Dr. Diane Mueller | A Journey of Pain: What Lyme's Disease, Libido, & Business Coaching have in Common

“Healing take energy.” – Dr. Diane Mueller

EPISODE OVERVIEW: 

In this episode we cover topics that we’ve never discussed on the podcast before. Then, we get laser focused on areas of healing- physical, mental, emotional and relational. Today’s guest talks about how she got into a skating accident that almost cost her a physical arm, how an abusive ex-boyfriend jumped on the hood of her car while she was trying to get away from him, and how she dealt with serious physical ailments for years of her life, but is thankfully now well. And all of this while she was going to medical school to be a doctor. Watch or listen now to learn how she finally learned to heal herself and not depend on Big Pharma, and how she is now using her degrees and firsthand experiences to help others heal through a balance of holistic and medicinal cures. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Dr. Diane Mueller story!

GUEST BIO: 

As a survivor of mold illness, Lyme Disease and chronic IBS symptoms, Dr. Diane Mueller is passionate about helping others restore their health and passion for life. Just like many of her patients, Dr. Diane struggled with chronic fatigue, extreme digestive dysfunction and chronic pain for many years with conventional medicine only offering mildly palliative treatments. Dr. Diane’s journey to heal herself lead her to complete two doctorate degrees in holistic health care. She has a Doctorate degree in Naturopathic Medicine as well as a Doctorate degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. In addition, she is certified in functional medicine.

Dr. Diane is relentless in finding the root cause of her clients chronic issues and is incredibly empathetic having gone through so much struggle with her own health. She and her team work to help people end chronic disease and live a life full of health, happiness and purpose.

• Website: https://mylymedoc.com/ 

Transcript

Dr. Diane Mueller | A Journey of Pain: What Lyme's Disease, Libido, & Business Coaching have in Common

Lyme's disease communication, rebellion, and hitting someone with a car that tried to hurt you. All this and more right now.

Hello, my Remarkable friend. Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Whether you're a first time listener or a long time friend, we're thankful to have you here. Today's episode goes broad and deep. We cover crazy topics that we've never discussed on the podcast before, and then we get [00:01:00] laser focused on areas of healing physical.

And mental, emotional and relational. So this episode is packed with nuggets that you can take and apply to your life, and it's from our guest today who has a Remarkable story and journey. You're going to hear about how she got in a. Skating accident and almost lost her arm. You, she's going to talk about a man who attacked her and then when she was run getting away, he jumped on top of her car.

So she did what she should have done and tossed him for a loop. And you're going to hear about how she had physical ailments while she was going to school to be a doctor, and then when she got out of school, When the illnesses continued, she finally learned how to heal herself, and now she's using her degree and firsthand experience to heal others through a balance of holistic and medicinal cures.

So get your pen and paper ready for this episode. [00:02:00] Just like all our episodes, all the knowledge in the world means nothing. If you don't apply it. So take notes, apply what you need to for life, repeat it each day so you can have an amazing life in this world, but most importantly, attorney to come. When we're talking through this episode, there's clearly things that today's guests and I, maybe we would not do the same way, however.

We understand each other, we communicate, and we have a great time in this episode and it's a lot of fun. So again, enjoy the episode. Reach out to myself and the guest, let us know how we can help you and take this information to the next level so you can just have a Remarkable amazing life. 

Dr. Diane Mueller | A Journey of Pain: What Lyme's Disease, Libido, & Business Coaching have in Common

Hey, Dr. Diane. How are you today? I'm good. So good to be here with you, David. Oh, we are excited to have you. I know it's been a long wait actually for your, somehow we, I think we spoke in [00:03:00] January for the first time and now we're recording in April. So sadly, but happily, that's faster than usual. So thank you for your patience and thank you for being on the show today.

Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited about our time. Yes, yes. I just told our audience a little bit about you and what to expect in this episode, but whether someone is a serial friend and been with us for the three years, or if someone, this is their first time, they know that this show is about growth and about listening to not only what you're able to achieve and overcome in life, but they're going to get the practical steps of how you did it so they can too.

So, if this interview had one truth that our listeners know, if they stick around between the beginning and the end, they're going to get a ton of gold nuggets. But this one truth, this one life lesson, this one mastery step, what is that going to be that Dr. Diane will help them with? I'm going to make it rhyme because I think we remember things when they rhyme.

So, [00:04:00] pleasure is a gift that makes your spirit lift. So we're going to talk throughout this about pleasure and everything that really is involved with living a more pleasure filled life and why that's really important for your life, for your relationships, for your spiritual growth, on and on and on. Awesome, awesome.

So everything that's happened in your life to today has made you the woman you are, the person you are. So let's start off in your birth. Where were you born? Mom, dad, married you know, broken family, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. Good, the bad and ugly. How did your life start, Dr. Diane? So my life started in a tiny town in Missouri.

I am the oldest of four girls, so I was born into my, my parents, my parents are still together to this day. So they were married when I was born. Very I would say very kind of traditional upbringing initially. Grew up with very, I like to say very [00:05:00] like Dave Ramsey style, values, like work hard, save money, you know, put a lot of time into helping people in the world, these sorts of things.

And I was in Missouri until I was six in a tiny little town that, you know, before six. I don't remember a ton other than there was a. A lot of trees behind my house. I remember going in these walks through what I thought was at the time, these, you know, this big forest and turns out it was just a small backyard, you know, stuff like that.

Remember these like spiral staircases my neighbor neighbors had that were so cool, but nothing, you know, just kind of normal childhood stuff, really up until six. And at six my mom was pregnant with her fourth child, so we were pretty much every two years, me and my three sisters. And with, when she was pregnant with her fourth child, my sister Melinda, we then moved out to the Washington DC area where the bulk of my time throughout childhood is, that's where I lived.

So that's [00:06:00] I'll pause to just make sure you don't have questions before I continue on. Yeah, no. And at this point, your dad was in the house, like, you know, no family is without any stress, but overall there's no major trauma, nothing crazy. Not even anything that like you'd feel is significant to Sharon.

That is perfectly fine. Some people have like ideal childhood, some people have nightmares. We just wanna make sure we don't miss anything. So overall, everything's good to this point. Yeah, I mean definitely I have stuff that we'll get to, but the first part was very uneventful and, and that sort of thing, and Yep.

Yeah. And then beyond that, you know, like, I mean, it was, it was a very, like, normal, I would say wholesome as people would describe it, Midwest type of upbringing. And even when I moved out to the east coast and I started learning east coast kind of things around walk fast, talk fast, move path, fast, all that, you know, kind of east coast stuff, still had that Midwestern type of, you know, upbringing within my family unit.

One of the things I would say kind of started happening and shifting in me early [00:07:00] on was because my, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and then my dad was the breadwinner for the company. And with my youngest sister being born when there was then four of us 0, 2, 4, and six years of age, I kind of had to step into this grown up role and meaning like, it was just a lot for my mom to take care of all four of us that were so young.

So I remember when my littlest sister was born, I remember holding her and I kind of became the, you know, by no means I was a parent, I was six, but I kind of became the person that my family let you know, leaned on. So I feel like at that age, I really started developing some characteristics around, over helping in a way that was like not taking care of myself, which I'll get to in the later thread of my story as well as, You know, the desire and the love for helping, which is also part of my path as well as like, not really, you know, not really [00:08:00] learning how to take care of myself or to ask for what I need in life and, and to really be able to assert like, Hey, I have my own needs to help me be a well-functioning human being as well.

Those were some of the things I, I feel like I took on based upon needing to step in this. I'm the helper, I'm the biggest sister, all these kids around, that sort of thing. Okay. And then when you are in DC, DC's an interesting area. So for, we have a lot of listeners outside of the United States and even within the United States.

Some people don't understand DC. DC is a very interesting community. Lot of, not that you were or weren't, but you know, a lot of politicians, a lot of international, lot of companies and organizations. It's, you know, not technically a state. It's a district of Columbia and, you know, there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes through dc.

They have like good things and they have bad things like the highest murder rate in [00:09:00] the country all the time. And, you know, corruption congress. But what was your upbringing? Did you enjoy dc Did you think this is a great place? Did you think these people are on crack? What did you think of dc? I think growing up I had, as far as like the typical things, some people might think about DC like you're mentioning politicians and crime and, and various city types of things.

I was largely sheltered from that throughout my childhood. It was kind of amazing growing up in a place where there was, you know, a higher amount of culture and exposure to things in other areas in the states. So I appreciated that. But a lot of that I was largely sheltered from, because I was put into Catholic schools my whole life and my parents were very kind of tight knit with what they really wanted to expose us to.

So I really didn't see a ton of that. You know, I was, I was very sheltered from that. Okay, good, good. I just didn't know, cuz you know, I'm not trying to be mean. There's some great people in DC and there's some terrible [00:10:00] people in DC Yeah. But there's a polarizing effect of DC It's either the elite or the poor typically.

So, yeah. And I did, you know, that's when it started actually impacting me. And I don't wanna jump around too much on our timeline here, but when I, when I got to high school, I went to a very elite high school in the DC area called Bishop O'Connell. It was a great school. Great education one, like I really feel like it set me up for a lot of success in my life.

But one of the things that I found going to an elite school was like, I grew up in a family where like I, you know, I felt like I had a lot of opportunity come to come my way and that sort of thing. But my parents like they scrimped and saved every dollar possible. You know, we shocked at Walmart, we bought the 3 99 jeans.

You know, all these types of things, which why didn't realize was a problem until I went to high school. And even though we wore uniforms, like when we were in our non-school [00:11:00] time and everybody is wearing designer jeans with all these designer things. I remember it being a, you know, that was a. Real big challenge to me at that age with not understanding things like money and culture and, you know, and values yet around what it takes to earn a dollar and how hard you have to work sometimes, and that sort of thing.

And I remember feeling like I got made fun of so much because of my clothes, because of being poor. So it really gave me this very different sort of mentality and confusion around money and finance and all that, because here I was in this family, that was Dave Ramsey's style, right. Bought everything cash and saved up.

But then I was comparing myself and I think one of the lessons that I've learned throughout my life is like, when is comparison actually good? And there's times and when is comparison problematic? And one of the big problems with, you know, comparison is we usually compare ourselves as humans to people that have more than us.

Right? And so [00:12:00] that's a definition of unhappiness versus if like, oh, gratitude, the definition of happiness is comparing ourselves to like, if life could be worse. Mm-hmm. So it really put me in this situation where it was like, oh, I was on my, in my Walmart jeans. I, you know, we didn't have like money for all the fancy things.

We got one family trip a year. It was all like car trips and usually camping and things that were fun, but low, low cost. And so it really gave me a little bit of this confidence issue of like not being able to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. Yeah. And you were perfectly happy until you saw the.

The alternative. And that's where the stress and conflict came in. Correct? Correct. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So I didn't mean to jump you around, it's just that is a very interesting area. It, it really is the exception, an exception of America. And even in the world. There's always exceptions, but you lived in an exception.

That's why I wanted to kind of touch on it. So going back now, so between six and this point in high [00:13:00] school, is there anything else we missed or skipped or leads into the future story of Dr. Diane? Not a huge point. A couple points to make. I mean, I, I had pretty normal stuff as far as like I was an athlete.

I participated in a lot of sports. The one thing that I, that actually was fairly impactful from childhood, and that does lead into some later points, is one of these things that I think happens so many times in childhood, right? Where the brain does not have the capacity to understand small little things that happen.

And when the brain doesn't have the capacity to understand small little things, that happens. It fills in the gaps by making stories. And sometimes these stories are true. Oftentimes they're not. And so there was like a huge, like impact to my confidence two different times that I would say one in fifth grade, And this is like such a simple thing, but it really impacted like the story I put in my head, which was that it was like school yearbook time and the teacher was [00:14:00] handing out all the school yearbook pictures and then all of a sudden she hands mine in front of the whole class.

She's like, these are really ugly. And so as a fifth grader, like then I just kind of put my, I'm an ugly person hat on. And that really impacted my confidence, you know, for many, many years. Just from the story from that. And the other thing that I think is important is more in then in high school from a standpoint of, you know, kind of just being the underdog, which is, I was on the basketball team and another woman did not really like that I was a starter and she played the same position as me.

