick Rubin, my producer of my first three albums. You can see it's on my phone still. She’s like, “yuh, sounds good”. So I just busted somebody for a voter fraud.  I don't know, that was like I can't get enough of that stuff.

 

I've had like endless amounts of people calling me, like serious Glenn Danzig fans wanting to meet up. It’s the funniest!

 

Andrea: Why is it fun? Is it because you play along with?

 

Chris:  It's just strange I guess. Like I don't want to make fun of anybody but I'd like to have fun with people. Do you know what I mean?

 

Like when a telemarketer who called and I was like yeah I would love to switch to Verizon Wireless or whatever it is but I'm just busy like recording my album right now, and he is like, “Oh!  I'm a musician too!. I'm like, oh what's your DJ name? And he is like, “I’m Dj Sillycious”.

And I’m like, I’m Glenn Danzig, I have over thirty albums out right now have you heard of me? And he’s like, “Mhhmhmm, no, I haven't. And I’m like, how many albums do you have DJ Sillycious? He’s like, “hmmm, none, but I'm playing at my uncle's barmets bar”.  So I was like, go to my website, Danzigfraudic.com. I’m like, where do you live? Sweet I'll be in Sacramento, that’s by the closest place too. I'll put you on the door, or do you want a plus one on the door for DJ Sillycious? It's so fun right?

 

I think the goal is to like, essentially if you can joke around with someone and make their day better or you don’t joke around someone and make their day worse. If DJ Sillycious was probably pretty stoped to be Glenn Danzig and he doesn't need to know he didn't.

Andrea: I think there's like different instances in it. I can think of some of your posters you sent me that you put up around Nelson?

 

Chris: Yuh, some of those have gone as well. For the most part I have this like, sort of my therapeutic, my personal therapy is that I live in Nelson which is a super hippy, ultra spiritual town. The poster boards always had like level 1, Reiki Masters, offering by donation, sliding skills, treatments for past live and relieving people from spirit animal or whatever.

 

Some of them gets pretty weird and I like to try to create some really weird ones but not too weird that they're obviously a joke. I had this one poster it was positive vibes Panchos. It said something in one of the lines that says like, for sale now for a limited time only. Positive vibe Panchos. It is selling its unique brand of organic wool, alpaca or camoot Pancho's.  I think of every Pancho is a circle and around the circle is Gandhi, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith and Buddha and in the center of the circle, the head hole is you. Surround yourself with these historical brothers. One size fits all. $150 dollars. Contact: I always put my old contact, Soul Merchant at Seawhale@Ievictout.ca which is my old roommate. And then a bunch of triple Namaste, no returns or something like.

 

On the same paper in the same font right below it's like wanted your used rug or carpet, animal stains, paint,  doesn't matter about dander I just cut them into circles, cut a head hole in them and sell them to some gullible long beard for an inflated price contact gourd at Seawhale@Ievictout.ca. Thanks. Support the troops, you know just stuff like that.  

 

I guess I've been doing that for like 7 years. I had ads for crunk yoga and then it was clearly a joke and then after that there's other posters going up for real crank yoga.

 

Andrea: I remember that.

 

Chris:  And then it was clearly a joke and then after that there's other posters going up for real crank yoga.

 

Andrea: Like you started the thing?

 

Chris: Yuh, because people actually really like yeah we want to find out how to put the yo in yoga.  That Namaste and Namaste as it said on the poster. I was like, I’m sorry all full. You know, I don’t think you've got what it takes.  

 

Then there's other posters going out for a yogas and DJ yogis and DJs and so we kind of accidentally started something.

 

Andrea: You are pioneer.

 

Chris: Pioneer of bad ideas.

 

Andrea: I always thought it was also like with those posters that you sent me that it's giving an opportunity for people to take a different look at themselves and do not take themselves so seriously or just snap them out like we were talking a little bit before about spiritual bypassing and things like that when people that have such tunnel vision that you know they can't even read but actually on the poster they are only seeing what they want to see.

 

Chris: Yes, I wish I was doing it for that. That sounds great.

 

Andrea: Maybe subconsciously.

 

Chris: Yuh, I’m doing it because we need to; no matter who we are, we need to make fun of ourselves.

 

I am a spiritual vegan from Nelson but at the same time I'm going to make fun of every single spiritual vegan from Nelson. I reserve that right.

 

Andrea: Almost because you refuse to go in like a box or to you know the departure from like rethinking I think is what kind of gets me.

 

Chris: Yeah totally, I think we need to make fun of how absurd we are and I think for some reason that makes me more comfortable being absurd when I can know how silly it is.

 

We were talking about that escapism of spirituality how valuable that can be but there is a time, there's a point where it doesn't become escapism anymore, it becomes avoidance.

 

Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

 

Chris: Just before the podcast, we’re talking about something like this.  I work as an acupuncturist. I practice with people, I mean I treat pain, I treat addictions, I work at the hospital on in Castlegar and I treat people who have substance abuse addictions.

 

There's one person who I've known through my practice who is a heroin addict and he said that the reason he got into heroin is because for him life was life like the Journey of life was essential climbing a mountain for him. Most of the time when you're climbing a mountain you are in the forest and when you are in the forest you don't really see the peak. Sometimes you are not sure if you're on the right path. He said you, doing drugs for him was an ability to climb up one of the trees in the forest. When he was at the top of the tree he could see the peak, and he can see his path and he can see whether he was on the right path or not. It was a perfect perspective for what he needed to do in his life. Unfortunately he said he just never got down from the tree.

 

At the top of the tree you're still further from the top of the mountain because you have to go back down. He says there's a lot of spiders in those trees. I think that was like the most beautiful analogy of escapism turning into avoidance. I don't want this to be an ad for heroin.

 

The idea of taking a moment to go somewhere to get perspective is brilliant and such a powerful tool. It could be sports, it could be vacation it could be spirituality.  At the same time, if you never return, it's not going to help you and it's just going to essentially get you further and further behind.

 

Anytime you escape right so if you're trying to, you have a certain goal in your business or your relationship and you're like I need to step away from that right now, your business stops, your relationship stops, all these things stop. At the top of the tree when you're at that perspective, actually your goals that you wanted to hit with your relationship for your business or whatever, they're on pause and they're not going as they're not building like they would if you're working on them. But you have that opportunity to be able to say, am I going in the right direction? Is this right for me?

 

Once you have that perspective you can go back and correct it. But if you never go back and correct then you're just avoiding something. The two feel so similar you know but the difference is, avoidance, you never return and so you end up sacrificing all these other things whether its relationship or career or whatever else it is. You never find best solution to those things.

