Everything You Need Is Already Inside You

0:01 Thank you. Thank you. I have spent years in conversation with people who are successful by every measure and still quietly restless, not broken, not lost, just aware somewhere underneath the noise that there is a version of their life that feels more honest, more grounded, more genuinely theirs. This podcast exists for those people, for the ones who are done performing and ready to go deeper.

0:56 My name is Dr. Doug. Welcome to Inspire Vision. I am glad you are here. Faust, welcome back. It's a pleasure to be spending time with you again. I want the audience to know this is, what, our third time now, but one was in, what, 2020? One was in 2022. Here we are in 2026, and you have done some amazing things since then. You're a prolific writer, which is just amazing to me. But for the people who didn't hear our previous ones, let the audience know a little bit about your background.

1:38 Absolutely. My name is Foster Ruggiero. I'm a counselor. I've been counseling people for, God, 45 years now, and I still am. And I've written seven books. I call the Fix Yourself Empowerment Series. And those have been doing nicely for me. I run a radio show, and... You know, I stay busy. I was going to retire, but retirement wouldn't let me in, so I have to keep on going. So, you know, what I find, which is always interesting, is we choose our professions. And many people, and one of the things I've been doing, and I don't even know if we talked about this years ago, but I have what's called a 4D personal portrait. And what that does is help people to understand how a number of things, but very importantly, what are the areas of professions that they would be most comfortable in? Because as you know, there's so many people in their midlife that are not feeling comfortable where they're working.

2:41 Yes, they've been there their whole life. And so here you are, and I can tell you're totally comfortable in what you do as a counselor and so forth. What brought you to that point? What caused you to make the decision to go to school to get that type of degree and to become a counselor? You know, Doug, I've said this for years. There are people who get jobs, go into professions, and there are those of us who are fortunate enough to answer a call. And that's really what I did. I mean, this was what I was going to do from the time I was a kid. You know, I've always been fascinated with people. So by the time I got into high school, I knew it was going to be psychology. And then went to school and grad school and all those things we do.

3:28 And came out and counseled in various places before starting a private practice back in 88, 1988. So still going. And you know what? I still love to be with people. You learn from every person that you meet. And it's just for me still a wonderful experience. You know, and there are so many counselors out there that I don't think have ever written a book. So what was the motivation for you to write? I think when we first talked, you'd only written one book. So what was the motivation for you to write seven books? Yeah. You know, it's interesting.

4:09 I think I did it right. I didn't rush into it before I... wrote the first book. That's a mistake most people make. They start typing or dictating, whatever. I spent a year learning the whole publishing field and how it was supposed to work. I thought about doing a book for a long time. I knew what I wanted to write that first book, the Fix Yourself Handbook. I knew I wanted to give people a book that had many, in any case, turned to be 36 processes that they could work on. So when the time came, I sat down knowing what I had to do to at least move it to the next level. And I enjoyed the process.

4:51 And when it hit the, you know, the agent said, here, let's get it to the copy editor. And the copy editor says, oh, yeah, you got something good going here. Well, that was nice to hear. But, you know, it's one of those things where you're an overnight sensation that took a decade to unfold. You know, people look now and say, oh, wow, that's so great. I said, yeah, but you don't know all those days that I spent inside dictating when it was sunny outside and everybody was hanging by the pool. You don't know those days. Well, and, you know, what's interesting is I've interviewed a number of people. And previous to our discussion here, folks, we were talking. And how many podcasts have you done now?

5:36 I am. They tell me close to 700, 680, something like that. That's amazing. I've only done 530 plus, so there we go. But what fascinates me is that as I have talked to various people, and particularly where we're focused on helping someone truly to overcome, to transform, and in my mind, truly to become who they were originally and innately, One of the things that fascinates me is that one of the things that people have talked about is there's all sorts of processes, but one of them is writing, either writing a personal journal or whatever that happens to be. Just because now you've written seven, what have you found emotionally has that done for you when you have been able to put your thoughts down on paper and obviously in a book?

