Speaker 1: Dan and I have been in Los Angeles for about
Speaker 1: ten years each now, and at times both of us
Speaker 1: have had stints living in the neighborhood our office is
Speaker 1: located in, and we've watched it change over the years.
Speaker 1: It's called Atwater, and it used to be a working
Speaker 1: class family neighborhood, lots of little jewel box homes, a
Speaker 1: hardware store, a couple of gas stations, some dive bars,
Speaker 1: a few local gangs. But over the past decade the
Speaker 1: neighborhood has changed a lot in the direction of wellness.
Speaker 1: You know how when you don't see a little kid
Speaker 1: for a few months and then you see them and
Speaker 1: it feels like they've grown a foot and turned into
Speaker 1: a completely different person, but their parents don't notice it.
Speaker 1: We lived here, watched it happen, and still it's shocking
Speaker 1: even to us as mom and pop shops close down here.
Speaker 1: A florist, a clothing store, and a five and dime
Speaker 1: have all shuttered in recent months. Atwater is becoming a
Speaker 1: sort of microcosm of the wide world of wellness, and
Speaker 1: if the industry can tinues on its current trajectory of
Speaker 1: a seven percent annual growth rate, it's only going to
Speaker 1: get worse or better, depending on you if you're me
Speaker 1: or not. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this trend
Speaker 1: is that it's not just happening in the rich part
Speaker 1: of town. We're not in Beverly Hills or Malibu, and
Speaker 1: we don't have any local Kardashians to keep wacky businesses
Speaker 1: afloat here. It feels scrappy and truly experimental. The rents
Speaker 1: are still cheap enough to take a chance on some
Speaker 1: new weird wellness product or service, and if it fails,
Speaker 1: it seems like there's an endless line of folks waiting
Speaker 1: to try their hand at becoming the next neighborhood wellness guru.
Speaker 1: It's gentrification and cultural appropriation on all natural steroids. Let's
Speaker 1: take you on a little tour. We're walking out of
Speaker 1: our office, and what I wish is that we were
Speaker 1: walking out and taking a right because down that way
Speaker 1: is where the good stuff is. What's the good stuff?
Speaker 1: Gold Star Diner, Chicken? I think that way? No, wait,
Speaker 1: what we like a Kentucky fried chicken? Taco Bell. It's
Speaker 1: just Taco Bell doesn't need to be anything else. So
Speaker 1: you're feeling awkward about this because we're gonna walk through
Speaker 1: our hipster neighborhood, and we look like a Portlandia sketch.
Speaker 1: It's just mom hipster and Dad hipster, which is us no,
Speaker 1: all right? As soon as you come up from under
Speaker 1: the train tracks is where kind of where it starts. Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to go into the Copper Keg because the
Speaker 1: Copper Keg has a real robust CBD business going. If
Speaker 1: you don't come in here to scrutinize the ingredient list
Speaker 1: on each pastel colored canned beverage, the Copper Keg looks
Speaker 1: pretty much like any other convenience store. Where I grew
Speaker 1: up in Michigan, the Copper Cag would be called a
Speaker 1: party store. Maybe you had a corner store or a bodega,
Speaker 1: same difference. They sold the usual stuff cigarettes, beer, candy, chips, pop.
Speaker 1: In mid Michigan, there was also always a wide array
Speaker 1: of schnops, peach and peppermint being the most important, but
Speaker 1: a good party store also had cinnamon and apple and
Speaker 1: cherry and a lot of other stuff. I never tried
Speaker 1: party stores stock what the neighborhood wants, and our neighborhood
Speaker 1: in La clearly wants a new kind of party. So
Speaker 1: I want to want to show you. There's CBD biz.
Speaker 1: Here's um that's what that is. No, but that's a
Speaker 1: non GMO sparkling something or other. There's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of macha stuff. But here that looks good. Twenty milligrams
Speaker 1: of hemp extract. All of these are CBD things that
Speaker 1: are expensive. Do you have the kombucha like the but
Speaker 1: the beer kind? You do? Yes? There we go this
Speaker 1: stuff boots craft but this this is good. Here hard
Speaker 1: kombucha grapefruit that's four point five percent alcohol and that's
Speaker 1: seven percent up there. You're going for the seven are you? Yep,
Speaker 1: you're gonna drink your CBD and man, that's a weird tasting.