 

Andrea: When are you using that analogy? How do you bring it back into your work then? Do you use that to show them how going through the spiders that's like a process for like the healing or?

 

Chris: I think everyone could use some escapism sometimes right? I was talking to someone just a few days ago. They were trying to evaluate their relationship whether they should continue with the relationship or they have or trying to start something new. I don't have that answer.They're like well I'm going to go travel. Now is a good time to travel for you and I use that analogy.

 

Are you are you traveling away from your partner to escape your partner and get some perspective on the relationship? Or are you just trying to get away from him?  I'd say now would be a great time to travel if it's going to bring perspective into this kind of turning point in your life. If you are just trying to avoid it's going to put everything on pause. Not even pause, it is going to put your life on pause but other other factors are still moving and you don't have control over those factors. Whether when the person gets home, the other gets fed up with things or things can change when you come back.

 

Andrea: I think like when I think of that, there's so many other factors involved, it's not necessarily just the partner. It’s like going a little bit deeper and actually looking at what the things you are trying to escape because maybe there's nothing to do with the partner.  Maybe it's your career choice, or parts of your family or just your past or all those other things but then you kind of put the focus or something.

 

Chris: What I learned in Medicine but I’ve never really learned in textbooks is, People are just, we make patterns all the time. Whether it's our sleep patterns, our exercise pattern, our posture, our eating patterns, our digestion, our body gets used to patterns and it likes to keep those patterns. Even if it's like someone who has back pain, it's a negative pattern of how always having this pain in your back. You go to the acupuncture massage whatever and it feels better for a couple days but then it comes back because your body tries to maintain what it is used to.

 

Andrea: You are just treating the symptom not the origin.

 

Chris: Even if you are treating the origin, it will still want to come back just because it takes time for things to change. That's why they talk about treatment courses, not just going for a treatment. Even if you're treating the root, you had your 20 years in a pattern vs. 1 hour breaking that pattern. It does not happen that fast. It is worthwhile to look at what those patterns are. If it is something that's outside of you that's happening or is this something that you know you're creating.

 

I went so Social Distortion few months ago and Mike Ness said something like if you don't like what you're always getting you need to look at what you're putting out. If you don't like what what you're getting, you have to look at what you're giving. I wish I thought of saying it that way.

 

Andrea: It’s funny my uncle had a full knee replacement and I think he was in Physio and I cannot remember, It was like three or four months and at that point he should have been not walking with a limp anymore but he's like doing all this all this stuff and he still has a limp. She had him like do a whole bunch of different things, it's almost like Simon says. She's like, do this, do this, do that and she said walk backwards and she had him like walk backwards and he didn't limp. Because it was just so in his head was the limp. She changed the pattern and he became conscious about it, his limp went away.

 

Chris: It’s pretty amazing.

 

Andrea: It’s funny.  

Chris: Yeah and people like to talk about Placebo lot when I talk about patterns and stuff like that. Placebo is kind of a dead word in some ways.

 

In Chinese medicine, they talked about this Shen,  they don't have the word Placebo, but they that word, which is in Chinese character, the small definition means mind. If you translated the character into one word, it would be mind. If you extrapolated the character even more it would be your interaction with your environment.

The Shen, the mind isn't housed in the brain. The brain is something different than the mind. The mind is housed in the heart. It is essentially the mind is much more of an emotional Center then it is a neuron stock processing center.

 

How you can change someone's interaction with their environment can create these endless changes in the body. It sounds like that’s what she was doing. If you think of how your mind feels when you are going downtown inside were your interaction with the environment is so much different I suppose when you go back to visit your family back home. I think it is such a pivotal piece of health is, that mine Health, or that changing perspective or that help to change those patterns through recognition of what's going on.

 

Andrea: Which is cool but usually, you don’t really put yourself in the opportunity to shift unless like something major has happened or.

 

Chris: there's all these turning points right like turning points should be called last chance points. When you are ready, you should have turned. Few years ago or never gone down that direction. That brings us back to escapism.

The positive side of it, is like this, it's having this scout go up and take a look and do some extra work; to take a break from where you're trying to go and take a look at it. Should I be going there in the first place? I'm going to the mountains behind me, I'm going in the wrong direction. Do you know what I mean?

 

Andrea: Totally.

 

Chris:  And that is the value of escapism. But if you're going in the wrong direction, you’re like, oh!  I'm going in the wrong direction, whatever I'm making good time. Let's keep going, that’s a problem to itself.

 

Andrea: Yuh, that is interesting. What do you think about meditation?

 

Chris: I guess, using that model, sure! it could be something wonderful that you know is super convenient it's accessible to everyone cuz it's incredibly affordable. You don't have to go buy a meditation punch pass or you subscribe to get real meditation of the day via CrossFit or whatever your mod. I think you'll all the studies are showing super positive results from people doing meditation and I have my own practice. At the same time, it should be there to create balance in your life but if all you do is meditate, your life is imbalanced in the other direction.

 

Chinese medicine is a balance based medicine. So yeah that yin and yang that sort of said activity outward moving versus slowing down a moving inward. Right. So the person who meditates all the day and does nothing else is just as unbalanced as the person who works all the day and does nothing else. So you know, for the most part, most people just works all day and do nothing else. So for for the majority of people, I think it's brilliant and for everyone it has a role.

 

Andrea: But they find their own version of meditation?

 

Chris: Whatever that coalescing, inward moving, Yin activity is. It could be stretching, could be yoga, could be slow walk, it could be time with her dog or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be such and such meditation for this recommended time. Imbalance is where injury lies.

 

Andrea: I think people kinda tripped up with balance though, because they think that balance is just like being in this one state of just calm. All the time I think that's why people are like, oh I’m not balanced or maybe it’s kinda maybe more of an equation. You need to offset a little bit, like you're not always going to be.

 

Chris:  Yuh, I mean, that total calm, I don't think it's realistic either. Unless you know, for me to be totally balanced, I might have to give up a lot of my responsibilities and then have to drop my guilt on on doing that. It’s like, I can't be calm and raise a nine-year-old so I’d have to give them away and then being in a relationships is hard so I might just have divorce my wife then I get it. It had to be like for me, to be totally calm, I have to be a horrible person. You can be calm and a total great person but I don't think I could do it. I can be like, oh, I had a stressful day with my kid who wants to play fortnite and I’m dead set against it so you we’re arguing over that and then I get home and my wife super busy and I feel like I feel like I'm second playing second to her phone Candy Crush addiction or whatever it is. You know, I feel like I need something I'm not getting there. How do I balance that? Do I work on rectifying the relationships at that time, or do I try and do something else to balance the way I'm feeling? It’s a hard equation to know but I mean, just creating that balance, there was a time that I would escape.

