Decisions, Decisions!

When Marie shared her powerful narrative of overcoming chronic pain, it resonated deeply within me; it underscored the profound connection between health awareness and mindful living. Bridging the gap between conventional wisdom and alternative approaches, we navigate the often murky waters of making health decisions that are best for us, not just convenient. Our latest episode unearths the subtleties of becoming your own health advocate, and the ripple effect a single change can have on your overall well-being. It's a conversation that celebrates the strength found in vulnerability and the clarity that comes with heightened self-awareness.

Tackling the unexpected is a theme we often shy away from until we're in the thick of it, but what if we approached preparedness with the same diligence as our daily self-care? This episode pulls back the curtain on the instincts that kick in during emergencies, the value of CPR and first aid training, and how embracing awareness can shape our everyday decisions, from the foods we eat to the care we provide ourselves. By confronting our innate resistance to change—much like the challenge of fitting more greens onto our plates—we pave the way for monumental shifts in health and happiness. Join us as we connect the dots between the life-saving decisions we hope we never have to make and the life-affirming choices we get to make every day.

For More Information visit awakenedwellness.life or marieknoetig.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Good afternoon and welcome to Awakened Wellness. Marie and I are going to start the show off with comments from the last show, of which they're growing and growing. People are more interested and I think it's really exciting to hear that people are watching the show, having some feedback, and so why don't you get us started on what people are saying?

Speaker 2: 0:40

All right, the first recap is on the show. It all adds up. It all adds up, okay. Yeah, it seems to be sparking a lot of thought about personal choices and the thought of how they accumulate. So, yeah, it doesn't mean that they're acting on it, right, but I see people coming in more now where they're going. Oh, if I don't change this, it's not going to be good for me. I really have to change this because I know it's going to recap it as I age, where they never acknowledged that before, they're starting to acknowledge that, which is really kind of cool, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:12

And it sounded like that they're willing to look at it in bits and pieces and not something overwhelming, most of us are.

Speaker 2: 1:20

And that's a big point to make that it's not going to change in a day, Because these are habits we've had our entire lives and our whole being of how we live revolves around them. You know when we go out with friends, holidays, what we cook, groceries, everything. So it's slow changes that are everlasting, not a quick fix and again little pieces.

Speaker 1: 1:45

It's not a bad thing, no it's about becoming aware.

Speaker 2: 1:48

And the more you become aware and you keep asking to see what you need to see and you listen to what's happening in your surroundings and you listen to your body within the more you become aware. It just kind of happens. So this, this isn't like. Some of these shows seem like there's a lot of information. Just become aware of it and it will start happening all on its own. You don't have to like set out. I'm going to make this change today. Necessarily, if you're aware of it now, you're going to look at a situation different when you're in it.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Okay, I think that's fair enough.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Yeah, yeah, because if you didn't know, how could you Right?

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah Well.

Speaker 2: 2:21

I'm looking at labels of food.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Not that I didn't before, but I'm actually looking and seeing what's in the labels and what's in the ingredients and making a more informed decision.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Yep, little steps, integrative medicine from that show. They're complaining that it's very overwhelming to even find out what they can do for themselves. And why does their primary care not help them sort it all out? Oh dear, okay, because they want to go and say should I do this? Alternatively, should I do this? I don't want to take the drug, can I do this? There's nobody to help and I get that. So that's not what they're there for, correct? You would hope that they are, but they're not trained to help you figure that out. So first you have to say to yourself the system is what it is, okay, what do you want for yourself in the scope of what they can provide, and then take it from there? Then you go elsewhere, or you do some research and you go from there, but to want what you can't have.

Speaker 2: 3:33

So knowing going in that you're probably not going to get what you need. You're only going to get so much. You're only going to get so much.

Speaker 1: 3:41

So know, when you're going to the PCP, that they can do X, y, z and not going to step necessarily outside their scope, but you also can't expect them to either. You need to take what you can get from that piece, yes, and then be willing to go to someone holistic or go to exercise, whatever it is. Get all the pieces and try to put them together, because there's not one pill and there's not one answer, and I think that's what we've been conditioned to think.