Speaker 1: I kind of like it though. Okay, it begins, It
Speaker 1: already began at um Copper Keg. Yeah, but we're about
Speaker 1: to um enter the zone, the wellness zone. Yep, Past
Speaker 1: life Regression pop up. This is a pop up. It's
Speaker 1: a meditation and wellness pop up shop. Friday, November one,
Speaker 1: join us on All Saints Day for an evening of
Speaker 1: recalling former pass and releasing ancestral trauma and then next
Speaker 1: door hot yoga for those making a mental map at home.
Speaker 1: The Copper Keg is on the corner. Next door is
Speaker 1: an empty lot that will probably become like a giant
Speaker 1: sensory deprivation tank or something. Next to that is the
Speaker 1: pop up. And then two doors down, so this is
Speaker 1: the crystal shop. That's where I get all my well
Speaker 1: a lot of my crystals, and I absolutely love it there.
Speaker 1: And in the back they also do hold on meditation
Speaker 1: for your kids, working with master crystals, living your five
Speaker 1: D life. I don't know what that is, Soul retrieval,
Speaker 1: give me my soul back, experiential kabbala. I should probably
Speaker 1: go to soul retrieval though. But right there in the
Speaker 1: windows on the shelf is Dotera, the MLM essential oil company.
Speaker 1: They sell it insectrystal matrix. Okay, so here's a coffee shop.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go in and see what they
Speaker 1: have in the fridge. So so far on our walk
Speaker 1: we've seen a party store with alcoholic kombucha, an eco
Speaker 1: conscious salon, a psychic a farmer's market, a crystal shop
Speaker 1: that doesn't open till noon, past life regression pop up,
Speaker 1: a sound bath place, hot yoga, and a cafe with
Speaker 1: lots of vegan options. Right next door to that cafe,
Speaker 1: there's another cafe with lots of vegan options, but they
Speaker 1: lead more with food than with coffee. That's pretty much
Speaker 1: the same place twice. So here's the Tarot truck. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get your cards read? Sure? Yeah. So it's three
Speaker 1: cards or twenty five bucks, five cards or thirty bucks,
Speaker 1: and ten card Celtic crosses sixty five bucks if you
Speaker 1: charges buy the card. Oh, she's busy, okay. Then we
Speaker 1: have a record store, a teen ty tin tea record store,
Speaker 1: and then we have a popular I'm talking so quietly.
Speaker 1: But then there's juice. This is what's it called the juice, right,
Speaker 1: organic juice, nut milk, smoothies, vegan ice cream, and raw snacks.
Speaker 1: I like just saying nut milk. Yeah. And there's the
Speaker 1: jewelry that loves you back. There's a necklace for clairvoyance,
Speaker 1: a necklace for protection, a necklace for reflection. Do you
Speaker 1: want to get a CBD hemp shot mimosa? Real quick,
Speaker 1: a CBD hemp shot mimosa. Okay, let's going so that
Speaker 1: the Barkay, all right, cheers, These are beautiful. She put
Speaker 1: a little strawberry. Okay, I smell it. Smell it, no,
Speaker 1: not at all. I'd taste it and smell it the CBD.
Speaker 1: Dan is a much nicer person than I am, so
Speaker 1: it's not out of the ordinary for him to withhold
Speaker 1: snarky comments until we're behind closed doors. But his politeness
Speaker 1: during this walk was remarkable. He seemed genuinely curious about
Speaker 1: the past life regression, and he said something to the
Speaker 1: effect of rats when we saw that the crystal shop
Speaker 1: wasn't open even after the CBD mimosa, or maybe because
Speaker 1: of the CBD mimosa. I couldn't get him to shit
Speaker 1: talk the neighborhood with me the way I wanted to.
Speaker 1: So I think you have a more favorable view of
Speaker 1: wellness in general, in that if you walked into a
Speaker 1: room and you were like, I'm a vegan, I enjoy
Speaker 1: smooth jazz, I have crystals all over my house and macromay.