 

Andrea:   Or you just go inward.

 

Chris: Or it’s a time where I go inward right? What would I do, probably play guitar for a while or probably pout for 15 minutes and then I'd probably do something practical about it, do some meditation or something.

 

Andrea: Taichi.

 

Chris: Yuh, I’m telling you right?

 

Andrea:  I think one of the most fascinating points in your relationship; I’ve never met your wife, but whenever I think of it, I just think that you were married by Gwar.

 

Chris: Yuh, totally right.  So there's another sort of I don't know. So there's this my…, If was if this was a business podcast which it seems to be sometimes, my biggest piece I would give people of information is ask.

 

Throughout all of my, one of the biggest successes I've had in my business is just asking everybody. Not for unreasonable things but asking for some sort of exchange. So like, yesterday, I was in contact with the acupuncturist for the Buffalo Sabres and the Buffalo Bills. You know we built the relationships I've asked for some help with certain things and I was willing to compensate them for it. And likewise you know I've asked if I could do some studying with the U.S. Olympic team trainers and I've got to do that which is really great. And you know the worst thing they can do is say no.

 

So same way when I was eloping with my wife we're going to go down to see Gwar. We just showed up early.

 

Andrea: Where were you?

 

Chris: We were in Spokane Washington.

 

Andrea: Ok.

 

Chris:  So we drove down Spokane Washington from Nelson and pulled out front of the venue like 4:00. The show was around 8 o'clock or something that. I saw one guys with the lamb’s net and it's like you know like in Wayne's World with a backstage pass, and one of the guys was like, “ Hey man, you with one of the bands”?  He’s like, “Yeah”. You’re with Gwar?. He's like Yeah. And I was like, hey! I and my girlfriend are eloping down from Canada and we're wondering if we get paid two hundred fifty dollars towards the chorus of Merch Memorial Fund which is your guitarist who passed away quite recently in respect for his family, his wife and kid. If your singer or just anyone else could marry us backstage? And he looks at me, and he’s like, where is the ring? Such a goddamn thing to say right? I didn't get my wife a ring, I got her a gold calculator watch .She showed him the gold calculator watch and he goes, a Casio? And throws a cigarette and walks away.

 

That didn't work. And like all what else can we do. I mean we're on like we're outside this hard metal venue in a wedding dress and tuxedo.

 

Andrea: Oh, you're fully dressed?

 

Chris: We were fully dressed for it. So about 10 minutes later he comes back with two backstage passes. And he's like, 9:40 at the Merch booth, bring cash. Don’t be late. We're like awesome this is amazing. So I have to give them to my wife because I was like you know, when you're so excited you like I can't believe I have these I'm just going to rip them for no reason.

 

Andrea: It's like your boarding pass?

 

Chris: Yeah exactly, yeah. It’s like a boarding pass fever. And so we went for dinner at a restaurant called Sushi dot.com which their website isn't even sushi dot.com.

It's like you know no one has the website for sushi.com.

 

Andrea: It’s worth a million dollars.

 

Chris: All right. And so I, we go for dinner. We came back. We go see the concert bands which was the opening band for you know, opening wedding band and then Devildriver played next. And we're like OK let's go to the Merch booth let's be there early so we were waiting at the Merch booth. Amy's like she has to go get her veil from coat check and all the bouncers were like, “are you guys sure you're in the right place”? Do you kind of notice how people are dressed different than you? Okay,okay you guys come in. Just say we didn't warn you.

 

And so she goes and gets her veil from coat check and the person at coat check was like, “what do you have a veil for? She's like, oh we're getting married backstage and the coat check was like, “you're like Oh my God, oh my God, coat check is on me.” Like so excited. Then this guy behind her is like, “what are you getting married for?” Who are you marrying? Back there with a ripping shirt? Does he even have a job? And she's like, well no, no he doesn't but he's well, and he’s like, are you sure you want to marry him? Where are you marrying him? Oh at the backstage, and he is like, “I’m the sound guy, I'm going to be backstage”, and she's like, Oh well that's great. Do you want to be his best man? He's like oh sure.

 

And so the road manager comes in and he's like oh yo yo yo come back by. We are going to come by and we are going to marry you really quite quick.

 

He pull us backstage and its gross, concrete hallway and you stand there you stand there. Gwar is going to come in, you give him his money. They're going to marry you really quick, and then you're going to get out of here. And I was like, yeah Amy pretty romantic huh?

 

Andrea: And you're like this is the life we are going to live.

 

Chris: Exactly. This is this is welcome to the Chris Mansbridge ride. Buckle up. And so we were standing back there. Larry the sound guy come stumbling in with us like rain coat .

 

Andrea: To be your best man.

 

Chris: To be our best man. Devil driver's coming off the stage and they’re like, whoa, someone’s fucking getting married back here?  Cool. So devildriver walks by and it's kind of gross slimy walls, all concrete and at the end of the hallway there's like this elevator door. And Gwar has their own sound guy. And he’s like he comes out, he's like, “Hey man, I really heard you guys are doing this, this is so great. This is really so nice of you. You know Corey was a really good friend of mine. I really appreciate you guys raising some money for him. And I was like hey man we just really appreciate being here.

 

We don't want to be like, hmm we're just going to get married. You know this is kind of for us. Yeah but as like yeah no it's great. And then a few seconds later these like elevator doors open, and like and there's Gwar, and if you don't know who Gwar is, you need to look up what they look like. And so Dave Brockie Oderus Urungus is in the front. He's got this giant like cuttlefish you know waist apparel and giant swords come off his shoulders. All these kind of you know metal space aliens coming down like, oh God these are the two people I got to marry. Come down, come down the hallway (looks over at me) and says I heard you're so cheap you didn't give her a ring.

 

And Amy shows him her watch and he's like, Oh well that's kind of way better than a ring. I mean can't really do a show with a ring can you? Okay how do I do this? OK. And he starts to do the wedding ceremony. He's like Do you assholes do you wench take this asshole to be your final and only fuck thing for the rest of your life? And I'm like I do. He goes do you wench take this asshole to clean up, after you wash your dishes. Watch those horrible girl movies that you know you like to watch as romantic comedies? See I'm kind of making it better for you blah, blah, blah, for the rest of your life? And she's like I do. He's like I understand you got some money for us.