Speaker 2: 4:13

I met a woman yesterday and it was really kind of fascinating to me. She was in a lot of pain, she's aging, and she said to me I'm tired of hurting. I said, fair enough and I go. And what are you doing in response? I'm tired of hurting. I said, fair enough and I go. And what are you doing in response to being tired of hurting? I don't know you, mm-hmm. Well, I'm walking every day, I'm doing Tai Chi, I'm doing yoga, I'm going to the gym. I'm like, wow, that's a lot, that's a lot. And I said and you're not getting any results? She goes.

Speaker 2: 4:41

No, I hurt more all the time and I've been to every doctor, I've tried everything and in her instance, the minute I started working on her, she had multiple belly surgeries. Oh so all that scar tissue was wreaking havoc as she tried to straighten, straighten out her spine and get out of pain. So we talked about it a little bit. She goes. I knew it, I knew it. Wow, she said I could feel it pulling. And once we alleviated some of it and I gave her some tools, it was so cool to see she already knew, but there was nobody in the system that could help her To validate it, to acknowledge it to say I did feel what I felt Right.

Speaker 2: 5:27

And that's where you have to become more present and know what you know, because I'm very rare in that I can see these things in people. So if you ask to see what you need to see every day, your body's going to show you that and you're going to figure out ways to help yourself around that. If you truly want to know, it will happen. But most people don't want to know. They want someone else to do it for them. But we can figure it out. She knew and she pushed hard enough to find somebody who had an answer for her.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, which is what you were talking about. Know where you're going to get some of those answers, where you're going to get some more choices and pieces of the puzzle Right. Good for her, yeah it was very cool. It was probably just very exciting for her to say I felt that I knew that.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Oh, she was just like. I knew that, I knew that, but she didn't even vocalize that to her doctors or anything because she didn't know it could be a thing, right right, she didn't know it could be a thing and and quite frankly, we're afraid. I don't think she knew it could be a thing, yep no, no, we're.

Speaker 1: 6:34

I mean if she did. But there's times when you're afraid to ask. You are in case you know they might say you're stupid or you know what you're talking about. I'm the expert, and so we need to not be afraid of that and listen to what the answer is and see right, do I believe that answer or not, or do I want to keep working on it?

Speaker 2: 6:55

right, and this woman wasn't doing any of my work before I met her, she was just doing her own. Very interesting, yeah. So we all have it. She was already doing it on herself. She just didn't know she she could have more tools to go in that direction. So that's what's really cool for me. All right, reading Between the Lines, that was a show we did a while ago. They find it easy to just read the headlines and then share it as a topic of conversation, and then they realize later that it isn't exactly what the headline said and that they've just spread misinformation. They work in the public and it helps with conversation, so they always scan things just so they have conversation when they're in the public and stuff. They just can't seem to stop doing it, even though they're spreading misinformation.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Okay, Well, I think it's to be what's the word? It's not pertinent, but to be aware, to be part of the conversation, part of what's going on, to be.

Speaker 2: 7:55

They're just shocked how many times the headlines don't signify what's in the article, correct. Yeah, they're shocked. They're shocked how many times that they've been misled into thinking of certain things happening and then the article says something different. Because people don't read deep enough in the articles to realize the headlines just to grab you, yep, and the one thing I found is I print them out.

Speaker 1: 8:18

I don't read them on a iPad or a computer because you can get very narrow-sighted and not go to the bottom. So I always make sure I print them and I read the whole thing, because I found myself doing similar type of things and being like, oh, I'm not interested in that. But yet I go back a week later and go how did I miss that? Because I didn't take the time to read the whole thing. It's the same with the news time to read the whole thing. It's the same with the news. I'll see people read what the headline is, but they're not listening to what the person is actually saying and many times it's totally different subjects or the headline's very misleading and what they're saying is what actually is going on, and sometimes it's the opposite.

Speaker 2: 9:06

Right. Yep All right. Decisions decisions All right. Where do you get the information that you base your decisions on?

Speaker 1: 9:18

I would think that you would get it from your upbringing, from your family to start your environment and then as you move on to be school-aged, you'd get it from friends and school and teachers and another environment and it just keeps adding on. And there's that ever popular.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Because you're supposed to, because that's the way it is.

Speaker 1: 9:44

Okay, all right, I see where you're going with that one. Okay, it's both yeah it's both, because that's the way it is. Yeah, because you know.

Speaker 2: 9:54

It's easier, right? Yeah, so Awaken Wellness is about truly understanding your choices and how they affect now and as you age. So you have to figure out why am I making these choices and where am I getting the information from right? Yeah, so what happens is most people live in reaction to things, so then they don't really think it out and they just react.