Speaker 1: I have a Tarot reader in my very close family
Speaker 1: who I respect their readings and for sure. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm from the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, and I'm a hippie
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to move back there someday and
Speaker 1: live on the Organ coast. From my Tarot cards and
Speaker 1: my tea, you have so much. You have more tea
Speaker 1: in your house than anyone I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: You have like a hundred tea tea I know. And
Speaker 1: you also have like air plants. I have beads. You
Speaker 1: have prayer beads on the wall. You have the moon
Speaker 1: cycle poster on the wall. I have tapestries. I have
Speaker 1: the moon cycle. I have prayer beads on all adorning
Speaker 1: my wall. I'm vegan. Um, I like to smoke grass.
Speaker 1: You call it grass too, by the way, a joke
Speaker 1: for the show. No, no, no. I've seen some stuff
Speaker 1: in your fridge that I've like not seen in someone's
Speaker 1: refrigerator since maybe the late eighties early nineties, like what well,
Speaker 1: the nutritional yeast for one, Oh, I love nutritional yeast,
Speaker 1: And then there's others. That's a very polarizing topic, I think.
Speaker 1: By the way, all of your condiments are in baskets
Speaker 1: and your refrigerator, well, that's my fridge is old and
Speaker 1: grumpy and doesn't have good shelves and stuff, so I
Speaker 1: have to put baskets in there so I can separate.
Speaker 1: But it's pretty messy right now, to be honest. My
Speaker 1: family is pretty new ag on on my mom's side,
Speaker 1: and then my sister, of course, who does terror readings,
Speaker 1: is a yoga teacher, a life coach and makes soaps
Speaker 1: and candles and all kinds of stuff, and I do.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm not laying myself on the line
Speaker 1: from a like personal opinion standpoint the same way that
Speaker 1: you are right, because I'm looking at the FDA and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. It's it's a lot because you're a believer.
Speaker 1: I think when confronted with science, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: depending on how it's researched and studied and pieced together
Speaker 1: and published and all that, Like, it's hard to argue,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, here's a genuine two parter. Genuine Do
Speaker 1: you believe your crystals do anything other than look pretty?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, no, no, I'll say this, No, Dan,
Speaker 1: they're rocks. Yeah. What they do for me, What they
Speaker 1: do for me, I know for sure they And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this. I mean, this is like, that's the
Speaker 1: same thing with the essentral oils. I love aromatherapy, I
Speaker 1: love essentral oils. I love all of that, but I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think that they carry a frequency, and then
Speaker 1: my frequency has to be a certain you know, you
Speaker 1: don't sit there and hold a crystal and hope that
Speaker 1: it does the thing that the papers that it was
Speaker 1: going to do. No. But see here's where it gets tricky.
Speaker 1: I have crystals in my house because I think they're
Speaker 1: beautiful and they are very peaceful to me. Same with plants,
Speaker 1: but with the crystals. I will say that I shop
Speaker 1: for crystals based on the advice of the person at
Speaker 1: the crystal shop or from one of my three crystal books.
Speaker 1: Um so I will read them and then look different
Speaker 1: crystals are supposed. I look at it like, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to buy a crystal, I might as well buy
Speaker 1: the one that matches what I'm looking for, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as the way I feel, and if it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, which I think they probably don't probably maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know. From the outside, Dan and I appear
Speaker 1: to be of the same ilk. If you're picturing him
Speaker 1: is some barefoot hippie Matthew McConaughey type character. Stop the
Speaker 1: outside of Dan Galucci looks like a tough guy. He's
Speaker 1: tall and brooding, and he has knuckles, tattoos and neck tattoos.
Speaker 1: My favorite tattoo of his is a crappily drawn electric
Speaker 1: guitar with the words a rock and roll scrolled above it.
Speaker 1: I look like a manic Pixie dream mom. But the
Speaker 1: fact that Dan has himself tied in knots about whether
Speaker 1: or not crystals actually work highlights just how different we are.