 

Andrea: Straight to the point.

 

Chris: And then, so I got it all in like five dollar bills at 250 and five which I can't do the math right now but that's pretty thick.

 

Andrea: It’s a lot of bills.

 

Chris: And he's got like his giant rubber claws that he performs in. And so I'm trying to put the bills in his hands.  It's like probably 15 seconds we're doing it for but it felt like a minute of just trying to place all 250 dollars in ones and fives or whatever it was.

 

Andrea: Because it is an American.

 

Chris:  And so he'd like cannot hold onto it to save his life. And then after like you know this is all done is like, do you want me to just give it to your sound guy over there? And he say, oh yeah. That would be good if you could just do that. I really appreciate that.

Andrea: Yeah, yeah. He's your best man.

 

Chris: And then Larry well that's their sound guy and then Larry that venues sound guy. We asked him to film it. He's like, I'll film it on my phone. And so he's got his phone recording. So give him the money. Dave Brockie gets back into characters like, OK, by the power invested in me I pronounce you 2 things. And so I. I assume that means you may now kiss the bride. So we're going for that wedding kiss which is super amazing and beautiful and just you know time standing still. Rolling down this gross concrete hallway and you know just three rolls down the hallway kissing and just like, I just never want this moment to end.

 

And you know I don't even care about the cons anymore. We'll just spend the whole night kissing back here and then I hear this voice and it goes Wow! It's like watching porn and look and its Larry the sound guy filming it on his phone. Yeah. Maybe not the best thing to say right now. And we look over and there's all the Gwar and their giant costumes with their head cocked with like. Oh look on their faces and a big jaw faces. Yeah. And then they went back, they went on stage and started you know fake killing everything and shooting in blood everywhere and it was like the weirdest but yet incredibly special moment.

 

Andrea: In setting the stage for the Chris Mansbridge best experience.

 

Chris: Exactly. The same acts as it’s known.

 

Andrea: Ahh, that is nice, I never heard that.

 

Chris: The first time that I've used it.

 

Andrea: Oh, ok. Perfect.

 

Chris: Yeah.

 

Andrea: So it's like, oh wow, I'm so in tune. I know what I’m going to say.

 

Chris: I just made it up right now. Yeah I was thinking why not. I think weddings. I mean me and my wife both had this thing about weddings. There is there's something there right. But it's there's so much work to do it.

 

Andrea: Yeah. I think it takes away from the intimacy.

 

Chris: I imagine. Yeah I mean we haven't done any other way but I imagine. It's probably a good test of your relationship if you can get to do a wedding. I found the one thing that was missing, it’s like we eloped and then we're like yeah and we told everybody. Then we got a big dinner afterwards and that was a really important piece because we realized we united myself and Amy but I think it is especially important in a wedding is uniting the communities. My community of me and my sister, my dad, my nieces and that side of the family with my wife's sisters and kids and parents and now that that was really missing.

 

Andrea: I think it's like the balance piece right.

 

Chris:  Absolutely right. You know it's just like these with these two little figures that need to be balanced by our communities. And so we were the one to bring these communities together which was really important.

 

Andrea: Yeah. It was still like convey your spirit near. I don't want to say the word extras in it but you know I mean yeah like your flavor. Your perspective. Your style.

 

Chris: I think if I got married in a church. No. Would have been terrible. Yeah. I mean yeah. Yeah. I don't really see.

 

Andrea: In line with your core values.  

 

Chris: In line of my core values. I mean I don't really see myself as wanting to do things that are similar to other people a lot. So I don't know why I would do that.

 

Andrea: Mm hmm.

 

Chris: And you know after a while its people start noticing those things you do and some people actually kind of like it you know.

 

Andrea: Well my perception is that you make everything an opportunity.

 

Chris: That is very true. So my dad said when I was really little, he said, the best thing Napoleon ever did was say that a good general can turn any disadvantage into an advantage. And so, I was like, whoa whatever is going on, there was something funny or something we can really fuck up to for our benefit you know.

 

Andrea: Yeah. And it's like a mindset setting.

 

Chris: Totally. And I did it kind of in a lot of the wrong ways in the past by kind of not doing the right ways. Yeah. Like when I became a security guard in Whistler and I was just like sneaking my friends into every building and having these like fake chases. It was so awesome. I'm ought to you know. It was great. Like I was like the best security guard. Like I was chasing down guys like high speed sprints and it was just my drunk friends was like you know getting into these buildings and then chasing them out I was like the best hide and seek game in the world.

Andrea:  Yeah. But even when you first got here you went for a sprint.

 

Chris: Yeah I did. I want to race with your dog. And see what it was made of.

 

Andrea: And what is she made of?

 

Chris: A poop. A lot of like that came out yeah.

 

Andrea: She's like a horse. She doesn't like to slow down.

 

Chris: No it's full of high speed, nice speed projection.

 

Andrea: Yeah she's intense. It's funny. Yeah. Because that is what's your other job was always like you were a firefighter too.

 

Chris: I was a firefighter for a while. Well I was just like, that was just I worked in the bush for a long time and um after I had actually left Whistler I really decided I needed to like suffer. So I went to I don't know I just felt like I needed to really find out what I was made of. So I really want to strip myself down and see what my core values were I guess. And so I went up and I worked in production forestry like Silva culture surveys brushing planting that sort of stuff and I like worked endlessly hard and worked for a company that put their employees in pretty compromising positions like it was you know or you know 300 kilometers down a logging road with four of us. And like you know near to towns like two dry towns that were like in this light essentially this war between them where you know people were getting killed and we were we were camping just you know five kilometers outside of one of them it was it was pretty wild you know. And then I would just work insanely hard out. Like so hard I was like getting sick like I was throwing up. It was something I felt at the time I needed to do. You know what I mean?

 

And you know like being a scheme I had this great life it wasn't super comfortable but it was wonderful. I wanted to have a much less comfortable life than that just to see what I was made of or I don't even know why. But you know I did come out with like this weird, it sounds so stupid but like it was like the one thing I really realized is you need to enjoy sucking.

 

Andrea: Like the Grit?

 

Chris:  Like you need it just yeah. You need to enjoy it when things suck. You need to enjoy when you're bad at things or you need to enjoy bad situations. If you can do that then everything else is easier. Do you know what I mean?