Speaker 1: 10:20

I think that's life right now. We're very reactionary, things are moving so fast and I think we really have to take a breath.

Speaker 2: 10:30

And you don't know what. You don't know Correct. It was funny because I had an instance this weekend. It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in my life and afterward, the thoughts that kept coming through my head on how much I didn't know. And now I want to know.

Speaker 2: 10:44

So I was driving up to a light. It was at the bottom of where our hill was. So there was two lanes and one was going straight and one was turning. So I get to the straight lane and the car in this lane is four behind me and then there's like eight cars behind them. They're not anywhere near the light and I'm like that's weird. So I turn back and the guy's sitting at the wheel like this. My heart stops. So I put my car in park, I get out and I start pointing at that car as I'm running toward it and the other people in the other car behind him jump out and they get to the car before I do and they knock on the window. The guy goes, oh sorry, and then drives off. Did he fall asleep? He must have.

Speaker 1: 11:29

Wow.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Right. So now I'm like my heart stops. I'm going well, thank God he's okay. But then I'm thinking what if he does?

Speaker 1: 11:38

it again while he's driving.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Well, he's not stopped, but even my role in it. What was I going to do when I got there? What tools do I have to even know what to do in that situation? The first thing I realized was I ran in front of the car. Well, what if his foot was on the brake and fell off or pushed on it Right? And then I'm thinking could I have gotten in the car? And if I did, was I going to pull him out? Or you know, because I didn't even grab my phone, because I grabbed in such an instant and there were just all these thoughts going through my head that you only know what you know. And then this whole thing happens. And where was I making my decisions from? And they were totally out of fight or flight, because I had no tools to know what I was going to do, but your gut was telling you you needed to do something, right, right, but it was limited.

Speaker 2: 12:27

The knowledge of what you do. I was so happy the guy in the car behind me got to that window before I did. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Then it would have been deer in the headlights for a moment or so.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Yeah, yeah, but you realize, even though that was an extreme situation, we do things all the time that we just keep reacting over and over again until we get an outcome because we don't know what to do.

Speaker 1: 12:48

But the good. So, from from my point of view, and doing 9-1-1. So the, apart from the, you know, stopping the car, all of that, whatever we do, what we do, you can't beat up any. But you made those other eight people behind him aware, so there was nobody trying to cut around or anything, and everybody realized something, something was going on, and so I would say that was, that was a very good thing to do. Well, thank you.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Absolutely. That was the weirdest thing I'd ever done.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Yeah Well, the first time you do it it is weird. And then now in the future, you'll be like, okay, I'll be a little more cautious, but you did what needed to have to be done and avoided something being 100 times worse.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Well, I had another instance one time and it was similar again about people making decisions. I was at a four-way stop and all of a sudden I get to the stop sign and there's a woman laying on the ground and I'm like everybody's still going through the stop sign and I'm like I'm going, is this real? So then I realized this is real. So again I put my car in park and I jump out and I grab my phone and I jump out and I'm so close to her that my car is picking up and I'm on the phone with 911, but they can't hear me because my car is picking up off my phone.

Speaker 1: 14:04

I'm trying to stop her from getting off the ground and nobody's stopping.

Speaker 2: 14:07

They're all still going through the four-way stop, so now I'm trying to flag people down no-transcript. That's just mind blowing to me that you can see somebody on the ground and just keep going.

Speaker 1: 14:37

So where are those decisions coming from? That that's okay. Or are they that tunnel visioned that they don't see it?

Speaker 2: 14:43

I'm sure that would have been really hard.

Speaker 1: 14:44

But what are they focusing on? What are they looking at? That they're going to ignore that person that's passed out on the side of the road? Then, probably like the eighth, car.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Someone stopped and helped me and it all got rectified, but it was very, very unusual. So people live in reaction, including me, but you only know what you know when these things happen. Yeah, so yeah. And where are these decisions coming from Me? I think I need a CPR or something.

Speaker 1: 15:08

I don't know A first aid basics class.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Something. Yeah, for me, when I talk to people all day, it amazes me how quickly they'll shut down when it makes them uncomfortable. So they don't even know why they're deciding the things. They're deciding for themselves Because they get so uncomfortable. Whether it's about nutrition, whether it's about self-care, whether it's about even a relationship where you try to get them to see all sides, it's not happening. He won't do it or she won't do it, or it's not going to happen.