Speaker 1: It's something we kind of avoid talking about in our
Speaker 1: relationship because we know, deep down we just disagree about
Speaker 1: this stuff. The only time really dig into how different
Speaker 1: we are is at restaurants, and there our annoyance is
Speaker 1: directed to others. Not once in any restaurant have we
Speaker 1: gotten handed the correct order. He always gets my cheeseburger
Speaker 1: and fries every time, and they give me his kale
Speaker 1: salad every time. So the crystal makes you think about
Speaker 1: happiness by reading about it bringing you happiness, and you
Speaker 1: see the word happiness a bunch of times, and then
Speaker 1: you talk to the person at the crystal shop after
Speaker 1: you've read your book about how to Seek Happiness, in
Speaker 1: which crystal is going to make you happy. It's gonna harmony, right,
Speaker 1: it's gonna but it's gonna activate those parts of your
Speaker 1: brain that are thinking about those things, which is just
Speaker 1: as good as journaling. Yeah, But there's something that's really
Speaker 1: important that I believe in firmly, which is the placebo effect.
Speaker 1: I really believe in it for all of these things
Speaker 1: I'm saying. That's what'm talking about supplements. I believe in
Speaker 1: it from my crystals. If I determine from reading and
Speaker 1: from talking to someone at the crystal store that some think,
Speaker 1: could you know, I don't know, balance out my chakrash? Yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know. I look in the book, I see, oh
Speaker 1: well that that I could use that, and then I
Speaker 1: go to the crystal shop and if they have that
Speaker 1: crystal and it's cheap enough, then I'll buy it. Now
Speaker 1: I'm feeling protective of you, and I don't think we
Speaker 1: should put this on the show. Why I'm not feeling
Speaker 1: protective of me, I am why because this is hogwashed?
Speaker 1: Because people are going to make fun of me. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because you're talking like a crazy ros Okay,
Speaker 1: raise your hand if you're making fun of Dan right
Speaker 1: now for believing in crystals, Like I'm not putting money
Speaker 1: on whether or not a crystal works. You're saying the
Speaker 1: same thing I'm saying is setting an intention can actually
Speaker 1: make that intention happen. And I'm saying you can do
Speaker 1: this everything with journaling, and you're saying, why not make
Speaker 1: it look like a crystal? And that's fine. I think
Speaker 1: that you totally can. Yeah, I agree with everything he said,
Speaker 1: And I think it just looks a little less, it
Speaker 1: looks a little more sane if it's like a daily
Speaker 1: to do list. M don't you think? No, Well, now
Speaker 1: we know that Dan does not believe in daily to
Speaker 1: do lists. But crystals, I think it's important. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that your face. I think the surrounding yourself
Speaker 1: with with elements from the earth, you know, like like
Speaker 1: beautiful rocks and plants and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I think it's nice. I think it's important. I think
Speaker 1: I thrive on stress or something. You for sure one
Speaker 1: hundred percent thrive on stress, and wellness is the opposite.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be the opposite. Like you want food
Speaker 1: that's going to get in your body in a tasty
Speaker 1: way quickly while you're in the middle of a lot
Speaker 1: of shit that you have to deal with. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like fast food. Is that what you're talking about? Fast food? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I love fast food. Yeah, you like fast and it's
Speaker 1: food and it's great. This is not an ad for
Speaker 1: Taco Bell, but Taco Bell is the greatest fast food
Speaker 1: of all time. It's reliable, you know exactly what you're getting,
Speaker 1: no matter which Taco Bell you're going to, and you
Speaker 1: don't need any utensils to eat it. And it's filling
Speaker 1: and it's spicy, and there's lots of beans, and beans
Speaker 1: are great for you. Plus I don't personally have any
Speaker 1: tummy troubles with Taco Bell. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the wellness stuff is like, just take
Speaker 1: a chill bell man, And I'm like, what what if
Speaker 1: I chilled out? What would I even be like? I
Speaker 1: would be like, well, you make it sound like it's
Speaker 1: a switch and you turn it on or ony. No. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying if I suddenly it would have to
Speaker 1: be for me, I'd have to fall on my head. Again.
Speaker 1: I make this joke a lot that any major shift
Speaker 1: in my personality would have to come as a result
Speaker 1: of a traumatic brain injury. And I know it makes
Speaker 1: people uncomfortable, but it's funny because it's true. I did
Speaker 1: fall on my head when I was six, and it
Speaker 1: did change me. Let's talk about that, sure, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you had a pretty significant brain injury when you
Speaker 1: were younger. So what happened. I fell out of an
Speaker 1: open staircase onto cement floor on my head from the
Speaker 1: top of the stairs, which is like a ceiling height.