 

Like if you're working with this like somehow as a 17 year old who is like she's doing self-culture service, all this self-stocking service and she's not breaking a sweat all day and she's getting twice the numbers as I know she's just making all their numbers up. It's called Ghost plotting and where you essentially you make everything up thing because a people never check you because you're 300 kilometers out in some logging road. You know you just make up all your numbers. Then someone else who's carrying a rifle around you've got like you know these warring people around you it's like , hope you can find something fun about this, man the world is your oyster.

 

Andrea: Completely.

 

Chris:  I did that for about three years. I just kind of put myself in these like bad as possible conditions and near like drug addicts who were like stealing vehicles and driving them away and craziest things I could find and trying to find with some enjoyment in them. It was like, how everything is easy. Do you know what I mean? Not everything but everything is easier.

 

I had to come to the point that I could like you know have some guy, steal my truck, my friend’s credit card, take off and then we track the purchases on the what we call the credit card company and he's buying, he's stopping at the liquor stores and like Mark's Work Wearhouse, you know, marks and other like and so he is going, he stole a company vehicle stole, stole a employee’s credit card and he's stopping to get boots and more work clothes. Like how funny is that! Like super drunk.

 

Andrea: The winters interest priority.

 

Chris: Like, driving this truck super drunk, and like “oh, better get some clothes for work tomorrow.

 

Andrea: Yuh, this is an opportunity.

 

Chris: I’m sure they’ll have me back right? He should have probably getting some jail clothes.

 

Andrea:  And I think that's like a testament to people operating at that like really unconscious level.

 

Chris: Absolutely. Right?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure he went back to jail after that. You know, if you can just find something good about that? You know, you don’t have to be so realistic as well. If I just thought it was funny, I didn't care about my friend getting his credit card stolen, I’d be a bad person but if you can understand everything that's happening but still find something enjoyable about it, we can't lose.

 

Andrea: You can smile every day or find that I'm not sure.

 

Chris: Tell me.

Andrea: I always kind of worry about that there were some time when I was really inappropriate and not sensitive. Like when our mom got,  when our mom was diagnosed with brain cancer and it was like not very good like diagnosis and my brother is making jokes about like that he might have to find the Easter eggs or whatever like she got to hide around Easter eggs and stuff. And I was like, oh ok, see, it’s just my family, like you know, we are all a little inappropriate, we’re all, that’s just how we get on.

 

Chris: It’s picking your audience right? Maybe to your mom that's freaking funny and if it is awesome right and I was so taboo. I was, I at a birthday party the other day and one of the guys is pretty funny but he's in a wheelchair. I don't know much about him but I know well enough that I know he's got a pretty wild sense of humor. I was like, and he's like, man I've only had two drinks tonight, and I was like, but yuh, you couldn’t even fucking stand.

 

Andrea: You said that to him?

 

Chris: Yuh, which was like a horrible thing to say to anyone you don’t know. But he like, Howard seems like yeah. It was like, no one, no one will use that, do you know what I mean? And he loves wheelchair jokes. Do you know what I mean? Humor was great.

 

Andrea: Take the elephant in the room too.

 

Chris: Totally, right? And so he loved that but I would never do that to anyone else I do not know.  Because it's just horrible thing to say. I mean just picking your audience.

 

Andrea: Political correctness now is like, I don’t know but it really bothers me sometimes. There's this lady and her daughter has Down syndrome. I think she’s like 5 or 6 and when Adele, because my sister has down syndrome, when they met, Adele said, “Oh, down syndrome”, and the lady said, “oh well, we actually call it trisomy 21 because we're both a mess, and I was like, okay cool, but you know she's 33 at this point like am I really going to tell her she doesn't have Down syndrome anymore, that's pretty confusing and you know but it was like the way she kind of like, deliver that information.

 

Chris: Totally, and I think with your sister is so cool because like you're down with the syndrome. You know I mean like you're like, I think you've given her a real opportunity to embrace that. So not be like you're just like everyone else. It's like no, there's something that's different about you. That’s really cool. That's really unique. And that's what I see with your sister.

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris: How alike. It's this vehicle and this opportunity to do all this cool stuff and be different. You know I mean?

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris:  As supposed to be like I think she can be just like someone everyone else, do you know what I mean? Which I don't think is wrong either. I think that like she seems to really love like you know getting all these cool opportunities you present with her.

 

Andreas: And she's just she's her age she's just totally her in the moment.

 

Chris: Totally.

 

Andrea: and just like unfiltered.

 

Chris: Totally.

 

Andrea: Like, what kind of music do you like Adele?

 

Adele: Loud.

 

Andrea: I think she does, like any type. Like she's happy.

 

Chris: Totally. Hmm. And then if you but if you're to say no Adele that's not what we do here. Like you know like it's proper for people to turn music down low, lower because that's more respectful to others like someone. It's not it's not wrong to do that but it’s just not as fun. Yeah.

 

Chris: You know what I mean?

 

Andrea: Totally.

 

Chris: And then why not have some fun right.

 

Andrea: Yeah completely.

 

Chris: So it’s kind of there's this guy Eric who has Down syndrome in Nelson where I live. I just think of Adele and like all the time like I'm just saying like what Andrea would do if this is Andrea and Adele? And we get along like a house on fire. So like his big thing is you know, he first came up to me and he's like, Hey there's something on your shirt and he points down and then gives me the big flick up nice and so he flicked me up in the face and I went down like down on the ground fully passed out like Ahhhhh! And he loved that. And now that's like that's our thing right. Like why not. Yeah like I think his mom hates it but I'm not I'm not around to impress his mom right now.

 

Andrea: Yeah. Well that's your perception too.

 

Chris: Yeah let's be bad. You know, you might not like me but you'll never forget me.

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris: Words to live by.

 

Andrea: Yeah it's hilarious. Last weekend I saw this boy with Down syndrome and kind of start talking. But I always feel kind of creepy like to start you know and I know I'm the only sister that sounds and doing this and that. That’s how we started chatting and then I told his mom that my sister had done center and they were going to the movies and I said that we've gone to Bohemian Rhapsody like I took Adele to it. And she’s like, Oh, is it that really good? And I said yeah, like Adele loved it. And then I was like Oh, but you know what, I don't know if it's actually appropriate. It is restricted you know, men kiss each other and she was down. She loved it. But it's so cool. And then yeah she's like Oh well how well do your sister and I said 36 and she's like yeah he's 24 I'm not really quite there yet. Yeah yeah yeah. That's great. Yeah but it's also like with down syndrome it's such a spectrum from like you know mild to very profound and I would say it was kind of in the middle.

 

Chris: Mm hmm. I mean it's just like, of the like people who see babies they're like, “Oh my God” yeah I was a baby once. Yeah we know yeah like people just take the liberty to look at everybody's babies. So yeah I don't know. I guess it is different. Yeah it's like cause there's so many, like the town we live in is so white when you see someone not white I kind of like you know you kind of get that oh hey look at this. This double look in fact I'm one of the guys in a black lives matter movement was up doing it talk and he's like he's like I get looked at different here. Back in Baltimore I get looked at with hatred and here I get looked as like oh no way there's a black person.

 

Andrea: This is exciting.

 

Chris: Which I though like yeah. To me there's nothing wrong with that. You have to be great once it's normalized and there's enough people that diverse people like that. I mean we our diversity is like you know is on the wide scale it's from like anemic vegan to like Australian local Australian. That's about our diversity.

 

Andrea: Yeah. You know what I think about, when we were talking? I was thinking about words when we started our sewing club.

 

Chris: Oh yeah, RSS.

 

Andrea: And I was telling someone the other day about it because them I was saying how you wanted to learn how to sew but to do it you actually got a couple of sewing machines that were broken and then completely rebuilt them. So you like understood.

 

Chris: Yeah. That worked. Yeah. So I was working it like a sabre rentals in Whistler. And so like you know I was working with tools every day and I was like I was saving up for my for the winter and so yeah I just got one or two broken sewing machines and then like got the guy the parts guy to get me some schematics all the parts and figured how it worked. That was if I can understand how the sewing machine worked then I would understand how to use this sewing machine which I wouldn't say I was never that good but that was the way I guess I was the way I learned.

 

Andrea: Yeah. And do you think that translates over into your Chinese medicine?

 

Chris: I think I just talked to you about it. It's like if a mechanic.

 

Andrea: Before our podcast.

Chris: Before our podcast. We're talking about like fixing the zoom, mixer or whatever and how a mechanic would be like, oh this this volume knob is broken, it's broken here, let's just get new volume knob this how you put it on, put it back on. The counter mind would be like ,oh this volume sounds broken. That must be horrible for you, do you know what I mean? I would love to do is get someone to help you fix up, but first I want to make sure you're OK. Do you know what I mean? And so it's like I think both, I mean it's absurd to do it with an inanimate object but humans are a bit of both. You know I mean we're like yeah we want to be fixed.

 

So in my practice someone has shoulder pain they've had shoulder pain for 30 years. Well let's fix it. But also if they've had shoulder pain for 30 years people have failed to fix it for 30 years and that must feel really bad to be like failure and have like 30 years of not the success he wanted so that's worth addressing and I think that's why Chinese medicine is so cool because we talk about that Shen right that that interaction of the heart, mind, the spirit. The emotions right.

 

So if I you know with any injury there's always going to be an emotional component and that's that's so worth bringing in. Some of the other acupuncture or professional organizations like the NFL or the NHL.

 

Andrea: Or the Sabres and the bills.

 

Chris:  Yeah. Yeah. Those two. Yeah. Their focus is really seems to be you know they're in a big program right. They physios have trainers and then they get something like Ok released their elevator scan. OK. That's their job which is would be such a cool job to have don't get me wrong that I mean things like let's release the elevator scab, how are you sleeping. You must be pretty frustrated whereas this frustration for injury also impeding your performance right. Is it that you're upset all the time your head's not clear, is it keeping you up at night, and you're not sleeping as well you know. So there's all these other pieces to look at.

 

We can look at the body like a car or we look at the musculature or the bones like we would you know an inanimate object that we need to repair. But then the rest of it needs to be treated like this life form that needs to be nourished as well.

 

Andrea: It’s like I’ve been to a deep place.

 

Chris: Welcome back.

 

Andrea: Thank you for that. Crazy. All right. Well anything else that we should talk about.

 

Chris: Oh so I guess if we're can talk about business, let's say the one thing I talked about was asking right. And the best thing I've done for my act my business is asking people who know more than me. Do you know what I mean? And then you know it is business can be lawless. Right. But I don't think it should be Planless. So you know sometimes my business some things I do my business are just weird marketing or some like that that I think is fun and super nourishing and that sort of thing. But it's not that I don't have a plan. It's not that I don't know where the top of the mountain is. You know what I mean. Yeah.

You know I've taken my time to escape to find out what direction I want to go. And now I'm back working to get there. And sometimes I deviate off because Oh this whole side trip looks fun and this oh this creek looks neat. Let's go. Yeah. Go push my friend into it. But I still have a plan and a direction.

 

Andrea: Do you use mentors or how are you setting up your plan?

 

Chris:  Yeah. So I have like, I had a practice building coach last year who a chiropractor who essentially builds these big chiropractors big chiropractic practices. And so you've used that just to help with the.

 

Andrea: The business model.

 

Chris: The business model and that sort of thing. And the thing that's funny, the more efficient streamlined my business model is, the more revenue I make. And then the more revenue I make, the more I go and pursue courses of interest to make my practice better. Do you know what I mean?

 

Andrea: Yes this is a beautiful cycle.

 

Chris: It's a beautiful cycle right. Cause then you have it you're motivated to make more money and then once you make that money you put it back into yourself. And you become a better practitioner and help people better. And if you help people better, you know more people want to come see you.

 

So it's like a very positive capitalist system. But it's a very positive cycle of revenue, do you know I mean? It's like you know you could just like OK I'm going to cut all costs and make my make money giving OK treatments but good enough and I'm going to market super hard to people and there and you can certainly do that. But I'd rather create a system where I can create good revenue, keep on putting it back into myself and you know because really I didn't get into acupuncture to become rich. I went into acupuncture to help people who were who were like me when I was hurt and frustrated when I was a ski bum. But if I can generate some revenue doing it I can do it more and I can do it better.

 

Andrea: Mm hmm. Yeah. The purpose.

 

Chris: Now tell me.

 

Andrea: Yeah for sure. It's kinda like marketing and stuff to you because you like, for marketing what you are looking at? You're looking at communicating like some of the best qualities of the business. What you're really doing. Kind of like your why and that's why people are so connected to stories now.

 

Chris: Totally.

 

Andrea: I Think now.

Chris: And that's that's another thing we're talking about just before the podcast was how so much of you know seven out of ten doctors recommend Colgate as opposed to not brushing or like you just some some some.

 

Andrea: You're saying how people now are more concerned with social or.

 

Chris: Social proof of social life because we've been fed so many of these statistics. And if we go on the internet we can find proof that anything is true and we can also find proof that the exact same thing is also not true.