I think that's why. But she, and also I was wearing Walmart clothes and she was not that's the story that I've been able to understand around this. But I got bullied quite a bit in, in high school and some of it was the Walmart thing, but some of it also I think was this particular woman. And and so I had a very small social group and I felt a little bit socially [00:15:00] isolated in that environment because I got made fun of and just for like really simple things.

Like I was lifting weights pretty, pretty heavily back then. And so I got a very short neck like men do when they over lift or when they really are, you know, trying to achieve that. I didn't know how to lift correctly for my body as a woman. I. And so it's just like very simple things like getting made fun of, like for weird things kid do.

Like, okay, you have a short neck, right? So then I'll have everybody sit laughing at you and that sort of thing. So, you know, minor things in the grand scheme of life, right? These are not like, it wasn't like I was living in poverty. I didn't have like traumas happening to me, but, you know, so that was very fortunate.

But just small little things that created stories in my life that kind of weave into, you know, parts we'll get to later. Yeah. And it sounds like your parents did a great job. They tried to give you everything they could and still keep that balance, but there's always a selective jerks that they actually have so much, but they're empty on the [00:16:00] inside, so they take it on everybody else.

I mean, sounds like Totally, yeah, she's got her $150 gap designer jeans or what was the brand guess? Is that what it was when we were kids? Guest jeans? Yeah, that sounds about right. Triangle. The triangle, yeah. Oh, I have the, I have the logo in my head. So they hit a great job on their marketing. Yeah. I was like, yeah, I was poor.

I couldn't afford those jeans. I was like, even if I had the money, I'm buying a tv. Forget a pair of jeans. I was like, all right, so you're, you're in high school now and you're working through the system and there's, you know, pros and cons. There's normal stuff, there's a little more hateful stuff. Where does Dr.

Diane go from there? So this is when things start getting interesting. So, I 15, coming up on my 16th birthday, I have my first real boyfriend who I'm totally in love with, at least, you know, I thought so at the time and having a great time. And then I was a very observant kid. So all of a sudden I started noticing all of [00:17:00] these envelopes, these manila envelopes come to my parents' house.

And I noticed them and I noticed them, and I just felt like something was up. And so then my family's all out of the house one day. And so I did a little investigation and snooping around, and I found the envelopes like a good detective would. And it's now probably somewhere, I mean, my memory's not exactly perfect, so it's somewhere around May.

My birthday, my 16th birthday is coming up in June, and I open all the envelopes and it's basically my entire life laid out, meaning new school back in Kansas, now in Kansas, new home titled to the new home. That's a whole new life laid out for me. And that life starts in less than two months. So we moved the day after my 16th birthday, and it was a trauma to me, not just because of like [00:18:00] high school and moving and those sorts of things, but when I confronted my, you know, my parents about it later, you know, they, I truly believe now, and we've prepared this, and I'll get to that later in the story.

But I truly believe now that they were doing what they thought was best, which is like they wanted to make sure that we were a hundred percent, everything was squared away before they told us, just in case something changed. But to me, as a 15, almost 16 year old child, I felt like so abandoned and so deceived that they basically tore my life apart.

They built me a new life and not only did I not even get to say about it, they did this all behind my back and didn't tell me. So that was when I went from like very, very, by the book, follow Every Rules, like Catholic, you know, child, like do what mom and dad say, mom and dad had my back. So basically kind of a big metal finger to the whole situation.[00:19:00] 

And that really I that that it was so impactful to me that it basically set me on a completely different trajectory for my entire life. Yeah. And so you're 15 and that's like the age that girls, especially to their dads, they just tend to disconnect. Go do their thing, and they come back in the early twenties and they love their dad again, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So now you have normal teenager and then you have this extra disconnect. And when this is happening, you said you were the oldest of four daughters, so did your other sisters react the same or were they more of like, oh no, we're good. They were more good, but the, they, I think it was some of the fact that I found out and the sister, you know, once I found out, then my parents of course told my sisters.

So there was some of that. There was some of the age, I was the only one in high school. So like they were in grade school. Some of like the, my [00:20:00] next sister down Laura, she was like getting ready to enter high school. So she was going to change schools anyways. I was the only one with a boyfriend. They were younger than that.

So I think there was just layers of how it was handled in particular. Cause it would've been intense, I think moving cross country, you know, I didn't like, I like coming from DC I started like hearing about, like, my friends started saying like, well in Kansas all they do is cow tip. And I'm like, what is cow tipping?

You know? And I started reading, I'm like, people push over cows. They're not going to push over cows. Turns out I, I have never cow tipped in my life for a record. I've never seen anybody do it. That is not what we did in Kansas. But you know, it was a trauma finding out about that way cuz I had no idea like where I was going and what was happening and I was being fed.

Information like that. Yeah, Kansas is a beautiful place. It's just like everywhere. It's pros and cons. But Kansas is a great, great state. But again, the popular in, at least in America, you know, you think [00:21:00] Kansas, you think like Oh, what's it called? The movie with the tornadoes and you think all like, you know, tornadoes and Yes.

Wizard Os. We're not in Kansas anymore. Right. You just uhhuh outdoor farmers. It's not like that at all. Right? Yeah, not at all. Not at all. So, okay, so now you're a teenager. You find out you're going, you said the day after your 16th birthday, you moved day after the 16th birthday. Yeah, we spent it was going to be the day before, but I talked, my parents luckily into letting us stay in a hotel.

So we stayed in a hotel cause we had to be out of our house a couple nights. And yeah, had dinner with my boyfriend at the time. My, on my 16th birthday, had my final dinner with him and said goodbye. And he gave me a Swiss army knife that I slept with in my hand, under my pillow for probably four months afterwards.

Aw. It's heartbreaking at that age. It's hard. It's heartbreaking at any age. Yeah. Now, [00:22:00] do you have children now? I know we're going to jump ahead. You do not. I do not. Okay. Nope. Okay. Because that's going to be a, okay, that was a question I was going to ask you. So let's go back. So now you're fif 16. Mm-hmm. You moved to Kansas and is this where your parents were originally from or still a different region?

They're from Iowa, but they wanted to be, my dad got the ability to have a, my dad requested a job transfer. It was also like very impactful back then. Cause I, there was this feeling of like, oh my gosh, you did this to me. You know, very victim type of feeling. And so he requested the job transfer because he wanted to be closer to my parents' family, which were both in Iowa.

Gotcha. So that makes total sense. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So what you get to Kansas and it's just like DC right? Culture, everything the same. Oh yeah, totally. Totally. Like practically no different. It even looks the same for our foreign listeners. That's total sarcasm. I'm joking. Yes it is. Thank you for making that obvious.

Go ahead. Yeah, cuz some people aren't watching either. They're just listening. So, [00:23:00] so tell us about Kansas, Dr. Diane. So it was interesting to get there because it just kind of continued the whole process for me of rebelling, which is basically one of the things that started in Kansas. So I I, when I first got there, my parents had rented a car for us.

I don't remember why we needed a rental car, but we needed a rental car for some reason. And they bring it home and they tell me it was my 16th birthday present, which obviously was not true since it was a rental. You know, they did it, they're funny, playful people and they did it to be funny, but it obviously had, you know, an impact on top of everything else.

And then I got grounded for something very, very stupid. Of going to the fireworks cuz July 4th was coming up and my cousin lived in Kansas, so he took me to the fireworks and I was in like, the next suburb over that I was supposed to be in. And I didn't know I'd been there for like three days, you know?

So I didn't know where I was. So I got grounded and got in a lot of trouble. And so the point of sharing that [00:24:00] was like, those were just like, the initial land in Kansas was kind of my final straw with my family. Like, I just felt like, I mean, I had just completely washed my hands of 'em. I really just developed this feeling of like, these people don't care.

They don't have my back. They're not looking out for my back best interest. They can't even tell me the truth. They can't be honest with me. And now they basically punish me when I don't do anything wrong. So that's when I you know, kind of said, I turned into like the bad girl, so to speak. And that was really born when, you know, when I got to Kansas.

All right, well take us down that journey. The good, the bad, the ugly. So basically how that worked is so in, I did start playing, you know, sports and that sort of thing in Kansas, but then I, I really just stopped. Being involved in any of that. I still went to school and got, you know, good grades and all of that.

School is pretty easy for me. But [00:25:00] that's when I started doing things like sneaking out running around with boys smoking cigarettes, drinking a lot. And that's really where I, I went through a period of time that started in high school of being extremely sexual per sexually promiscuous, which is a really important thing to lead to other topics and how I've gotten into parts of my career.

But basically it was just, it was rebellious. It was even down to like things that I think some people like do in like modern day of coping and that are not healthy coping mechanisms, like cutting themselves. But I wasn't doing that, but I was piercing myself. So every time my parents would get mad at me for something, I would take a safety pin and I would basically put ice on my ears or my belly button wherever I was doing, and I would put another hole in my body.

So I pierced myself. I probably had 20 piercings that I [00:26:00] did all my, and then I had other piercings that I did professionally, but I had 20 or so that I had done all myself as like almost the strategy of, of coping. But the strategy I think back then of like, I've got to, I've felt so out of my body and so outta my mind, and I felt such a lack of control over my life that there was some level of actually gaining control.

So I would say that was kind of like the modern day, you know, or the, the version back then of what people now would do in the cutting themselves world. Yeah. And that is something that's been done for years, but it's more I think there's more of it today because there's more people struggling. We have so much knowledge, but people are blind to the answers and they're searching and they don't know what to do, so they just fill themselves with whatever comes.

And that's sadly piercing, cutting, you know, self mutilation, tattooing, that's an addiction. It's people, [00:27:00] I don't care what people say, it's, I mean, I don't know anybody that got a tattoo and then didn't like, you know, the people when they're in rebellion, they go get a tattoo and they get another one, another one, another one.

It's just addictive. Yeah. And, and that's how Piercing was to you, right? Oh yeah. There was definitely endorphins. Like I think, I think some of it was feeling so much intensity in my body and so much lack of control, and I. So much, almost like, like rage. There was so much rage. I had so much rage back then.

And I didn't know what to do with it. And it was a way of, it was really a way of coping because once, like once that I would pierce myself and the emotions like of rage, I would like, like calm down again. It would kind of get me back in my body where it's like, okay, I can face the world again. And I think that's where these things can become addicting is because they're, they provide these endorphins, they provide these different things that allow us to, to really feel calmer for a second, it's, you know, it's a, it's not [00:28:00] obviously a long-term effective strategy cuz it's not really dealing with the core underlying things.

But it was in that moment, it did ap provide this acute relief of the extreme rage I was feeling that I didn't really know how to talk about. Because at this point I had also realized that emotions were just not something that my family had a lot of you know, place for, like, I was often told that emotional problems were you know, that that, that I was too emotional is the way I, it was said of like, I was too emotional.

So I didn't feel like even in expressing emotions that there was a safe way to do it. So this is sort of how I just managed it. Yeah, no, totally understandable. And okay, so now where does life go from there? So you're like, you said, you're. Rebellious, you're a teenager, you're sexually active, you're piercing yourself [00:29:00] and you're not really sure and you're filled with rage.

Where does it go from there? Yeah. So the other thing I should mention, cuz this comes into play for another part of the story I haven't mentioned it, is that at this point I also was having a lot of digestive problems. They did start many years younger. They started in more like grade school, but they got really serious throughout high school where I was I was having to take laxatives, not for abuse reasons, but for like, I could go two weeks without having a bowel movement and my stomach would hurt so bad that, and it would be so bloated and extended that I would, I would look like I was a, a, a pregnant woman.

Like I could be multiple sizes bigger in my pants because of how bloated and descended I was and, you know, and, and did some standard conventional workup and was just basically told this was how my body is and that there was nothing that could be done about it. And I just needed to accept the fact that, you know, some people don't have, have many bowel movements in their life.

[00:30:00] So that was starting to impact me too. I know. No, I'm not. That pisses me off so bad because when I was a kid I was sick for so long. They told me nothing was wrong. It was in my head. Yeah. And it was in my head it was a tumor. And, and I just go back to, what do you call a doctor that graduates first in his class?

What do you mean a doctor? Doctor? What do you call a doctor that graduates last In his or her class doctor. Yeah, exactly. And you unfortunately got the crappy one, so sorry. I really am sorry to hear that. Yep. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was very, very unfortunate, but it really was like part of what led me to where I was today.