Speaker 1: That they called it a diving accident. A diving accident, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it typically when somebody shows up with that injury at
Speaker 1: the hospital, it's from diving into shallow water head first.
Speaker 1: And where were you as an oppertuncil on Michigan. You
Speaker 1: were pretty isolated when it happened. Yeah, So it took
Speaker 1: us a while to get out of the up and
Speaker 1: to a trauma center in Lower Michigan. And it was
Speaker 1: like pretty traumatic for your parents as well, because that
Speaker 1: that ride took a long time and we had to
Speaker 1: drive from the up It took us well like overnight
Speaker 1: basically from where we were where there weren't trauma centers
Speaker 1: to the University of Michigan Hospital where they had cat
Speaker 1: scans and MRIs and things like that. What happened? What
Speaker 1: did they say when you went in? I mean what internally?
Speaker 1: Just that I had a severe concussion. It's called a
Speaker 1: contra coup lesion. The contra coup is just like the
Speaker 1: way your brain shakes inside your head where you get
Speaker 1: a bruise on one side of it, but it's not
Speaker 1: the side where you hit. I mean, I remember it
Speaker 1: was all black and blue on this one side of
Speaker 1: my face and head, but I don't. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the exact angle of the injury. I probably, I honestly have,
Speaker 1: like not in my adulthood, followed up on this neurologically,
Speaker 1: like with a doctor. And I probably should get a
Speaker 1: cat scan. At some point I just stopped getting them
Speaker 1: a certain I don't. Maybe I just don't want to
Speaker 1: go in for it, but I probably should. But for
Speaker 1: you as a kid. Yeah, and if anyone wants to
Speaker 1: listen to all the details, there's this American Life episode
Speaker 1: where you talk about it, right, Yeah, with my parents
Speaker 1: they're on it too. Yeah, it's good. What did you
Speaker 1: notice after that? I mean, how long did it take
Speaker 1: you to feel the effects of that? Not it hurting
Speaker 1: or you know, the immediate effects of what how a
Speaker 1: brain injury would feel, but more psychologically and you know,
Speaker 1: otherwise it never went back to normal? What was normal?
Speaker 1: Not having migraines all the time, you know not. My
Speaker 1: daughter was asking me about Goldie was asking me about
Speaker 1: this the other day, about kindergarten. Sorry, and I don't
Speaker 1: remember it really. I know what my school kind of
Speaker 1: looked like, but um, I don't remember my teacher's name.
Speaker 1: I don't remember any class, any of my class maids.
Speaker 1: I remember stories my parents told me, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember actually like being there, so I couldn't. I don't
Speaker 1: know if anybody else does. Do you remember kindergarten? I
Speaker 1: remember some things about it, and I remember my teacher's
Speaker 1: name for sure. You don't have any idea who that was.
Speaker 1: I just remember being sick after that, and also it
Speaker 1: like I'm sorry, I'm crying. I need to talk more reasonably,
Speaker 1: like no, it's okay, this is really, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is this is a huge dramatic thing that happened to you. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't find this out until much later, first of all,
Speaker 1: like having Really, I'm just gonna say this, I hate
Speaker 1: it when people refer to migraines while they're having one,
Speaker 1: because the kind of migraine that I would have. You
Speaker 1: can't even talk to people, right, You can't, like you're
Speaker 1: I go blind. The paint is really really severe. There
Speaker 1: can't be lights on, no television, don't I just can't
Speaker 1: form a thought other than out O out you know,
Speaker 1: like this herr and then it becomes really overwhelming over
Speaker 1: the course of a few hours, and you end up
Speaker 1: vomiting from the pain. You're just puking and puking. And
Speaker 1: I remember like going back to school the next day
Speaker 1: and I would have like my eyes would be all
Speaker 1: swollen and black, and not black and blue, but those
Speaker 1: capillary like purple spots all over my eyelids from dry eaving.