Speaker 2: 15:39

You know what I mean. They can't go there, yeah, but there's no basis for that, for not going there, yeah, yeah, other than it's uncomfortable. Right, it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 15:50

That you can't do it. Well, why can't you do it? Because I can't do it Right.

Speaker 2: 15:53

Right, because To just really evaluate going in the direction you want, try to take a step back, ask to see what you need to see every day and find out where you're making these decisions from right, and I think that was a really good point you just made.

Speaker 1: 16:08

You know, ask what you need to see. And for a moment I was kind of like, and then you said ask what you need to see, what is, what is it you need to do? What are you? Are you not seeing that's holding you back? Why are you holding yourself back? So I think it's sort of a two-part question.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Right, and it can be as simple as I have one client. She knows she needs to eat more vegetables because she doesn't eat vegetables, so I start talking about her nutrition and everything else. She loves chili. I said what's a great place to hide vegetables? Conversation ended right there.

Speaker 1: 16:42

I'm not hiding them in my chili Well it didn't even go there, just it ended.

Speaker 2: 16:47

That was it, she got really quiet and very reserved and I go oh so we're not going to put them in the chili, are we? Well, that's not what chili is. I go well again, why are you making that decision? Where is it coming from that? It has to be a certain way Because it's these weird little things that are dictating our health. It's not like where you're buying your house from. It's like these decisions that we think are real because that's chili that's inhibiting us getting healthier, because it's not just the chili If it's the chili you've got 40 other things you're doing the same thing for, wow Right, it's kind of funny.

Speaker 1: 17:25

It is kind of funny.

Speaker 2: 17:26

Yeah, so you don't know why people do what they do. Yeah, so you can get uncomfortable when you're awakening. That's the key. Yeah, so uncomfortable is where change happens. That's the key.

Speaker 1: 17:41

So uncomfortable is where change happens, because you've got to stop being uncomfortable and do something about it, or you go numb, so you're still making a decision, you still have to do something about it. So you look at something like diverticulosis.

Speaker 2: 17:54

Millions of people have diverticulosis. It's when you don't eat enough fiber and your colon doesn't get cleansed enough. So it starts to get real irritated in there and then it starts to form pockets like little ulcers Okay. And then it can get inflamed to the point where you start losing your colon. They have to go in and resect it, because that's when it becomes diverticulitis, it becomes an infection. A lot of people have colon resections because of that, or they have constant bouts because they're eating the foods that irritate it but they don't add fiber to their diet. Okay. So when you go for your colonoscopy they tell you all right, add fiber. The problem is they just say you have diverticulosis, add fiber. They don't tell you that it is an inflamed colon, that the more you irritate it, the worse it's going to get and you can eventually lose your colon. They don't tell you any of that. They just tell you you have diverticulosis, eat more fiber, right.

Speaker 1: 18:45

So you owe it to yourself. Okay, my decision to help my health is if I have it, what is it? Let's have a basic understanding. Yeah, and where am I making?

Speaker 2: 18:49

my decisions from on how to treat it. Just that basic information. Or do I need to delve in a little deeper? Because every time you inflame it you're at risk of losing it. But people will inflame it over and over again for 20 years without giving it a second thought, because they'll just take their Pepto-Bismol or they'll take whatever Right, or eat more fiber.

Speaker 1: 19:09

So yeah, he said eat fiber, I'm eating fiber.

Speaker 2: 19:12

It's okay. So you just need to ask yourself why am I just reserved to this and not going that step further to really understand what I need to do for myself? What decisions am I making and where is my basis for not going? Because the doctor said so, that's all I need to do. But you're not even doing that. So always take it a step further and ask yourself Give yourself a little bit more knowledge.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Give it expand, living the dream. Make your dream a little bit bigger of having a healthy colon.

Speaker 2: 19:43

Well, it's not just that. You know you could go heart disease with that, you could go. Weight loss with that, you could go, you know, stress levels with that, you could take it to every level of your wellness and awaken in it and see what you need to do for yourself and why you aren't. What is driving your decisions to not? Because that's what the holidays are. You have to eat all these things and get sick, right, that's what vacations are. You're supposed to overindulge so you feel like crap before you come back to work. It's okay to go to a healthy restaurant on vacation. It is. Yeah, it seems to me that it's hard. Maine doesn't think so. Maine doesn't think so. Everything's fried clam. You know you go on vacation, right. There's this whole culture.