So I didn't really know, you know, when I graduated high school, my, I was raised in a very way, very strict way of like, everybody goes to college, college is the answer. And I was fortunate enough to get a full ada, a full academic scholarship to a state school in southern Missouri. So I went there and I had no idea what to do.

I started in social work [00:31:00] cuz I knew I wanted to help people and that sort of thing. And and my first, one of my first teachers had showed us the financial numbers of social work and was like, you're not going to make money in this. And basically I realized very early on of like, I wanna help people, but I wanna do it in a way that I can also sustain, you know, my life and like pay my bills and that sort of thing.

So I didn't know what to do. So I ended up following kind of my father's advice, which was just go into business. I got a finance degree and college was, you know, it was mostly a large part of like the continuation of high school. It was a lot of partying. I really think though, One of the things I've thought back about the time in my life when I partied a lot that I think is important to mention is like, while I was definitely choosing, you know, certain behaviors like smoking cigarettes and drinking ridiculous amounts of alcohol that were very not good for my health.

There [00:32:00] was an element of having, I would have these really unique experiences also involved in, in psychedelics and that sort of thing. And some of the experiences of using some of those substances I actually think changed the way I looked at the world. And in some ways I feel like it's, they started shifting my consciousness in a way that just gave me a different way of looking at the world, even from a spiritual standpoint.

So I do think there was actually some value that that point in my life provided for me. But it was when, so my grandfather got real sick when I was about 21 and he was like a pack a day smoker, heavy drinker and all that. And so he ended up in the hospital and ended up dying a very, very painful death.

And after seeing him in one of his like end of life days, that was kind of what snapped me out of that phase. And [00:33:00] I gave up smoking like the day after I saw him. And then, you know, and that kind of propelled me more into looking at health and nutrition and these sorts of things. Okay. And then did you finish college by this point, or were you still in school?

I was still in school there. At that point, the other thing to I think mention about the college experience was I was playing handball. I played handball on the, we had a national collegiate handball team. So I was on the national team and was, that was really fun. I was playing handball. I kept having these these bursitis incidences.

And the bursa, for those of you guys don't know, was a fluid-filled sac around your joints. And this fluid-filled sack kept swelling. It kept swelling and swelling and swelling. And so with that, that swelling I ended up having surgery and have that operated on. And that is the first thing that I think was kind of a [00:34:00] sign of some health problems that really started developing about seven years later, eight years later from that point.

So that's an important thing to mention. But yeah, at that point I was still, you know, just finishing school kept my scholarship, you know, stopped the partying around the time that grandpa got real sick. And then from there, I gr I did graduate with this degree of finance and I got my, ended up getting my series six so I could sell things like variable life insurance and, and those types of products.

And so I started in sales and financial sales which I failed miserably at. And it was not my passion at all. I was not good at it. Mostly I was not good at it because I was following people around in the industry I was working where we would go into people's houses to talk to them about insurance and about their and retirement was like the bigger, you know, the bigger thing we were talking about with some of these variable plans.

And I was just [00:35:00] noticing that people were selling what was like the most important thing to them, right? So like, like what would make them the most money? So it was really more about like, how can I sell these people this product for their retirement that's supposed to be their life savings? Not necessarily based upon what's going to be best for them, but what's going to make me the most money, right?

So I was like really disenfranchised by that really quickly. And it was a little bit of like, there was definitely some like boiler room stuff going on at that, in that industry. For anybody that's seen that movie. It was its own version of wild times. And so I quickly realized it wasn't for me. I started reading more and more and more.

At this point, my digestion's even worse. And I start reading more and more and more on nutrition, on other ways of doing things in the world. And that's when I got into my, you know, my very long path of what is now my current career. Okay. And then talk about that. So [00:36:00] you're seeking answers, you're seeing what you don't want to do, you're trying to find your place.

You're having physical problems, so that becomes a distinct focus. You want to get better. So where does life go from there? Yeah. And one of the things I think that's important to weave in here too is, is, you know, it's like, just to take us back to this point that I said at the beginning, you know, around pleasure, I wanna continue to weave this in because what, you know, what was happening for me at this point is what was happening to me at various other points in my life around, okay, I have rage, I have anger at this point.

I'm frus, you know, frustrated with my job with what I'm doing. And I definitely had this huge lack of pleasure and joy in my life. And at that point, you know, I think with my upbringing, I would've said like, okay, well pleasure is, you know, there can be an element, right? Where like, like hedonism was talked about, you know, so much in, you know, historical times.

And like, there's [00:37:00] a, there's a element where like pleasure, I think can be looked at as even like, you know, a little bit hedonic. And that's, and there's a lot more to pleasure than this. So this was a huge point when I just realized another point in my life where I realized, okay, I'm not in pleasure. I am not having fun.

I'm doing this work that feels like not only is it not pleasurable, but it feels like it's not helping people. And so I ended up looking to become a dietician because that's really all I knew at that time. So I started going to school for dietetics and I'm in this very boring. I would say organic chemistry class because that is my least favorite topic I think of all sciences.

And my lab partner happens to be getting ready to start at naturopathic medical school and I had never heard of naturopathic medicine in my whole life. But it turned out that basically what I was doing for my dietetics degree was actually all it lined up with the pre-med credits that I needed for [00:38:00] naturopathic medical school.

So I learned about this from this amazing woman, Paula, who's still a friend of mine today. And within I got one of the last slots for the next semester and within a few months I was actually started in naturopathic medical school in Arizona. Very nice. And then what year is this, if you don't mind me asking?

This is 2004. Okay. 2004. Cause I know in the nineties it was really like taboo. Yeah. And then as like time, just from the mid nineties to the mid 2000, some people were still punks about it and, and arrogant and basic ignorant. And then some people were like, oh, maybe there is some truth to this. And some people were like, yeah, this has got good stuff here.

So you were at that cutoff or starting to be accepted, but it fully wasn't mainstream. Correct? Yeah, 100%. And that's why it's like, this was another area where I don't think my parents knew what to do with me. You know, I think they were trying to be supportive and [00:39:00] everything, but you know, it's like I.

You know, looking on online and just like reading a little bit as like where like, like either this is like witchcraft, which of course is like very, very wrong when you're, you have a Catholic upbringing, you know, so it's either witchcraft, it's very wrong all the time, but yeah, I know what you're saying, but, but especially when you have a Catholic.

Yeah. So you know, it's either, it was either looked at as either witchcraft or something that was just like me throwing my life away and collecting all this debt and not having a way to pay for it cuz it's just this woowoo stuff that doesn't work. So, you know, they were trying to protect me I think for making bad decisions, but at that time I didn't feel like a ton of familial support my family.

You know, I was still at a point where I was like not connected to my family. I was still very distant, wasn't coming home for family events and that sort of thing. So my relationship was not really repaired yet at that point in [00:40:00] time. And, and I think adding this of like, okay, I'm going into this crazy wbu thing and throwing my life away really added a lot of taboo and a lot, a lot of challenge to my relationship with them.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's tough cuz like you mentioned earlier, when our brain doesn't have all the facts, we just fill in the gaps. Good or bad, right or wrong, right? And you were a young girl, you were in a crazy time for everybody. If you have like the ideal situation, that's still a tough time for men and women.

Yeah. And then your parents moved. You felt like it was a betrayal or a setup, and you had this deep, just like you said, rebellion that came out of it from the anger and the rage. So it's like just simple conversations, looking back and working through things or better communication could have changed so much, but yet everything happens for a reason.

So now you're here and you find your way to naturopathic medicine. You go to school for it, and then where does your life go from there, Dr. Diane? [00:41:00] So, so Arizona was very interesting for me. So Arizona, I met some really great friends. I had a great community. I ended up, you know, from more of like the education standpoint, I wanted to, I decided, I wanted to add on a second degree.

I decided I wanted to do acupuncture and oriental medicine, and I was not a big fan of the school down there for that. It was a, it was a different school so that, so I only did two years there before I actually transferred up to Oregon. But, you know, that was like, there, there's a few things to take home from Arizona.

Like, one was still me kind of exploring my own everything, trying to figure out who I was in the world. I I started turning, like my whole personality, I turned like very punk rock. So that was, I was still kind of in like the piercing stage and all that. So kind of took a turn a, you know, punk rock kind of turn with Everything I was choosing in my life, including you know, [00:42:00] dating this very, very kind man that had a very, you know, wonderful blue mohawk and, you know, kind of shocked I think the heck outta my parents.

But the important thing about that is to tie back into the pleasure and where I'm going longer, you know, longer term than that is I tried a very interesting relationship style. I tried a triad, which was me and a woman and a man all in a relationship together. And so one of the things I learned about that, and I'm going to speak about that later on when we get to my previous marriage, cuz there it all ties together.

But one of the things I really taught, learned about that is like I learned about, say, challenges and strengths of different types of setups. So different ways we connect and different ways we interrelate. And the way I describe that type of relationship was like when things were good, it was like magnified.

[00:43:00] When things were bad, it was magnified. So that was a very, very interesting time period that I took a lot away from around, around relationships and that sort of thing. And then the other the other. Important thing probably here is like, and I don't know exactly what inspired this, but I just started getting a voice back.

This is when I started meditating. This is when I felt like a different part of like my own spirituality really opened up the way that I connect to spirit. And God and consciousness really shifted around this time. And I spent a lot of time meditating. I spent a lot of time, you know, really starting to process old wounds, you know, the desert.

Like sometimes people say, you know, people go to the desert to heal. And I definitely think the desert provided some of that for me. I started doing a lot of fasting. I did a 10 day water fast when I was down there. I would do a lot of juice cleanses. I would I turned [00:44:00] vegan raw food and did that for a year down there.

So I really just started exploring as I was kind of leaving this like super party stage of my life, I really started exploring like these other ways of healing that were a lot healthier. Like okay. And, and you know, some of these things I also think I took too far as far as like the intensity that I was approaching health and fasting and some of these types of things, but it did actually create like through 10 day water fast.

Like that creates some pretty altered states, you know? And I really created like different states where I, I felt like I was almost able to tap into. Subconscious beliefs and stories and things from my childhood around confidence and around some of the things that I, I've talked about. It was really once I started down this road of like healing and meditating and, and this different way of approaching my spiritual journey that's, that's what really helped with starting to change some of those [00:45:00] programs from my childhood and that sort of thing.

And subsequently, I think due to all of that, that's actually when I, you know, called my parents and we started having heart to hearts about like childhood and some of these stories I talked about where I could, you know, hear their side of things and hear their perspectives and they could hear mine. And, and that's where some of the, you know, familial type of repair on my relationship started happening as well.

And during this time, also, with all the experimentation and all the things you were doing differently, did your health and your gastric bi like gastric bypass, your gastric issues, start resolving? Did you find relief yet from that? No. No. In fact, they got worse. They actually got worse. And some of it I think is due to the microorganisms that I later found in my gut and this high fiber type of diet I was doing.

While some people do really great on that, it was actually the wrong thing for my condition. So it was actually feeding the, the dysbiosis. [00:46:00] The imbalance and the bacteria in my intestinal tract and making things worse. Which was ultimately part of the reasons why, reason why I got off of that diet was I did think that part was actually, you know, getting worse.

And I, okay. I wanna say something, but I don't wanna say it offensively. Yeah. Your parents said you're being too emotional and you were a kid. Mm-hmm. And like you said, you're kind of in rebellion through your years and you're just getting out of it at this point. Mm-hmm. And we know now that there's such a deep connection between the gut and the brain.

Sure. And there's people who have truly been sick in their gut and they were put in mental institutions, they got that fixed and they're perfectly healthy. It was nothing mental. Yeah. Yeah. So do you think a lot of, and we're going to get to it, but do you think a lot of your historic, emotional and mental challenge?

No. That sounds horrible. It's not like there's anything wrong with you, but I'm saying what you experienced that you described in this episode, do you feel like a lot of that had to do with your gut, gave you like a lack of balance? I think, I think there was a element that had to do with my [00:47:00] gut. You know, I do know that.

Hey, I do believe in like medicine and the work I do, that there's pretty much always a, both a physical and a mental emotional component of health problems for everybody. You know, some people it might be like 10%, you know, mental, emotional, 90% physical. Other times it's vice versa. Yeah. But you, but there's like, we can't separate the mind in the body, you know?

They're so interrelated. And I do know, even in my adulthood, you know, with all of my good health practices and with feeling in my forties, way better than I did in my twenties, you know, I do know that like the moment I get, you know, overstressed or I don't take care of myself, the, or I feel emotions around something, the first place it goes to in my physical body is nausea.

I could get nauseous. So I know, like I do have a tendency with how I'm wired for emotions to, you know, to, to manifest in my digestive tract. So I do feel like there was, that, [00:48:00] there was a relationship, but I definitely feel with everything I found that it really was only a, you know, a, a piece of the puzzle, but there was a lot of other pieces of the puzzle that, that were related to it.

Okay. So now you're in Arizona. Mm-hmm. You moved to Oregon. Mm-hmm. Do any of your, like you said you're in a relationship, a triad. Did they move with you? Did they stay back? They stayed back and I ended that even before I moved, just because it was starting to feel it was starting, it was just complicated.

And there was, if those ever, I've never seen that workout personally, but I I'm just saying, I'm being nervous. No, no. And I'll bring up more when I talk about my marriage, cuz there's another thing to add to that. And yeah, I've seen, I'm not being fun of you or say anything negative. I'm just saying personally the people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep going. Thank you. I don't feel like I'm being made fun of at all. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I don't mean that at all sometimes though. I speak before. I think so. Yeah, me too. [00:49:00] So, yeah. So no, they did not come with me and I basically decided at that point in time, I was never going to do a relationship like that again because it felt so, it just felt so emotionally taxing.

It just felt really, really emotionally hard. So I, I discovered that for me, that that it was a very difficult, you know, relationship and that sort of thing. And so when I moved to Oregon, I met a very, I, I moved with almost like $0, right? So I had I sold everything. I owned that college student was $0.

Come on. Yeah. It's weird, right? I had a life insurance policy that my grandfather had taken me out on as a baby that was worth a thousand dollars. So I cashed that in which now I kind of regret, but back then I needed a thousand dollars. So so basically I packed everything up in the car and this is like crazy to me.

Think about now. I moved to Oregon with my car. I had no place to live. I couldn't [00:50:00] even, like, I had to drive straight. I took a couple naps, like in parking lots, you know, on the way. But I couldn't afford a hotel because I had a thousand dollars and I had to basically find a place to live and pay, you know deposit in first month's rent and live for about, I think it was about three weeks or so before my first student loan would come in for my new semester.

So I I moved up. My friend Paula, the one that kind of told me about naturopathic medicine, she lived up there. So I stayed with her for a few days while I looked around on Craigslist for roommates found. And by the way, was this northern Oregon? Southern Oregon. What part? Portland. Portland. Okay.

Portland. So northern Oregon. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so, so basically I found roommates on Craigslist, found this cute little house in the center, kind of center, heart of Portland, and three roommates move in with them, the money thing, all works. Got that covered. And the first day when I'm like being interviewed [00:51:00] for a place to live there, I wind up meeting the person that opens the door is a very sweet man.

And it was one of those situations, you know, where, I don't know if you've ever had this happen. I imagine you ever had this happen where you're like, you just meet somebody and you're like, I know you, like, there was just like, it just felt like, Like ancient history, like I'd never seen this man before in my life, but it was just like, it was just like I knew him.

Yeah. So, no, I think many of us have had that happen. Yeah. So that was this guy, wonderful man. I ended up falling in love with him. I used to do this thing like where I would joke with my friends that were like, you know how like people like, would like if they're like thinking about a man and they're like, oh, like, oh, maybe I'll just do this thing that's like, kind of stalkerish.

But I know people that do this where it's like, I'm going to drive by his house or drive by the woman's house and like see if they're home. So I lived with him and he lived in the basement. And I lived on the first floor was a three floor place. And and so I [00:52:00] would like sometimes like walk to the kitchen where I could see his door and see if the light was on.

So I used to call it the walk by, you know, is he home? Like that sort of thing. But anyways, I fell in love with him and that led to its own, you know, its own kind of story, but really there, like what, what I think I, I learned the most out of Portland and out of that relationship, like with him, like one of my themes throughout all of this has been being a helper, right?

And so it started like kind of with a childhood. And I, I've had a tendency in my life a, a pattern that I believe I have now broken of basically over helping and helping to a point where it's like I will help people sometimes that don't wanna help themselves. And do so, so much and put in so many hours and sacrifice my own sleep and my own self care.

And so that was a pattern I had for a long time. And, you know, and this particular partner turned out to be another [00:53:00] example of it. Like we had an amazing relationship. He taught me to snowboard. He taught me the kite board. He was so much fun. We could talk all hours of the night. And he ended up asking me to marry him.

But in the middle of like this process of all of this I discovered that he had started using opiates and had kind of gotten addicted to opiates in a really severe way. And after, so once we had gotten engaged, I I wound up ending the, the whole process with that because I, I felt like it was, you know, it was just, it, the addiction was so bad and it was creating so many problems.

And I tried to help him and I tried to help him and scary nights, you know, nights of like calling hospitals and nights of calling the cops and nights of like, he hasn't come home, is he in the gutter? And so I I ended that relationship [00:54:00] and not shortly after that, he did wind up passing away. And so that was a very just a lot of emotions.

You know, there was just a lot of emotions during that time period. So yeah, questions on that? I'm going to pause. No, no, that's hard. That one feels like emotional for me. That's hard. And I think if anybody's listening and you love somebody deeply, you want to put everything you can and you'll die to help them.

But, you know, there's a core principle in counseling that says you can't put in more effort than the person themselves. Yeah. So if you're not seeing reciprocation and people, you know, saying yes, and then actually doing something to help themselves, doesn't matter how much effort you put in, it's not going to work.

So I'm really sorry to hear about your loss. That sucks. And then, yeah. Was it kinda like an act like what did get worse and worse and worse and it just overdosed? [00:55:00] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what I think. I mean, the, you know, I was, we had separated at that point, so I never got the final report from the family.

They wanted to keep it very private as far as what happened. So I think that was, you know, that was possibly what happened there. I'm not really, not really totally sure on that because I didn't get the final report. But yeah, it was a, it was a very, very sad time of life. And I think the, the bigger, you know, the, one of the biggest lessons is exactly what you said around like, this thing that really took me a long time to get around, like, It's really hard, especially being like, for anybody that knows the Enneagram, I believe I'm an Enneagram type two, the helper.

And so, you know, my, my tendency I has been in life to over help and overgive and over help and overgive and, and tell a point where I you know, where I, it's like I can't do that anymore. And really, really sweet man. It's really sad he's not with us anymore. As [00:56:00] he just had an amazing soul. And it was just somebody that I think with like, you know, the current opioid epidemic that we really have and, you know, the fentanyl crisis and all these things going on in the world regarding opiates.

I really think it was just like another example of somebody that is like just got lost in, you know, in that world and you know, and couldn't get out. So that was a really really intense part of being in Oregon. And then in Oregon. I loved my school there. I like was excelling in school. I had great mentors some of who I'm still in contact with today.

So I ended up finishing my naturopathic doctorate and I got my master's in acupuncture and oriental medicine there. I, I got another doctorate later on. But what really happened in Oregon was like, that was when my health started really taking a turn for the worst. And some of that was happening like during.

My engagement, but a lot of it worsened [00:57:00] soon after. So I think it was one of those things where like the emotions of dealing with all that like I already had all of this like worsening of things, which I'll talk about here in a moment. But then the emotions of then having the stress of that really put me over the edge.

And that's when I started having you just going school and probably how to work. I mean, you're probably juggling 18 things at that point in life and it, it makes any issue worse. Yeah. It's adding fuel to the fire, correct. Yeah, a hundred percent. You know, and like, you know, some people might think that like, oh, naturopathic medical school.

Like, okay, well that's like probably healthier than like conventional medicine school. It's actually so similar. Like our coursework looks like for the first two years is almost identical. It's, the course load is very similar. The amount of hours are very similar. It's, it's in the library till 3:00 AM with a triple shot of espresso falling asleep on your books, you know?

Yeah. And it looked like that for [00:58:00] years. So. Yeah. I know a guy who went to medical school and same thing. Yeah. Just, it's just like a fire host of your brain nonstop. Yeah. And his arm literally stopped working for nine months. Yeah. It just stopped working. Yeah. And it, when he, as soon as he graduated, it was his senior year, it was like the next day it just came back and he never had a problem again.

It was just so much pressure his brain shut that off. And that's, I mean, it's exactly right. And that's like, that's exactly why, like when I started having these, some of these symptoms that I'm describing it, like most people when I saw even some of my mentors is like, this is just medical school syndrome.

It's going to go away. Right? So initially, yeah, that's it. Medical school syndrome, right? It's like, there's like practically a diagnosis, right? So I started having like these episodes where something would come over me and like I would forget like basic things like where I lived, right? So it was like I was remembering things like, okay, well if I studied all night with my textbook, I could go and I could get good grades on my, my test.

But then I would like do something, like I'd leave the [00:59:00] house and I'd walk a block and it was, it was almost like this cloud would come over. And it was like very disorienting. It was like kind of like remembering some of my psychedelic experiences from my early, my late teens, early twenties. It almost felt like that.

But there was like, I was very sober. There was none of that. I was just like having these symptoms and I would forget where I lived and everything would get disoriented and there would be this weird, like the world, like my vision would get weird and everything just, it was just crazy. And then kinda like your friend with his arm, like I was starting to have these like sensations.

It was, it was, sometimes it would not be numb, sometimes it would be just like tingling. But I would have these episodes where all of a sudden I'm like, I'd be driving and I'd be like, I can't, like, I can make my arms work, but I couldn't feel the steering wheel. So then in those situations it was like, okay, get to the side of the road as fast as possible, because all of these things were like fleeting.

And so then like that would go away and then like, okay, everything's working again. Like, I'm fine. But it was just like really, really [01:00:00] scary things like that and pain so bad. I started getting these pain episodes in my body that felt like my legs were being sawed off. There was a couple times that I actually got stuck on a toilet, like literally stuck on a toilet, which is like, of all places to get stuck.

That is not the first I heard place, but like, but because the pain was so bad that like, that, that motion of actually trying to stand up, stand up, I couldn't do it. I, I, I was stuck. It was crazy. You know, nights lying in bed where I would get stuck and I needed to use the RA restroom and I would be up all night.

Luckily, I would just hold it. I don't know if I should have just gone for it, but like, I was like, we can't use the bathroom so bad and I couldn't get up to actually get to the bathroom and so I would just lay there and until somebody else was awake and I could, you know, and I could get help. And so really, really just like crazy things like that.

So, Oregon. So like where I feel like Arizona was [01:01:00] almost this place of like, okay, this new part of spiritual awakening and like looking at the world and healing past things. Then it's almost like Portland. It was like, I built like the most amazing community. I still have so many friends there to this day.

So my community there was really, really strong. But it was then like everything from a physical standpoint where Arizona was a lot of emotions and everything from a physical standpoint that had not been really, say healed. That really came to light there. And, and my body just started breaking down I, my parents and it was like amazing.

Like, you know, ever since we healed our relationship, they've just been, we've just had an amazing support system with them. And I called my mom probably almost, almost daily, just like crying, just crying because I, I didn't know, I didn't know what was happening. There was a time period where I thought I must be dying.

I was like starting to like research deserted islands to be like, okay, should I just like find a hut where I can live on 25 cents a day and just like, [01:02:00] wait until I die? Because I, I had no idea what was happening. But somehow in the middle of all that, I did manage to get great grades to complete. It was like my brain was working in some ways, but it would just like shut down in, in these other ways.

Yeah. And then let's go back to this. So you mentioned you did resolve and heal the relationship with your parents. Mm-hmm. So many people have a bad relationship with their parents right now. Yeah. So if you were to break down the steps, like you, we, we heard your story. Yeah, yeah. The actual practical steps of opening up dialogue, working through the issues, what are some things you'd give to our listeners to say, Hey, if you're struggling, here's some things you may want to try.

Yeah, I mean, the, one of the first things I did that I would recommend, it's kind of in relationship to what you're saying around, you were saying around like, okay, well if somebody, if you're trying to help somebody and like, you can't, they have to be ready, right? You can't just like counsel somebody who's not ready to make [01:03:00] the change.

So, one of the first, in that first call that I remember having with them where I, you know, we started this initial conversation, I started by just asking if, asking permission to have the conversation, you know, and actually asking and saying, Hey, you know, I, there's some stuff that. You know that happened in my childhood that I know that we have different opinions on and I know there's a lot of heard and I know I hurt you and you hurt me.

And I would really just like to have a conversation around, you know, hearing your perspective and ho and getting my perspective heard and you know, just wondering if we can actually have that kind of conversation. So it was one of the things, and that's where I would, you know, I would recommend people consider starting and I think every situation's different, but with these kind of conversations I find that if we can ask permission, and that also allows somebody the opportunity if they're having an emotional day and it's not a good time for [01:04:00] them and they don't feel like they're worked out.

Cuz if they're not resolved themselves and they're going to immediately go into anger and all these things, it's probably not time for that conversation. So it allows them an out without drudging up these old feelings if they're not ready. So that would be, I'd say, first step. Yeah, I think that's a great first step.

Definitely. Yeah. And then what would you say for the next step? The next step is ask questions, you know, is starting by, ask questions around like, okay, like with me, you know, it's like, hey, I would like to hear about you and you know, my mom, Hey, I'd like to hear about how that was for you, that incident from my childhood.

What was, you know, what was going on for you and what was going on in your life with why you made that decision. And then just listen. And I think this is the hardest part, right? Because when we go into these conversations, at least for me, it's so easy around like, but I, I wanna talk and I want the healing for, for me, right?

[01:05:00] And, but if we're the one initiating that, it's, if you can come at this with a point of like, okay, my whole job here is to listen and listen to understand not listening, like the way that I think so many of us do as humans. And, and it's so easy. And I think we all have tendencies that I still work to improve this in myself, but listen to understand instead of listening for the next thing to say.

And so some of what helps me with that in these types of conversations is to have a notepad and instead of like blurting out any buts or anything, you know, but, and my feelings or whatever actually write them down, you know, because that way it's like, cuz sometimes I think we can say like, if we're like, you know, hearing like, oh, somebody else's experiencing this and it's so easy then for us to be like, okay, well I wanna jump in with this thing because I don't wanna forget to say it.

And that's not the truth for me. And that's very different than my [01:06:00] feeling. And we don't wanna lose it. But if you can write it down just so you can track even like, okay, another thing that somebody said here, and this is where I wanna respond, that can help. And then, You know, I think the work that oh my gosh, I'm totally forgetting his name right now.

The non-violent communication guy you know, that work at all. No example. I'm like I'm blanking. The guy that coined that charge. Oh, Stuart Smalley Uhuh. No, we could do this all day. Just, I have one of his books on my bookshelf somewhere. But basically non-violent communication is a very, very well done method, and you can look it up and find the man's name that I'm blanking on.

He does a really great work with like helping people's tons of books on the concept of, of using Feeling words. And it's a, a whole system, right? So that's his system to teach, not mine, but one of the concepts that I [01:07:00] really got out of his work that I use, have used a lot in these situations is really to use feeling words when they're feeling words.

So, like, for example, a lot of us use feeling words when we're talking about stories. So it's it feels like, feels like you never listen and you don't care, is like a very different, that's like, that's not really a feeling. The feeling is I'm, I'm feeling un cared for. You know? So it's like, it's like when we differentiate.

Hey, how we're using these tiny little words and we just talk about feelings. It almost takes some of the responsibility off the other person, but helps them understand the impact. Yeah, it's a good illustration. You know what I mean? So, so the idea of this is like, you know, listening really to understand, because most of the time, you know, it's like, yes, there's a, there's some humans that really do bad things and there's some people that [01:08:00] really are broken in their relationships and their communication and, and some relationships.

People are just truly not at a place where they're able to heal them. And there's also, I think, a lot of people that when they communicate and when they make decisions and do things that hurt other people, oftentimes it's coming from their own lens of their own broken childhood or their own stories, or their own lack of self-confidence.

And so sometimes when we start to listen to understand why they did something, that allows for a better communication around, okay, well they did this. Not saying it's excusing it. And that's what we wanna really differentiate. Like it doesn't nece, it doesn't really excuse it, but to help come from a place of like understanding when people feel understood, they, most of the time, once somebody feels understood, they then their nervous system calms.

And then it's a lot easier for them to go into, okay, now I'm ready to understand. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of it [01:09:00] that, you know, I really have done over the years is I've practiced, you know, more and more communication and and still, you know, have times where I don't do it perfectly and learn and get better and better.

Really comes down to, you know, these types of things around like, okay, trying to understand somebody and understand where they come from. And then once that's like repeating back to them, like, okay, so mom in my example, like, you know, you did this because you're actually trying to protect me. You didn't wanna bring me through this emotional thing when you thought that it might not actually happen.

You didn't wanna drag me through that emotionally, is that right? Making sure they feel understood. And then again, asking questions. Can I, can I share with you the impact it had on me now? Right? Yeah. And so, again, it's like then when I'm launching into like, okay, well this is how I felt, you know, felt abandoned, felt confused, felt all these different things.

When I launch into that, I'm launching it to, from a place of like, I'm not [01:10:00] barfing on them. I've actually asked their permission to say, oh, I've asked your permission to see, like, are you able to be in a place to hear me? And, and you might find, I mean, the thing of like using techniques, techniques like this I have found is like, Sometimes the answer to that question might be, no, no, I won't hear you.

And in that situation, like your relation, that relationship's not going to be healed. But at least you're not going to go through that whole thing around like trying to explain this and then having another set of like rage or anger, whatever else. It at least protects you a little bit from trying to get something and realizing and really kind of takes the pressure off one to be like, oh, this is actually, this other person is not at a place where they're able to hear and receive this.

Yeah. And 15 year old Diane listening to her mom and dad tell them the story of why they're doing what they're doing is a totally different conversation than 25 year old Diane and then totally [01:11:00] 35 year old Diane. 45. Cuz the older we get totally, the more we can see it through their filter. And at that point, you know, they could say, you know, our daughters are, you know, they're enjoying life.

We don't want upset them till we know this is for sure. So we're just not going to say anything till we know it's for sure. And then we're going to let 'em know. Yeah. I, I mean that's a, as a father I can see that reasoning completely. But as a son and as you're the daughter, I can see it's like, what the hell?

Why didn't you tell me? Yeah. So it's like you can see it both ways. So alright, so now you're finishing up school in Oregon. Your fiance dies. You're having physical illness, where does your life go between there and today? So I was given a great opportunity, a job offer from one of my mentors out there that I really wanted to take so badly.

But it was one of those intuitive type of gut feeling [01:12:00] types of things where everything told me to move to Colorado. Like it was just, I just felt so strongly like that was where I was supposed to go. So, packed up again, moved. Dad helped me move this time much better experience than moving to Arizona.

And and got to Colorado, moved in with him on one of my friends from Arizona who had ended up in Colorado. So had a place to move into and started building my business just by building my website and, you know, doing everything from scratch and from hands and again. What part of Colorado? Just that was in Boulder, Colorado.

Oh. I lived there for a few months. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I moved to Boulder, Colorado. Pearl Street. Pearl Street, right. That's right. All right, go on. Yeah, that's, that's the happening street. So moved there and very quickly, it must have been like a week, two weeks, very, very soon. I was like, within that first month of moving there.[01:13:00] 

I decided to go roller skating, and this is still at a point where my health's not very, very great and I'm still having problems. And I was trying though. I've always, you know, since my childhood, I've always been an athlete, so I would still try to like, get movement. So I went I went roller skating and I started going down the hills of Boulder and I had a very, very bad crash and shattered my arm into a million pieces.

And when I got into the hospital in the surgery room, the surgeon looked at me and said I'm not sure if I can fix your arm. I think we might need to amputate it. And so, yeah, so that was obviously very very, very big deal. And it was very interesting. And even just thinking about like the power of the mind.

And I have high belief that I had a very, very, very well skilled surgeon because he did put my arm completely back together. [01:14:00] And I have just, other than a few degrees, range of motion loss, which nobody can even notice, and a slight deficit in tricep extensions at the, at the gym, there's like, basically no, no, no other long-term problems with it.

But I remember there, you know, being there on, you know, in under like the. Pain medicine they have you on when you're getting ready to go into surgery and you have so, so much trauma like that. And the surgeon's telling me he's not sure. I I, he might wind up having to amputate during surgery. And so I remember that conversation and I looked at him and it was like, so interesting looking back, like the amount of like conviction and belief where it's like, it'd be so easy for me to drop into fear right there.

But I looked at him and I looked him in the eyes and I remember feeling this with every cell in my entire being. And I looked at the surgeon and I was like, there's no way that's happening. I know you're going to fix my arm. And it was just like, and going into surgery, it's like, like I said, I know he was an amazing [01:15:00] surgeon.

Like, you know, it was one of those things in physical therapy where they put my x-ray on up on the wall and then like the whole team would get called in around like, Hey, you gotta see this, you know? I have tons of, of hardware and metal in my arm now holding me back together. But I also feel like there was an element with that, that was really based upon going into that situation with so much conviction, so much belief, you know, on a cellular level that there was that I was going to come out of that and I was, you know, going to be well.

So that, that I, you know, I got out of, and I continued to build my business on the couch you know, with my arm healing. Now building my website with one hand, luckily my right hand, which I'm right-handed, so, you know, so there was all of that. And then, See from there, that's when I also started realizing that I was more sick and because I was starting to talk to my friends and my friends were [01:16:00] graduating and or they had graduated and they were starting to feel better and better and better.

And so they were sharing with me like, ah, like medical sy skin syndrome's over. Like, we're, we're doing so much better and I was getting worse. And that's when I realized, I started running lab tests on me myself, and that's when I realized that I had Lyme disease. I had, you know, about a dozen other hidden infections.

I had mold built up in my body. I had toxic metals, I had a lot of other types of disease processes in my body built up. And so that's really what began my, you know, my own personal journey back into wellness. And you know, in part of my medical practice, I have two different parts of my medical practice, but the one part of it that I do is really based upon Lyme and mold and chronic fatigue and some of these hidden long-term diseases.

And, you know, my book is called, it's not in your mind kind of based upon this thing around like, oh, like it was in my [01:17:00] mind, or it was just medical school syndrome. And so many people, I think with these long-term chronic things Really end up like, like with some sort of disease processes like this. And, and it's just about believing in your gut, knowing that it's not in your mind and working over and over and over again, just being a self-advocate so that if you're told, it's in your mind, you know, if it's in your mind, it's going to be something like you are talking about where it's like, it's like actually a tumor or something like that in your brain.

Right? Like, but as far as like making it up, like that's what most of us, you know, think of when, you know, like when we're told it's in our mind, it's like, oh, you're just, you know, you're making this up like 99.99% of the time. That is not what's happening. Like maybe there's a small percentage of the time where that's, that could be it.

But I've certainly never seen it. Like, anytime somebody's come to my, you know, my practice with, you know, being told that for years, it's, there's always a reason. It's just about knowing the right test and figuring out why that [01:18:00] inflammation and why those imbalances are incur are occurring. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.

I was just, I was personally interviewed this morning for another podcast and we had this discussion in depth. Mm-hmm. And there's just so many aspects to it because very few people are actually hypochondriacs and people who are making it up. And you can usually tell those people they have other, they have other things going on, right?

Yeah. Nobody who's like, I want to go on, I wanna live, I wanna be free. Those aren't the people. Now there are illnesses that are caused by, Pain and hurt and trauma, and then they sit in our body and we gotta work through the emotion to let the physical free. So they just, God made this beautiful body and balance and we just need to clear it and flush it.

And like you said, sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's spiritual. But they all intertwine. Yeah, it's all connected. Absolutely. So now you are growing your practice in Boulder. [01:19:00] You break your arm roller skin, you said, right? Mm-hmm. You break your arm roller skin so bad, you almost had to have an amputation, which is serious.

