Ancient Wisdom, Modern Healing: Demystifying Acupuncture for Mental Health with Dr. David Suomela, D.O.M.

Hello there, God's masterpiece. Thank you for tuning in to Holistic Counselor podcast. It's me, Diana from Through the Valley Therapy, bringing to you my acupuncturist who has helped me through burnout, autoimmune disease, grief, and now my second puberty, menopause. I'm excited to do to introduce you today to Dr.

David Sumela. Did I say that right, or did I murder it? Yeah, yeah, Sumela. Sumela. Gosh, you you keep telling me that. Sumela. It's not an easy one. No, that's why I call him Dr. Dave. Yes. Dr. Dave is a highly respected doctor of Oriental Medicine, primary care provider, acupuncture physician, and master yoga instructor.

Is that right? Correct. Okay. He is national board certified, Florida state licensed and insured, bringing a wealth of expertise to his practice. What's really impressive about Dr. Dave is his experience working with top-level athletes. He served as the official acupuncturist for the Florida Panthers for three consecutive seasons from 2007 to 2009.

But his client list doesn't stop there. He's worked with elite athletes from various disciplines, including pro baseball, surfing, MMA, and even Olympic athletes. Of course, he also helps everyday folks like you and me who may not be quite as athletically gifted. Dr. Dave runs his practice, Pure Acupuncture and Natural Medicine in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

What sets him apart is his compassionate and communicative approach to patient care. With over 14 years of experience, he excels at developing integrative treatment plans tailored to each individual's unique needs, helping them achieve and maintain optimal health and wellness. One thing I really appreciate about Dr.

Dave is how he makes health education accessible and easy to understand. He's highly skilled in clinical assessment, diagnostic analysis, and creating holistic and homeopathic treatment plans. He even incorporates preventative treatments to help patients find that perfect balance of life and health energy. I know he has helped me through some of my roughest moments in the last year.

God, I hate being a You need to fix that. You need to poke that out of me. And I'm grateful that the Lord led me to him. Dr. Dave, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. So, tell me a little bit about your personal story in terms what led you to be in the profession you are in today.

So, I was basically, as a young teenager, when I was 13, I had a major health issue. I started having horrific pain, joint swelling, couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Um my knees would swell, and doctors were draining about a liter of fluid weekly off my my knees.

Um needed assistance out of bed. Um it was very difficult, and they couldn't figure it out after about a year of this. I was such a fascinating case, which you never want to be in medicine. Uh you always want to be extremely boring and easy to fix.

Uh they sent my information to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Uh they asked me to come down there and see a team of doctors who at the time were treating Ronald Reagan for arthritis. So, that was their feather in their cap, and these were the top doctors in the country.

They'd never seen anything quite like my case. After days and days of testing everything that hospital had run in diagnostics, close to 200 x-rays of my spine, and every other imaginable uh poke and prod, they diagnosed me with rheumatoid osteoarthritis and degenerative spinal disease.

They told my parents in the room to rebuild their home to be wheelchair accessible. They'd be taking care of me the rest of my life. Wow. So at that point, they said that they were going to put me on steroids and painkillers for managing the pain and they were going to fuse my entire lumbar spine, put a steel rod up my back and a titanium cage around my spine to keep me from being paralyzed.

I asked them about that at 14, I'm still growing, how does that work? And they told me my body could adapt to that and I said, that's a good word. Let's see if the body can adapt without that. I asked them about diet, nutrition, exercise, environment.

It fell on deaf ears. Um after a long back and forth, um one doctor actually suggested possibly moving to Florida because I felt better in the tropics when I visited my uncle who lived in Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Okay. Um I felt better in the summer than the winter.

He actually said more fresh fruits and vegetables, so I said diet does matter. He said, yeah, it might play a factor. So um cuz my it was my response. I'd only taken life science at the time, so I I questioned them about the water I drink, the air I breathe, the food I eat is what my body assembles into new cells.

Is that wrong? And they couldn't say I was right. They said, that's not incorrect. Okay. Right? That was the the response, right? Um so at that point, I I did that at 15, I got worse in the summer, not better, so uh having a mother who had lupus and arthritis and went through their treatments, which is why I knew to question their treatments was because it didn't work for her.

It led to kidney and liver disease and problems and it didn't fix anything. So you I said, you're going to do the exact same thing to me. Um so at 15, we moved to Florida and turned my health around, eliminated all processed foods, all preserved all preservatives, all refined sugars and started physically pushing my body really hard and my body recovered and I made a promise to myself that I'd return to Florida after high school and finish getting healthy.

Then I went into medicine, pre-med, and just personally hit a wall when I hit just food pharmaceutical drug training. I know there's a time and place for it. It has its place. That's what this is all about is integrating medicine and not turning your back with that term alternative makes me think I got to turn my back on somebody.

Right. Exactly. Everybody should be at the table. And there was a time when I needed those meds and there was a time when they were helpful or even a simple Advil, you know, gave me relief. But I need to I needed to get off of those things.