6:35 You know... It's. Interesting you say that. I remember when I wrote the first book and then I read it. And then I went back, you know, because I'm counseling now. I had no thought in my mind to continue to write. I was glad I did that. But I started to realize I put all my thoughts in one place. And now I was actually drawing on what I wrote when I was counseling. So there was this reciprocity that I experienced. The other thing is the book, the first book was designed to get people from a point of conflict to inner peace, what I called pure love, what a Buddhist might call nirvana. It was designed to do that, and I started, and I began to realize that it was working. I was connecting with myself. So, you know, writing for me became, I hate to put it this way, but a spiritual kind of a journey, which is probably why I kept up with it, because I enjoyed it so much.

7:27 Well, and I think helping people to understand, I don't know how often as you're counseling people, you recommend that they start a journal or they start writing something. Do you find you do that or is that not necessarily part of your process? It's not an integral part of the process, but I do talk to people. Do you write your thoughts down? Well, why would I do that? Well, just get them out. The emptying process is great, but then read them after you do that and see what they mean to you. It's a really nice way to to organize your thoughts and your feelings. So do I do that? Yeah. You know, some people, you know, that, you know, I know the guy that works in the foundry and barely writes his name is not going to come in. You know, he doesn't want any part of that. So you might scare people away. But then there are other people that say, well, I'll try it. And they come back and they say, well, I did some good things for me. So they'll keep it up. And then you have your journalers. You know, they started journaling before they even met me. You know, so then we just fine tune something.

8:30 You know, and it's interesting how over time I have heard, you know, write, write, write, write, write, and I've just can't do it, can't do it. I just can't do it. And all of a sudden, in the last number of months, I am just writing, writing articles for Substack. And it's amazing to me as thoughts come into my mind and it's like, okay, here's what I want to talk about this time. It's amazing. As you say, as you go back and then start to read them, it just... renews something within you and helps you to think even more and create greater curiosity. So your first book we know about, what was the next book that you wrote and why that one?

9:14 Now, you know, it's 2019 in December, the first one came out. Now we're moving down a few years and I'm watching this country go into the pandemic. And I'm watching the way people are responding or overreacting. And I said the anxiety level was through the roof. And I thought, well, you know, I talked about that a lot in the first book. So two things happened. I said, I'm going to go anxiety next because I think people need to get an idea of what it's all about, how they're reacting to it, and kind of a roadmap through it so you can learn how to deal with it. I wanted that. That was certainly something that I thought was very important. And then I also wanted to, it made me look and say, well, gee, you know, I've got 36 chapters in the first book, all talking about different things, anxiety, depression, what have you. I think I'm going to take some of those chapters and expand on them. So now I had the anxiety chapter written. It was almost like an outline.

10:19 I said, okay, here's all the things I've done. I think I'm going to see what turning this into a manuscript began to look like. So I wrote the outline, which is how I write. I research it. I know the points I want to do. Then I write an outline, chapter by chapter outline. Then I write in order to satisfy that outline. And so I wrote the outline and said, okay, this looks like something I'm going to try again. That was a whole lot different than the first time around. I wasn't typing, I was dictating. My thoughts were coming out, just really going. I'm a much better dictator than I am a typer, Doug. You know, spellcheck. I burn spellcheckers out, let me say that.

10:59 Yeah, yeah, I. Get it. So I began doing that. And now we talked, we looked at the pandemic, anxiety, and people were getting back and saying, this is helping me, you know. And that's where I started to say, Start journaling your thoughts. Where's the emotion coming from? And when I write, if you remember, I write short chapters. I like to put a lot of information in seven or eight pages. Then I want action steps because I want to make it practical. I want to give them, okay, here's your information. Now do this. And they were coming back and saying, yeah, those steps. Now I was taking those and that's something to grab onto in this pandemic because I was spending all my time in the house doing crazy things that were just killing me.