Speaker 1: So that's a thing that went on until adulthood, but
Speaker 1: it's luckily it's not happening now. But the other thing
Speaker 1: I learned when I got much older is that people
Speaker 1: who had a TBI traumatic brain injury something crazy like
Speaker 1: seventy or eighty percent of them deal with depression and
Speaker 1: anxiety for the rest of of their life. And I
Speaker 1: already have a genetic predisposition for that. So I mean,
Speaker 1: sometimes I wonder if I hadn't fallen on my head,
Speaker 1: just would'd be a happier person? Would I? Would my
Speaker 1: schooling have been different if I hadn't been the kid
Speaker 1: that's like racing out of the room because my parents
Speaker 1: sent me to school with a migraine, and I'm racing
Speaker 1: out of the classroom because I'm gonna puke all over
Speaker 1: the desk again, and spending so much time in the
Speaker 1: nurses office, and my parents having to leave work to
Speaker 1: pick me up, and like them deciding every time I
Speaker 1: had a headache if I was old enough yet to
Speaker 1: stay home alone, and just I often missed the fun
Speaker 1: days of school too, because the causes of my or
Speaker 1: like the triggers of the migraines, could be anything, and
Speaker 1: the main one was like excitement or stress. So I
Speaker 1: would get them on Christmas morning often. But yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so it's not just about the physical effects, because it
Speaker 1: there were changes to what happened socially. There were changes
Speaker 1: with how you were dealing with your parents. They're asking
Speaker 1: if you can stay home by yourself, Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: when you're pretty young. Yeah, you talked about being kind
Speaker 1: of fatalistic. And I wonder, well, I think that having
Speaker 1: an injury like that, like an accident, any kind of accident,
Speaker 1: but one that isn't a broken arm or something, which
Speaker 1: I understand is also traumatic. But when you break part
Speaker 1: of your brain, did you think this is going to
Speaker 1: last forever? Yeah, that's what they told me. They didn't
Speaker 1: say you're definitely going to suffer from this these migraines
Speaker 1: and stuff forever. But there's a good chance that when
Speaker 1: you go through puberty that could trigger it. They told me,
Speaker 1: you know, becoming pregnant could trigger it. So that was
Speaker 1: like really scary prospect, and I put that off as very,
Speaker 1: very long as possible, and my doctors and my parents
Speaker 1: kind of started training me for like, how are you
Speaker 1: going to live your life as an adult on your
Speaker 1: own if you are just completely out of commission, How
Speaker 1: are you going to have a job? How are you
Speaker 1: going to go to work? Like You're going to have
Speaker 1: to learn how to power through these episodes? And that
Speaker 1: was like a real shitty prospect. It did not feel hopeful. Luckily,
Speaker 1: my first job, I was in high school still, so
Speaker 1: by afternoon when I would have to show up at
Speaker 1: my job, I would I'd have some time, because I
Speaker 1: always get my migraines in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: I'd have some time to figure out if how much
Speaker 1: I'm going to be puking by that time. Do you
Speaker 1: think that this whole experience kind of informed some of
Speaker 1: your skepticism and my fatalistic view of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And first of all, what does that mean to you?
Speaker 1: What does that actually, my fatalistic view is that something
Speaker 1: will kill all of us. And it seems self indulgent
Speaker 1: and frankly classist and othersts to believe that you can
Speaker 1: buy your way out of that inevitability or meditate your
Speaker 1: way out of it, or some shit. You can't. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get sick and die. There was never any medication
Speaker 1: that I could take when I had a migraine, because
Speaker 1: I'd just throw it up immediately. I kept a food chart.