And even due to some kidney issues or being I was born with one big horseshoe kidney. So those those literally shaped like a horseshoe and and so it's higher risk factor for all those different medicines that they were recommending. So eventually I found the school for this.

So I went through traditional training, did my traditional pre-med, but then a eventually I just felt like for me personally if I was going to recommend medications that I personally refused Right. I didn't want to be practicing as what I viewed myself to be a hypocrite at that point.

Giving someone else a medication that I refused just didn't seem right. So eventually I found the school to become as well as a primary care provider, a doctor of oriental medicine, but it gave me a scope of medicine beyond what I thought was possible to be able to do food therapy, nutrition, herbs, life counseling.

Um you know, mind, body, spirit awareness and an idea that, you know, the hip bone's connected to the thigh bone and the thigh bone's connected to the knee. Like we're a whole being, right? Not just parts of a being. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, cuz medicine has become so specialized that one doctor doesn't talk to the next and and the interrelationship, but I was fascinated by this medicine's ability to recognize patterns in the human body that exist time and time again against race, creed, color, gender.

It It doesn't discriminate, right? These patterns hold true and I I took that with a large grain of salt, but I've seen it over I gave you a kind of an incorrect bio there about 20 years now of practice. So, uh yeah, essentially an old one.

Apologize. Um 14 plus. Yeah, 14 plus. Yeah, that's why the plus is there. But But at at any state I've been practice studying medicine since I was 15. You know, I became a yoga instructor in 1999 and actively, you know, taught that as well because it helped me so much.

It changed my life and after a while I I actually felt selfish for not teaching or sharing this information I'd let I'd found. A lot of it seemed common sense, but it's just not commonly taught. No, exactly.

So, I felt an obligation to kind of share that with people and then through through my practice it's evolved over over time, um you know, being able to do injection therapies with nutrition and vitamins and now leading into new regenerative medicines and and just a whole scope of diseases that we can treat, which keeps me mentally stimulated as well.

I mean, I treat over 4,000 different diseases. So, I'm constantly learning and I'm and I'm very open to learning from my patients. Yes. Yes, you are. And I I mean, he's my doctor.

So, I I've seen him in action and he he's he has a gift of understanding the the energy of the of the human, like, you know, and where I mean, I tell him what's going on and then he just You know, I don't Okay, this is where we're going to have to go into this now because I try to explain it to my family or someone that doesn't understand acupuncture and right away it's like, "Ooh, that's new age."

Or that's woo-woo. And you know, that's just placebo. And you know, the way you were able to describe it and I've been to other acupuncture. So, I've been doing acupuncture for 15 years and I've come to Dr. Dave now for the last probably a year and a half, I would say, right?

And so, but you were able to explain it so well, and that's what I want the audience to hear is uh you know, what is acupuncture or traditional Chinese medicine, and how long's it been around, and especially what can it do for your mental health?

Right. Right. So, the the the thing about this system of medicine is, you know, often referred to as 2,000 years old. It's over four over 5,000 years old. Oh, wow. So, and it's stood the test of time, and it's standing the test of modern research.

Um there are hundreds of thousands and worldwide over a million studies peer-reviewed on on this medicine. Um from mental health to drug addiction, uh addictions of any nature, um to you know, sim- I don't want to say simple about pain, but but to pain treatments and physical body and neuromuscular uh diseases and disorders, but the thing about the medicine is you walk into the traditional acupuncturist, and they will tell you, "Oh, you have a blockage in your qi.

I'm going to move your qi." Yeah. Which is wonderful if you speak Chinese, right? Cuz qi's it's a Chinese word. As I always tell people, if you walk into my office and I say "Mee how" instead of "Hello", we're really not communicating well, right?

So, that's my thing like we referred to like demystifying it. Um uh MDs will ask me, and and the traditional medical community will say, "I don't know if I believe in this qi stuff." And I'll say, "Do you believe in an EKG of the heart?"

Right. And they're like, "Yeah." Do you believe in an EEG of the of the brain? Do you believe that the brain and body have an electrical current or nerves fire on an electric electrical impulse?" And they'll say, "Oh, yeah." And I said, "So, you're saying the heart has an electrical current?"

And they're like, "Yeah." And I "And you have a machine that can measure that?" Mhm. And they're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Welcome to qi." Right? And you know, it's it's bioelectrical current, well um Atomic energy, nuclear energy, electrons, protons, neutrons. The entire body is an electrical chemical impulse machine.

And electrical impulses create chemical responses that create hormone releases that affect our emotions. Right? And And when the physical body is stuck, it in certain areas, it leads to a predisposition of an emotion. So, if it's out of balance like in in in Eastern medicine, we say that the kidneys are fear, anxiety, and worry.

Well, when they were describing that, the adrenals sit just above the kidney. So, they were right in the right area of the body. Adrenal response, panic attacks, everything else. When you start moving that system, some of their descriptions didn't quite understand the full physiological effect of the body, but it it it influences when you hit these points on that, we say channel or meridian, these access points to tap into the brain and body to give it certain messages, that organ actually starts to function differently.