Mm-hmm. You're in pain, you're seeing your friends get better and now you're really thinking something's wrong. You're running tests, you're like, wow, I have a lot of things wrong. So now I'm sure there's fear and there's scared, there's probably some relief, like, okay, I'm getting answers, but now what do I do?

Cuz even if you know you have some of these illnesses, it's like, how do you cure 'em? Or sometimes worse, people say they're not curable. So where does your life go from there? Dr. Diane? Yeah, I mean there's the lucky thing for me about going through some of this, like the blessed thing for me in that was like the fact that I had gone to naturopathic medical school and there, and I like had learned how to read research studies and I had learned all of this stuff.

So there wasn't, there is definitely where I do, like, I agree with what you're saying. Like for a lot of people it's like you and you [01:20:00] have this many disease labels thrown at you can be like, oh my gosh, I'm, it can feel like I'm so broken and there can be a lot of distress around that. But because of my background and my, you know, I'm a scientist at heart, so because of all of that, when that happened for me it was a lot more curiosity, right?

For me, it was a lot of curiosity around like, okay, well how do we fix this? Some of this kind of, some of the stuff that came up were things that I was well trained on in school, so it was like, okay, I know what to do. Other things like Lyme disease, you know, we touched on in school, but it wasn't like a by any means very much of our training.

So that led to a lot of studying. It led to a lot of online courses. It led to me calling doctors around the country that I could actually study with and shadow. So it really led me to explore and to learn about, you know, disease processes like this in a way that it was just like urgent, right? So I, I got thrown into the [01:21:00] research and that sort of thing very, very quickly as I traveled and I did some of that and I.

And so things started getting better. You know, things started getting better. And then and then I met this man who also turned out to be just like, you know, these patterns that I think that oftentimes we do as, as humans. And it's like one of the things that I think is really important to explore that I hope people are also getting on this.

So that I'm like, okay, your, our patterns and cycles and why do we choose in some ways so many similar things? So for like me, I end ended up in another relationship where I, I moved outta Boulder, I moved into the city of Denver with this man, and it started out really great. And and then, and this was like, this was very quickly, this was all very quickly after I had moved here.

So I'm still in the middle of this. And and I, I call this year, the other thing to say is I call this year my Rice and Beans year [01:22:00] because that's what I was living on because I had basically $0. I was trying to build my practice when nobody knew who I was. I had, you know, with the school I went to and having you know, two doctorate degrees and a master's, there's a lot of debt.

You know, I had, I like to joke, I have a house in my brain. It was over $500,000 of student loan debt. And so then, I started having debt collectors call me cause I can't pay on any of this. And from day to day I could have literally a dozen different collectors. Cause I started, had started using credit cards throughout this process to get things up and going with business.

And so anyway, so it was very, very scary. It was like some days I did not know if my lights were going to get turned off. All these sorts of things. And then this man that I had moved in with after like, me being like already financially strapped and so everything's so tight. Like, you know, I was going to the store and like looking at two products and being like, well that one costs 3 cents [01:23:00] less, so I have to choose that one.

Like, micromanaging down to the penny. Mm-hmm. And and so then when my partner at the time lost his job and decided that he didn't wanna get another one and I couldn't That's a, that's big problem. Yeah. His name was on the lease and I couldn't kick him out. And so then I was like, you know, kind of supporting both of us.

That obviously, and like in the middle of all this, I'm trying to heal my health. So it was just this very like sheer will. But that's actually something that I think medical school really trained me in. For mostly better, sometimes for worse, is the ability to just like, push and severe and like persevere through anything.

Because it's like when you have 11 tests in one week and it's like, and you're exhausted and you're staying up all night with coffee and it's like all, all that the body wants is sleep and basically [01:24:00] training the body that is like, you want this, but you can survive this. You want this, but you're going to make it through.

And so I think I did so much training of my body and that was like one of the hidden gifts of medical school that I think a lot of people don't talk about is that that ability to push and to s to persevere and to have a will, it just developed my wi will to survive in a way that I don't know if I would've made it through the post medical school stuff.

It wasn't, wasn't for medical school and how that really developed me as a individual. And so so the thing that I like to share about this particular partner that I think is important because it has provided a lot of understanding of humans in a certain way, is. There was there was some abuse that started happening.

And there was, and so there was, there was physical abuse, and the final night of it was, I was against the wall and he had me against [01:25:00] the wall by my throat. And so I was like pinned against the wall by my throat. And in this moment I was basically kind of going over in my head like, Where are my where are my keys?

Where's this, where's that? Like, where's my car? Like, okay, cars parked here, keys are here, here's where I ha you know, that sort of thing. Just like my escape plan. And then I don't even remember what I said, but I said something that made him let me go. And I ran out of the house and grabbed my keys, grabbed in the car, was driving away.

At one point he like jumps on the hood and is like staring. It was like out of some sort of movie I'm driving and on the other side of the window is him like holding on. Staring at, I'm not laughing at your situation, but I'm laughing at the situation. Cause it's like, it's like outta a movie, right?

Yeah, that's right. I'm, I'm picturing that. Yes. So I'm being descriptive because it's like, I look back, I'm like, how is this real? See as a dad, I'm like, hit the gas, go really fast, then hit the [01:26:00] brakes and then, oh, that's actually basically what I did, but a little bit more gently. Oh yeah. But probably my dad would've said, but that is basically what I wound up doing.

And then I drove around a little bit further down where I was like, far enough away, looked in the rear view mirror, made sure he got up, you know, that, you know, I would've called 9 1 1, that sort of thing. If he didn't, but he like got up. I could see that he was up and walking and all that drove away. And that was the end of that relationship.

But what it, what it taught me though was like, I stayed in it way too long and it, what it taught me is like, The, like looking back at some of the psychological like manipulation that was going on in my head and, and the things that he would say to me to in some ways, like start making me question like my own sanity and like what I was actually seeing in the situation.

I just had a different understanding for why people stay in bad relationships and how much psychological manipulation there is. And [01:27:00] sometimes it's like, well, why do, why do people go back to these, you know, to these things that are so bad? It's like, oh, there's so much psycho psychological manipulation that happens.

So it really developed, I feel like a different aspect of compassion for, you know, for people when we, you know, when they go back to situations that are not healthy and, and really understand that and then also connect it to this, you know, thread of like pleasure and libido that I'm going to start tying in here a little bit more is really started alerting me too to this thing around like safety and libido and, you know, and, and I think this happens bidirectionally for men and women, but I think it's even a bigger thing for women as the, you know, just naturally most of us tend to, without as much testosterone, be a physically weaker gender.

And because of that, there's like this huge thing that I co think that comes up for women and libido around like, [01:28:00] okay, if libido is low, one aspect is not feeling safe, and it might be that you're not actually safe. And it could be that, you know, just because of an argument that happened last week, you're not feeling emotionally safe and whatever it is.

But that really started opening me up too because my libido took like this crazy tank and that wasn't the only time in my life that it did, which was, you know, a very unusual thing from a standpoint of just like physical stuff and hormone, you know, perspective. Right? And so that was another, you know, thing I started really exploring is like, okay, well what's going on with this and what are the root causes of why my libido is so low?

And a huge thing really was around, you know, that actually feeling safe in, you know, in my environment and in that situation, both emotionally and physically safe. Yeah, and it all definitely, I mean, I can't, men and women when they feel like they're in a safe environment, everything has heightened and beautiful.

[01:29:00] And when they're in a non-safe and a threatening environment or something that's like, you know, the rug's always been pulled out from under them, just steals any and all joy from that circumstance and relationship. Yeah. So yeah, you were in a tough place, so now you're going in. You are in a tough situation in your own life, you literally get to run over the guy who's with you, which is awesome.

As a dad, again, he thumbs up, he thumbs up. I'm all for it. I personally believe if you break a few arms and legs, there'll be less crime in the world. So that's my personal opinion. But now you're going, you gotta get your mind, your heart, your, your physical health. Right? Where does your life go from there?

Yeah. So at that point, I am on rights, the right types of substances as far as herbs and lifestyle changes and things to help my body heal. So my protocols for my physical wellbeing are, you know, working well [01:30:00] and you know, mental emotionally. It was, I don't even know how to describe that process in some ways.

Because I think there was an element of like, healing from the trauma. And then I think there was an element of like seeing a pattern and not totally understanding the pattern yet around like, and, and it's connected to this thing that I, this other thread, right? Like when we continue to help others, but put in ourselves places where we can't take care of ourselves, we help nobody.

And that was, you know, one of the things that like, I think I was really doing that I could not see yet was I was choosing people in my, you know, in my romantic life that I could see their heart and I could see their potential and I could see all these different things and that, you know, I could almost like see parts of their soul that were just beautiful and I loved, but I just thought that if I said the right things and showed them, you know, the, there, there's a different way of doing things.

[01:31:00] Like okay, show them, like this is why it's great to have a great job and be responsible. Like to me it's like just obvious. Like, why, you know, why would somebody not see that? But reali really realizing like, you know, like you said, like can't help somebody that doesn't wanna get helped. And so, you know, I don't, from a standpoint of healing from that, that part didn't get healed till till later, till I was able to actually start looking and saying, okay, this is the pattern.

Why am I doing this? You know, where is it coming from? Where are my own stories? That sort of thing. And so most of the healing more was around physical and just, you know, meditating and just doing my own breath work and, and work to really reset my nervous system after something like that. That was really a lot of the work I was doing at that time.

And then now when you're going to, you're speaking to people and you're talking to them about, you know, working through and getting to the root, like, [01:32:00] why do I keep going with abusive men? We'll use that as an example. Yeah. What are the tips you'd give to men and women, not just women these days? There's a lot of sick women out there who are gaslighting men.

There's a lot of sick men who are gaslighting women. And if you don't know what gaslighting is, not you as a guest doctor, I know I'm to our listeners. Gaslighting is when there's something going on in the other person's life and you confront them about it, and then they twist it, humiliate you, make you feel like you're an idiot.

It's not true. And they take their lie. And they make you feel like you're going insane. That's like legit gaslighting. And there was a, was it a book or a movie where it was first presented? It was from like the war and the Germans, and there's a lot to it. But basically it's when you try to manipulate people's minds to make them feel insane when you're the liar and the Right.

So when you were seeing this now in your life, Dr. Diane, you're [01:33:00] seeing patterns going back to abusive guys. Mm-hmm. What did you do to identify the root cause? Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing I did was finally come to a level of admitting that I had a role in it. And not saying that. And there's a very different thing I think between that.

I, I try to be very careful when I talk about this because we have to be so careful in like the victim versus responsibility, say land landscape of things where it's like we can, like sometimes like, yeah, like being held against the wall, like fighting for my life, like victim, right? That was, I was a victim in that moment, right?

But there is a very different thing between like, okay, I'm a victim in a moment, versus I have responsibility for trying to figure out why this is happening over and over again. So I, I like to be very careful when I talk about this because I wanna be careful that I'm speaking in a way that is not [01:34:00] You know, causing any internal like re-traumatization for anybody else's trauma in their life.

Because there's absolutely times where yes, we are, we are 100%, you know, victims. And there's also times in our life where we are responsible for how we process what has happened to us. And that's really what I'm talking about is like, okay, something bad has happened, something bad continually has happened.

Where is my responsibility in helping myself make sure that that doesn't happen again? Right. So that's really where the responsibility is. And so in looking at like that question around like, okay, well what sort of, because cuz a lot of times I think we choose paths and lies when there's a subconscious belief or story or motivation kind of at hand.

And you know, and looking back all the way to these moments, it's, you know, why I, one of the reasons why I wanted to start this conversation like way, you know, an hour or so ago and talk about like, okay, my sister is zero and I'm [01:35:00] six and I start becoming this more, this helper in the family role is, I actually think for me, when I started looking at this, that it went back to this point of childhood.

Me, oh, I got so much praise when I was helping. You are such a good helper. And like I, my, my parents were, I think were so busy with everything going on that naturally I got less and less attention. But as I helped. That was a time I could find attention and love. And again, like this is not something I, you know, fault them for at all.

I think that's like, that was just a normal, like some of these things that happen to our minds and these stories we make, it's just our young minds trying to make sense of what's happening when we don't have the consciousness or the awareness and the, the resources to actually understand like, oh, mom and dad are busy trying to survive raising a household and four kids.

That's all that was. You know, that wasn't abandonment, that wasn't any of that stuff. It was like they were very, very loving parents. So [01:36:00] none of like, I was very fortunate that way. And at the same time, because there was this connection in my childhood to like, emotions aren't really welcome here. Can't do that very well, and I get love when I help.

Love and help became so intimately connected to me that I, on a subconscious level, I really believe that I started choosing to help because that was when I knew I was going to get love. And so, you know, kind of an answer to your question, it's like the, one of the things that I would really keep you know, encouraging people to ask is one, or, or to do is, is to one, like, where is that, where is that place you can find that you are responsible?

And wh which is probably something similar to this, of like, why do I keep having the same pattern? You know what, what is my, like a good internal question is like, what is my role in, in why this pattern is, and keep asking [01:37:00] why. So it's kind of, sometimes I call stuff like this. Sometimes I'll call it like having an internal board meeting where it's like you get all the different parts of ourselves together, right?

The angry part, the part that's sad, the part that's frustrated, the part that's hopeless, that part that is a child. And it's almost like having a conversation with all of these different parts of ourselves internally and saying, okay, well, you know, why am I angry about that? Oh, it's because of this. It's because my, you know, mom left me or something.

For example, okay, well why am I angry about that? And you keep asking, you keep going. Why and why and why and why until, and if you do that enough times, then we actually begin to get to the root. And I think it was when I started getting why enough times, and I got to the root of like, oh, help and love. So once I could start doing that and realize that, that lo these things are not connected, you know that yes, when we help people, it can be a way of showing love or it can be a way of [01:38:00] getting love, but it's not, they're not really connected.

And so once I started being able to really dissect that, that was when I, I started being able to make different choices in my life. And so that's, I think asking why and continuing to ask why and why and why is what I would really, and, and finding that place where it's like you're consciously responsible and by saying consciously responsible, I mean like, you know, like people are treating you bad and you have trauma and all that.

You're not responsible for them. Like, like allowing yourself to actually feel the part of yourself that has gone through something that is a victim to that trauma and all that. And I think that's important. We don't like, there's this like fine line around like being very careful around like you know, shaming that part of ourselves that was a victim, but also in these situations like, okay, well where, where is my respon?

Where what part of this is like responsible? Am I responsible for healing from this? And I hope I'm saying that in a way where it's [01:39:00] you know, people are hearing this in a way where it's like, okay, we're not, I'm not talking about you're responsible for the bad things that have happened to you. What we're saying is like, okay, you're responsible for changing the stories that are in your head and the beliefs that are in your head that are driving say maybe the continuation of, of these things.

Yeah. How do you break that perpetuating cycle of going to dysfunctional relationship to dysfunctional relationship to abuse, to abuse? Yeah. You gotta dig to that. Why? And I think that's great advice. And you just keep pursuing. It doesn't take long, right? I mean, if you're honest with yourself or even get a good godly counselor to help work you through it.

It's not a time consuming process, but it is an exhausting process and it's one you have to be committed to face. I mean, it's not like the reason why people don't do this, cuz it's, it's emotionally exhausting. But then when you're done, you put a little effort in and you get so much freedom and love and joy.

Right? Correct. And would you agree? Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. [01:40:00] I, I really, it's like, you know, when I look back and be like, wow, I I really had a pattern of like choosing bad, bad, you know, some of these bad relationships. It's like there's a, that like for some reason is like, it's like a blow to my ego.

Like, you know, there's a, there's an ego blow that this takes when it's like we admit some of our failings and that sort of thing. But that's also where the the healing comes from, you know. So where does your life go from there? So you hit the dew with the car. Totally. Rightfully so. No. Yep. He throws himself on the car.

And then you move forward. Talk about how do you start getting physically well? Yes. Now we've talked about some of the relational and the moving forward. How do you get physically Well, so that was, I mean, that was really just going after the root causes. So it's like getting out of, you know, making sure my home was not moldy was a really big component of it.

Going through a wide variety of treatments, including [01:41:00] herbs, including various lifestyle things, ozone, sauna you know, there's a ton of different things like that. Looking at my gut health, getting rid of sibo, getting rid of parasites, cleaning up my thyroid, my adrenal. So it was really just using a lot of the protocols that I use with my clients today of saying, okay, well this is an adrenal is like, gotta fix the adrenals, gotta fix the thyroid, gotta make, fix the nutrient imbalances.

So a lot of that was just going through things and really fixing them. You know, one by one it wasn't, it's like there was so much going on and my symptoms were so bad that it, you know, it's like, it almost feels in some ways like, oh there should be just like this one, like really cool magical treatment.

And it really wasn't. It was, it really was just like the combination of the right things of like knowing the right causes and knowing that okay, there's these dozen plus things that are the root causes and just working through them one by one. Yeah, and I think that's great advice cuz how many people do you know that are sick and it's really not one.

Cause it's [01:42:00] multiple causes and then they get almost overwhelmed and they, they can't just dig themselves out of the hole. Sometimes it's financially exhausting cuz you can't do everything at once. Sometimes it's just intellectually your mind shuts down. Cause you're like, okay, I got all this information, now what do I do with it?

So let me ask you this question. With the systems in the body and knowing what you do, is there an order that's typically more beneficial? So for instance, if somebody has like five different things, like they got metal toxicity, they got mold, they have adrenal fatigue, they have all these different things that are going on in their body.

Obviously you want to try to eradicate everything at once, but then at the same time, there could be complications for that. So is there a set method of order that you recommend they address these in? Yeah, generally speaking. So, and you know, and, and I, I really have not found that it works very well to treat everything at [01:43:00] once.

Like 99% of the time. It's almost like when people have chronic illness, it's almost like there's just too much going on at one time to treat everything at once and your body just doesn't have the energy. Correct. Yeah, because healing is, I, I'm glad you said that because heal, this is what people don't always realize is healing takes energy.

And that's actually why I typically go in a certain order. So, One of the first things that I really work on for people, oftentimes before we get into the nitty gritty of some of the more complicated disease processes is like what I call the rebuilding phase. And so in the rebuilding phase, we're basically doing exactly that.

We're like, we're making the body stronger. It's giving nutrients that you're deficient and it's helping the adrenal that's helping the the thyroid, the mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of our cells, that energy producing part of the cell. So it's helping the bodies become stronger and stronger and stronger so that when we go into killing any infections or detoxing things like molds or metals or other environmental toxins, that the body is strong and resilient.

And then [01:44:00] so after rebuilding is actually where I often then do lifestyle changes. And lifestyle changes make sense in many ways to do at the beginning. But oftentimes if people have 0% energy doing, asking them to change their lifestyle, it's like, well, how am I going to do that? I'm like, struggling to get through my day.

So the reason why, when we're talking about generally, and this is very general, but you know, this is just drink more coffee. Just drink more coffee. It's always the answer, right? Just that is again, sarcasm for our listening. Yes, yes, yes. Sorry. It might have worked at Medi in Medical School, but it's not a good long-term strategy.

No, go on. I didn't mean to derail. I'm sorry, people. It's all good. So rebuilding lifestyle and then from there, detoxification. From anything that's toxic in the body. And then from there, something that I refer to as microbe balancing, which is killing the bad guys and helping the good microbes to regrow.

And I do the micro balancing last in [01:45:00] many cases, not in every case, but in many cases because when microbes die, when the bad ones die, they will release toxins and your body has to deal with them. And so if you detox the other things that your body could have in it, environmental toxins, metals, and molds and all these other things, if you get those things out before you add more in from the killing process, it works better from the body, you know, reacting in a much more positive type of way.

So, and again, these are, you know, these are general and it, it can depend, but generals are good because generals are a really good starting point to try. And the other thing to, you know, core principles to watch out for that I think are really important that in general you always wanna like do things to build up.

At the same time you're breaking down. So like detoxing killing microbes, that's breaking down. It's asking your body to work really hard. And so you wanna give your body things that are energizing, that are restorative at the same time. So always build up as you're breaking down. So that's a general principle.

And then, [01:46:00] Listening to your body, like this whole thing of like, oh, you know, these healing crises that, you know, people sometimes have. And like sometimes those things are a little bit unavoidable, but most of the time if you're giving herbs or if you're giving pharmaceuticals and you're negatively reacting to them, it's your body becoming more inflamed.

And so as much as possible, if you're feeling like, oh, you're reacting negatively to his treatment, it's really important to say, take a step back and either change the pace or go in a different order to find something that your body's actually going to tolerate in a less inflammatory type of way. And then what does that, what did that journey look like for you?

So where did you start and where, what brought you today? Because I don't wanna, again, I'm keep stepping around these landmines, but I look at the bio you send in and then I look at your picture. Mm-hmm. And I look at your website typically, or materials. I don't want know too much about my guests before they come in the show.

That way [01:47:00] everything's organic. Yeah. But I will glimpse over stuff. And when I saw the picture of you that was submitted back in January, I thought you were 10 years, like older than me. But now sitting here talking to you live, you look at least 10 years younger than me, Uhhuh. So something's happened to you just between that pitcher and now it, it seems to me, not that it was a bad pitcher, just you look younger and happier and, and like healthier and more energy just in your face.

So I'm curious, what, where did you go and what was the path you took? Yeah, I mean, that didn't, I mean, my health recovery actually was, you know, almost a decade ago now. So really it was nothing more than I said, but I'm giggling because of just what this past year has been like stress-wise for me.

So it's more related to that than like what happened. Gotcha. You got, you. Gotcha. Okay. Health-wise to me. So, you know, health-wise was [01:48:00] really just like, it really wasn't like, I mean, I honestly, like, I have to go back in my notes to remember exactly what order I did on myself. Like, I don't remember the specific No, roughly.

Just roughly all of that. Right. But I, you know, I got in a mold free house. I helped my adrenals, my thyroid. I got all the infections like Lyme and Bartonella, and worked on all those, worked on parasites and, and those sorts of things. So, And then I just started feeling better. I did at one point move again, and at that point I moved into a house that ha did have mold.

So I went, did go through another resurgence and like another crash. But the good thing about understanding the body and going through something like that was I was able to fairly quickly, like at first it was like, what's happening? And then I just remember springing up in bed one morning and being like, I know what this is.

There's mold here. And I just left. And never went back to that house. Luckily I was renting. So that was easy to get out of. And so, I mean, other than [01:49:00] that, my health has been really good, but I did just get out of a, of a business partnership and and that was what was very stressful over the past year.

And one of the, one of the businesses I own is actually a business coaching business. And this has been a really, it's like the things that we go through, you know, in life are the things that I think we can really help other people with. So I, I got into business with somebody that other people would say is the wrong people, wrong person to go into business with.

And the reason why is because when I went into the business, I was just, it was just like, oh, you like this thing? I like this thing. So we both like the same thing. So like, let's do this. Right? So. Now, you know, it's like now I've, I've done enough in business to know that like, oh, a good business partner, like no matter how wonderful a person is, no matter [01:50:00] how much you like, the same thing, no matter how well you get along, a good business partner is like, have some sort of asset or knowledge or like skillset that compliments that is one that doesn't have, right.

It's not like, it's not like, oh, we like the same things. Wrong reason to go into business with somebody. So basically the stress of the past year and probably what you're noticing in the picture was getting out of a business relationship because of a really bad contract. And, you know, it's like nothing bad about this other, you know, individual, anything like that.

It was just more around like negotiating out of a contract that was really poorly written. Because of some mistakes made in the beginning where we didn't talk about that we were 50 50. There was no provision of what happened if like, We had different visions for the corporation, which is what we ended up happening, is different visions for the company and both wanted to go different directions and nobody was happy.

So it was a very [01:51:00] stressful year of negotiating out of that and not knowing what was going to happen. So I think that's what you were, you were seeing the stress melt away cuz we had finally figured out and negotiated out of that. Well, good. Get a new picture taken. Slap it up there. Right, right. All right.

Well listen, Dr. Diane, between your birth and today mm-hmm. Is there anything else we missed in your story that's significant before we transition to where are you today and where are you heading? So now that hopefully we can help you get there since you helped us so much today. Yeah, I mean the other thing that I think is worth saying, and this is just also connected to the libido work, is like in the middle of like getting, you know, well and all that.