 

Andrea: Yeah, but what we can connect to is what we know and if it's a person that we respect and has similar core values or we see ourselves in them then.

 

Chris: Absolutely. So it's like we reconnect to stories we connect to your friend who comes and is like, Oh I you know I went and saw this whatever practitioner and oh my god it really turned things around for me and I had you know I was I wasn't sleeping well I was stress like oh sometimes I don't sleep well sometimes I'm stressed and you know and this is someone I know is. So when I see my friend trust them I trust my friend. Why wouldn't you. Right. As opposed to all of this great stat came out on this. You know this practitioner it's like Yeah.

 

Andrea: But I think there's a moment in that when you need to take a breath and really weigh it all in.

 

Chris: Absolutely. Yeah absolutely. I think it's good to have that, not to talk about, you know El Ron Hubbard Scientology? You know how we got people into Scientology? So he had this initial, cause me, Bret and Craigada, we were walked by the Scientology office whatever in Vancouver let's go get personality exams Yeah and again.

 

Andrea: Amazing. I didn’t know they that.

 

Chris: Let's mess with them. So I did tens is a scale everything out of ten. I was just like tens all the way. Let's see what happens. Yeah and Brett and Craig, Craig put me in like one sort of thing and Bret was somewhere in the middle.

 

Andrea: Which maybe you guys are like a spectrum.

 

Chris: Totally. Then we all came out with the same result.

 

Andrea: Interesting.

 

Chris: Right. Yeah same result. We really need the Book of Dianetics. Which is a first book of Scientology. Are they bridging book Scientology by EL Ron Hubbard. Do you know what I mean.I mean I think it's like, I don't have anything good to say about Scientology but I think what's really clever is the book Dianetics is a concept taken from some you know some eastern faith and essentially they package it into using your analytical mind over your reactive mind.

 

Reactive mind is like, you’re in a car crash, you're like that guy cut me off, he smashed my car ,that's going to cost so much money I won't kill this guy. And you're after that comes your analytical mind is like, am I OK? Is everything OK? Am I safe here? Is the other person safe? Do you know what I mean? And it's about talking with your analytical mind. And so that's like, if you know when you hear something really great about a practitioner or anything you're like, wow, your reaction is, wow that sounds great. I want that.

 

Andrea: Mm hmm.

 

Chris: Well your analytical mind is like, well is that something I need? Is that gonna be right for me? What’s this gonna cost?

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris: What are the risks associated with it? Right. Like there's so much like, a friend of mine calls up, brought science medicine, do you know I mean? He’s like, hey guys, and this some guy with the shirt off on YouTube, Hey guys, you want a body like mine? And you've got a drink like four pints of like you know, rat urine in a day, or whatever it is. And I don't know how science backed it is, but you know what you want a body like that guy. Right. So you know it's look, it's evaluating the risk associated and the cost and a lot of stuff I think is really, there are a lot of it. When people ask me in my practice they're like, do you think I should do this? Well, what are the risks? Like I don't know. I'll tell you what I think the risks are. And a lot of it's like, I think you stand to risk losing some money trying this but I don't really think there are many health risks.

 

Andrea: Mm hmm yeah.

 

Chris: So think about what that money is. Think if you're willing to risk that in something that may help you but there's not a lot of science on it. And if you want to take that risk go for it. And please let me know how it is. I'd really like to know. Yeah because you know, hey maybe it’ll Maybe help them tremendously.

 

Andrea: It’s a perspective.

 

Chris: I just don't want it. I want to caution people anything that might hurt them.

 

Andrea: Mm hmm. Totally. I've had a few people tell me that they think I have a parasite. My friend showed me this thing on YouTube.

 

Chris; Oh, there we go.

 

Andrea: Right. Yeah. And there you show me this thing on YouTube where somebody with like a parasite, pees into whenever something and then they drink that pee and then the parasites gone. And I was like, oh yeah, cool. I don't know if I'm really, I can't picture myself taking my own urine in like what is this even like based off of. In my head I'm like, how desperate would I have to be to do that.

 

Chris: Scientifically, I don't I don't get it, like you know essentially, your body, think about it we've got this body that's evolved for however many thousands of years depending on your belief system or your science you're going by and or created and if you believe in evolution it's evolved to have things that it needs and not things it doesn't need. Right? This concept you don't need it, you don't feed it. We don't have tails anymore because we didn't need the tails so we didn't have them. We eventually lost them.

 

And then we have this beautiful like waste filtration system. So we have these you know these kidneys that filter out however many you know liters and liters and liters of blood and they filter all the wastes in the area and everything out of the blood and put it in a bladder and then excrete them out of the body. It's amazing like sewage filtration plumbing system. And it's evolved over thousands of years. And then you pee it and you're like, oh let's put that back in and see what it does.

 

Andrea: Because this is so refined now, all that waste.

 

Chris: We've refined all the waste.

 

Andrea: Yes exactly.

 

Chris: We will give you the highest doses of waste. These other companies they say they got some good waste. No we've got like the ultimate refined waste P.H. balanced for your body.

 

Andrea: Yeah. Which a lot of people have made a lot of money. Like compost, they get paid to take your compost away and then they sell it back for your soil.

 

Chris: That’s great, I might have to start selling my urine in the same way. What I'd say is, perhaps there is something there. Do you know what I mean? What's the risk of you drinking your urine? The risks are all those wastes

 

Andrea: Vomit.

 

Chris: All of those waste that you've spent all that time excreting out of the body, like you know hydrogen and stuff like that. You know. I wouldn't say there's too much toxic stuff there but more like waste molecules that we've spent all the time. You just go and put it right back and then your body is gonna say Oh these are waste, I might filter them out and pee again. Yeah. So, what are the risks that if you tell anybody they're gonna tell their friends that you drink your pee.

 

Andrea: They’ll make a youtube video of it.

 

Chris: There is going to be some obvious like PPE tape Donald Trump jokes that you're going to be involved into.

Andrea: Mm hmm.

 

Chris: Will it make you better? You know some people have talked about drinking, socially, there's been some social proof and proof is lower case pee that people have drank urine for sciatic pain side pain. Some people have used urine topically as a disinfectant.

 

Andrea: OK.

 

Chris: You know so if they had like if they're out in the bush and they had a big blister on their foot you could pee on your foot and use that as a disinfectant for parasites. I don't see how a jellyfish you know parasites live in the intestines. The urine is coming from the bloodstream.

Like so my reactionary mind says, Ew! My analytical mind says Mm hmm. I don't get it but yeah there’s no sense, no harm in researching it further. Yeah. I’m not going to do it.