Speaker 1: 20:24

It's how they make their money. That's true, and if you don't have those choices, then they're steering you down a narrow pathway to continue.

Speaker 2: 20:33

We vacation in Maine every year and as soon as a healthy restaurant goes up, it's gone the next year.

Speaker 1: 20:43

But those clam shack places stay consistent all the time. Why? What a shame? Because, um, it's easier for people to just suffer. Because, again, no, we define vacation by it.

Speaker 2: 20:52

That's what you do on vacation, right? It's not a vacation unless you have those things. Doesn't matter if it makes you feel awful or not and sends you down a different path, because that is vacation. Why do you define vacation that way? What can vacation be? You can take it to a whole other level to wake up and realize that our choices sometimes are just because, just because Wow, a lot of us do just because, just because You're supposed to. You know it was like when we were growing up. You go to church on Sunday because You're supposed to it, just because You're supposed to.

Speaker 1: 21:24

You know it was like when we were growing up you'd go to church on Sunday because, because you're supposed to, it's Sunday, you're supposed to. Until you find out it's a lot of people that believe Sabbath is Saturday.

Speaker 2: 21:30

A lot of people still won't go to Saturday Mass because you go on Sunday, you know.

Speaker 1: 21:35

Yeah, goodness gracious, it's really everywhere we go.

Speaker 2: 21:42

Goodness gracious, it's really everywhere we go. It's every decision, it's the foundation of how we built our lives.

Speaker 1: 21:46

So we, so we could say, I'll say it, that we are building a shaky foundation for ourselves, because we haven't truly decided why we've made the decisions, why we say no, why we say yes, why we define vacation as vacation, why we define chilly as chilly. So we're sort of setting ourselves up with a very shaky foundation, because that's the way it's always been.

Speaker 2: 22:19

It's the way it's always been. You've watched your parents do it.

Speaker 1: 22:22

You've watched your grandparents do it.

Speaker 2: 22:23

That's why they have commercials right about becoming your parents, because a lot of us do become our parents. Yeah, we do. I met a woman years ago and I was doing Meals on Wheels and she was doing it as well, and I'd gone to high school with her and I vaguely remembered her and she started talking to me and she goes oh, we did this together. We did that, we did that, we did that. And she goes my kids are doing Girl Scouts Are yours? I go no, we do this. Are you kids doing that? No, well, we did this when we grew up. Are you kids doing that? I'm like no.

Speaker 2: 22:49

She goes you don't do anything like when you grew up, nope. And she did everything exactly the same as how she grew up. And what drives that right? For me it was survival and I didn't like it. For her it was comfortable. So if it's comfortable, there's no reason to question it and see if it serves you or not. Yeah, till all of a sudden you're older and your health starts failing or whatever it is, and now you want more. You have to start questioning those things on whether they served you or not, right?

Speaker 1: 23:25

oh my goodness. Well then, I guess I did totally different things with my kids too, and didn't say the things my parents said. Because they, for that reason alone, because they said it, I'm not gonna say it and that's good.

Speaker 2: 23:39

That's good because I like fire and people. You know my grandson gets a little fire, my daughter. I'm not going to say it and that's good. That's good because I like firing people. You know my grandson gets a little fire. My daughter doesn't like it. I love it.

Speaker 1: 23:46

So yeah, because you know they're going to be OK if they have a little fire and they question Correct, which is what we started talking about that you just can't accept things and go along with it, that we've got a society of people that don't question things. They just go along to get along, and we've lost our ability to think outside the box. But there's also that discerning piece.

Speaker 2: 24:05

You can question them because you're trying to better yourself, or you can question them because you just don't like them and you don't want them and your idea is better. It's not that way. Awaken Wellness is more about what is going to serve me for my greater good in long-term health and wellness. So you have to make sure when you're questioning something, is it going in that direction, not just because you want something and you want to get your way?

Speaker 1: 24:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:28

I like that.

Speaker 1: 24:29

Yeah Well, again, another great show, a lot for all of us to think about. So I want to thank you again. It's fun being a co-host with you and I want to encourage everybody to look up Marie when can they find you so you can ask questions and leave comments. Marienodigcom Excellent. So we'd love to hear your feedback and what you think and, as always, share the shows and we'll see you next month. Have a great day everybody.