I got married and divorced and when Okay, hold on. Time out because Yeah, we did skip stuff. You mentioned, yeah, you mentioned the triad, you mentioned the libido work and then yeah, we just kind of just skipped, we went from hitting a due with the car to Oh, Marion divorce and now I went on vacation. Okay.

So back up. Where did [01:52:00] this marriage come from? What happened here? So the marriage was actually with my ex-business partner and so that was another thing that made the whole thing complicated. Right. And so, you know, we fell in love. I'm not laughing at you, but Yes. That is like Yes. Super difficult thing to do.

Yeah. And it's like, You know, he is, he is a great person. Like it was just one of those scenarios with, we, we really built our relationship around the fact that we liked the same thing as far as medicine. And that was a lot of what even our romantic relationship was built around. And once, once we started, you know, finding like, oh, there was some problems within the conflict com, you know, combines of our business and being, not being able to sort some of that out.

And there was, you know, other things that happened like throughout the relationship that I don't wanna go into the details around, but like more the point of is just in a relational conflict that I think made both of us feel unsafe. You know, I think the way I related to [01:53:00] him and communicated to him and vice versa, I think it led to a lot of bidirectional unsafety, which is back to the safety and libido thing.

And so when, you know, basically when things started getting, you know, more looking at like, we were going to separate and, and bef even before that, We had a conversation on, like, cuz at that point, like, you know, we were largely, we were basically roommates at that point, you know, and and still, you know, kind to each other as much as possible.

But, but basically roommates, we had fallen outta love and we were just running our business. And so at this point we decided that we were going to try polyamory and because we decided that we wanted to see if that would be a solution to save our marriage in some ways and, and that sort of thing. And, and that was a very interesting thing to to explore because it definitely taught me kind of for the final time that like for me personally, that relationship [01:54:00] is, that type of relationship structure is just not a healthy relationship structure for me.

But the reason I wanted to mention that, that was something that I tried, was really also related to the work I now do in libido because it really like going into that world and talking, it led me to a lot of different conversations about a lot of different ways love can work and ways that healthy relationships can work.

And some people I did meet were doing it very successfully. Other people I met were doing it non, very non successfully. But it really did teach me a lot of different ways about strategies of love, about jealousy, about how to communicate, about jealousy, about boundaries, about how to communicate, about boundaries, about how to communicate around like, Another person looks beautiful and, and, and noticing that a partner sees another person as beautiful and how to navigate that and how to navigate novelty and newness and so many different parts of Interrelational [01:55:00] dynamics I really did learn, even though in the end that was not the right relationship for me, I really did learn in the end that it was a very it was very, very useful.

So that's, you know, so while you know, while my you know, my ex-business partner, my ex, my ex-husband, why we, we, we separated amicably and we wish each other the best and all those great things, there is still this element of anytime separating that many things, especially when there's not a clear way on how to do it, is just extremely stressful.

So that's part of what you were I think seeing, like I said Yeah, yeah. No, I can see that. And you know, statistically, no. Forget personal relationships. Yes. Partnerships very rarely work. Right. And like you said, when they do work good contracts make good partners, you know, like good fences make good neighbors.

Right? Right, exactly. You have people who compliment one another, [01:56:00] you know, like where someone may like really like the sales end, someone else likes the back end and you know, they compliment each other and they work together well. Yeah. But when it gets to the relational things like that is. Totally foreign to me because every single, you know, you went through like business partnerships with people you're involved with.

That's again, that's like professional suicide. Yeah. Then you went through like a triad and polymorphic and all these relationship types that are non like, you know, I'm going to say like what the Bible describe as man and wife, husband, you know, keep it, keep it simple and be married and live life together happily.

But again, even those today, our world is so polluted and corrupted. You know, they say 50% of marriages end in divorce. So it's like communication and relationships. People have gone out searching cuz everything's been so polluted and twisted. But man, you went from back to back hard situations and [01:57:00] like almost impossible situations to solve.

It's like a 50 sided Rubik's cube, right? Yeah, it is. It, it really is. It was a very complicated thing. But you know, it's like I said, it really like, I went, I went with my original business from, you know, the rice and beans years to taking it to what some stats say is the top 4% of small businesses. Like, you know, I've learned so much from like the rice and bean days to.

How to get out of like a contract and how to do it in a way that is still like, kind and still like thinking about both parties and making sure everybody's okay, but like everybody has their own interests. Like these are hard, hard things to navigate. So it really did lead me to like more, you know, more deeply on like the, you know, the conversation of communication that we keep talking about.

That's kind of one of our threads around like, how do we, how do we have these conversations? How do we communicate, how do we do this in a way where we get heard, where we're making sure we're [01:58:00] protecting our own interests, but also making sure the other person's like okay too, and, and taking care of as well.

Yeah. And then before we wrap up into this mm-hmm. What, we've already talked about a lot of tips on communication. Yes. Like especially the segment on your parents and mm-hmm. Going back to the past and working through it. But when you have a spouse or when you have a business partner or a spouse who is a business partner, any final tips on communication that you'd add to that conversation?

Keep the conversation out of the bedroom. I mean, that's like one of very obvious one. Like, like I don't even want a TV in my bedroom for that reason. Me neither. Me neither. So, yeah, I mean, the biggest, you know, I think the biggest thing is like, Like it becomes, it's almost like where, where I hear, I don't have children, but like from, you know, my friends that have children, like this conversation that I hear come up around like, okay, we're going to have date night and we're not going to talk about the kids.

Right. It's almost in some ways, like maybe [01:59:00] analogous to that a little bit around like having times where it is like actively choosing not to talk about the business because it, when it becomes like their whole day and it's like a connection point. One of the challenges that would come up is like, you know, it'd be nine o'clock at night and we would just be in conversation and all of a sudden, like we're talking about business and the next thing we know, it's not like talking to bus about business with a friend.

That's not a vested interest. It's like the next thing I know we're like trying to solve the business decisions that need to be made. And so just really like it. It's, I I find and found that it was like really important to have very strong boundaries around like, this is when we are done being business partners and this is when we are in regular partner, you know, re with regular partners.

This is when we do vacations and you know, we're saying, okay, we're vacationing, we're being creative. And sometimes like when we're creative, that's when we solve other business decisions. That's when we have downtime. And so like, okay, where are the boundaries around? Like where it comes up around like, okay, [02:00:00] we can talk about this for, you know, X number of minutes or that sort of thing, which sometimes can feel limiting, but.

In my experience to protect the relationship, there has to be those levels of boundaries around when are we business partners, when are we, you know, relationship partners in order to protect against that. Yeah. And it's different for everybody, but I do know those fundamentals for everybody too. Yeah. So, all right, so where is Dr.

Diane today and where are you heading? How can we help you get there? Yeah, thanks. So, so right now I have three, three businesses up and going at this point. And so I have my, my line doc, and that's that's very that's very busy. I'm working on hiring some new practitioners for that right now. And I have training programs with that, that's really for people that are in the chronic disease world that have chronic fatigue or brain fog, fibromyalgia, autoimmune disease, just like these things where it's like, okay, I've had these things for years and [02:01:00] maybe you're on medication, maybe you're not, maybe you're just dealing with it, but you don't really know the roots.

So I have, you know, that particular business. And then I have my business over at the libido doctor and. That's a you know, that business is really just for women. We, I only work on with women in part because we have group conversations and some of the things that I have found that we talk about, just, it makes it a little bit safer for Yeah.

For women sometimes to just talk amongst each other. So that's why that one's just exclusively women. And there are some studies that have shown that like libido issues go away when we talk about them. So, you know, it's another reason why having like a safe place to like normalize. Like some, some studies say that there's 70% of people in the world have low libido.

Like there's other studies that say 40%, but either way it's really, really, really high. And people I think would never guess this because it's something that's still taboo to talk about. So my work really with that in part is, is normalizing these hard [02:02:00] conversations, helping people feel like they're not alone, helping people feel like they have the support.

And then looking at how do we communicate more consciously? How do we keep novelty in, you know, even in the context of monogamy, how do we work with. Difficult situations. How do we fix hormones? On and on and on. So there's a lot of stuff that we do there. And then my my business coaching is called Fem meets Fortune.

And that's that's very, a very small part of what I do. It's by application only, but I work with women that are really working to, to grow their business and to not make some of the mistakes that I did. And you know, the other thing that I really will say that kind of ties all this together that we started with, this is concept of pleasure and pleasure is a very, very important word to me because I feel like it has been looked at as far as like, well, like a human need that is not important.

And I say a need in some ways because of what pleasure does. So when we are in a [02:03:00] pleasure state and we release oxytocin, a lot of people know as oxytocin as like the love hormone or the connection hormone. But what they don't realize, what people don't realize is that oxytocin regulates so much of our body.

It regulates our cortisol, our stress hormone. It regulates our melatonin, our sleep hormone. It regulates our sex hormones. So when we're talking about this like hormonal dysregulation that we, I see in Lyme disease, I see with libido, I see when people overwork. I see in all of these areas of my, my, my businesses pleasure is actually one thing that ties all of this together.

When we are have high oxytocin, we actually are releasing different, the, the way our brain responds is very, very different. So we actually see are we memor, we memorize things better, our memory improves, we saw things from a more creative lens. So it actually changes the landscape through which we are making decisions.

So this is, so I'm trying to like, help people in a takeaway point is like, get away from this like, you [02:04:00] know, old hedonic kind of thing around like, pleasure is like not a, you know, not an important thing, right? Or like, pleasure is like taking away from like service or, or other things and really helping people realize that, finding things every day, whether it's.

Embracing a long time and a hug or really sinking into your couch with your dog. Like very, very basic things. But allowing yourself to have these moments of the day where you're sinking into pleasure is going to help your brain work better. It's going to help your hormones work better. It's going to lower your inflammation, it's going to help prevent disease, it's going to help your connection, your communication, and so many more things.

And I think we get so overwhelmed and so lost in our business and our health problems and all of these types of things that can be so easy to not prioritize that when that's a fundamental thing that can actually change so many different areas of your life. And that's, I think another reason why you see, like, see I look different is because I go through, have gone through my own journey with like, I'm not prioritizing this.

I'm not prioritizing [02:05:00] pleasure and like, you know, I'm back to prioritizing pleasure again. And everything in my life works better. I serve people better, I show up better, I can think better, I can work better. All of these things when I allow myself to have pieces of that every day. Yeah, no, I mean, I think there's a lot of truth in what you're saying.

Completely. And I think every single person who's been in a stressful situation, bad situation, and then they get out of it and they emerge, they start feeling better, they start, you know, hair grows back when they've been bald for 10 years. They, you know, their energy levels go through the roof, their sexual libido goes up.

They're just outlook changes, like you said, the perception. So yeah, I don't disregard any of that. I think it's all very, very accurate. So now, If someone wants to get a hold of you, what is the best way for them to reach you? Whether it's talking about libido, Lymes disease, personal coaching, or business coaching.

Yeah, you can find all my [02:06:00] businesses of you go to dr diane mueller.com. So that's just kind of the, the, like you can find, you know, the lime stuff on my Lime Doc, the libido stuff on the Libido doctor, and then the business coaching on femme meets fortune. But if that's all, that's a lot of things that we're talking about.

So if you just go to my name, dr diane mueller.com, that's where Almo, you can find all of my Prada my projects there and we'll put links in the show notes to all of this. Okay. But when you're spelling out doctor Dr. Or doctor, the full word Dr. So d r d i a n e m u e l l e r.com. Well, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you for your time today, Dr. Diane. Between your birth and today, is there anything else we missed or any closing thoughts you wanna leave with our community? Just one more time. Pleasure is a gift that will allow your spirit to lift. And thank you for having me today, David. Oh, it's been fantastic and it's been very interesting and fun.

So [02:07:00] I'm very thankful for you. I think I can learn and apply a lot of this and I think our listeners can too. So I wish you only the best. Dr. Diane, same to you. All right, and ladies and gentlemen, like our slogan says, don't just listen to the great advice Dr. Diane gave. You gotta do it. You gotta repeat that good stuff each day so you can have a great life in this world.

And most importantly, an attorney to come. So this was our friend, Dr. Diane. I'm David Pasqualone. We'll catch you in the next episode. Ciao. 

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