11:49 Yeah, and you know, you talk about anxiety during the pandemic. That hasn't gone away. And in fact, what fascinates me, and again, you know, since you and I have talked, I've been doing a lot of fun things. I've created this concept, and it's based on everyone else's work, so I cannot take personal credit for it. But emotions and the emotional levels. And it's interesting, here we are, we've gone from anxiety now down, down, down that path of emotional levels to anger. And now we see such anger. But here's my question for you. As you look at people who are now experiencing anxiety, anger, it's always been my understanding, and I don't know how you feel about this as a counselor, as a professional counselor, but how much of that is related to inner imprints that people have developed and experienced from childhood on rather than a brain type of situation in other words you know a lot of people say well you know what you're experiencing anxiety because your brain is working this way or that way rather than saying you're experiencing anxiety because and then going back into that situation in childhood that initiated that whole concept of experiencing events and creating anxiety within themselves?

13:21 You know, Doug, it's a great question. What I've found over the years of counseling is that the more negative kinds of things, anxiety, depression, anger, those things, they have a tendency to work backward. When we get in those frames of mind, we tend to think about... well, that happened when I was a kid, and this is happening even at work. This is going on now, and I don't like this, but they're unresolved issues. I call them undercurrents, and they flow all the time, and if we don't resolve them, if we don't get to a point where they either don't have impact on us or we at least know how to deal with those, then it's like it goes back and gets pain buddies, if you will.

14:09 Let me just grab onto this, and now we We think we have rational reasons for why we feel the way we do. You know, that's the same thing we've talked about for years. Why do you go to counseling? Well, we want to resolve some of those issues, you know, so that they don't keep coming up. And how do you know you have them? When you get angry, when you get depressed, when you get anxious. Are you going backward? Are you remembering what happened as a kid? Or this bully? Or that time that didn't work out? Or this guy did this to me? Or those types of things, or what I did. What did I do that maybe I hurt someone else and I'm a bad person? We tend to go back and get those things when we feel the anger, the depression, and the anxiety come up.

14:53 Well, and I think that's such an important point. I think about Buddhism. Obviously, living here in Thailand, I've had a chance to study that. And it's fascinating to me, as Buddha taught, that You know, that suffering, that anxiety, all that we experience can be done away with it. And it's not that the events go away, because they don't. But our response to those events changes. And to me, it's fascinating, you know, as you talk about it, that, you know, here's an event that occurs. It's our inner self that determines the way emotionally that we respond to that. And so my question for you is, and everyone has their own methodology, but as you're working with people, you know, obviously, number one, they've got to be able to recognize it.

15:47 But secondarily, how do you help them? What are some of the processes that you go through with them and guide them in order for them to be able to recognize that this is this is a childhood imprint or this is an imprint from somebody that said something to me when I was a teenager or whatever, even as an adult. What are some of the processes you help them to not only recognize that that's what's going on, but again, when I had my dental practice, my assistants used to get so upset because I'd ask them five questions at a time. But I'm doing the same thing to you now.

16:29 But as we get there, then how do they set that aside so that it's not affecting them to the degree so that they're not reacting? In fact, I just wrote an article on this. How we react rather than act, how we are at the effect rather than at cause in our emotions. How do you help people, number one, to recognize it, number two, to understand that that's what's affecting them, and number three, How do they then start to put that aside? I don't think that they eliminate it, but I think that they're able to put it aside, develop neural pathways so that it no longer is affecting them.

17:14 You know, Doug, it's a wonderful point. When we counsel people, we want them to understand what they're experiencing and how they're experiencing that. We want them to understand how they're interpreting it. because that's very important in terms of how they're going to deal with it. We want them to understand. And then as they're interpreting, how they're processing their emotions and their thoughts about it, and then how they're going to respond to it. And so when you say, okay, what's commonsensical here? The first step in that process that you're talking about, slow down. You got it. We are going at it, particularly in the Western world, we're going 100 miles an hour and no brake pedals. You know, you can't process your emotions. You can't think about what's going on in your life. If you're running, the first thing I tell them is we've got to slow you down.