It starts to improve. The electrical current in that in those smooth muscles and the function of the body starts to improve, then blood flow can increase to the area, and the you're basically giving the mind and the body the messages it needs to heal itself.

So, when someone says to me, "You You fixed me with acupuncture." and I say, "No, I simply allowed your body to fix itself." Because that's how God made us, correct? Like honestly, he gave us everything, the plants, the the you know, the herb, the foods, the sunlight, the water, Yeah. to help all this biology inside of us to to repair constantly.

And the body has a profound ability to repair, but sometimes when it tries to repair or adapt to changes, it doesn't always pick the best route. So, we can reset that homeostasis or that balance. Like if you're feeling sick and depressed and sad every day, over time, that becomes your norm.

And your cells and your body and the chemical responses don't know your norm to the person next to you that's happy and joyful all the time. So, what we do is we show your body a better way of being. I like referring to it as the morning coffee you have a or or your morning tea.

You have an emotion and your body gets this chemical response and it and it starts to crave that. Even a panic attack, you nobody enjoys that, but your body's physical response gets a rush. Like like a an adrenaline rush and your body you.

Our brain is trying to protect us constantly. then and then your cells in your body say, "Hey, I want more of that." But then you you start switching the brand that you give the body. So, it's it the the hormones, endorphins, and serotonins, and and dopamine.

So, your body you feel calm and peaceful and relaxed and happy. And every cell in your body craves that, right? It it it wants those things that make you laugh, that make you happy, the people that make you happy, the people that bring you to to to that state of mind, and recognizing that it's not all in your head.

Sometimes it's all in your body and all sudden you heal the body and the emotion goes away. Okay. I mean, I I've had individuals who had car accidents and they I had an individual who If this man walked into the room, I mean, he he took up the whole doorway and he was, you know, big man.

He was the type of guy you'd hire as a as, you know, as a bodyguard, you know, and he found himself after this accident looking over his shoulder like somebody was going to attack him or Hypervigilance. Yeah, he would get up in the middle of night and check his doors that were locked.

He couldn't explain it. He came to me, he said, "I think I'm going crazy." I looked at his diagnostics and I said, "You have a laceration to your kidney." And I showed him the emotions according to Chinese medicine and according to Eastern medicine.

And I said, "This book was Read this paragraph." And he read it, he goes, "That's me." I go, "This was written 2,000 years ago." Right? You're not crazy. We healed, in this case, his his kidney. Um same time the laceration went away, his emotion cleared.

Okay. You know, so it's it's it's all tied together, and you can have the mind that then affects the body, the body then had responds and affects the mind, and round and round we go. Yes. Right, how do we stop that merry-go-round? How do we reset it?

Like, if the body's an electrical system with a magnetic field, just like our phones that we're all on all the time, Yeah. they start getting glitchy, first thing you call customer service, turn it off and turn it on again. How do we hit the reset button for our system?

So, I like to refer to a lot of treatments I do with acupuncture as let's let's reset the nervous system, central nervous system, the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, and that gets a bit complex, but there's simple access points. Yes. So, if you have all this electrical current moving through your body, the acupuncture is like the outlets of the wall.

Like, and each outlet has a different function, and it turns on a different light. And that's what they figured out, and the simple way it was developed was a first response when we have pain, we put our hand on it. Right, we touch it.

And you your hand hurts and you touch it, and all of a sudden you go, wait, my hand feels better, but my headache just went away. What happened there? Yeah. And then you go to the patient with a headache that has no hand pain, and you do it again, and it works.

And after it works a thousand times, you go, I think we see a pattern here. Right. Right? So, the science developed off of the results. Right. Right? And and in ancient times we didn't have all these fancy fancy diagnostics, so we listened, we looked, we touched, right?

We used all five senses. Yes. And back in the day. Yeah, and and, you know, oftentimes I have patients tell me they go for a a checkup or yearly physical, and they're never even touched. Mhm. Right? They're they're never looked at, they're never listened to.

Right. Um we look at the blood work and go, "You look great on You look great on paper." and you're done. Right? So, it must all be in your head. Mhm. But, and then they come to me. Yes. Exactly.

Or psychiatrist, because that's happened to me uh quite a few times where but it would turned out that I had a goiter and this is the one of the first times I went to an acupuncturist cuz uh they were tell I was having this choky feeling and my thyroid levels, this was in my 30s.

I'm in my 50s now. Okay. Okay. And they were saying, "Oh, I had um they're in It's in your head." Yeah. It's in my head and I'm like, "Wait, no. I could feel it. I could And I just sat and I prayed." and I'm like, "All right, Lord.

Where What's happening here?" And they're like, "Oh, you're going to get operated on. You're going to get um radioactive iodine or your thyroid taken out and you'll be on Synthroid for the rest of your life." and I'm going, "Oh." And that scared the crap out of me.