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris: I'm not going to recommend it.

 

Andrea: Yeah it's interesting too. I was thinking about when I sent you a picture of my face and my tongue. Yeah. And then you're telling me how it looks like I've been under intense stress for a long time and then your analogy about stress defenses with like, if we see a bear and then we get that. Like that Rush.

 

Chris: I've never, I was never taught this in this order but it's something that I've put together from a bunch of different courses and schooling and that experience is like, so you know we have if you believe in evolution we have emotions for a reason. So we have those emotions. Some sometimes to connect right to create to create connections between people because if we're a tribal for a tribal species, then you know being in groups helps our survival. So emotions are important. The other reason we have emotions I believe is, for on alerting ourselves.

 

So if we're hunter gatherers back before we had cars and houses and fences and we're hunting gathering berry picking berries and also this bear pops out of the woods it's right in front of me. That stress, that fear is gonna kick off that fight or flight you know that sympathetic nervous system that autonomic nervous system sympathetic response. What that does is all a sudden it makes all of the releases adrenaline, epinephrine releases essentially to bring more blood to our muscles. Right. Because we gotta get ready to fight this bear or run away from it. So it's our fight or flight. It also is going to heighten all our senses, makes us sweat a little bit so we don't overheat. Actually often increase cardio system kind of so allow us to feel pain a bit more which seems a little bit backwards, we think that we should be able to take no pain when we're under adrenaline but we also want to make sure we're alerted if we're injured because we're so preoccupied. We want to be alerted of a life threatening injury, if we are so scared of something. So what happens is that, if we see these bears, we run away, we fight or we freeze or whatever and it goes away most and we survived because we had the survival advantage were able to run fast or fight harder. That's a good thing for us to have in that situation. If the others back in many thousands of years who didn't have it wouldn't run as fast right? They might get eaten by the bear something like that. Now, we don't see that many bears like I probably seen maybe a dozen beers in my life, you know, something like that, that weren't in the dumps and many of those I wasn't in compromising positions with right there's been a few where it's been a bit spooky.

 

We get to stress responses all the time, like I call them with my clients invisible bears because we had those things that give us a feeling of fear, anxiety, frustration, anger that create that fight or flight response. You know bear attack is 30 seconds to 5 minutes sort of thing it's usually pretty quick. We get that that fear or anxiety or whatever that emotion is that can last all day, every day, all night and never ends it's like we're seeing invisible bears all day.

 

Now, if we look at, go back to that fight or flight response with a blood goes to a muscle so we can fight harder run faster, we got to think of that blood has to come from somewhere. Now, in the instance of about getting killed in 30 seconds to five minutes, we don't really care about our digestion. So, it will constrict the blood vessels around our digestive system and shunt the blood to our muscles. That way we can, well that’s where we get our blood from.

 

The downside of that is, if we do that all day, every day we don't have enough nourishment into our digestive system which is where we're getting all our food and processing all our food that we're supposed to get our energy from.

 

The common signs of anxiety or long-term anxiety or anger or any prolonged emotion is typically going to see this digestive decline. You are going to see digestive function decrease. So you are going to feel more tired. Not as much of that the nutrients from your food is going to get processed in the digestive system and filtered into the bloodstream and so we're going to feel tired now we're going to be, that the science of you know pale skin, anemia, low energy.

 

Our brain requires a lot of nutrients, lot of blood and so you start feeling dizzy, tired, and we have trouble moving in from that wake cycle to that sleep cycle. When your tired and your brains going but you just can't fall asleep. The other thing that happens is, if we're firing those adrenalines all the time, all the time, all the time, they’ll settle on top of the kidneys. We start seeing like, in Chinese medicine, what they call a little bit of a kidney decline.

 

So we tend to see more frequent urination and particularly we see waking up at night between 1 and 3 in the morning. Having to get up and go pee and then just can't fall back asleep. That is so common with that kidney deficiency, adrenal fatigue and that stress response.

 

If the blood is malnourish, you can’t nourish the skin, we start seeing you know, more that skin irritations that are dull and dry sort of thing. We might have seem loose stools you know.  Energy is low. Other things in guys, you will see a little of balding from that adrenal fatigue and and graying hair as well.

 

I see so much coming from that stress response and so again to tie back to what we're looking at before, the reactionary mind versus analytical mind which is the old Eastern wisdom.

 

That idea of taking a break, escaping from this crazy world we are in but not avoiding it. If we avoid it, those bears are just piling up at home. Your house is full of these invisible bears that you haven't dealt with. Do you know what I mean? So every time you go back there is such a stressor that you want to escape or you want to avoid even more.

 

Andrea: Mhhmhmm. Yeah, and they are real like change for your pattern is by you know staying in your house dealing with the Bears.

Chris: Yeah, so the virtue of stress and anxiety in Chinese medicine is acceptance.  Anxiety is like, what if this happens, when this happens, if I do this, this might happen, if I do this, you know, I might lose this, I risk this. Anger is like, I can't believe this is happening, why this is happening, I’m frustrated, this shouldn’t have happened, why me, you know. See how these two things that are like, what's going to happen in the future, anxiety and what happened in the past, I can't believe, do you know what I mean?

 

Andrea: And it can be present.

 

Chris: Neither of those are in the present exactly. I think acceptance is a big piece of being in the present. Peace comes with accepted so acceptances like, I did this, this happened to me. I kind of got screwed over, this sucks I'm not happy about it but I accept that it's happened and it's done. In the future, I've got some things I'm not sure of but I know I'm not sure them. You know what I mean. I know my risk and I'm going to have to do the best I can.

 

That is acceptance, that's where that peace comes from, you know. That is a Dao Te Ching, like the second most reproduced book in the world besides the Bible is the Dao Te Ching which is an old Chinese text. One of the chapters says, if you're anxious, you are living in the future, if you're depressed, you're living in the past, if you're at peace, you are living in the present which, what we are trying to say there.

 

Andrea: Totally. It’s like your visit is so timely. Boom.

 

Chris: Psshhhhew..

 

Andrea: Explosion. Cool, that maybe a good ender.

 

Chris: It’s an ender there.

 

Andrea: I think that was it. Thank you so much. I hope this just keep coming up.

 

Chris: Totally, right.

 

Andrea: Yeah.

 

Chris: This guy won’t stop talking.

 

Andrea: Oh no, it’s good.

 

Chris: You might not like me but you'll never forget me.

 

Andrea: Hahahah.

 

Chris: Thank you very much Andrea:

 

Andrea: Thank you Chris.