18:09 Then you have to be willing to go through the process. You're going to get committed to this and understand that it's going to take some time. But the key to that is there's no end time. The end time will be when we stop breathing. During that period of time, our brains will continue to learn. So since that's going to happen, why not feed that with information and emotion that's healthy and feels good for us? So we want to make this a journey that's going to be there every day of your life. You want to keep on learning. You want to keep on processing good information and doing things that help you connect with yourself. And then finally, what's out there? What's out there is 10% of it, really.

18:58 Most of it's here. And we do the opposite. We're so concerned about what's out there and we forget about going in and being strong inside. Okay, so you talk about depression, anger. I don't have the whole list of all of your seven books, but do you find that each one of those, I know that you've got your depression, your anger, your addiction. Is it You wrote on individual topics. Are there specific things that are distinct and individual to those emotional situations, or is it more of a common overview?

19:42 Both. And if you think about it, that makes good sense. If I'm going to be anxious about something, I might get angry. I might start spinning it in my head. I have a book on internal language. Now I might spin it there and do hopefully something good, but maybe something not so good. I might get depressed. I might pick up more alcohol or marijuana than I should. So all those things can connect. But on the other hand, they have their own causal agents, if you will. They have their own way they develop inside us and how they rearrange our lives. So we have a tendency to take something, for example, we'll use an example, we'll use anger.

20:30 We get angry and then what happens? Now we think it's only here. Well, the whole body gets involved. and it gets intense, and the adrenaline pumps, and cortisol levels rise, and now we're in this thing where we start to get furious, and now what happens is we start thinking, well, that guy did this, and I don't like it because of that, or I'm turning it on myself, and I don't like me, so now my internal world gets not only angry, it starts to get dark. I may feed it with a substance. Now I might start to get depressed, and And boy, now I'm dealing with all those kinds of feelings. So it starts, all of them have their own individual components. But on the other hand, they can grab each other and bond together. And now you have this whole mess. And that's where people get lost. I don't know where to go with this. You know, I'll say, well, let's start the counseling. I don't even know where to begin.

21:31 I always say, it doesn't matter where you begin. I'll get us back to the starting block. You just start talking. Well, and you get into this whole concept, and I don't know how much you believe in it, but this whole concept of the quantum field, quantum area of our lives, and how so often the energy that we have created within ourselves is what we attract. And do. You find that that's the case with people that you're working with, that as they start to change that, internal aspect of themselves and to start to minimize and move away from those imprints and so forth, that they start to experience different things in their lives?

22:15 Well, there's no doubt about it. Not only do we attract people, whether it's positive or more negative, we search them out consciously because they don't challenge what we're dealing with. You know, if I'm not feeling good about myself, I'm probably not apt to go out bond with somebody close, bring someone close who has a life that's in tune. And that might say to me, well, I don't know about that thing you're doing. I don't want to hear that. On the other hand, once I start to realize myself, once I start to feel good, now I want more people there because I want to keep that process going.

22:58 We just got to get that wheel turning. Once we get that going, Yeah, then they'll consciously seek out other people to become close to who are positive forces. Well, and I love to talk about the positive somehow. We end up talking about the negative sometimes. But this is one thing that comes to my mind is social media. And it's fascinating to me as I go on to Facebook. And I have a number of friends that are just, you know, they produce beautiful pictures and their thoughts and so forth are wonderful. And then I have really good friends. who are angry and they just keep posting all of this stuff. And I think, you know, for people who are experiencing that anger in their lives, it seems from what you're telling me is they will continue to listen to social media that talks about anger, that is anger.

23:49 And the more that they do that, the deeper they bury themselves in that pit of anger. And, you know, we see that all the time. People are, you know, on Facebook. And you can see, even the ones that are posting great positive things, we're not sure about all that because I'm going to tell you how wonderful my life is. I'm living it. I don't think I need to tell you about it. But, you know, we here, we have been taught in this culture and many cultures about time management and being productive. But what we don't talk about is energy management, internal energy management.

24:30 We don't talk about that. And what I say to my people is, hey, regardless of what you do, think about trying to infuse that with positive energy. And when you're done doing whatever you do, be able to ask yourself the question, did I feel good about that? Did it make me feel good? Did it put me in a position to succeed? Did it put me in a position to feel good about myself and the people around me, to connect deeper inside myself? Did it do those things? That's what positive energy is. And that's what we need to be focusing on. We focus on time management and we watch the clock and we have to be productive and get this done and get that done. And we measure ourselves that way. But we don't measure ourselves according to the energy that we're experiencing, that we're fostering in ourselves and that we're giving off. We don't put a lot of conscious energy into that.

25:24 Well, and you know, it's interesting. I just did an interview the other day and briefly, uh, someone mentioned talking a little bit about plant medicine and, you know, in kind of a positive way, but, you know, here in Thailand, I see, you know, we talk about the people just being so much at peace, even, even in the type of lives, you know, they're lucky if they're living off of two, $ 300 a month. Um, and, and yet to a large degree, and it's really true, um, You know, when I meet people, they're kind, they're loving, they're respectful. They're always, in fact, it was really interesting.

26:08 I got so tired of people. And the minute I met them here, they say, how old are you? How old are you? And this has been going on for three years. And I have been, it just drives me crazy. Maybe that's one of my imprints, right? But just the other day, my wife and I were talking and she finally explained it to me. She says, Doug, They want to know how old you are because the words that they use will show respect based on your age. And they will use different words to refer to you depending on your age. And I thought, wow, that is amazing. But here's the other thing that I've seen is that there's a tremendous amount of alcoholism. And you mentioned that a little bit.

26:54 But you know, to me, I see that, you know, as they go through, then ultimately in the evening, they're drinking, they're drinking, they're drinking. And I suspect that they're doing that to just emotionally overcome some of the frustrations that they're experiencing. And we don't have to get into that. But I do want to ask your professional opinion about plant medicine, because there's so many people out there now that are promoting going on this journey with the plant medicine, and it's going to really heal you. Emotionally and so forth. Now they're talking a lot more clinically, at least a little bit, about mushrooms and microdosing that and so forth.

27:36 Just for my own personal curiosity, I'm interested in what you think about that, what you've seen via the research, and what's the difference between doing it with care and guidance and mentorship versus trying to do it on your own thinking that's going to solve some issues. Well, as you were talking, Doug, I'm saying to myself, that's what I was saying to myself, you know, uh, you see an ad somewhere and it's plant-based this and it's, and you say, Oh, now I got to get some of that. And I'm going to get some of that. By the time you're done, you can have a box this big full of all the things you're supposed to be taking. And, um, no guidance whatsoever. At the very least, I say, get it from respectable sources. But the better thing to do is if you've decided to go in that direction, identify someone who can be your mentor or your guide and can get you through that. That's common sense.

28:38 I like that particular way of going rather than medicinal approaches. Medicinal approach is when, you know, chemical... Those, in my mind, are always the last resort. You're psychotic. The bipolar is so bad, and we may need to get you at least break the cycle. But a thing I've always said is we've been on the earth for all these years. We are of the earth, if you will. Obviously, things like that are going to work, but we've gone so far the other way. You can't just put the brakes on and say, okay, now I'll start doing this. You've got to learn how to do that You have to learn how to think while you're taking those instead of the traditional approaches. How you rearrange your day. All of this is all entwined. You just don't stop and then pick that up. What you'll find out is some things will make you feel a little bit better. You'll talk yourself into some of it. But for the most part, you'll walk away saying, well, I didn't feel that much different.

29:40 because it's not just those particular approaches, those things you're going to put in your body. It's your lifestyle that's part of it, too. And you've got to change both. If you're willing to do that and learn about it, just like I said when I was writing books, I learned about the publishing industry first. My advice to all your listeners is before you make all these changes, learn about them. Take some time and say, you know what? I'm going to learn. I'm going to read from the right places, not from Facebook. I'm going to read from, you know, maybe it's the Mayo Clinic. Maybe, you know, maybe it's university studies. If you don't know how to read research, maybe find someone who does and can interpret some things for you. You know, of course, being, you know, A bit of a researcher myself, I've always written research early on. I know how to read them. I know how to go to the sources and get the right thing.

30:39 Most people don't. So become knowledgeable about that whole enterprise before you even enter into it. Well, and it's interesting. They will do that. I just read a book about an individual that went through this process of four or five times of wanting to feel better, doing a little bit of some type of drug, whatever it happened to be, and I feel better, and all of a sudden it becomes an addiction. And now all of a sudden they're no longer in control. They're totally addicted. And I think that becomes the danger in all of this.

31:20 But here's, again, a curiosity question. Based on your understanding and experience, I love meditation. You know, as I shared with you earlier, I went to a workshop, a week-long workshop with Joe Dispenza. And, you know, he's kind of one of those gurus on meditation. And I have found that absolutely meditation is an extraordinarily safe way to start to truly understand yourself, bring up those issues and being able to put them aside and so forth. When you start talking about some of these other things, they can either be there of value or they can become addictive. But here's my question. What is it about meditation? What is it about certain plant medicines?

32:09 What does it do to the brain, to the mind, to whatever that is, that allows you to start understanding some of those deeper situations that are going on? And as you identify them, then obviously it becomes how do you then push them aside and overcome them, or at least push them aside. But what is it about that, what does it do to the brain that allows us to bring that up? There's a unique thing that happens, or doesn't happen actually, with those ways of doing things. The body accepts those and can assimilate them without resistance, without side effects. you take the medication, you take something to make you feel good, you drink alcohol or smoke your pot, all those things have the positive rewards you feel. Then they have all the negative symptoms that we like to call side effects that the body can't work well with. So it's really a self-defeating way to do things. Meditation doesn't have any of that. In all the books I've written and and, and if you put all the chapters together, I'm probably talking 150 chapters, you'll probably find in, in my, um, uh, in my action steps, you'll find the words yoga, meditation, uh, you know, those, those natural kinds of things, you'll find

33:39 that over and over again. Um, you know, my wife and I both meditate. Uh, I started that as a, in high school, there was a, Maharishi making the rounds, and it was transcendental meditation. It was wonderful. We're just hitting college, and this is going around, and we all said how cool this is going to be. And then I started doing it, and it took about a month to get it to do what I needed to do. But it's that type of thing that removes all that external stuff, gets you deep inside yourself, the energy comes, Now we're talking that positive energy I talked about before.

34:20 It really connects you with that. We all have that, but it connects you with it. But there are no side effects to these things. All the natural things don't have side effects. I shouldn't say all, but most of them do not have the side effects that the chemical things. I just heard someone say that if you take one drug, it has 50 side effects in your body. I don't know whether that's true or not, but it has several because it has to run through every part of your body. So plant-based everything, sure, wonderful. Anything your body doesn't naturally try to resist, that's what's good. And these types of processes work well because there's no resistance factor. The body welcomes them in. And if it does that, then your ability to go to deeper levels is always there.

35:10 And I assume as long as you're doing it under guidance and in microdosing, Because ultimately, if you don't, it can become an addiction. It can become an addiction, plus you can do damage to yourself. Whether it's a drug or what we're talking about now, it doesn't matter what it is. It's designed to do a certain way in certain amounts. And like anything else you put in your body... You want to get to know your body first. If you come and say, I need an anxiety medicine, I'm going to say, let's get to your doctor. I need your whole blood work up first before I even suggest for you to do that because we don't know what's going to go on.

35:55 This is no different. You're going to put something in your body. Let's go find out where all those levels are, all the hormones, all the chemical levels are in your body. Let's find out how your organs are doing because When you put this in your body, it's going to work with everything inside you. So before we do that, we want to get a good idea of who we are inside there. We want to get an idea of, you know, can I do this? If so, you know, what are those levels? And who's going to monitor me? And if I start to go off, will I understand that? Or, well, you know, can I go back to my mentor and say, well, this is how I felt a little bit. Is that normal, you know? And the natural way for people is, well, that felt good, so I'll do a little more. I'll feel even better. It doesn't work that way. It never does.

36:49 And it's interesting. You talked earlier a little bit about anger and anxiety and how that raises chemicals in your brain. And ultimately, if you get into the biochemistry of the body, you know, raising of this chemical within the brain raises other chemicals within the body. And how often do you find that people who are experiencing anger, who are experiencing all of that and not really effectively dealing with it, are finding also that it's affecting their health? And it is. You know, it was so interesting when I started counseling, oh gosh, when I came out of grad school in 1980. Now, I'm into my private practice, you know, eight years later and people coming into the office, maybe, maybe 5% of them were on pharmaceuticals. Today, 70% are on pharmaceuticals. That tells you where the culture went. That tells you we want quick fixes. We, you know, we see the commercials on television and they give you all the disclaimers about all the horrible things that can happen to you. We run right over those and We take those because we want those so badly. Once again, if you're going to do all these natural things, go slow. Learn about them.

38:13 Get into your body a little bit at a time. Respect your body enough to say, I'm going to go slow, give you a chance to adjust to this, and then I'm going to be able to learn how to work with that along the way. That's your formula for success. So as you have worked with people, and I don't know, you might have a story which I would love to hear. Have you worked with people who came in, and whether they're on medication or not, but they are experiencing the anxiety, all of that, but they're also experiencing really poor health. And as you've worked with them, and as you help them to really overcome a lot of that and ideally start to reduce some of that medication and so forth, Have you seen some stories of people who literally have moved from extremely poor health to good health?

39:06 Many. When people come in my office, they'll say, point me in the right direction. Give me all the things I want. Help me move forward. And the first thing I say is, no, let's remove all the things that you're doing that are bad. And they say, you have to be kidding me. And I say, well, you have anxiety. How much coffee do you need? drink every day? Energy drinks? Carbs? Sugar? How much of all those? And they look at that. Now, when I said, all I want from you, we'll start working on things that are bothering you. We'll start doing some positive things. I don't want you to think all we're going to do here is make you uncomfortable. But let's make a deal. Let's get that down to a, you don't need more than a cup of coffee a day.

39:56 Your body actually has everything you need it inside it to have all the energy you need. So let's get that out of there. Let's get those carbs out. So we start and put a good diet and you know, a good eating plan for you. Let's do that. Let's talk about your sleep cycle and how you're doing because sleep is huge in every, uh, everything your body experiences, every system in your body relies on whether your cells are going to get what they need in deep sleep. Let's get all those things going because if you think that I'm going to give you some things to do and give you some things to take and that's going to change everything and you keep on doing all the negatives, all you're going to do is nothing. You're going to keep on living what you're living and And what you'll see almost every time is that you'll feel better for a month. Then you'll stop feeling better again because your negative behaviors will counteract all the positive. So we're going to purge. Those people that are willing to do that, I see great gains. I see people coming in that are just pictures of horrible health. And then I see them now, and every now and then I'll see them around, they're smiling, and they'll say, still doing what you told me to do. I don't have those things in my life and I'm feeling good. And then we can talk about, you know, if someone's having five cups of coffee a day and I say, well, let's start meditation. Well, you know,

41:26 I might as well hit them with a stick because they're not doing it in one place long enough, you know? So I say, you're not going to meditate. You're not going to, you can try yoga. You'll do some of that, you know, but If you're putting those accelerants in your body and you're not sleeping and you go to bed 3 o'clock in the morning and you get up 7 o'clock and you say, yeah, I only need 4 hours of sleep. And I say, no, that's impossible. No one just needs 4 hours of sleep. That's just what you're used to. Yeah, yeah. And it's fascinating. You know, you talked about coffee. I don't drink coffee, but I've really studied because, you know, I want to understand is coffee good, is coffee bad? And the studies have shown, at least that I've seen, You know, one cup of coffee has some value in your life.

42:13 You know, one. And that's where the challenge becomes. One has value. Multiple becomes something entirely different. For me, I decided, okay, I'm going to find the pure cocoa. I researched this out. And it's like, all right, it's going to have the same positive effects without the negative effects of coffee. And so that's where we go. But, you know, for people to understand, and I appreciate what you said, for people to understand that the, the life they're experiencing, the health that they're experiencing can have so much to do with that inner turmoil that they're experiencing that goes way back to childhood and beyond. And to understand that they can improve their health by following the steps that you share with your patients, I think is just amazing.

43:02 Well, you know, we all have this inside us. That's what I try to tell people. I say, you know, You're looking at me and you'll say, well, look at you. I'm 70. I'll be 72. And they say, geez, you're slim and you work out every day and you're in great shape. And I say, listen to what you just said. I eat properly. I get the right amount of sleep. I don't put negative anything in my body. Like I tell them, you wouldn't dump orange juice in your car tank. It doesn't belong there. Why do you put junk in your body? I don't do that. And it's not because I'm trying to live to be 100. It's because I want to get up and maximize my potential and feel good and feel connected and relaxed every day. I want to feel that inner peace that's so important to me.

43:55 And that's what fuels me. I tell them I get up in the morning. I don't have accelerants in my life. I don't know how I go to sleep at the end of the day. everything we need is already inside us, but we have to unpack all the garbage and then be willing to have that nice, easy life. They don't want that. They want all the highs yet. They like the highs. Highs without the lows. As we come to a close, what would be a message that you'd like to share with the audience that could stay with them? You know what is a good message? It's to understand your brain, for example, as a learning machine. It learns by what we do, and it normalizes what we do.

44:42 So if we continue to introduce a pace into our lives which is so accelerated that it hurts us, if we put all these artificial everything in our body, if we don't exercise, the body is meant for movement, if we don't get the right amounts of sleep, all those kinds of things, well, then we're not going to get to where we want to go. However, if you want the true natural way to live life, it's void of all that garbage. It is not the ups and downs. It's pretty much a straight line, and that's where peace is found. If you want that, you can have it. However, you're going to get a little uncomfortable when we get to the purging part, and this goes away and that goes away. And we want to try to help you not focus on what you're losing, but what you're gaining.

45:39 And if you can do that and say, I'm going to stay consistent. I'm not going to stop doing this. Your next year, if you start that now, by next summer, you'll be saying, what different person I am. But you will not say it by Christmas. You will say, I'm really different. But you will not feel it that fast. You've done this to your Your body and your mind, and they're connected. That's the only thing you have to understand. People think it's our body and our mind. It's one. And your brain controls every system in your body, and your brain can't function unless what you do to your body is healthy. So that reciprocity is so important. Work with that. Commit to making the change. Don't resist it.

46:24 Do the work, and don't put an end date on it. You'll be fine. I love it. Welcome. So how do people find your books and how do people find you? Best place to do that is my website, my name, fostergerald.com. Everything about me is there. Excerpts from the books are there. There's a contact link. Anyone that is interested in contacting me and either telling me I'm wonderful or I'm full of you-know-what, they can do that there. But I do get back to people. Wonderful. And Faust, Again, I'm so glad. I am so glad to have you back on the show again. This has been amazing.

47:04 It's been a pleasure. I've been looking forward to it and it's been an absolute pleasure. And I'm looking forward in a couple more years with your next five to seven books that we. Can do this again. Anyway, folks, thanks for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this. You know, I can tell you I love I love talking to him. His insights are incredible. I can guarantee you his books are incredible. So go get them and start to read them and hopefully get some. Help with what you're dealing with. Anyway, this is Dr. Doug. Hopefully you'll join us again soon saying namaste. Every conversation on this podcast eventually comes back to that same question.

47:53 Not how do I get more? But is this actually... who I am. If something you heard today moved you just a little closer to an honest answer, that is enough. I'm Dr. Doug. This is Inspire Vision. Until next time.