Yeah. And so, finally I went in and um the acupuncturist Well, first of all, I I I was like, "No, this is not in my head." and they I was gaslit and that got me so angry because they spent 10 minutes with me.

They automatically said, "Well, your blood level's fine." like you said. Finally, it was a goiter growing inwards and that's why I had a choky feeling. Ah. Isn't that like You couldn't see it. They kept feeling it, but it was growing inwards and then that's when I went to a shout-out to Dr.

David Bernstein. He helped me understand about food. Like food is medicine. And then I went to Dr. Chen, which I think Yep. you you know who she is. went to her and she helped me and voilà. I never had to get that Thank God.

And like I said, medicine has its place and I'm not putting down doctors. No, not at all. Okay, but it's also having this understanding and and like the functional integrative mentality that we are a whole being and and you know, right away was endocrinology.

You're going in, you're going to get this done. Here's your two choices and how scary that is for someone that does not know medicine or understanding and then they just go right into it. That's why I'm always about getting a second opinion or even a third.

Yes. Right? I recommend all patients, even if I'm giving advice like, "Please get another opinion or get a fresh set of eyes to look at it." And even as a as as a practitioner, like we're human, we're busy, we miss stuff. Sometimes I'm looking for my keys and I can't find them, they're sitting right in front of me.

Exactly. Right? Or I'm looking for my glasses and they're on my face. Right? You know, it's it's sometimes, you know, you look at someone else goes, "Where's my glasses?" They're sitting on your face. Like, "Can you not see that?" Right? So, it's sometimes medicine's even that way.

Yes. And I I just always say it's supposed to be the least invasive thing that has the best chance of getting you better and the least chance of making you worse. So, even as we study medicine or science, think about as we go to school, we take life science, Mhm. then we take biology, Mhm. then we take chemistry, then we take inorganic chemistry.

We need to start in that order. Are you eating right? Are you sleeping right? Are you exercising right? Okay, let's look at the structure and physical part of the body. Let's look at the the biology. And let's use biology and foods and therapies and nutrition before we use chemicals, because they have side effects.

Even even herbs have side effects and and I explain herbs to people. I say, "Listen." They say, "Well, I take this herb every day of my life." And I'm like, "Why? Do you have a chronic disease or condition?" And they go, "No, it's just good for you."

Like, but it's medicine. Right. Right? So, if you're going to understand herbs in the simplest form, if if if you get a cold, I'm I want to give you an orange, right? I want to give you the fruit. If if we don't catch a certain disease on time, maybe we need to try the peel, but that's a little harder to digest.

We don't need a lot of orange peel. You use little shavings in something, right? Um if if we didn't catch it on time, maybe we need to move to the leaf, right? Beyond that, the bark. Beyond that, the root. But all those are harder to digest and they have toxicity and they have effects on the body.

So, if you come to me in crisis, yeah, maybe we start with the root and then we try to get to the bark and the leaf and the peel and eventually, here's your orange, go home, right? Right? Um so, that's kind of a way of understanding like herbology, but um you know, all these systems have a place in medicine.

I I I have patients who are going through very severe diseases, surgeries, cancer treatments that need to be done. Yeah. And I never tell anybody to abandon what somebody else is doing, but Exactly. sometimes my job is to help them stay on course.

Yeah. Help them keep their blood counts healthy so they can get that next treatment or so they don't have indigestion or nausea from from the treatment they're receiving. And these are now accepted. If you get nausea from chemotherapy, the doctors are going to tell you to get acupuncture.

Mhm. Accepted through the whole system. Why, wonderful. I didn't know that. That's good. If you're going to have brain surgery and for decades, if you're going to have brain surgery, you need to be awake, Mhm. they use acupuncture for the anesthesia. Wow. Right?

This has been accepted throughout the whole system. So, let's just shift a little now because I I am a therapist and you know, sometimes emotions and and the way you're seeing life and feeling and everything like that. And I I kind of cuz I'm not a an expert.

I I I am a certified integrated mental health professional, which means I took 30 hours of like learning Ayurvedic medicine, acupunc- you know, but it's not I'm a practitioner of it. Right, just understanding it. it. Um but I do love the traditional Chinese medicine clock because to me, when sometimes I talk about like oh you know, one of my clients like I get up at 3:00 in the morning, but then I know that would be um the the what is it?

Leaving leaving liver time and and getting into gallbladder time, right? the emotions that are with that. Right. So, so liver primary emotion is going to be anger, frustration, irritability. Um and you know, that's a simple and we say it expresses itself sometimes on the eyes.

You don't get enough sleep, your body doesn't get to heal enough, clear the blood enough, detox enough, your eyes are a little bloodshot. Uh if you drank too much alcohol the next day, your eyes are bloodshot and you're crabby, right? You stressed your liver.

That's an easy emotional connection. But between 1:00 and 3:00, I have patients and at first when I heard this, I'm like, I'm skeptical of this, right? I need to see this. And thousands of patients I've seen tell me, I wake up at what between 1:00 and 3:00 in the morning or I wake up at night I can't go back to sleep.

I say, what time? And they say, I wake up at between 1:00 and 3:00 or 2:00, 2:30 every day. I look at the clock, oh again. And they're instantly thinking about something that makes them angry or irritated or or something that happened or from 3:00 to 5:00, we say the emotions tied into the next channel of the gallbladder would be willpower, decision-making, and finance.

So, you wake up at 3:30 in the morning and you are just so stressed about your bills and your job and debt collectors calling you. Like that's the time it's going to it's going to wake you up and and a way to understand that is to think the whole body has an electromagnetic field.

This is not disputable, right? Like it's uh the it the human brain operates at an exact same frequency and that frequency is the exact same frequency that the Earth operates at, 7.83 Hz. Now, you don't necessarily have to understand all that, but it's just um you know, the body has this wavelength, it has a magnetic pulse that we're beginning just like the planet, like how the compasses point north, right?

How do how do birds migrate? How do turtles know how to come back to the same beach every year and lay eggs? It they it's that electromagnetic field and our every living thing has that. So, at different times I like to describe it as as waves, right?

Cuz everything moves in waves, light waves, energy waves, sound waves. Um every energy source is a wavelength. So, there's a primary wave that moves through your body and think I like to think about like ocean waves and probably cuz I'm surfing, right? So, so as a surfer I look at it as ocean waves and there's all these little waves coming through your body, but every now and then in the ocean if or if you're a boater, there's a rogue wave.

There's a bigger wave that comes through and and sometimes wavelengths line up and they they're bigger, but the body has this bigger wavelength and every 2 hours it's kind of going through the body and like cleaning up the energy and cleaning up dams and sweeping things away and keeping things flowing.

And every 2 hours it exits one channel and enters another channel. That's amazing. Yeah, I love I love learning that. Yeah, so people will tell me like I wake up exactly at 3:00 in the morning every time and I'm like, "Hmm, that's exactly when it's ending."

And that's very common. Uh it's a very common time and it's when it's exiting one channel and entering another. So, I like to think about like, "Okay, a wave is flowing through the water and all of a sudden you put a wall there and that and that wave hits the wall, it washes up and then it washes back, right?

It reverberates backwards and and that energy kind of hits you and your eyes pop open and you're mid-thought. Right? These aren't the people that tell me, 'I wake up, I'm groggy, I have to go pee and then I come back and go to bed.'

That's not that's just, you know, water intake, right? Or prostate issue or whatever it may be. Um but, you know, and and when we hear this we go, 'I don't know about that.' But I've seen it. I I it it's been documented it and and we I you see the patterns in people and they're told by traditionally my western mind is thinking that means nothing to me, right?

And my eastern mind's going, "Aha, there's a pattern here. I got this." Right? So, when you're when somebody comes in to see me, I'm constantly thinking with what I like to say both minds. Like does this make sense? Should I be doing blood work and diagnostic?

Should I be sending him somewhere? Should I be doing an ultrasound or cat scan or a pet scan or an MRI to make sure we don't have a major problem here? Or has all that been done and the doctors are scratching their head and they can't figure it out.

But those emotions are tied into the body and then life brings us stress. Life brings us financial worries. Life brings us decisions. So if the mind's loaded down with that, it will eventually affect the body. Mhm. Right? Yes. That gut feeling we get when we're doing something wrong.

Mhm. Right? Or someone else is doing that to us or Mhm. And and then that then affects the mind back and and that affects our mental health. So the idea of talking about the mind and the body as two separate things, we can do that for the sake of conversation.

Mhm. But they're one in the same. Okay. Right? So when we talk about mental health, I'll ask somebody, "How How are you eating? How are you sleeping? How are you exercising?" If those three things aren't being done at some level, we can't expect optimal health.

We might not be sick, but we're not going to We're we're just surviving, not thriving. That's how I see it. Like, you know, and I'm trying to get like as a therapist, I'm trying to get my client to to thrive and to get unstuck.

Right. Right? And so like I can't say "chi" to them cuz they'll be like, "What are you talking about?" God bless you. Right. Exactly. But it's it's I want to, you know, like what do you do when someone comes to you depressed or super anxious?

I mean, I know what you helped me go through, especially with grief. Like I went through some, you know, loss last year. Yeah. My dogs, my sister, you know, just a whole bunch of stuff. And my job. Yes. I mean, I should I'm that that's a whole different podcast or story or whatever.

I mean, my job at the high school, that's what I'm talking about for those who know me. Um but anyway, but that's grief. Yeah. So let's talk about a little bit because that's a lot of my clients that will probably be listening. They've come from complex PTSD trauma. they've come with depression, they've come with um anxiety, grief.

Yeah. Like, what what do you do with that? first thing I do is establish safe space, right? Like, um people come to my clinic, I let them know everything here is confidential, um number one, and you can laugh, you can cry, and you never have to apologize for that, right?

Um I'll get you the tissue, but you never have to say I'm sorry for letting emotions out. Right. And I get people who just you put an acupuncture point in for back pain, and they just start crying. Yeah. Right?

I had the other day I started working on somebody just on their clavicle and shoulder issue, and just tears came out, but the lung, where I was working on the body, Mhm. is or that area of the body is grief and sorrow and loss, and you think like when we're crying, obviously, like the lung is performing differently, right?

But these emotions, and then I let them know if you have PTSD, and people will say to me, "Well, but I wasn't in war. I wasn't in Afghanistan. I wasn't in Vietnam." First of all, don't put your your pain on a scale compared to somebody's else.

That's right. It doesn't have to weigh differently to be real. So, don't don't minimize your own what you're going through, Mhm. right? Exactly. Like, recognize it, first of all, and then and then how do we how do we move past that? And and you're you're probably never going to look back at your life and go, "That was a wonderful experience in hindsight."

Yeah. Right? But to be able to look back on it or speak on it without it punching you in the gut, Exactly. without being just burst into tears, or a friend says, "Hey, how you know, you know, I really I I really miss your mom that passed, you know?"

And you're like, "Oh, I'm sorry. I I I forgot you don't like to talk about that." And you're like, No, no. "I'm okay with that now, and I can remember the good parts." Right. Um another thing I always mention, if it's something that was whether hurt, victims carry the guilt of the person who did the the wrong.

They have I often find they're doing that. So, the first thing I'll tell people is you need to put down that baggage you're carrying for that other person. Mhm. Right? You drop it at their door. Okay. If they choose to pick it up, that's on them.

All right. Right? Their time will come one way or the other. Right. Where they have to deal with that. But but that's kind of establishing that idea that bad things happen to good good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. And Yeah. you we don't always see the instant justice in this life while we're here, you know?

Yeah. You know, and it doesn't always happen. But it's it's part of the experience and and to understand they're not alone in that. And sometimes I will show them emotions they're having relating to that and recognize that there's a pattern here that existed that 2,000 years ago like with that one individual this book was written.

Yeah. You're not alone. Right. Right? You're not alone in this experience. And that's very important. And to realize with like PTSD, the US military uses acupuncture for PTSD. Oh, yeah. Right? You know, they they have a a protocol called battlefield acupuncture. Really? Right?

So, so then they kind of go okay, these big tough soldiers get it done. Yeah. Yeah. And and they cry and they release emotion. We treated at ground zero at 9/11. We we treated over 5,000 people with acupuncture. Wow. And most of those people slept those first responders slept for the first time.

That's important. Yeah. And and to be able to just hit that reset. And like how do you how do you stop it all? So, when people come to me, you know, they'll say very often, "Oh, I'm sorry. You're not my therapist." And I'm like, "But you can talk here."

The nice thing about acupuncture is it's also non-verbal. So, I always say, "Yeah, I won't be your only therapist. But I'm a I'm a piece in that puzzle to get you better." So, you know, after you see me and we do these things and I clear some some of this stuff and get it moving so you can maybe talk about it easier and get the physical body healthier so it's not impacting your physical body.

Exactly. Go back to Diana. Talk to her again. See if you're able to you know, in the conversation means. It's like we come together in this at a table and I mean I honestly you're my I have a chiropractor. You're not my chiropractor, right?

I have my actual functional doctor who you know and the thing is is like I can't afford it. I'm like you can't afford not to. Right. Okay, because to me it's like you're going to pay either way. No matter what you're either going to pay for prevention and health or you're going to pay later on for intervention.

Yeah. And there goes your wealth. Yeah, I mean these these sayings that you know a an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure or they have nice analogies in Eastern medicine. They'll say in life especially in our Western culture we trade our entire life we trade our health for wealth.

Mhm. And then later in life we will exchange all of our wealth for a glimpse of health.

And it's like live it along the way and and I use the analogy of cars where in South Florida people drive nicer cars than I've ever seen in my life and sometimes they park them in front of the houses that aren't as expensive as the cars they're driving but it's you know it it it's also I always ask people do you wait until your tires fall off before you get new tires?

Do you wait until the oil dries up? Well, some people do. Some people do. Yes, yes and it costs them more. Yeah. Right? And but maintain this vehicle that we don't get to trade in every 3 to 5 years. You know, it's going to be cheaper if you drive your car and it makes a sound and you just go I'm going to ignore that knocking and keep on driving.

The price tag is going up and with the human body it that involves pain and suffering. Yes. Right? I mean for me I packed my bags I moved 2,000 miles away where I knew absolutely nobody had no friends and you know and but that's what my health was worth to me and I couldn't enjoy my time with my friends back home when I wasn't healthy.

Exactly. spent 6 months getting healthy and I went back home, finished high school played football after that diagnosis, played sports, downhill skied. Wow. Aren't you still like surfing and stuff? Yeah, I still I still surf, I still chase big waves. I'm I'm the one running out when everyone's, you know, in the hurricane, you know, I'm you know, I'm that I'm that guy.

We don't go out in hurricanes, but we uh we go we go uh we go before and after them, but I'm I'm uh yeah, I I snowboard, I've jumped out of a perfectly good airplanes, you know. Um it's all different experiences. A little bit less now, but um Well, that's because we're getting older.

Yeah. Yeah, but you know, And you're a father, so that shifts everything in the mindset of a parent, you know. it does. I've I've been out really big waves and I I think, you know, okay, you don't you don't do that, you know, you got somebody waiting for you as you're waiting for the for them.

But that's where I find peace, that's where I get in gratitude, that's where I meditate. I I'm not I'm not out there just for the time I stand up on that board on the wave. It's everything else that goes into it. It's And it's a place of peace and it puts you back into rhythm, like these expressions of grounding, right?

Cuz it's something and grounding. Earthing and grounding and people are I I always say that I'm like the science is in. It's not just for hippies anymore. Right. Oh, my clients think I'm nuts when I'm like, oh, here's what you're going to do, a morning ritual, especially if you're working indoors all day long.

Go touch the grass, go hug a tree. So so so research happened years ago where two different doctors, one studying the human brain and the frequency and one stand studying the migratory patterns of of animals, and they both figured out that the human brain has a wavelength of exactly 7.83 hertz, right?

It's It's basically if you if you just drew a wave on a piece of paper, Right. and the highs and lows, right? Where's the bottom of the wave? Where's the top of the wave? And how many seconds is in between that? It's 7.83 seconds between the high and the next high or the low and the next low.

Hm. The earth has the exact same pulse. It has a pulse like a heartbeat. It is pulsing at exactly 7.83 hertz. So when we have our electro electrical devices, our phones, our our radio waves, everything that that it doesn't affect everyone the same or as significantly, but it can knock us out of rhythm.

Yes, I agree. you go back into nature, you're really resetting your body back to 7.8 Hz, the wavelength of your brain. This is This is not Like I always tell people, it's not debatable, right? Like when the people say, you know, I don't I don't I don't believe in energy in my body.

I'm like, do you believe in gravity? And they go They look at me weird. I go, would it matter if you didn't? Right. Right? You know, it jump off a building, gravity's going to work whether you believe in it or not, regardless of what we see in the matrix.

Exactly. Right? You know? Well, it's it's true. And and so, we're going to just shift one more because, you know, our time is running out. Um What words of wisdom can you give to someone because you know that I am a Christian integrative therapist?

Yes. And And that doesn't mean I mean, I understand the science and evidence-based. I do not push my belief system onto anyone. But, I do have people that don't understand this, and they really think it's, you know, like especially when I started going to acupuncture and understanding it myself, you know, like what words of wisdom or resources or understanding can you give, say, like someone that's a pastor or doesn't understand this dynamic or modality of healing?

Right. Yeah, so that's a big thing. Like, I I learned years ago even having a yin yang symbol on the door would keep some people from walking through. They viewed it as a religious symbol. Um Right. But, these are not religious-based practices. Like, even yoga.

When I first started teaching yoga, I had people that are like, "Oh, no, he's going to be leading people away from Christ." Especially where I grew up in northern Minnesota, where that's pretty much the only religion you saw. And um You know, the idea is you know, from acupuncture's viewpoint, just practice kind teachings of your faith, whatever faith that is, and and and add that into your life.

That's great. But there's no it's not a religious based therapy. It doesn't discriminate against that. Just like yoga, when I went went to a yoga ashram, everybody thought, "Oh, Dave's becoming a Hindu, apparently." And I walked in and there was huge circle in the temple, and it had every religious symbol I knew, and many I didn't.

And I was like, "What is that?" And they go, "Well, they all go to the same God." So, if you want to practice yoga and you like scripture, read the kind teachings of your book 20 minutes a day for mental health, to feed your mind, right?

Feed your mind something something healthy. Um but I have many people like, "I'm I'm doing acupuncture. Does that interfere with with with my religion?" And and absolutely not. doesn't. God wants you to take care of your your body and your mind and and take care of the temple.

Yes. Like, you know, That's in the word. Yeah, that's is a temple of God. Yeah. Yeah, your body's a temple of God, and you're like, you know, not putting any time into your temple. Like, when do you when do you get a chance to scrub the floors and and paint the walls and and take care of your temple, right?

You need to do that. It takes maintenance to maintain a building. And to maintain a temple. So, I I get that a lot, but I tell people like, you know, I I grew up in northern Minnesota. I have a Scandinavian background. I'm living in South Florida doing yoga and teaching, you know, and and acupuncture like and and still a Christian and I follow other philosophies and and Well, we can learn from other philosophies.

I have learned so much from different readings, especially back before I became a Christian. I studied. I mean, that's what I did in women's study. I have a minor in women's studies at FAU. Oh, excellent. And my um project was women in religion.

Because back then, before I was a Christian, I was very angry girl. Right. And so, I was just like trying to figure out why are women second class citizens? And so, once I started studying, that's when I was saved. I literally was like, "Oh my gosh, Jesus like is like the first feminist.

He brought us forward. He understood. He He was a rebel. He was, you know, revolutionary. And he understood what it means to truly love and why he is the prince of peace. Like, I want to follow this guy forever." And then here I am, like 20 years later.

Wait, 24 years later? Yeah, 24 years later. But it's not for me to put on everyone else. It's for me to live by cuz I might be the only Bible anyone ever reads. Right. Right? Right. And then and show them that. Be a Be a, you know, a a good representative for it.

It's It's you know, my thing has always been sure I can teach or I could preach and there's might be a There's a time for that for certain people, but if you just live a good life by example and and you try to live happy.

If some of my friends around me, they I couldn't teach to them. I couldn't preach to them, but I they just saw the way I did things and they kind of over time went you know, that's working for him. Let me try that.

You know, I've had you know, girlfriends that were in the past that were incredibly resistant to yoga and and and you couldn't push anybody on that. And then years later, they come up to me and and they say, "Hey, just so you know, I do I do I do that every day now and you're you're right.

It's pretty nice." Right? And and it's it you know, even you you know, I go back to those different therapies. It's like even yoga says just feed your body good every day, feed your mind good every day, get some rest, give yourself some time to just relax and be and just see if your see if your health improves.

If it doesn't, by all means, try something else. But if you're eating right, breathing right, thinking right, um reading something uplifting, like, you know, it's it's different and it and if you're not well, don't watch a lot of news. If you're not well, don't watch violent movies.

If you're not well, don't watch, you know, play violent video games. You know, if your mental health is totally fine, you might be able to handle exposure to that. But, if you're not, take a break. Right. Depression, first people thing I tell people, especially in today's day and age, I want you to take a 30-day news fast.

Yes. And then come back to it in 30 days. Someone else will let you know if it's Not only news, but social media and and just get back to connection. Because isn't it weird that the more we are connected around the world, the less connected we are?

Right. Right? And and to me, it's like, all right, we got to turn all this stuff off and get back to what matters. And what matters is these old ways of of understanding nature. Right. And and what God created, you know? So, anyway, I mean, I could talk to you forever.

Honestly, Dr. Dr. Dave and I have had some really cool, interesting conversations. And I'm just so glad he was able to come on today and just share some of his wisdom with the listener. So, any last words that you would like to share?

And where can the listener find you? Uh the you can find me at pure acupuncture and natural medicine. It's just pure acu fl for Florida uh dot com. I'm right in the Cove Shopping Center in Deerfield Beach. I've been in there for 18 years.

And you know, I I tell people just come in and listen, meet me, see the space. You know, give it a try. And there's lots of different therapies for it. But, you know, find the right fit for you. If I'm not the right practitioner, try another one.

But, like, if you know, if you had a bad haircut, you don't stop cutting your hair, you find a new stylist. Right? Don't give up on any therapy just because that that one didn't resonate with you. Exactly. And and and that's and that's the therapy.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was very resistant on this. People always told me, "Oh, you think outside the box." I was like, I was told to be in a wheelchair at 14. I was I was kicked outside the box. Right? It was It was like I love and hate that.

Yeah. It was a you know, and now I tell people I was blessed by illness because it gives me it put me on my path to helping others. It gave me a higher level of empathy to help others. And and now I you know, after I got well, I had the conversation.

I said, "Okay, we can change the blessings now. Um I get it. You know, I get where I'm supposed to be." Um but that's the idea. I've been there. I I've lived it. Um and uh you know, it's it's it the stuff works.

It's just bar none. I have doctors, nurses, surgeons, um senators. I have people all over they do this. Licensed mental health counselors. Yes. Yes. Yes, it is for it it it's a fit for everybody, you know, there's it's uh and your body is it is energy.

It's it's it's and it's hard science. It it's it's not just And it's coming out more and more, I'm noticing, you know, more people are understanding like, "Oh oh oh, okay, that makes sense." And it's just what I see in in a lot of people is fear because of the fear of the unknown, so they have to grapple with the understanding, so then they have to pigeonhole whatever the situation to just make sure that they're okay in the mind.

And it's just like I challenge that. I I tell my clients all the time like, "My job is to get you comfortable in the uncomfortable." Right. Yeah, and I and I think with acupuncture the idea is that they're going to get like 20 tetanus shots or something. and that it hurts.

And it doesn't. It feels different. It's like a flick at the skin. Sometimes you feel sensation, but if someone rubbed a massage and and you said, "Oh, that hurts, but oh, don't stop. That feels good." Um it's it's and it's for a moment, right?

Most of my clients are sleeping or in some form of between here and there place, right? It's I'm waking people up from naps all day long. It's incredibly relaxing. It is. It's my hour of like truly getting my energy flowing in certain spots, especially now with menopause.

So thank you. I'm coming to see you next week, by the way. Well, thank you, Dr. Dave, for spending your energy and helping us to understand acupuncture and how it can help our mental health. And remember dear dear souls out there, trust in the Lord, guard your heart, and renew your mind.

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