Speaker 1: Mozzarella was off the list for years because I had
Speaker 1: a migraine one night after I had Monza sticks. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that's what caused it, you know,
Speaker 1: but we would go down the list like did what
Speaker 1: did you have yesterday? What did you have yesterday? What
Speaker 1: did you have? You know, and checking off things on
Speaker 1: this there was an actual list from the neurologist, and
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. I kept getting the headaches. It really
Speaker 1: didn't matter, and then they just went away miraculously, also
Speaker 1: as a surprise, you know. And I don't feel like
Speaker 1: that has any meaning either. To me. It seems natural
Speaker 1: that you would, as an adult, have a skepticism around
Speaker 1: someone saying like this is gonna align your blah blah
Speaker 1: blah or this year. Yeah, I mean I don't, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I call bullshit. I also think if that stuff is
Speaker 1: working for someone again, that's great for now. Something horrible
Speaker 1: could happen to you tonight, and then what good was
Speaker 1: all that shit? Do you think that feeds a little
Speaker 1: bit it into the why bother? Like? Why bother with
Speaker 1: all this wellness if you can get hit by a bush? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, definitely, definitely, Like I definitely feel like
Speaker 1: I have other stuff to do while I'm here and
Speaker 1: while I'm upright, I do not want to be spending
Speaker 1: my time picking out my powders. You know, well, partially
Speaker 1: because you just fundamentally believe that there's no way those
Speaker 1: powders are really doing anything or yeah, no, that's totally right,
Speaker 1: but also yeah, I don't want to spend my time
Speaker 1: on anything that has like a sliver of inefficiency. I
Speaker 1: don't want to spend my time on anything inefficient. If
Speaker 1: it's inefficient, if it's something that might not be doing something,
Speaker 1: push it aside and let's do the stuff that actually
Speaker 1: gets shit done or is like a real experience in
Speaker 1: the world. I don't enjoy the wishful thinking the time
Speaker 1: wasted on wishful thinking. I also wonder because I feel
Speaker 1: like this is something that I've seen you Just like,
Speaker 1: if you're going to do something that's that even could
Speaker 1: be somewhat frivolous, then you want to be having fun, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. I want
Speaker 1: it to be funny or fun or crazy or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't want it to be chill, right, you know. No,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna waste time and money on something like,
Speaker 1: I want to come out with a good story. Oh,
Speaker 1: there goes up my alarm. I have to go to
Speaker 1: therapy next door right now. Yeah, your therapist is literally
Speaker 1: next door to our office, the weirdest anyway. Okay, Yes,
Speaker 1: my therapist is right next door on Wellness Row. And
Speaker 1: yes their office is filled with crystals and macromay, and
Speaker 1: there's a bowl of Palo Santo that sits on the
Speaker 1: table right in front of me. But for me, therapy
Speaker 1: is a basic need. As I said earlier, I fought
Speaker 1: with depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's stabilitating, other times it's not. These conditions reduce
Speaker 1: life expectancy by about ten to twenty five years. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of factors at play there, not just
Speaker 1: the potential for suicide. We treat ourselves poorly, and we're
Speaker 1: treated poorly by the medical establishment because of our diagnoses.
Speaker 1: Talk therapy is one of the few treatments that's proven
Speaker 1: to reduce mortality and improve quality of life. We don't
Speaker 1: really do lobotomies or a steady diet of coeludes these
Speaker 1: days for a reason, So I invest in therapy. I
Speaker 1: go religiously. One might say therapy is a wellness practice. Yes,
Speaker 1: for some people. They can get the same benefits that
Speaker 1: tuned in mindfulness that keeps one active and engaged in
Speaker 1: their own well being from other wellness practices. Do I
Speaker 1: think they'd work for me? I don't know. Am I
Speaker 1: going to try to keep an open mind and explore it? Yep?
Speaker 1: I wish with all my heart that crystals could say
Speaker 1: to me, Hey, it seems like you haven't been sleeping
Speaker 1: or are you remembering to eat? I would spend every
Speaker 1: last dime on them if that were the case. Believe me,
Speaker 1: because Dan is right. They are very pretty. Next time
Speaker 1: on the dream and the irony is that it started
Speaker 1: with an effort by the FDA to have more control
Speaker 1: over the dietary supplement industry to try to have some
Speaker 1: standards for what the products could or couldn't contain and
Speaker 1: at what levels. And it backfired to the point that
Speaker 1: by the end of this in nineteen ninety four, there
Speaker 1: was great deregulation of the industry, to the point that
Speaker 1: it was less regulated than it had been before the
Speaker 1: FDA started its efforts. The Dream is a production of
Speaker 1: Little Everywhere and Stitcher, written and reported by Me, Jane
Speaker 1: Murray and Dan Galucci, editing by Peter Clowney and Tracy Samuelson,
Speaker 1: with production by Stephanie Karayuki and Lyra Smith. The Dream
Speaker 1: is executive produced by Me, Dan Galucci, Peter Clowney, and
Speaker 1: Chris Bannon. Our mixing engineers are Casey Holford and Brendan Burns.
Speaker 1: Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening.