Welcome to GenX Adulting. And today we have Dr. Patrick Lynch with us or better known as Pat. Welcome Pat. Thank you, it's good to be here. We're very happy to have you. So our first question we always ask is what year were you born? 1970. See you at Gen X. Definitely. and where were you born? uh Stanford Hospital Palo Alto, California. m did you live in Cal in Palo Alto, California? You know, I don't remember a day of being there, honestly. um I lived there probably for a year tops. And then uh my parents moved to Portland, Lake Eswego area. So, were your parents from Palo Alto? Well, not necessarily. uh My mom and dad were both from Illinois. And ah then they moved, or my dad's parents and family moved to, ah there's a town down there that starts with an A, I can't remember what it's named. And then they all migrated to Santa Cruz area. Yeah. you know how they met? Yeah, they met in high school. Yeah, yeah. wow. And then did they go to college together? Um, I don't think so. No, I think my mom went to college maybe for a year or two. I don't think that she received a Bachel... I'm pretty certain she didn't receive a bachelor's. my dad went to, uh, University of San Francisco. Um, I believe it was either San Francisco. Yeah. University of San Francisco, uh, for his BA. Yeah. was your mom, did she work or was she stay-at-home mom? She was a stay at home mom. And then what did your dad do? My dad was an attorney. He continued his education once we moved to Portland and went to law school at Lewis and Clark. And do have any siblings? I do. have a brother ah and I have an adopted brother. Actually, he's a, she's a sister now. Yeah. they had, are you the youngest? So it's you, your brother, and what's the spacing between you and your brother? Three years. and then they adopted a little girl. Yes, yeah, biological boy. um and yeah, exactly. uh spacing there between you and her? uh Good question. think when I was 27, ah she was three at the time or maybe even younger. So yeah, very wide. Yeah. And then, did you basically grow up in Portland? Did they stay there for a long time through your formative years? We grew up in Portland until I was about 13 and then my dad and myself and my brother moved to Sun River uh with the intention to sell the ranches in Portland to buy another ranch in Central Oregon. so meanwhile, my mom, stepmom, uh closed up her practice, she's an OBGYN, and she wanted to wrap up her practice there, sell the ranch, while I went to school in Sun River, and while my dad, moved, didn't start a practice, but he joined a law firm in Bend, Oregon, a year before my mom came and... and joined him, they saw each other on the weekends and so forth. OK, so wait, so your parents owned a ranch in Portland? Yeah, they had a couple of small ranches. They had a five acre horse ranch and a 10 acre horse ranch with a few acres of Concord grapes. Wow, where, so for everyone, I didn't clarify it. We're talking about Oregon. We're in Oregon now. Where in Portland specifically was that, were those ranches? Tigard area, Mountain. Yeah. then there was nothing out there. It's probably all houses now, right? Yeah. Yeah. one of the more beautiful properties that I'd seen, um was completely demolished. And now there's probably 50 houses on it. Yeah. true for because I know we lived in Alola when I was in third grade. There was nothing out there. And I think that whole area is in Hillsborough. I think that's all built out. That was nothing. OK, so you said your mom was a stay at home mom. Your dad was an attorney. But when you is still turning when you turn 13, did they divorce? No, they divorced when I was about, my mom and my dad divorced when I was probably six. Yeah. Yeah. and then your dad remarried? Yeah, he basically got together with my stepmom and ah they remarried or they got together pretty much right away and ah they married when I was about 10, maybe four years after they got together. And did your mom remarry? Yes, you did. Okay, so you're that typical Gen X childhood of divorced parents who remarried, stepdad, stepmom. Did your stepmom and dad adopted your sister, the adopted sister? Did your mom and stepdad have any more children? Uh, no, no, he came with, uh, two or three kids or something like that. And, uh, yeah, but they didn't have any more children. I did, but we, never knew each other. Yeah. spent any time with them. No, maybe I met one of them once. Now, when your parents divorced when you were six, were you primarily with your mom or with your dad? Did you go to your mom or dad? I was primarily with my mom for a short period of time and then I went to my dad. And so when you were with your mom, was it like with your dad on the weekends, that type of custody, or did you see your dad more frequently? ah my childhood was, I was pretty alone during my childhood. So I don't remember much in regards to just being by myself quite a bit or with my brother. ah But uh I don't, if I was with my mom or my dad, I don't remember being with either one of them ah very much. OK, so there's just it's kind of fuzzy for you. You were either with one of the parents, but during those younger years, was it just kind of like chaos a little bit? was, I mean, when during the separation, it was, uh you know, everything was just kind of up in the air. And I was with my mom. I remember that. And I think I may have visited with my dad once. And uh that's all I can remember. And and then I went with my dad. We moved into a house in Lake Grove, him and I and my brother. while he dated my stepmom and I barely ever saw him that I can remember. I maybe I did see him more, but I just don't remember seeing him very much. And my brother and I, we were free birds. I was six and he was three and we were riding our bikes around the neighborhood, riding our bikes down to the store and going down to the lake and just a couple little kids just... cruising around. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. you know, not even worried or aware of any danger. Do you know why you went to live with your dad? Why you left your moms? know, I honestly don't know. uh I've been told, you know, a couple of things by both sides and I don't really know. And uh all I know is uh I don't really have parents, you know. I don't have parents that ever really seemed to... just love their children, you know? uh so it's okay, it is what it is. It seems to be typical genetics, know? But God was always my, I always felt close to God, know? God is my mom, my dad, my friend. And uh so that's where I've always attuned to myself. And I actually remember uh being three years old in a house in Lake Oswego. uh little three acre farm with a barn and pasture and a couple of horses that my mom had. And it was just kind of this weird, haunted-like house and just have some weird memories there. And I remember I stayed in this room downstairs and my parents lived upstairs. Not lived, but that's where their bedroom was. And here I am, like two or three years old in a completely different part of the huge house, you know, and in my own room, you know, and that... the only person down on the first story as a little kid. And I'm like, I was scared at night. I wanted to be with my parents. oh yeah, Yeah, yeah, we had a little dog uh later on. Sheba was his name. uh But at any rate, I don't remember him ever being present at that time. There was a time when I was just laying in bed one night and I was, I was just scared, you know, and I was bummed. I was bummed at my parents. They, know, that I just didn't see him much and that they just didn't seem to, you know, connect with me like I wanted to connect with them. And, and, and so I was laying in bed one night and I'm wide awake and I see this, this translucent or this transparent, like donut shaped circle about probably like three and a half feet high, just kind of on the opposite side of the room, it seemed to have consciousness. mean, I know this sounds far out and everything, but this is just my experience. Okay? And so I see this orange kind of yellowish donut, like kind of like circle around the room. And then when I looked at it and I expressed a little fear, it kind of backed up a little bit. And then I was like, okay, that responded to my consciousness. That's weird. And then it would kind of creep over a little bit more towards my you know, towards my bed, towards the other, my side wall that was, my bed was up against almost. And then I would just be like, okay, that's, that's kind of weird. Then it would back off a little bit and then it would come forward. Then it would back off. And then it would just finally just in a nice smooth way, just come over to the side of my bed and just hang there and glow. And then I was like, okay, you're not going to hurt me. And then it would back up a little bit. And then I'll be like, you're here to just kind of be with me. Maybe. I don't know. You're, you're, you're cool. You're a good guy or whatever. And then it would come a little bit more forward and then it would just hang out there. And I was just like, okay, this is weird. You know, but I just, and then I thought angel, maybe you're, maybe you're an angel. Maybe you're just here to, you know, maybe you're just letting me know that you're watching over me. And it just stayed there, you know, for a minute. And then I was like, oh, okay. Well, even though this is weird, this is cool. uh And then I just went to sleep. It never came back. It was a one-time thing, yeah. I know, yeah. did you feel comfort off of it? So it brought you comfort and, obviously it lingered with you because you're, you're what? 55 now, if I'm doing it right. stayed with me. have, you know, lots of incidences throughout my life that let me know that I'm being taken care of. Yeah. Not taken care of, but just kind of like watched over. Yeah. I was like three. That's wild. That's like a core seminal memory. Well, they say that children can see to the other side. And then they reach an age where they can't anymore. But the spirits, angels, all that, they see that. they, you know, I've seen, I've read and seen where they say if your child, three, two, three, four, five year olds pointing in a corner, talking to something, it's there. You just can see because they're so pure. Right. Or something. Yeah. But it's interesting because it sounds like you didn't have secure attachment. Your parents did not give you space to give you secure attachment to them, either your mom or your dad, which is really unusual because it's not unusual to not be securely attached to a father figure in a lot of situations for people. But for you to not have that with your mom, it's very interesting. And did you find that your brother had the same like and this isn't his story, but just Did you guys ever discuss if that was a shared experience for you guys or did he have a different take on it? it was a shared experience. You know, I remember, I don't remember too much, you know, from that uh era, but I do remember a bit. And I do remember his room was upstairs and I remember a crib in the middle of the room with nothing on the walls, nothing else in the room besides some things that were scattered along the wall of the room. And it was a fairly decent size room and I would go in there and you know he would be in there like making sounds making noises he could stand up at least he I remember he could stand up in the crib holding on to the crib and you know he was yelling or something and I went in there and uh I remember he had thrown like poop all over the place like on the walls on the floor and I was like wow this is crazy I'm like I'm like Benji why did you do this you know And he couldn't talk yet. He was just kind of like happy to see me, you know. Yeah. I remember babies will sometimes get in their own pants. But what you're describing is it doesn't sound like it was a warm environment. It, my dad was gone a lot. He was in law school and he worked, um, he worked for a judge and I didn't see him very much. I can recall seeing him in that house for, you know, maybe the four years that I lived there or so, give or take, you know, I think I remember maybe three times. Um, the, uh, my mom, she was overwhelmed. uh And, you know, when she, I remember when she wanted me to take a nap in the middle of the day, I felt it was because she wanted some space. And, and at the same time, she had space already, you know, because I was like in this sandbox, you know, it was almost like I was whatever, whatever I was doing, I felt like it was, I was forced to be there. And, you know, my mom was doing something else. She's, you know, she was either like riding horses or. You know, I don't know. I don't know what she was doing, but, um, you know, she was, she was a loving mom and she was, she was my person and she, you know, she, you know, she told me that she loved me and, um you know, she, she was there for me. Um, but she was overwhelmed. Yeah. makes sense. Okay. So you and your dad and your brother moved to Sun River and you said he bought a ranch there. No, we just, they just rented a house in Sun River while they were looking for a ranch in central Oregon. And they, and while we were there for a year, I went to the Sun River prep school, preparatory school. It was a, uh, it wasn't a public school. It was a private school. It was a lot of fun. It's a little resort community. and, and I ended up, I was kind of like the class clown and, um, you know, I ended up. They had instead of uh getting a kicked out basis, they had an invite back basis. And I was one in two kids who did not get invited back to Sun River Preparatory School. and uh so my parents definitely didn't want me anymore. And, and I thought it would be best. I didn't want to be around them either. And anyway, they ended up buying a hundred acre horse ranch out in Prineville and uh And so before they moved out there, I was shipped off to uh the top military school in the United States, Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia. So was that, did you bring that up? You're saying you didn't want to be there anymore or did they bring it up? they brought it up. They brought up boarding school, military school, Catholic schools, you know, and they said if I didn't go there, I'd probably end up in McLaren. And I don't know if you know what McLaren is. And I was just like, they said it was some sort of jail for kids. And I'm just like, yeah, and I'm just like, dude, I'm not like, I'm not a bad kid, you know. you doing at this uh private school? What kind of stuff were you doing? I let I we took a trip to San Francisco once and you know, I don't know why, but our class took a trip to San Francisco and I bought some stink bombs down there. You know those little uh bottles with solution in there and I put a stink bomb down the heater vent in the bathroom uh of the school and it's it got into the heating system and stunk up the whole school and uh And so they wanted to cancel, or they shut down the school for that day. And they were, you know, I heard them talk about hiring a plumber and they talked about the plumber needing to dig up the floor in the bathroom, in case something pipe broke. And so then I went into the principal's office and I said, hey, look, you don't need to do any of this. I did this. It was a little stink bomb. I put it down the heater vent. He was like, oh, Patrick, what am I going to do with you? I'm like, I'm not going to kick you out of school, but this is thank you for telling me, you know, we could have just spent thousands of dollars trying to figure this out. And, know, it's thank you for sharing. And so that was one thing. And, uh you know, another thing was I had a crush on this girl who now, you know, we're still good friends and uh I didn't know how to act with girls back then. I was in the eighth grade and And I had this felt tip pen. was like a marker. And I put it down on her chair before she sat down and she sat down on it and she had this brand new Ralph Lauren dress or skirt. And she sat down and it was all marked up. And she was like, she wasn't like mad, but she was just like, Patrick, this is like my brand new skirt, you know? And I was just like, oh shit. oh I'm like, I'm in trouble now, you know, what did I just do? And so then the administration found out about it and I kind of got a talking to and I paid to have her skirt cleaned and the marker came out, you know, of her skirt, thank God. And uh then I was just a pickle, you know, like I would fart in class, you know, like one time, like I was a kid, exactly, I was a kid. My son is the same way and... uh you know, and so... One time, I didn't get in trouble. In fact, I didn't tell him, I sold this. And my dad said something like, fell or something like that. And he said, smooth move, Xlax. And I'm like, Xlax? What's that? And he was like, oh, you don't know what Xlax is? I'm like, no. And he was like, well, it's a pill that you take to help you go poo if you're constipated. And you don't want to take too much of it because you have diarrhea. And I was like, oh, okay. And so I went down to the drug store and I bought a fucking box of XLACs and I'm looking at the person at the register and they're looking at me like, what are you doing with that? And so. This is so Gen X by the way. This should be on the record. This is good. Okay, yeah, this is so Gen X. So at any rate, um and so then I, just took the box and I fucking, put all the, all the capsules that the teachers make this huge thing of soup every day. You know, it was like this five gallon pot of soup or something like that, you know? And, I was just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, just put the, all the capsules in there and stirred it around and left. snuck in, I'm sorry, you snuck into the kitchen, the cafeteria, the kitchen. Let's also look at that. That's amazing. You snuck into the kitchen, quickly put a bunch of eggs in and you had the time to do all that. That takes some guts, honestly. That's crazy. then, you know, it wasn't long after that. It was probably within the hour. I heard some fart and I heard, you know, some teachers walking back and forth in the bathrooms going, boy, something in that soup. Yeah, something about that soup. Everybody who ate that soup, yeah, they had the had the shit. I did. And I didn't tell a soul. they didn't know you did that. They didn't know I did it. Nobody knew I did that. Yeah. huh. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. did his own little trouble making stuff. I think Pat has you. I have not pulled something that epic. That is That's pretty good. Yeah. I would be telling your son about that. That's pretty. That's I'm sure they had, you know, digestional issues for the next couple of days, I would assume. I've never done XLACs. I'm sure they were shitting their pants literally. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. And you know what's so great is that um what your dad, it was your dad who said to you, uh smooth move XLACs, that was something Gen Xers as kids, we heard from people. We used to say it. We used to say it. It's like a Gen X saying. So I love that you then took that and did a full on Gen X epic moment with that. That's pretty cool. The XLACs moment. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. the sync bomb. They knew about the marker. And then in general, and maybe you were a bit of a handful, so you weren't invited back. then how did... that if I went to counseling and I saw a psychiatrist or a psychologist or something like that and I hashed out my, you know, my whatever it was that was wrong with me, then I could reapply. And my parents were like, and so I went to this psychiatrist and you know, my parents didn't like what was happening with the psychiatrist because I was telling the psychiatrist. what was going on in my life. And my parents are like, well, wait a minute, you know, this is, this is about us now and uh we can't have that. And so, you know, then we were looking at boarding schools. And so then I was like, okay, military school, boarding school, you know, basically school for pussies or a school for, you know, to become a man. And I was like, all right, I want to go to military school. So we started looking at military academies and I went to the number one military academy in United States. So did you choose that or did they find that for you? Or did you research? You researched and found? Well, we researched together and, uh, and we talked about, you know, the schools that were, you know, um, potentials. And I was just like, you know, I like Riverside. Riverside looks, looks good. So what I find interesting is that instead of going to the root of why you might have had some of this, well, some of this is just general boy eighth grade stuff. But if there was other things going on, instead of getting to the root of that and maybe finding out why you might be doing some of these things or finding out why some of this behavior is happening, ah that was swept under the rug and instead you were sent away. So I find that to be an interesting. way to go about it, right? um So that would basically mean you finished eighth grade and then went to military school for high school. straight into military school, ninth through 12th grade, yeah. So what was that like when you arrived? What was the whole getting there from your life? When I was arrived, it was like, I mean, if you can imagine being a, uh a, you know, a nerd going to the Citadel, ah it was, it was intense, you know, it was all military. The only thing different was, you know, you go to class instead of go, you go to work for eight hours or six hours of the day or whatever it was. You know, it was. It was intense. It was extremely military oriented. Okay, so what was your schedule? I assume it was regular core classes. Yeah, so we wake up at like six o'clock in the morning and then we have a room inspection we have to have and then we have to have basically shit shower and shaved and we have to have our brass shined or our clothes starched, our shoes shined, our belt buckle shined, our beds made with hospital corners so you can basically bounce a quarter off the bed. Have to have the toilets clean, the shower clean, the floor clean, our lockers cleaned and organized a certain way. We have to have everything immaculate. We lived in barracks, we had concrete floors, had uh doors and windows that didn't have weather stripping. It got super hot in the summer, uh super cold in the winter, and with floor heaters. then we would have room inspection. After room inspection, we would go up to the blacktop for formation where we would form up in our companies and our platoons. And uh we would go through morning inspection, which is individual uh inspection and ranks where platoon leader, platoon sergeant, our squad leader would inspect us personally to make sure that we're shaved, everything's clean, brass shined, everything like that. And then we would march around. have the companies who were in first place for the week, first place through fifth place. was all about oh the administration going through the barracks and seeing which barracks were the cleanest during the week. And the first place barrack, they could just walk right into the mess hall and eat one platoon at a time. The rest of the platoons, would march around the blacktop until it was time for them to go in. so after that, then we would have breakfast, we'd go back to our rooms for 10, 15 minutes if best. And then either we would be off to class or we would have morning assembly where we would, you know, assemble in this church-like cathedral thing. uh then, you know, after that we would have classes. And then after classes we'd have drill. Drill is where we have, you know, military-oriented drill. Then we would have athletics. Then we would have free time for an hour or two. Then we would, ah you know, get dressed again in our, you know, our dress grays. and go up to the black top for formation again and march around until it was time for each platoon to eat. And then after that, after we ate, we would have study hall either if you, you know, if you kept your grades above C's, you could stay in your room and study for the rest of the night or you could, and if you got a C or below, then you'd have to actually go to a study hall and study. And then TAPS was, lights out was 10 o'clock. Wow. And that was every day, even Saturday and Sunday. Saturday Sunday was a little bit more loose. ah Wednesdays we had town day after school instead of drill and uh if we didn't have uh excess demerits then we can go on leave or we could go into town and we had to on Wednesdays we had to go in town in uniform. ah When we went on leave and we checked out as soon as we were off campus we can get out of uniform if we wanted. ah But if we had too many demerits then we people would get on what's called bullring. Bullring is uh where you'd march around in your fatigues all around the school campus and you'd roll down hills and you'd do obstacle courses and you just, and each demerit was, in excess was 20 minutes of bullring. And uh so you'd have these guys who were bullringers for life. They always had 100 plus demerits and they never could go on leave. They were never. They never could go into town and they were just always on bullring. I think I was maybe on bullring once for like maybe an hour or something like that. Yeah. think that just shows also how your behavior was normal. Yeah, yeah, I I thrived in military school. I did really well. Were you there for four years or was it? Okay, cool. I didn't know that. So you, you had graduated high school from Riverside Military Academy. That's cool. What was Gainesville, Georgia? Like the town, like you said, you would go into town. What was the town like? It was pretty cool. It was kind of like, you know, just kind of like maybe Beaverton or something like that, you know. ah It was, you know, back in the mid 80s. So it was pretty wild, you know. uh And, uh you know, it was very cultural place, you know, there is a lot of different black and white, basically, you know, yeah. It's about, I would say. maybe an hour or two from Atlanta. can't really remember, but it was, it was a little bit of a ways. Um, it's, so Ainsville is north of Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost on the border and we were 20 minutes from the, uh, Delonica Ranger camp, uh, which was, uh, uh, north Georgia. Um, close to probably somewhat close to Chattanooga area. Yeah, it's beautiful there. Actually, North Georgia, that's mountainous. North Georgia is beautiful. Beautiful. And also coming from em Oregon, anywhere would be diverse. Let's be real. But then to go to Georgia. Yeah, but then to go to Georgia, you know, that was probably pretty cool to get to the East Coast and to see kind of more. I loved the South. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was beautiful there. It was colonial. ah It was, you know, there were fireflies there. It was really green. ah I love the accent. I love the hospitality of the, you know, civilian life there. was just incredibly amazing. I had a girlfriend. I was just about to say, did you uh meet any girls? I did. Yeah. I had a, I had a girlfriend there. Her name was Faye. I don't know her last name. I can't remember her last name and she was typical Southern bill, know, blonde hair, blue eyes and just, just a really total sweetheart. And, and we had, we had a great time together. She was a Southern Baptist and I went to her, she wanted me to go to church with her, you know, and so I went to church with her. And she's like, whatever you do, you know, if somebody ever asks you if you're saved, just tell them yes. And I'm like, all right. So, you know, as soon as I went into church, people would ask me, are you saved? you saved? Are you saved? And I'd be like, yes, yes, yes, yes. And they're like, okay, good, good, good. And, know, yeah. And, you know, they were hooting and hollering in church and people would run up to the altar and cry and wail. And I'm like, please don't. And then when they would run up to the altar, their family members would come up and they'd put their hands on them. And then the minister would come over and speak in tongues and do all this stuff. And I was just like, wow, here I am. I went to Episcopal Church in Portland, St. Mark's over on 21st and Lovejoy, think it was. And so that was my experience with church. And so this was quite a bit different. then one day she did run up to the altar. And then her sister's like, you know, elbowing me like, get up there, get up there. And I'm like, and do what? And she's like, just go up there. And I'm like, all right. And so I just went up there and I put my hand on her and she was crying and doing her thing. I'm like, and when we get out of there, I'm like, what'd you do that for? She's like, I don't know. I'm like, you just wanted to go up there and cry? She's like, I don't know. I was like, okay. Well, the Southern Baptist Church experience is quite an experience, you know, it's like nothing else. It's like nothing else. Yeah. It's America, it's their faith, it's what it is, you know. I love it. all through all four years? No, no, I was pretty single and into my zone for two years, then I met her my junior year, and we dated through junior and my senior year. Okay, and then did you stay in touch with her after? once I was gone, was gone. You know, it's like I went back to Oregon. I was like. was, life was weird for me, you know, because I didn't have a home base, you know, I couldn't go. It's like once I graduated, my parents already had a place for me to go. They did not want me home. And so I, as soon as I get home, you know, like three days later, I was in Ashland. And so I... I was just going to say, let's circle back real quick. When you were in the military, in military school, and it was so regimented and you were able to go into town, but were you able to play sports and stuff? Yeah, so we had, you know, things that, uh you know, we could participate in. You know, we had school sports, you know, we had a football team, basketball team, baseball, soccer, track and field. I was on the track team and the basketball team. I was also a part of the fuseliers. uh fuseliers is the rifle drill team where you spin rifles and ranks. And uh so we would travel around to the different military bases in the South and we would compete against other military schools. uh You know, for two years I was on the drill team and I got really good and we ended up winning. uh Well, we were. two tenths of a point or something like that from winning nationals. So we were runner up national champions. And we had an amazing team. was incredible. um we were badass. And we've traveled to like Fort Bragg, Fort Rucker, uh Fort Benning, um Western Carolina University, which they had a ROTC program there. uh and a couple other military bases. What's that? Yeah. traveling, was it all through like buses or flying? Okay, so you got to see the countryside. Those are not that close. Yeah, no, that's cool. That's beautiful. 40. Yeah, it was amazing. They took the top 40 kids in the school every year during the summer to take them through basic training, basic training uh activity before you become, you know, higher ranking individuals. And so I went after my sophomore year. And we did things like we would go up to the Ranger training camp and we would go through exercises there. And up in Talanaga, Georgia, we'd go to Fort Benning and we'd go through a jump program down there and obstacle course training down there and just kind of tour the area. And then we went up to a military base in Tennessee and we would shoot M14s on 300 yard firing ranges with uh tracer bullets. uh And we did some rock climbing and some rappelling and stuff like that. And it was a lot of fun. I'm sure there was a lot of bonding. um Did you stay in touch with any of your, what is it, wouldn't be called classmates, Cadets? Yeah, yeah, they were referred to as cadets, you know, we refer to each other as friends, you know, or a lot of the guys, we were kind of known as rats, know, riverside rats. You know, we were the rats of the town. you know, our school bordered a lake, Lake Linear, which is this huge lake. And, you know, we would sneak out of the barracks and go swim, you know, sometimes. Oh, yeah. You know those stories, right? It's like haunted and... I know all kinds of crazy stuff that went on in Lake Lanier. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty gutsy you swim in Lake Lanier. I'm sure you didn't know back then or it was all myth or folklore. Yeah. Oh, really? Mm hmm. Yeah. uh, location, especially Forsyth County. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and shit. Sure. That's the, that's the deep south. there are towns up there where you had to be, you know, if you were black, you had to be out of town. It's it's before sundown. And if not, then there was problems. Even when you were there in the mid 80s, are you talking more back in the 50s, even in 80s? Let's face it. That black guy who was out running got killed a couple of years ago by the father and son. true. true. Bad shit. So do you stay in touch with any of them? Any of your friends from there? not really. Everybody just kind of, uh, kind of scattered. Some people disappeared. Um, I tried connecting with some people and have connected with some people, but people are just really kind of deep into their own thing. They're, they're, everybody's across the country. Um, and so, you know, I, I kept in touch a little bit here and there. Yeah. back then. No, no. do have a question. Most of your cadets or the rats, were they there from a similar background as yourself? Like my parents are chipping me off the military academy or were they, is this a conduit and a path into the military? Yeah, that's a good question. ah You know, for very few individuals, it was a conduit and a path into the military. There were some uh military colonels and generals who had their sons uh go there. If we wanted to go ah to an academy or if we um were going to enlist, we could enlist with rank. um And if we wanted to go to an academy, it would look better if we went to this particular military school. uh I wanted to be a pilot and I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. I was pretty gung-ho about it. And uh my dad was an attorney who worked with Mark Hatfield at the time. And I knew the Senator and, uh and Senator said, Hey, if you do well, I'd be happy to give you an appointment. And I was like, okay, great. Thanks. And, and, and so, you know, I, I realized that I was, you know, colorblind and too tall to be a pilot. And plus I was just. burned out on the military, you know, once I was done and I was ready to be, ready to learn about society, you know, ready to be a civilian. you know, that's where, you know, Ashland was a beautiful place for me to learn how to learn who I was as a person. Yeah. about that. I was going to ask you if you did have an affinity towards one of the branches, but you kind of answered that. seems like things kind of worked out pretty well there for you in terms of finding a groove, doing well. You didn't get many demerits. You got to do a lot of cool shit, but then you were done with it. You're ready to close that chapter, it sounds like. Yeah. I mean, I thought about it later on, but I thought about, if I wanted to go in, I wanted to become an officer, but I made the best of it, you know, for, for what I did. And, you know, um, my, my senior year, was a platoon sergeant for a first platoon alpha company, which were, they were all the fuck ups since, you know, in the school and they were all the biggest, the tallest guys, the football players, the athletes. And, uh, and so I was given first platoon alpha company and I was like, all right, you know, here we go. And I was doing pushups all summer long because I knew that I was going to, you know, get a job that was going to, you know, require some, some, some leadership skill, you know, and, know, being a leader, you don't have to do anything. You can just tell people what to do. You can be like, you open ranks, drop the platoon. go around cuss at people, hit them, flick their ears when it's 30 below, you know, whatever, you know, but yeah, you know, but me, I was like, I wanted my platoon to be the best, you know, and I wanted, I wanted equal, like, I wanted to be an equal, I wanted to be a part of them, I wanted to be with them, I wanted to be like, right, we're in this together. And so first day I remember I'm like, you know, this Brad Gorham, was, he passed away, I think, but uh maybe that was somebody else. But at any rate, he was uh an all-American football athlete. And when you're an athlete, you can get away with, you know, all kinds of shit in school. the first thing I said was like, all right, you guys, I know you guys don't want to be here. I know you guys don't like drill, but we're going to do this and we're going to be the best we can be because I'm your platoon leader and I'm not going to have a bunch of fuck-ups. And Brad Gorham was spitting chew and ranks and he was like, ah, shit, Lynch, whatever. And he spit some tobacco and I'm like, all right, gave the command for open ranks, dropped the whole platoon, dropped in front of the platoon and myself, which you don't have to be in a platoon leader. I'm like, all right, you guys, I'll do pushups with you all day long. Let's go. And, uh, and so I did the down up thing, you know, where, you know, you could go like halfway down, hold it and I could hold it forever. And Brad Gorham, here he is, he's struggling, know, and his pelvis is hitting the ground. And I'm like yelling out, get your fucking pelvis off the ground, Gorham. And he was like, all right, all right. And you know, so we did that a couple of times. And then from then on, we were the best man. And for senior ceremony, they give an award for best drill platoon in the battalion, and that was our platoon. So they gave me the award for that. Yeah, that was pretty cool. what a real leader you were because you um not just talk the talk, you walk the walk. You're like, whatever I'm going to ask you to do, I can do it and better than you. So you earn their respect, like deep down, they didn't respect you out of fear. They respected you as a man. And that's awesome. That's cool. That's really awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned it. So you are colorblind. um When did you know you were colorblind? You know, I knew I was colorblind when I was a kid, but I didn't know that, you know, I wasn't that colorblind, but I was colorblind enough. And, you know, and I, and I didn't think that colorblindness was, it didn't even occur to me that it was going to be a factor of being a pilot. And I got good grades all through school. had a 3.5 average in my high school career. And, and, uh, so, but yeah, to answer your question, I was probably like, I don't know. maybe 10, maybe a little younger. discover it? Did a teacher discover it? Or was it you? I couldn't play Candyland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like this, just couldn't, I couldn't get it right. And my dad's like, was just, he would just, any thing, anytime anything was ever wrong, you know, he would just laugh, know, laugh at me. He did some stupid shit. And he, we were playing football one time. And he just fucking, he's a football player. You he went to San Francisco State or University of San Francisco, whatever, played football for them. And I was, here I am, this six year old, five year old kid. He took the football and fucking just drilled it right into my face from like 50 feet away. Just perfect spiral, just went bam! Knocked my head back, almost knocked me over, just drilled the shit out of me. And I was just like, as soon as he did that, I lost complete trust in him. I was just like. Yeah. at me. He laughed. And I was like, whoa, dude, I would never do that to my kid. Never, never. no, that's I think again, I think that's a Gen X childhood experience and also some abuse in there. But so then, yeah, it makes sense when you guys are playing Candyland. There was no no empathy for the fact that you're struggling. That's why I mentioned that is because there was just the memory that I got from it kind of sits with me a little sour, you know, he was just laughing about my, what do you call it? Exactly. Yeah. Did they take you to a doctor to get an actual diagnosis? I don't recall, but I did at some point have a diagnosis, yes. So what colors can you see? Good question. So greens and reds I get mixed up with. um Not mixed up, but I don't see them as well. You know those glasses and chromas that people who have color blindness, they wear, they used to advertise them like six years ago or so. I had a pair of those glasses and you know those videos of seeing people put on those color blind glasses and they're like, holy shit. Yeah. That's like how I felt when I put those on. And I was like, wow, this is, mean, I see this world, pretty beautiful place. know, I'm in awe of this planet. But when I put those on, I'm just like, wow, you guys. I do, yeah, but they're all scratched up and I don't, they're, you know, they're not wearable anymore. Yeah. can you see pastels? Obviously not on Candyland, probably was an indicative you couldn't. pastels are difficult for me and reds um are difficult depending on the shade. Greens can be difficult. Greens and browns, they merge with me a lot. Blue's pretty good, um but sometimes I can't identify purples ah because the red, can't. can't pick up. It's about the cones in your eyes and I'm deficient in some of the cones that allow you to see red. So how would you say being colorblind has affected your life? Would you say it's been a significant factor in things? Because people who aren't colorblind are probably very curious to the answer of that. How much does it affect your life? It affects my life um quite a bit. um But when you first ask that question, I think to myself, well, it doesn't affect it at all. But in the reason why I thought that is because I'm not affected by how it affects me anymore, but it does affect me. I just noticed that I'm not affected by it. And uh how it affects me is like, somewhere. and I'll look at a shirt, for example, in a store and I'm like, okay, well this is a cool shirt and I'll check it out, I'll pick it up and my wife would be like, you know there's a lot of pink on that. And I'm like, no, I didn't know that. She's like, yeah, it's pretty feminine. I'm like, all right, thanks for sharing with me. And when she's not there, I'll tell you another story that was pretty funny actually. ah I was living in Salt Lake at the time with my good friend Mark McKeever and his family. And this was back in 96. We moved there one day. We actually, left, I think the morning of the flood in Ashland and we were unaware of the flood or the morning before. And uh we drove to Salt Lake, we got a place there and we got a job with a painting company there. And I bought a pair of Carhartt painter pants, white pants, and I bought a uh red Quicksilver shirt that I thought was pretty cool. And I was like, all right. And so I washed them together and I dried them. uh And so the Carhartt pants came out faded. And I was like, hey, these are actually pretty nice. They're faded. And so I put them on the next morning and my buddy Mark, who's wearing his white pants, he's... He's walking out the door. He looks at me with a smirk on his face. He knows I'm colorblind, but doesn't say a word. And so he walks out the door. I'm like, what's with the smirk? uh And so I get to the paint store because I'm supposed to go to the paint store and order paint. all these guys, this is like mid 90s, all these painter guys have these long hair mullets and the guys at the front counter, they're all these backwood hick. painter guys and they're like looking at me like you know the whole store is croak quiet I'm like I'm like all right guys what the fuck what's the deal here yeah and the guy behind the counter he's like what's with the pink pants and I was like oh shit I'm like thank you I'm colorblind and so I need a pair of pants you guys got some pants and they're like yeah right there I'm like all right so I bought a pair of pants changed him right there That is hilarious. my gosh. is so, so was just curious, know, because there's people who probably would love to talk to someone who's colorblind just to get their perspective, but don't feel comfortable asking those questions. So, they're probably going through your regular life. It's not really a thing for you. No, no, it's just not too bad. know, like I was in the store a couple of days ago asking somebody, what color is this? And they're like, you know, looking at me, I always have to say I'm colorblind. And they're like, what the fuck? You don't know what color this is? You know, and I'm just, I always have to say I'm colorblind. So if I say I'm colorblind, they'll be like, yeah, that's blue. I'm like, okay, thanks. Is it purple? No, it's blue. I'm like, okay. Yeah. to note is if somebody asks for your help with the color of things in public somewhere, assume there might be colorblind and help just answer the question. Yeah. You know, just just tell them what color it is. What's the big deal? You know what I mean? That's yeah, that's something to think about that people probably don't totally. Well, mean, with you saying that, do you find that do people treat you weird like that or are they more just taken back like hmm, but then they make sense of it? Yeah, no, they just automatically, in my experience, uh just tell me what it is. They make no note of it, no judgment. There might be some question at first, like, why are you asking me this question? What's really your agenda? And then when I tell them I'm colorblind, they're like, yeah, okay, it's blue. I'm like, okay, thanks. Then we all move on, it's no big deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. get back to where we were with the military school, so you have your graduation. Did your dad and your stepmom or your brother come to that? Yeah. Um, my stepmom and my mom's sister came to that and, and then I went home to Prineville the next day and it was two or three days later, I went to Ashland. So did you know you were gonna go to college in Ashland? Yeah. Yeah. We, we worked together on the process. I was, I was hoping that we could, you know, I could have a summer, you know, and, and, uh, hang out with some friends and, and, yeah, I don't know. I just, had always had this, this desire to, you know, have a good experience with my family on the, in the farm and, and, uh But it never was. and so, you know, I went to Ashland and it was great. You know, I'm, glad I went somewhere where at least I, it was an experience where I was away from somebody who didn't want me to be there. You know, it's, that's how it felt to me, whether they had that experience or not. That's how it felt. And, and, and so, you know, then I, I got to Ashland and, know, part of the reason of going to summer school um was, and this is granted to their benefit and ah not necessarily to their benefit, but to their argument, um which is uh a good one, um in order for me to get into the school. they made me believe um I had to go to summer school and I had to get good grades in order to get in all the way to get full time into the fall. And so I did take a few classes in summer school and I did do well and they did admit me to full time after that. Yeah, I was home for like three days. Yeah. for this. Because in the summers for high school, did you come back to Oregon or did you stay in Georgia? Twice I came back to Oregon and twice I stayed in Georgia. ah Every time I came home for Christmas, zero times I came home for spring break. So I came home for Christmas ah every time and two summers and that was it. Yeah. Oregon, which is for our listeners, like a small Shakespearean town, artsy. It's a college town. Beautiful college town, but it has a beautiful Shakespearean festival. It's in a valley. It's like 20 miles north of the California border. So of all the places to go, like kind of what you alluded to is a beautiful town that had a lot to offer. I like to say it's a magical place, but you were there before all. When did you show up? you remember what summer it was? Like summer of 89? Yeah, okay. in, I think it was about early June. The first person I met before I even got in, I want to call them barracks, but they weren't barracks, they were dorms. It was Forest Hall, which was the international dorm. And before I even got into Forest, I met Jim Mullenkopp and his mom and his aunt. And they were really sweet, really good people. And I'm like, ah, right on. like, I have a friend, know, Jim was like, he was my buddy, you know, before we even moved into the dorm. And I was like, right on. And so Jim and I hung out and, and, uh and I just totally getting reacquainted into like civilian life and the regular clothes and to, you know, I didn't even know what kind of haircut I wanted because we had buzz cuts like every two weeks. And, and, you know, it's like the shoes that I had, everything was like, given to me like you are wearing this and this is this is what you're going to college with and I didn't have any money I didn't have any taste I didn't have any style and here I am like in society and here I am like okay you know this is this is me like a kaleidoscope of different people, know, not necessarily demographically different, but you've got your hippies, your locals, the whole thing. It's the exact opposite. It's the exact opposite of military school. antithesis of military school. That's a good way to... Yeah. Yeah. wild. And it took me some time, know, it took me some time to, you know, come out of my, to figure out who I was, you know. And, but... to have been pretty intense. It was intense. Like for your whole freshman year, were you pretty much adjusting? I got kicked out of the dorms my freshman year. It was stupid. So basically, I lived in this international dorm. I became friends with the whole Japanese crew. It was like 94 % Japanese. I had a Japanese girlfriend. I ended up getting a roommate that was Japanese. I had my own room for a while, which was Awesome. And then uh I got a roommate. He was Japanese and we were buddies and we went to the Grateful Dead show. I think it was the summer of 89 with little feet. um Maybe it was 90 and he loved the dead. He was like, he invited me to go to the dead and I didn't even know who the dead was at the time and still didn't after that. And I want to get into that later on when we talk about the Guam house. and so um Basically, he was like a big hiker, climber kind of guy. He was a martial artist, really quiet and humble. And he had this camp stove and he lit it and then he separated the can from the stove. And then it's like gas got all over his arms and all over his shirt and he caught on fire and his arms caught on fire. And I put a towel over him or he, no, he runs into the bathroom and he's like, And he's like, he throws the stove in the bathroom and the whole bathroom catches on fire. This is in the dorms, yeah. And the wall catches on fire. And so he gets the fire out on his arms and himself. I think he gets in the shower or something like that. And luckily he doesn't burn himself very well or very bad. I don't know how it didn't burn him, but it didn't. And... uh And so meanwhile, the bathroom's on fire. And so I go out into the hall. I break the glass for the fire extinguisher. get the fire extinguisher. I put the fire out and. And so then the fire is out and you know, there was really. Very little damage, if any, I didn't even really assess the damage. I just put the fire out. You know, I didn't care. I was 18 year old kid. I was just like, OK, we're good, you know, and he was good and and. uh And then I have a story, you know, like, Hey guys, guess what happened? You know, and, and then I get called down to the administration of the dorms. Hey, Patrick, can you come down and talk to us about the bathroom incident? And I just ignored him. I'm like, it'll be taken care of. I put the fire out, no big deal. And they called me or didn't call me, but they sent me more messages and more messages. If you don't come down, we're going to have to kick you out. And I just said, Continued to ignore. I don't know why I ignored it. I just did and Finally I get this letter you are now expelled from the dorms and you cannot be here after this date and I was like, fuck Yeah, and I'm like and so I went down there and I'm like Can we renegotiate and they're like no and I'm like, let's put the fucking fire out. I saved your building here I figured you guys would you know Like put it all together and like well, we still needed it, you know report from you and you failed to do that. I'm like, I'm doing it now. And they're like, well, it's too bad. You're out of here. So I was like, all right. So when was that? That was a... Like halfway through freshman year? That's summer probably. Halfway through freshman year. So then where did you live? got an apartment down at the Lincoln Estates. Yeah. Yeah. again? Those were down past. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Kind of going towards like Tolman Creek Road that way. uh that's where the Ashlanders were. So it's over there kind of by the high school. Yeah, yeah. to our listeners. We didn't uh clear this up, but we went to college with Pat. So as we're talking about things, that's why we know what he's talking about. So, uh okay, so you move on your own? You're on your own? got a two bedroom place and a buddy of mine, or no, I got a one bedroom place and I think I was paying like $245 a month and I was just stoked to have my own place. Here I am like 18, 19 years old, have my own place. And it was this dive, you know, right across the drive, there are the parking lot, which was like this, I don't know, couldn't have been any more than 40 feet, 30 feet. was the same apartment complex, but it was just across from me. There was this punk rock type of hangout there with Stefan and Claire, and they had parties every night, all night long, and black lights and punk music. I'm like, you know, I became friends with them and I'm like, wow, this, at first they were intimidating, but now it's like, okay, wow, these are people, you know? And, uh And so I became friends with them and I had a buddy move in with me and he slept in the living room. I had the bedroom and How are you doing with your academics during that time once you got into college? Uh, was doing well until I got kicked out of the dorms and then I dropped out of school. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why. Yeah. Southern Oregon University. So you went there for the summer and took the classes. You went for the first semester, got kicked out and then dropped out. And so did you um register again or were you done at SOC after that? I was done for a while. I went back and forth for a while, but I was done for a while. I worked and ah I worked at various different places and you know, then I, I was doing some gardening one day at a friend's house for my friend's mom and, the painters were on site and there was like, there's a young, strong looking lad. want to, you want to help us paint and I'm like, sure. This was the two stiffs who need work. And uh that was their name. And uh Ken Conger and Dennis Wright. uh so I was like, sure. And so they hired me on, taught me how to paint. And uh then I became a painter. uh we were in our sophomore year, were you going to school at that time or were you painting and working? I was working in painting. Yeah. I think, I mean, there were times I would go to school. I was kind of in and out of school for a while before I was not in school for a good while. And then I went back to school in 2009 for three years and finished up my degree. And I graduated in 2012. Okay, so when we were all at SOC together, you were kind of in school and then out of school, in school and out of school. around. Yeah. I was in and out of school trying to find myself, you know, basically I was trying, I, I grew up in this household where I couldn't be myself. And then I went to a military school and then I'm out of military school and I'm in Ashland. That's like, I needed to find me, you know, and, uh, I needed a break. Yeah. Yeah. You're exactly right. And so, you know, when I, yeah. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that I was always interested in life is what's going on behind the veil of everything that we see, feel and hear, you know, what's really going on, you know, what is energy, what is what's what's religion, what's, you know, Christianity, you know, what's what's going on. And I remember and this is where I'll I'll bring in the Grateful Dead again. And uh and when Sam asked me if I wanted to join. you, Brian, and Chad Hooley to live in the Guam house, I was like, wow, you know, here I am, just like, I'm just coming out of kind of like a, just a very transitional time in my life of trying to find me. going to live with these people who I thought the world of. I'm just like, wow, you you guys are like the coolest of the coolest. And I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to live there. And, and I was almost intimidating and, and here I am, you know, it's like one of the qualities about myself that I didn't like was I was a habitual liar. And, the reason why is because when I was with my family, it was my mom and dad, I felt like I had to lie to be safe, you know, because getting in trouble by those guys was just a nightmare. And so that's what I did. And I didn't know how to be honest. And I remember praying to Jesus one night. was like, Jesus, I knew Jesus was real. I knew Jesus was a part of my life. And I prayed to Jesus. I'm like, hey, man. This was like early on, like right when I moved into the Guam house and I cried myself to sleep last night because I wasn't comfortable with myself and I was just like, I said, look, I want to know what's going on in life. I want to know what's going on behind the veil of everything that we see, feel and hear. I want to know the deeper secrets in life. And I'll tell you what, I will show you truth. if you show me true. And from that point on, I was 100 % honest on everything I said. And I remember like the first time I was tested, it was like you, Brian and Eric Hansen, and there are some other people hanging around in the front room with a Guam house. And everybody was like just chilling and listening to the Grateful Dead. And I'm like, man, these guys are good. These guys, they were just touching my soul, you know, the Grateful Dead. And I'm like, who are these guys? And everybody turned and looked at me. And Eric said, you don't know who this is? And I was like, and my first inclination was to lie, be like, yeah, I know who this is. But then I was like, no, stick to your word, know, stick to your prayer. I don't know why it's this, you know, this activating, but at any rate, I was just like, no. And Eric was like, you really don't know who this is, do you? And I'm like, no, I don't. He was like, that's okay. It's the Grateful Dead. I'm like, these guys are good. And then Brian was like, yeah, these guys are good, aren't they? I'm like, yeah, these guys are fucking awesome. And I felt safe, you know, I felt. accepted. That's cool. Because you were authentic and you took the risk to be authentic and from what you knew of that, nothing good came of that. so for you, it took such courage to... No, it's not though. It's not. It's so big. It's so big because you prayed about it. You had the integrity to follow through on what you had prayed on. You took courage in that group of people that you were semi-intimidated to be with to be honest and say, and you knew they all knew what was going on. And to be honest and say, I don't know what this is. It's cool, but I don't know. And that takes a lot of courage to be that authentic. And then as a result, you got acceptance. Well, it's also your first step in a new life. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. It was. became, you probably were authentic going forward. Yeah, very much so. know, and, uh, you know, everything I did, was just like, realized that, you know, I was honest with everything that I did and said from then on. And, and it was always, it was always rewarding. And I was like, wow, this is really cool. You know, the, the results that you get from honesty. And at the same time, you know, it's like, I made a deal with JC. I'm like, I wanted to know what was going on behind the veil of everything that we see, and hear. I'm not going to just receive answers through my intuition on what's going on behind everything that we see, feel and hear. But, you know, I researched, you know, instead of going to the library, the school library to research my studies, I would research, well, what is intuition? You know, what is, what is energy? What is this chi stuff? You know, what is that led me to yoga, led me to qigong, led me to meditation, led me down to astral disc that and the other thing and and you know it led me to Qigong practices led me to yogic practices and then and then I like you know I I was learning what I wanted to know you know about you down such an authentic path because in order to fully um experience everything you just talked about, yoga, meditation, tea, all of that, you have to be authentic if you're really going to have that experience. you followed this. I I think that moment was the new road of your life. you know, that led you down that authentic road. And then you were looking, you were searching for yourself. You were saying that and Ashlyn, you finally were free to find yourself. I think that moment is when you did. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. there. Yeah, no, that's wild. It is wild because I don't remember you as a religious person. How does that fit into your life now? The background, guess, um in asking God for some clarity, and I had no clue that was happening. um How does that... I guess fit into your life now, in a sense, with you've gone down this path of yoga and self-discovery and energy and intuition. In some ways, that's counter to Christianity in some ways, isn't it? Or God or, I don't know if that makes sense, but. I mean, I wouldn't say it's counter to it, but what's your experience? counter, but not directly aligned, maybe. Some would say that, others would say that they are a big part of each other and a missing link to ah Jesus Christ's ah uh for reasons of, you know, I won't talk about right now, but uh maybe for the purpose of control. uh you know, yogis, my yogic path, know, Paramahansa Yogananda, who's a yogic master, you know, there's many of them. And, uh you know, kind of once you get into that world, you, it really opens the doors to a lot of pretty crazy amazing stuff, at any rate, um lot of most yogic masters regard Jesus Christ as the guru of this planet. And one of the things that Jesus said was, you can do everything that I can and more. And when he, I don't, I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly what happened, but as far as I'm aware of what I was taught and what I resonate with, and I'm not saying this is factual information, but this is what I believe is when Jesus left, he left for some time, I don't know if it was years or whatever, and... You know, when he was young and he came back to, I don't know if he came back to Israel or whatever, wherever it was. Um, supposedly he left and learned the yogic teachings, learned how to be one with God. Sure. He was already, you know, God in flesh and, uh, a master in himself, but maybe he had to go and. figure out how to align himself to really harness that energy. And then once he did, he came back and maybe that's what he was teaching his disciples, is how to become one with God. And that's what the yogic teachings is all about, is how to unite our soul with God through um utilizing our body through utilizing yogic practices. And not only by utilizing yogic practices, but by utilizing um our own efforts to, like the Ten Commandments, we call them the Five Yamas and the Five Niyamas. They're basically the same as the Ten Commandments, but like for example, non-harming. Once you master non-harming by thought, word and action by natural law no harm can come your way and and you know there's other abstentions and other things that you know that you work on perfecting and as you perfect them then you are more aligned with uh... god's presence so to speak in yourself and you know that's supposedly, as many yogis say, a part of Christianity. Paramahansa Yogananda claims to be Christian. He wore a cross and he was a yogic master. He performed miracles on a daily basis. He lived in the 50s. He was one who brought the yogic teachings to America. Pretty amazing guy. He wrote a book called Autobiography of a Yogi. So, he's the one who taught you? No, he's, I mean, he's one who I follow his path. And Jesus Christ is a part of his path. That is so interesting. didn't realize I knew connection with um higher power is huge in yoga and all. I knew that. I didn't realize it was truly Jesus and God that it's stated like that. that is really, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty amazing. You know, there's a, there's a lineage of, of gurus and, and my, in the path that I'm a part of. And, you know, it's not an occult or anything like that. We're, you know, a uh community of people who, you know, do the practices to, you know, unfold God within ourselves. And, and, uh, and so that's basically. what we do. what Yogananda taught was a meditation practice called Kriya, Kriya Yoga. And it's a meditation practice that one of the things that I have observed with myself with Kriya is each breath Well, this is an interesting, you know, there's a, there's so many things to say about Korea, but, you know, I will say that it takes on average according to the yoga perspective. And if I'm, you know, droning on too long, please let me know. We can change course, but, yeah. Okay. So it takes on average a soul, uh supposedly a million years of spiritual growth to reach oneness with God. And one Kriya breath can be equivalent to one year of spiritual growth. And a standard meditation is one round around the mala, a hundred Kriya breaths. So if you do that twice a day, that's 216 breaths per day, 216 years of spiritual growth. And what happens with that you should feel and see in your own mind, body, and spirit, and not just assume that, I'm growing spiritually now because I'm doing Kriya every day. You want the tangible evidence. so there was a time where You know, one of the things, and before I get into that, one of the things that Yogananda had stated is, you know, one cell of your body can have, is, has the capability of powering the whole city of Chicago. And that's like a single cell of your body. And I'm like, well, that's cool. You know, I don't know anybody who can do that, but that's pretty, pretty neat, you know? And, and, um, And once I got to the point to where I was practicing like, know, 200 and 273 seemed to be my number, 273 breaths in one meditation. And then, you know, I would get to the place where I would like, I was meditating for like three hours at a time and just super deep meditation. And to where it's like, I wasn't even aware of, I, all I had was awareness. And as I wasn't aware of my body, I wasn't aware of anything, just awareness. And it was like this 360 degree vision everywhere and just complete stillness. And it was an incredible feeling. And, you know, the way that, I was as an individual, you know, back in that time and the way that I could use my body and, you know, and, and all the things that I did was really abnormally pretty incredible compared to what people normally do. And uh so that was cool. And I wouldn't try to be a show off or anything like that. You have the energy of humility at the same time, but you also have an increase of energy, an increase of pranas, life force, so to speak. uh you were in Ashland? Yeah, I was in Ashland at the time. This was around between 2003 to 2006. m this is way after you met all of us and we all graduate. OK, so did you teach meditation and yoga? I ended up teaching. And I taught at, uh one of the reasons why I wanted to practice yoga is because I wanted something to take my athletic performance to new levels of performance. Like I envisioned, like, I, I wanted to be like a jumping spider or, know, I, I, something like, you know, you just don't see people do, you know, I wanted to have this explosive F or this explosive energy that's like so graceful that there's no energy used to be able to do it. And so I thought, well, yoga might take me there. And, and so I developed, I learned yoga and I, and I was really into mountain biking and it just took my mountain biking into this, you know, this crazy cool, you know, new means of performance. And, and, and you know, I was always like, pushing my, trying to push my abilities, you know, and it was a really cool time in life. then I developed my own practice of yoga to where, you know, when you hold a certain pose for as long as you can comfortably and always not push it, but with the intention of increasing the time for each yoga pose, your... increasing the amount of energy coming into you in that manner of that pose. um it's maximum place of, uh, tension of using your body, if whether it be tension or, uh, balance or flexibility or what have you. And then you have this alignment of all these muscles running through the body. And you know, when you can hold a pose for, you know, a good long time, then you have more of that alignment within your own muscles and then you have this pronic flow through your whole body that you just feel like just pulsating of energy. Like you feel like explosive, but just graceful and just badass at the same time. And yeah, exactly. And I would experience. would you say on average you're holding the pose? When you what you created? on the pose. mean, it depends, like, you know... um like a side angle pose where you're on one hand on your side and the outside of one foot, like your left hand, your left foot, and your other hand is reaching towards the sky. And uh I could hold that for days, probably 100 deep breaths, long deep breaths. ah a class and you had your students go into that pose, how long would you have them hold it? Oh, as long as they could comfortably. was all, it's all about where you are at the time. And you know, it's like, you want to, if you're, if you can't come all the way into the pose, you want to come all the way into where you're perfect in that position. So if it's 25%, be 25%, but keep your body aligned how it's supposed to be aligned and always give yourself enough time to come out gracefully. Um, when you go into it, Visualize yourself going into it, visualize yourself in it, and then do it. And then come in, hold, as soon as you feel a little jittery or shaky, then give yourself enough time to come out gracefully. That way you keep your mind and body connection just solid. And... You could take that into so many aspects of life. That whole everything you just said right there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then you... Oh, it's incredible. dabbled so many times, but then I'm like, oh, my knee hurts or my elbow. Yeah, I've always done it like off a YouTube video or something, right? Or some off the road view or whatever it is. Which is not the right approach, I don't think. It can be if you find the right teacher off of YouTube. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I taught for about uh five years. And was that all in Ashland? It was, yeah. So were you doing that and painting? Were those like. doing that and painting and going to school. So I was, I was back in school. Yeah. I was married at the time. Yeah. right. Okay. So let's go back. um So you live in the Guam house. That's when we all really hung out, knew each other and everything, right? Had wonderful times. um Went to dead shows. Do you have any memories from uh any particular memories from going to shows? Yes, I sure do. ah I ah was at a show, ah I think it was with Alison Berliner, Brent Cook, and I can't recall if you were there or not, but I want to say you were. I can't imagine you guys not being there. ah Yeah. So, you know, we were all there and we were in the front row to Jerry's right. He was, we were to his left. I mean, we were left of him. and right there in the front row and I was just beside myself. was just like, holy shit, know, here we are. It's like, I didn't go to many dead shows, but I was like, damn, there's Jerry, there's Phil, there's, you know, there's all these guys, you know, Mickey and, and, and I'm like watching them and I'm just in awe and I'm quiet, you know, and I'm looking at them. And I remember making eye contact with Jerry for a few times and Jerry would look at me and he would just be like, what's up with that kid? You know, and that's what, and I was looking at him like, dude, you're like freaking so amazing. And it was just incredible. It was uh really, really special. I think anytime someone makes eye contact with Jerry, it's a memory that's burned into their brain. You know, when you know he saw you and you had that connection with him, because I know you had that experience too. Yeah. You know, do you know what show that was? It was with... or where it was. yeah, was Austin Stadium. It might have been the Indigo Girls. Was Cracker one of the openers? If it was Indigo Girls, that was their own opening. Cracker was like 93 or 92, something like okay. I don't know if we were... Was that after 93? No, because Indigo Girls had peaked by then. That was probably... I wasn't at that Austin show personally, but that was a been... Because Little Feet, I think, was 89. Indigo Girls were probably summer of 90. Okay, I was there then. yeah. Now that's awesome. There's there's it's life changing. I always tell people that is um unless you went to his dead show, it's hard to explain. yeah, the Little Feet show was incredible. It's like that was the first time I experienced Little Feet and I was like, wow, these guys are really good. Yeah, yeah. then we graduated and we left and then you were still there working, uh going to school. And then when did you meet your wife? I met my wife way later down the road. I did a lot of living before I met her for many years. But I met her in 2006, I believe. Okay, okay. So during that time in Ashland, you stayed in Ashland that whole time, right? Okay, so what happened? Where'd you go? Yeah. So let me see here. Um, I stayed in Ashland to about the year 2001. I painted, uh, had my own business painting for a while. Um, did some traveling, uh, did a lot of mountain biking, snowboarding, was my life. and, um, and then I moved out and I was a caretaker on a ranch for 160 acre ranch out in Applegate right on the Applegate River with a beautiful view of, God, what's that peak? No, there's a peak out there. Yeah, I can't remember what it is, but it's not Squatch Country. And, uh, yeah, it was beautiful. And you know, this lady was super, super sweet. was 30 years old. She was 50 and gorgeous and super sexy. she basically, I, I painted her house. It was a new construction house. was divorcing her husband and she basically just took me and I was like, okay, you can take me. and, uh, she was back and forth from, uh, Napa Valley and uh I was a caretaker of a ranch so I was there by myself with my cat Gus and ah and whenever she came to town it's like we we had a great time and and Oh, was beautiful. It was amazing. And you know here I am I have these summers right on the Applegate River and and I had a milf I had a milf she was she was she's super cool, man. She's really, really good lady and she was really sweet and yeah. Probably uh a year and a half. Basically what happened was during that time, that's when I reconnected with my mom. And so I was kind of like in a nice secluded place during that time and I was going through a lot of emotions and... uh And also during that time, I found out my grandmother on my dad's side was dying of cancer and she was, you know, progressing with dementia. And I hadn't seen her since I was six years old. And I just remember her as just being this angel of love, you know, just this wonderful, wonderful woman. And I was just like, I got to go down and see her. And so I went down and stayed with her, ended up keeping, this was in Santa Cruz. Okay. So I lived in Santa Cruz for about a year and a half, two years. And, I kept my place in, um, Applegate at the same time. I was always, you know, welcome there. You know, I had my room there still, but, um, I wasn't there. I was in Santa Cruz and I painted houses down there and I, uh learned how to surf down there and hung out with my grandma and my aunts and uncles and my cousins. And, it was pretty cool. all on your dad's side or mom's side, the family? So you said you also reconnected with your mom because you hadn't seen your mom since you were 12? Yeah, around nine, 11, 12. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm reconnecting with all these people. So how did you get in touch with your mom? Oh, so basically I just, had this like crazy inner drive that I had to find my mom. was like this soul, like, just like, if you don't find your fucking mom, you're going to die or something. It was really strange feeling. And, uh, and so I sought her out and you know, my, my, uh, her husband, they, they had their phone numbers unlisted and it's really difficult to find. And I knew he worked at UPS and So I called UPS and I knew his first and last name. And so I ended up leaving my name and my telephone number for him to uh either call me or have my mom call me. And so he ended up calling me. And he was just like, hey, Patrick, know, we've been waiting for this phone call for a long time. I'm like, well, you didn't make it easy for me, but I'm glad that you feel this way. And he was like, all right, well. uh you I just wanted to call you and see how you're doing and, you know, see what your intentions are. And I'm like, well, I can respect that. I said, well, you know, I just had this calling to, you know, find my mom and, and, uh you know, I feel bad about how, you know, things were left and I, I don't agree with how they left and, and I'm sorry that, you know, we left that way. And I, I have no intentions other than, you know, just, just connecting with my mom. and he was just like, right on. And then she called me and then I went to go see her and saw her a few times and, uh How was that when you saw your mom for the first time in how many years? Eighteen years? It was a. It was sad, you know, there's a lot of years missed, you know, last time she saw me was I was a little kid and now I was an adult. And, you know, so she has this memory of me of being a little kid and she missed all those years in between. And it's like, how do you identify with an adult, a grown man who was once your baby and you didn't see the progression there? And, you know, and to me, she's still my mom, but I saw how she was and I was just like, okay. was it sad for her or for you or for both? It was, It was... There was some sadness there, but there was anger there, you know, from her I could tell, but she didn't express it. I just felt it. um you know, there was, you know, I mean, regardless of even though she knows why, you know, I did and said what I said. She, I still said it, you know, and she, is she has anger about that. And she was glad to see me, you know, it felt pretty kind of superficial to be with her, but at the same time, it felt real and it felt like we connected and we were, you know, in repair of something that was fucked up for a long time. And, you know, I, don't think that we could really, you know, find the missing pieces to connect all the dots of the past, but, you know, at least we... We knew that, you she knew that I developed into a, you know, a decent person and, and, and I wanted her to know that, you know, I just wanted her to see how, who I was and, and I, I wanted to see her, you know? so. did you guys see each other? Not many. mean, we're in contact, but ah we haven't seen each other that much. think that I've probably seen her maybe, she came to my wedding, which was really cool. ah Yeah. I probably saw her like 10 times, you know. in Santa Cruz, was she in that area? No, she was in Portland at the time. Okay, so you're spending time with your dad's side of the family, reconnecting with them in Santa Cruz. And then did you leave from Santa Cruz and go up to Portland when you saw her? Actually, I went to Portland first and connected with her before I went to Santa Cruz. So this was like kind of a journey for you to kind of reconnect with family and with your past. And this was when you were 30. This was when I was 30, 30, 31, 32, yeah. Did that help you find some closure in a way to some past hurts? Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of uh closure that took place, for sure. With family. spending time with your family. um after you spent you said you spent about a year and a year and a half there. Where did you go after that? No, in Santa Cruz. back to Ashland, actually. Yeah. Yeah, back to Ash... Hmm? what made you decide to come back to Ashland? Was it just that you had an established business there or you just loved that? Okay. Yeah, it time for me to go home, time for me. Santa Cruz wasn't my home, Ashland was my home. And it was time for me to come home, time for me to start, you know, start up life again there. And uh I did. And started painting again, got a house there. And... you were also teaching yoga and meditation or was that before you went to Santa Cruz? No, that was after Santa Cruz and after a couple years of moving a few years of moving back so after I moved back I I um Ended up getting this house with a with a buddy of mine and uh I was painting houses and was doing pretty well had a couple of crews actually was making pretty good money and and uh And I was hanging out with a crew of people. were, you know, just partying a lot and just, just living, you know, not, but at the same time I was taking care of myself. I always did. And I was always mountain biking, you know, eating well and, and doing yoga and going to the gym at the Y and, and, uh, so I was always kind of like the outcast that way, but I hung with kind of like a metalhead crew and we would go. seat bands all the time and stuff and, and, uh, go to parties and that was kind of fun. And then I got like, I, then I went back to school and I was starting to go back to school and I met this yoga teacher and I just felt really connected with her and, and, and, um, she taught at the school and, and I was like, you know, anything about Korea? And she's like, yeah. And I said, well, you know, what What do you know about it? And she's like, she's like, well, I, I teach at the Ananda center. And she's like, why you come to the Ananda center? And I'm like, all right. And so I came and, and then I got like really, really into yoga again. And I kind of met my, my, family, my yoga family, so to speak. And, and then I got really steeped into it and, and into meditation. And that's when I got into, you know, Then I finally learned Kriya and then just like yoga just took off for me. My whole life just blossomed in an amazing way. Did you keep painting, keep the painting business while you were immersed in the yoga and the meditation? I did, yeah. And then I got married and I was still painting. And I was starting to have like weird health ah incidences too. um But that was more when I started school, but not while I got married. um But at any rate, I was still painting and then I painted up until I had my son. And as soon as I had my son, I went back to school. And let's go. have to ask um how did your life change when you became a father? Uh... Beautiful. It wonderful. Yeah. I, I, I had, you know, it's, I remember when, uh, my wife was, you know, she's putting on a little weight. She was sticking it up a little bit and I was like, you know, she's just becoming more sexy to me, you know? And she's like, I'm gaining weight and I don't know what's, what's going on. You know, she's up to 130 pounds and, I'm like, okay, big deal, you know? And, and she's like, and her friend was like, you're pregnant girl. It's good. And so I remember one day she went into the bathroom to take a pregnancy test and she came out she's like, fuck. I'm like, what do mean fuck? She's like, I'm pregnant. I'm like, hey, don't worry about it. Everything's gonna be okay. You know, it's like, we just got married. I'm still painting. And you know, she's in her social work program. And uh I'm like, It's okay, you know, and, and we both had this feeling like, shit, you know, like we, we tuned into the soul that we're bringing in and we're like, this kid's going to be a fucking handful. And, and, know, and then we had the feeling like everything's going to be okay. And, and it is, you know, everything is okay. And the kid is a fucking handful, but I love them to death and, I wouldn't trade him in for anybody else. wouldn't want him to be any different. uh You know, it is, he is who he is and I love it. And you know, it's, it's, he reminds me of myself. He reminds me of my dad. He reminds me of my wife. He reminds me of my wife's dad. And then he's himself on top of that. He's a child of God, you know, he's, an amazing freaking kid. He's, he's a freaking amazing kid, I should say. So. a motion that you don't know exists until you become a parent. And it's a totally different love. And you only feel that once you become a parent and you're like, OK, I get it. You know, I hear you and I had that feeling, but at the same time, it's, you know, growing up, I wasn't told I love you. I didn't have affection in my life. uh It wasn't a thing. And so I was, I was a little scared. I was concerned. I was like, wow, you know, um I thought, well, my wife was pregnant. I was like, I'm gonna have to force myself to tell my kid I love him because that's the right thing to do until it comes naturally. these are the things that went through my mind. And so I just, there was no problem. There was never a problem. And it was just, I love my kid. tell him I love him every day. I give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and uh we're solid. probably healed some things for you when they handed that baby to you. Were you in the delivery room? Were you there? Yeah. was, I was my wife. She was going through some major contractions and she had the cord, he had the cord wrapped around his neck and every time she had a contraction, his heart rate would go up and I was just like, fuck. And so I was like, I was watching the monitor all night long, you know, and, uh, and it never went up and stayed up or no hit the heart rate would go down, you know, when the, when the cord would, would pull on his neck and I was like, shit, it would drop down to 60 and I was like, fuck, but it wouldn't stay down. It would always come right back up. finally, July 4th, 4th of July, know, yeah, 2009, we were going to, if it was a boy, we were going to name him freedom. And, uh, and, uh, and so it was like 4th of July. And I'm like, okay, maybe we shouldn't name him freedom. That would be a little weird. And right? We didn't we know some freedoms over there? Yeah, yeah He was a good guy, he ended up dying. By the way, he had brain cancer, yeah, yeah. a good guy. So he was born on the 4th of July. I was there in the delivery room and the birthing experience was rough. He came out blue. Again, I'm colorblind. So to me, he looked black or Mexican and I'm thinking, all right, it's okay. you just got to get through this. You know, I have this baby that's not mine and he's unconscious and they bring him over to the respiratory table. And I'm like, you know, they're, giving him the respiratory thing and I'm like, I'm going over there and he wasn't breathing. I just put my hand on and I'm like, come on buddy, come on, get back here. I just like, I'm just like, I put my hand over him and I'm just like trying to pull a spirit into his body and he just like bursts out with this huge whale and cries. And I'm like, fuck yes. And they're like, okay, we're going to take him back and check him out. And I'm like, you're not taking him anywhere. And so I pick them up. It's an incredible You're answering the question I had for you and it's, did you cry? Yeah. Right? put him on my wife's belly and she was just like... He already had his eyes open. He was two weeks late. He was looking at her. She was looking at him. It was crazy, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's again, it's one of those things you just, it's life changing. It changes who you are. You're not the same person you were. Yeah, no, you're not. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just the best, even though raising them can be so challenging, all of it is just, it's the best. Well, keep going. That was it. I mean, I'm just thinking back. mean, dude, you're in Ashland, you're doing your thing. go see your mom for the first time in 18 years, you reconnect, right? And then you head to Santa Cruz for a little while and meet your dad's family. Yeah. And then you roll back into Ashlyn, you get married and you have this miracle. Your life just, I mean, that's a lot, right? That's a lot considering your background and how fucked up some things were, right? Maybe most, if not all things. That's a lot. It's amazing. It's amazing. So you guys are then now a family. Yeah. And then you're you're raising this baby and you decided to go back to school. Mm-hmm. And what did you go back to school for? Health and physical education. I wanted to go to school with the intention of getting into a medical program or physical therapy program and uh and so, know it ended up being either you know acupuncture in Chinese medicine or PT and I thought well PT is going to be more lucrative off the bat, but I have the calling for Chinese medicine. So I did Chinese medicine and uh yeah. I remember you doing that. I remember thinking, wow, that's really cool. I was not in a position where I could, I have an interest in all of that, but I wasn't in a position where I were in a totally different thing going on. But I remember, man, that's pretty cool. Did you start practicing with it once you graduated with it? Yeah, I mean, I did start practicing. so I got my bachelor's, then my master's, then my doctorate. uh so what hap... Same, acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Yes, yeah, yeah. So if somebody asks you what you're a doctor of, you say acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Okay. it's a DAOM, Doctorate of Acupuncture in Oriental Medicine. uh so there's two Chinese medicine doctors. There's a DACM, there's a DAOM, and then there's the PhD. The DAOM is the best regarded doctorate for Chinese medicine. The DACM is basically just for people who want to call themselves doctors, in my opinion. The DAOM is more of a clinical-based. doctorate program and research program. uh It's a two-year full-time program. How much schooling was that all together? Six years, full time. Yeah, of the Masters and the Doctorate. Yeah. then did you open up your practice soon after you graduated? I did. Yeah. Um, I opened up a practice. We, we sold our house in Portland and, that was pretty cool experience alone. Just that whole, you know, re bottle of that house and, selling that, getting into ourselves, getting ourselves into a better house, bigger house here in Bend in a amazing neighborhood that's walking distance from the river and the river trail. And, sure. you left Ashland and the three of you left Ashland and went up to Portland. Was that for you to go to school up there? And were you at Portland State or a separate school? That's right. OK. OK. And then after you finished that, you sold your house in Portland and moved to Bend. And that's where your practice is currently. For listeners or watchers, really, that behind you is River Bend Park in Bend, Oregon, and it is live in action. uh Yes, this isn't a green screen. If you're watching on YouTube, this is actually what Bend, Oregon looks like. And for the record, there's been, I think, at least two people have jumped off that bridge into the water since we've been. No, it's actually that beautiful. So why how would you describe to people what um Oriental medicine is what's the concept behind it? Oriental medicine, the concept is finding balance within the body. It's a big question and it requires an answer that usually takes some uh choreography before you answer the question, if that makes any sense. uh it's about basically harmonizing the body, harmonizing the mind, body, and spirit. um And then you can take it to, you know, you can specialize in different aspects of Chinese medicine, like allopathic medicine specializes in allopathic medicine, or in different parts of allopathic medicine. uh You know, like neurology or, you know, hand-foot doctor or optometrist, ophthalmologist, know, whatever. And so my specialty is ah helping people recover from chronic illness. Basically, bottom line, ah know, neurological disease, uh autoimmune disease, cancers, ah and, uh you know, any type of, you know, unnamed chronic illness. ah That's what I do. Yeah, I don't mean. So how do you go about doing that? I'm sure that's a loaded question, but for the layman, how do you go about finding the cause? So basically you understand what, you gotta understand what the immune system does when we talk about autoimmune. What does the immune system do? It kind of helps keep one of the things that it does is it helps keep microbes under control in the body, right? And environmental toxins. And when the body chronically fires with immune reactions, such as intermittent episodes of inflammation, flares, skin rashes, ah know, uh joint pain, roaming joint pains, uh inflammation of the brain such as brain fog, short-term memory loss. You can have other immune-like reactions such as numbness and tingling, numbness and tingling in the extremities, uh arms, face, head, you know, anywhere in the body, feet, legs. ah You can have... other immune reactions such as fevers, call it an interleukin 10 response, inflammation I believe is an interleukin 6 response you have. ah uh You know, you have inflammation in other areas like you might have urinary uh retention where when you go to urinate at times, the flow is a little bit slower than you think that it should. Then you go to see a urologist. What do urologists do? They find, you know, antibodies that go after the tissues and the ureter or whatever, and they diagnose you with RA and they give you immune suppressants. They suppress the immune system rather than help the immune system. So... uh you recognize that autoimmune disease, have... the immune system is chronically firing. And so then you're like, okay, why is the immune system chronically and firing? Chronically and firing. Then you, you know, uh if you're automatically aware of infectious disease, you know, uh which I am because I had been through it, I have my own story. Then you think, okay, is this bugs or is this environmental toxins? Bugs meaning, you know, is this a bacterial? uh yeast fungus mold, parasitic, uh protozoa infection, viral infection, or is it what's referred to as MSIDS, multiple systemic infectious disease syndrome. Usually it's the latter. uh Allopathic doctors, they will find, okay, you have inflammation, let's treat it as if you have fibromyalgia. Okay, we'll give you this medication to suppress the immune system so your... you have less symptoms. You, you can feel better temporarily, or let's say you have hip pain. You come in with, you know, crazy debilitating hip pain. You realize that your TNF alpha and your rheumatoid factors are elevated and you have RA. Okay. So we'll just give you some immune suppressants. So the hip pain will become like humera and the hip pain will be less, but then other areas of the body start showing up with other weird things. You might start to have cardiovascular issues. You might start to have pulmonary issues. You might start to have neurological issues or what have you because when you suppress the immune system, if you have a chronic infection, then the chronic infection proliferates at a faster rate. And when it proliferates, it infects different areas of the body and starts to present in different areas of the body. And then if you keep going through the allopathic process, then you're just provided more medications to help manage these other places of challenges. Whereas if you know how to find the root cause, then there's a doctor by the name of Dr. Richard Horowitz. He's a medical doctor. has a PhD and he has tested over 13,000 people now with uh different pathogens and he's categorized uh symptoms, the patient's symptoms associated with their positive diagnostics of their pathogenic laboratory presentation. so uh you can figure out what type of infection people are working with based on uh their symptom presentation. And a lot of times there is crossover. But if there's crossover, then you just go through and you, you ask questions regarding their demographics. Where have they lived? Did they travel? Did they get sick when they travel? What kind of sickness did they have? What were their symptoms? What happened from there? You know, it's like when I meet with somebody and they have autoimmune disease, I get a whole list of their symptoms. And after they tell me everything that's going on, then I go down my own list and we add about a ton more symptoms to the list because they can't remember all of them. They were like, oh yeah, I do have that, that, and that, and that. And so then we have this running list of 50 to 80 symptoms. And then I go through their demographics. I want to know what, I want to know the health of their mom when they were born and when they were children. I want to know where they lived, where they traveled, you know, how their health was throughout their life. And that gives me a picture. of what their exposure was and how things led up to where they are now. And that gives me an image, or that gives me an understanding of their pathogenic load. We all have one. And it gives me uh an understanding of what types of infections that they're working with. And it gives me an understanding on, you know, if they're taking medications, you know, if... what I'm working with in regards to treating them. If we both resonate with each other for uh treatment. And so that's how I figure out what people are working with in terms of autoimmune disease. I do rule out environmental toxicity. um know, sometimes people do have environmental toxicity, but it's generally... m actually always in my case, not alone environmental toxicity causing symptoms of autoimmune disease. And autoimmune is a lot of times considered the immune system going haywire. There's just a genetic default that trips at some point in life and you have this autoimmune presentation and you're fucked and this is the way it's going to be for the rest of your life. That's bullshit. Yeah, it is. And that's BS. And, uh And you know this, yeah, right. And you know, it's like, well that's our weak genes. This is what our, you know, what our ancestors have. So this is what I'm going to have. Bullshit. You know, first of all, we're susceptible to anything and everything. Secondly, yeah, we are handed down these genes from our ancestors, but they need to get triggered. And what triggers them? Either excess environmental toxin or an elevated pathogenic load. If these weak genes get triggered and then we present with these gene mutations and or disease manifestations, clean up the infection and the gene repairs itself, the symptoms decrease and people go into remission. So how do you clean up an infection? How do you clean up an infection? It's uh basically how I do it is it depends on the infection. But when people have chronic illness, like debilitating chronic illness, they've seen tons of different doctors, and let's say they're not on medications to where they, ah where you. can't help them because if they're on some medications, you just can't help them. Because you, no matter what you do or what you take, the neurotransmitters in the body and they just, they just won't let you detox. ah So they have to get off certain meds first. And some of them are ah benzodiazepines, know, mental health drugs and you know, mental health issues like uh bipolar disorder. uh and schizophrenia are caused by chronic infections, know, inflammation, inflammation of the brain, inflammation of the brainstem. you know, it's, and so what the benzos do is they suppress the immune system in those areas. uh And so you get the person off the drugs first, and then what you do is you have to understand how these infections proliferate and why people have symptoms and when and why people have flares. So what happens is with a chronic infection is I'm answering your question, but it's, it's kind of like a thorough uh answer if that's okay. Okay. So, because there is not just a one word answer to it. Um, so, um You have to understand what causes symptoms. And what causes symptoms is one, the excess pathogenic load that the body's immune system identifies that there's something wrong in the body. So it's creating inflammation. And if it's global inflammation, the microbial load is everywhere. If it's inflammation in the joints, then you have an infection in the joints. um If it's brain fog, short-term memory loss, there's different avenues of why that might happen. But long story short. ah What causes these to happen is increased motility of the infection causing the immune system to target that area. And when it targets that area, people have increased symptoms. And at the same time, the immune system increases the histamine load. And when people have an increased histamine load, which is a byproduct of increasing inflammation, then people have uh chronic sinusitis, have skin rashes, and they have lack of sleep. And that's classic elevated histamine response uh or sneezing fits. uh Sure. When you use the term infection, I think of, I don't know, like I got a cut, I didn't treat it right, and now it's like getting all pussy and gross, right? But what I'm thinking is that I have knee pain every now and then, and it's kind of in the joint. How would you define that, or differentiate that infection, if that's what this would be, versus the one that we all think of as in the cut? Does make sense? well, it could be something more chronic. It could be. what happens is, and I'm not saying that this is an infection that you have, you know, chronic intermittent knee pain, but what I would do is I would ask you, do you have this? I would, I would go down the list of symptoms and ask you if you have anything else going on. All right. I would ask you first if you have anything else going on. And then after you tell me everything that you have going on, would ask you more questions. And if I find that you do have more things going on that are immune related reactions and you didn't have an injury to that knee, then I might say, well, you have this, this, and this. You have roaming joint pains. You have some calf cramping. You have some intermittent episodes of night sweats. ah You have food sensitivities to sugars and alcohol. ah So it could, your knee pain could be ah related to a chronic infection. And if it is, we'll know. And we'll know by how you respond to treatment. Yeah, I think mine's more directly related to ah the way I sit. So I don't think it's infection. That's why I was curious of the, you know, I don't think it's my body attacking itself in that sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay. they're swelling too, you know, that could be an indication of something going on. But it doesn't have to be. But I asked the question because I do think for our listeners, this is fascinating. blown, you know, I'm fascinated with it in terms of the, if I, all things are normal and all of a sudden my knee starts to hurt, there's, you know, that's kind of where I think you're going more so than a direct, I banged it against the corner of the hall or something like that, know, the cause and effect. would ask you that first, you know, did you bang it? Did you injure it? You know, what, what's going on, you know? And, uh, but I like to rule everything out before I consider infection. And because I don't want people to have, uh, you know, I don't want to have to have them deal with, uh, cleaning up a chronic infection. It's a, it's a process. It's a lot of, for a lot of people, it sucks. You know, I have a new patient recently who's who loves it. She's just like, I love your treatment. This is amazing. And it's like it makes so much sense. And it's like, I've been so sick for so long. I love this diet and I love everything about it. I'm like fucking right on, man. You're easy. Yeah. you're the first stop or the last stop? Usually the last. I was the first for her, and that's a first for me. ah But usually the last. but you know, so what increases symptoms? Pathogenic, when the pathogenic motility is increased, how do you increase, how does the pathogenic motility get increased? The motility of the infection itself. So it gets increased by a number of things. One, stress will do it. um When you have a significant amount of stress or trauma, it weakens the immune system. When the immune system is weak, the bugs sense this in the body. increase their motility. When they increase their motility, they're releasing antigen, which is waste material, which interacts with our neurological systems. Yeah, our neurological symptoms systems. And then we have more symptoms. Plus, when the pathogen increases its motility, the immune system turns back on, it senses this and then it, it, it responds in a hyper mode. And then we have an increased immune flare. Um, so that's why when I treat people, I'm like, one thing you gotta do is you gotta keep your emotions under control. If you get, you know, if you have a tendency to get pissed, save it for later. You know, if you have a tendency to get sad, save it for later because you want to keep steady until we get your infection load under control, then get pissed all you want, you know, but until then keep steady. Um, and then, you know, what else? Um, physical stress. You want to keep the four stressors under control. So, uh, mental, physical, emotional, environmental. emotional stress, physical stress. If you have a chronic infection and you're, you're down and you're in a hard way, you, if you think that exercise is your answer, that's wrong. You know, if you, when you exercise or muscles are like sponges, they're going to be, if we have a chronic infection, we're just going to be squeezing out pathogen into the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream. It's going to be circular circulating around the body. And then we're going to have a flare. Um, I had flares when I did just very small amounts of exercise that hospitalized me and uh I almost lost my life to it. So, and I realized that it was exercise and the doctors were like, no, no, that had nothing to do with it. I'm like, yes, it did have something to do with it, but I don't know why it had something to do with it. So I tell people not to exercise and people do realize a lot of times that they have exercise sensitivity. And so then you have, ah you know, keep your mental stress under control, which is, you know, just don't think too much. You know, don't read too much, don't study too much, don't exercise your brain too much. know, otherwise, you know, you're just gonna spin yourself into an anxiety attack. So with that though, that's a tough one, Where I'm in the same camp as you, I just compartmentalize it in many ways, Gen X, it's like bury that shit, But from a clinical perspective, it, you would you, and you go back to your yogi days, you know, is it breathing? Is it meditation? I assume those all the above maybe, if it's not stressful to you. You know what, I just, uh I educate people about that and I leave it up to them to uh harness it. And then there are some times where we have to revisit it and talk about it. But I did have a meditation class for that I had for that I presented for my patients for a while and it was helpful for them. And I think it is a missing link that I think that could be really helpful for the treatment processes. absolutely because what you just described mentally, that's so hard. Like I think a tool for people to calm their brain and to not overthink, not overanalyze, not over worry, especially if you're a parent. I think that's a huge tool to learn, to be like, okay, and then kind of flip that on, like clean your mind, clear your mind, you know? So that's kind Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People are really, really into it. And I just like, I really like talk to people about this. I'm just like, look, you're going to have symptoms going through this. You're going to have, you know, things are going to be up and down. You're just going to have to understand that, you know, things are going to be a little bit of a whirlwind until you feel better and just let it go. You know, check in with yourself every month instead of every day. You know, let things be check in at the end of the month. People, when I treat people, I give them my cell phone number. said, Hey, look, you know, contact me if you have any questions regarding anything, any questions regarding dietary modifications, supplement modifications, I want all your questions answered because when I meet you five weeks from now, I want to see you better. And every time I meet somebody, most times, every five weeks, they're better. uh so that's, well, so basically the fourth stressor to keep under control is Environmental stress, obvious stuff, know, stay away from mold and, um, you know, be aware of household chemicals because you'll respond to bleaches, cleaners, you know, negatively and things like that. Um, dietary modifications, uh, you basically got to know what feeds infections. So when you feed the infection, the infection increases motility. When it increases motility, it's going to the immune system is going to respond to that. When the immune system responds. you're going to have immune reactions such as inflammation, intermittent fevers, numbness and tingling, all kinds of weird things that can be associated with uh inflammation such as ah all kinds of stuff. um Yeah. So you don't want to feed the bugs. And so what happens is, and we'll get into the diet in a second, but what happens is when you feed the bugs, when you feed the infection, the infection gets excited. went through the process of just telling you what happens when, and when the infection gets excited. So when you don't feed the infection and you're, and you really get this dialed in and you figure it out. And I have this all figured out because I had to, I was like, either I had to, or I'd be dead. And, uh, and so I had to figure it out. And then this was part of my doctorate thesis. And part of my doctorate thesis was, you know, this basically this whole thing, but I wanted to, I had access to the medical database, you know, the medical database where you could research anything and everything. People say there's no research on herbs. There are millions of research studies on herbs and some bad ass studies. And so, you know, I... uh did my research on foods. Part of my research was on certain biochemical properties that feed infections. I wanted to verify that lactose, alpha galactose, fructose, sucrose, mucilage, oh fed infections. And I found that they all did. And so, as well as yeast. And so if you keep... sucrose, fructose, alpha galactose, mucilage, and lactose out of the diet. You don't feed the infection. Then what happens is the first two or three weeks, the infections, the chronic infection is going to get more motile. It's going to get hungry. It's going to get stressed out. It's going to get anxious. And then the immune system is going to respond to that. We're going to have increased immune reactions and then people are going to be more anxious and they're going to have all these, you know, crazy cravings of like, well, maybe I can eat pickles, you know, but you can't eat pickles because vinegar feeds bugs. And so, you know, but they, they text me, can I eat pickles? Like, is it in apple cider vinegar? Uh, no, it's in rice wine vinegar. Then no, you can't. Okay. You know, and so if you, What's? you, once the infection gets tired after two to three weeks, after two or three weeks, it increases its motility and it gets stressed and then you get stressed. But after two or three weeks, then the motility just stops. And when it stops, then people's symptoms just drop and they don't drop fully, but they drop a lot. Sometimes they drop within a week, sometimes within two weeks, sometimes it takes two months. But generally people's symptoms, you know, after you don't feed the bugs for a certain amount of time, symptoms just drop. And so then what you do, go ahead, Brian, you had a question? I'm fascinated because I can relate to this at a carb level for my own self. the right. if you're I love carbs, we all love carbs. uh But I find that if when I don't eat, I don't eat carbs for the most part. Not that I'm carb free, but my carbs are chosen wisely as fruits and berries and whole, you know, not refined weeds and pizza and stuff like that. But I do find that if you to get out of that, you're breaking a cycle. And that cycle sucks, that withdrawal. So I'm thinking of it for you, treating someone, you've got to get them through that period. And you touch where it can be anywhere from a week or two, probably two weeks, I think it was your initial starting point, but it could even go longer. So right there having a struggle to get through that, because it's like you dropped your carb load or you stop feeding the the gets hungry and starts. We're kind of lashing out, guess, it said crying for more. Feed me, feed me. If you can get past it, you can reach some level of calm. Right. And so it's very interesting to hear you describe it that way. I can relate to it at a carb dietary carb level. It's almost like breaking the addiction of the of the bug. The bug is addicted to to. Yes. telling us what they want, making us think that that's what we want. Yeah. Have you treated, I'll use a less harsh term, folks with drinking issues or addiction issues at all? Because it's sort of that same cycle, right? If you're drinking and you can maybe get away for a little while, but then once you start drinking, you're back on the wagon, right? I'm off the wagon, I'm on that kind of thing. It's very similar thing. Drinking leads to more drinking. for sure. Do you have patients like that at all? have you not really gotten into that area? patients with that type of addiction. I've had patients with pharmaceutical uh dependency that I had helped them uh break from. Yeah, benzos and immune suppressants. How do you deal with a person with benzo? a huge, I cannot, I think benzos are the source of a lot of evil in the world. A lot of bad things have happened. they, are used, they are researched and you know, they're, they're trials and, uh, clinical trials before they're used on how people respond to them. But they're as far as I know, and I'm not going to say that this is a fact, but this is my understanding that there are limited, if any clinical trials on getting people off of these medications. And so getting them off is can be very difficult. ah That you know of? They... create a severe dependence. but if you don't have them, the body can suffer. ah So there's an addiction component. It's not like I need like I need this, but it's more like if I don't take this, I'm fucked. You know? Yeah. psychological uh sensation, think. Yeah. Well, what's scary is that they're given to children or, you mass shootings you've seen. This is probably bold to offend people, but a lot of them have been on benzos. Yeah. All of them, believe. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a whole nother thing, but I agree. I think that it's it's destroyed our children in so many ways that have been put on that because it's It kills your dopamine. Yeah, right that's part of it. And, you know, a lot of these and we're uh kind of getting, you know, on to a different topic. And I'm happy to do it. And but I do want to touch on this is, you know, here we are talking about, you know, people going mad, people going crazy, people shooting people, people killing themselves. And uh and, know, whether on whether they are on Benzos or not, they have a mental illness. And man, when people have a mental illness, more times than not, this is a chronic infection and they are not identified as having a chronic infection ever. Sorry. I'm punching the computer again. ah it back to that because I think where you're, what I heard at least is that the way we're treating infection and illness, whatever, is through uh suppression. The strategy is suppression. So the opposite of that feels like a buildup. And is that kind of where you're at, I would assume, right? If you're... I'm not saying you're anti-suppression, you've just acknowledged that's the normal treatment in Western medicine, think. Whereas on the other side, the Oriental medicine and maybe your own approach is, it to build up the immune system, to facilitate strengthening it rather than suppressing it? Well, you want the immune system, you want the immune system working and you don't want it being suppressed. But no, um partially that's my approach. Yes. My other approach is, ah know, ah I kill bugs. That's what I do. Yeah. Yeah. Have you have you um helped people with depression? absolutely. Definitely. has it usually taken them to see their symptoms disappear? uh it all depends on the person, some time within a month, some time within two or three months. Um, but anybody who has had a chronic depression, uh, they also have chronic anxiety, uh, and or panic attacks and they have other, uh, autoimmune related symptoms and they probably have a diagnosis, whether it be a polymyalgia, rheumatica or fibromyalgia or MS or what have you, and yeah, I get those people cleaned up and their depression's gone. What is your outlook or your opinion on parasites? Oh, mean, parasites are everywhere. basically, uh know, microbes are the cause of degeneration. You know, as people age, their microbial load, their pathogenic load, their bad microbes, they just increase naturally over time. It's the cause of degeneration. It's the cause of, you know, internal problems. And it's what kills us more times than not. So, you know, we have parasites, have bacteria, have protozoa, we have yeast, fungus, and mold. Parasites is just one of them. And, you know, there are microscopic roundworms that get into the tissues of the body. uh You know, if you were to take an elder or just somebody who's lived a stressful life or somebody who's an outdoors person, who's outdoors all the time and they don't have a very robust immune system, they don't have much German blood in them. people who are German, they're extremely resilient by the way. uh But people not, can take a slice of their tissue, look at it under a microscope and you're gonna see microbes. You're gonna see potentially microscopic roundworms, bacteria, yeast fungus mold, whatever. uh do, is part of it killing the parasites? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. in there is parasites. Okay. And the way you're saying you kill them is by starving them, right? Don't feed them. Okay. of it. So part of it is, so you can, there's a lot of bugs like spirochetes, a lot of different types of spirochetes that can, uh and a lot of other types of microbes, bacteria that can create little micro cysts and they can proliferate and multiply without feeding on the body or without feeding off of what you feed them for up to eight months at a time. So they can grow their pathogenic load without feeding on the body and reproduce as asexually. get rid of those? with herbs, oils, and eventually when people are symptom free, like robust uh cyst breakers, biofilm dissolvers, things like this. The cyst breakers and the biofilm dissolvers that people get on Amazon and all these, you know, NDs use and stuff like that. They're, you know, they're, ah they're wimpy compared to what Chinese medicine can do if you know how to use Chinese medicine to use this. And, uh But yeah, with Chinese medicine, like for example, when I was really, really sick, I was debilitated for a good year and a half. And I couldn't walk anymore than 20 feet at a time. I couldn't carry on a conversation without remembering what I was talking about. I had basically every symptom in the book. I was a mess. But I had this, when I was getting cleaned up, when I finally figured it out after spending a good. you know, $80,000 on trying to figure out what the cause of my situation was. I found out at school, you know, I had a class in it my senior year. I'm like, fucking a, so this is the cause of chronic illness. Nobody was listening in class, you know, everybody was on their computers, know, I'm Amazon looking at their new bathing suits that they were going to wear for Christmas break. And I'm like, guys, this is it. This is, this is it right here. And I went home and I celebrated. told my wife, I'm finally figured out what was going on with me. And she's like, what's that? And she's like, I have chronic infections. She's like, Oh, what are you going to do about that? I'm like, don't worry about it. I got this anyway. So I'm a, I'm a, know, seven months through my treatment and I still feel this burning type of cystic formation in my lower right quadrant of my abdomen where there was a cyst that was picked up on CT scan at one time. And, and, uh, and so I talked to one of my, colleagues, one of my professors, uh, who's a good friend of mine. And I said, Hey, you know, I, feel like I'm doing pretty good. I feel like I'm getting through this, but I still got this system, my lower right quadrant, I feel, and I just can't seem to get it. And he was like, all right, well, you know, we'll, we'll see if we can break it open. I'm like, all right. So he gives me this formula with a bunch of sticks and twigs and thorns and beetles and scorpions and centipedes. And he was like, so, you know, do this slow in this guy doses. big, know, he's a PhD, he's worked in, you know, he had a clinic in China for, you know, 10 years. He's American, speaks fluent Chinese and, uh, but total scholar to bad ass. And, uh, and so he, and he doses big already. And he tells me to be careful. And he was like, just take it, you know, 25 % of this formula. I'm like, all right. So I took half of the formula and drank it. And I. felt that pressure and that cyst open up within 15 minutes and immediately I had like serious like immune reactions. got a fever, got sweats, got chills, got anxious, got a rapid heart rate. I was like, all right, these motherfuckers are going down. And so, no, I was like, okay, I'm going to kill these, you know, these bastards that are coming out of the cyst. And so then I took a bunch of oils, you know, the doTERRA, clove, oregano, uh cassia. and a few drops of peppermint and uh probably took about 100 drops of essential oils and some olive oil, downed it and within 15 minutes all my immune reactions dropped but I felt super fatigued and I was like, whoa, sweet, you know, I got the fuckers. And so then I was just like, all right, we did it. And then I went to my son's baseball game and just put on some shades and soaked up the sun and celebrated and. took that formula for the next 30 days to make sure I got that and everything else and then I was done. So what were you diagnosed with by the medical? with Crones and MS. So they diagnosed you with Crohn's and MS, and then you healed yourself through Oriental medicine, not through the Western medicine. Yeah, modified or anti-medicine, definitely. a while, didn't you think you had limes? Well, that's, I mean, if you have Lyme, you have, that's just one infection. You know, Lyme disease is based off different species of Brayla bukdorferi. That's asparicate. And so when people have chronic illness these days, they think, well, maybe it's Lyme disease. And so they get tested for Lyme. And because they test negative, whether they have it or not, you're more likely to test negative, even if you have it. Then doctors will say, okay, well you don't have Lyme disease, so we'll just put you on immune suppressants. You don't have an infection. Just because you test negative for Lyme disease doesn't mean you don't have another infection. It's like there's a fucking billion, jillion microbes out there in the world. So yeah, I mean, I probably had some Lyme in there, but I know I had Bartonella, Babesia, uh You know, I don't know if I had some spirochete infections. Probably did based on my lifestyle. um But, you know, probably some parasites. uh But mostly Bartonella babesia type of presentation is what I had. And how long did it take you to heal yourself? How long was your healing journey? eight months. And did you know it was succeeding after the first month that you were on the right track? Yeah. Yeah. It has to be something that you want to then go scream from the rooftops. You must feel crazy sometimes because you know the answer and you're watching everyone chase their healing journey down the wrong path. Yeah, it's a weird, it's it's, it's, this world is a weird place right now. And, it is what it is, but it's, um, on one hand, I, I, I feel like I have to be careful, you know, I have to be careful what I, you know, how I educate people, you know, it's like, I, treat people who come to me, but do I want to put my message out there? Um, enough if I do is it stepping on the toes of big pharma ah and my educating the mat if I become big enough with my education or am I going to disappear or be sold on the black market for you know ah the dark web for ah torture or whatever I don't know it's just It's like you know the secret and they know what's so because what is your opinion on Western medicine? I mean, I think that, you know, doctors, their hands are tied. They have to um abide by protocols. And if they don't, then they get in trouble. So doctors can't necessarily treat how they want to treat. Hospitals have protocols. Doctors have protocols. um NDs and Chinese medicine doctors, they don't have protocols. um They have to stay in their lane, but they don't have protocols. um Western allopathic medicine, hold the authority of medicine. So because they are authority, they can do what they, you know, they, they have to do what they're told to do. And it's, it's a wild world out there with allopathic medicine, you know, on one hand, allopathic medicine is very helpful in a lot of ways. Um, it's amazing the technology they have and their capabilities. Um, and the stuff that they have and pharmaceutical companies, I think that they have some amazing things um and I think that it's really good that we have them. However, I do think that at times they take advantage of um situations for uh profit. uh like like Advil? you taking Advil? Yeah, I recommend Advil. I recommend Advil and Tylenol. ah Yeah, for people, I don't, you if people have stomach issues, um you know, there's a lot of, you know, question about Advil causing ulcers. You know, if Advil, Advil is an immune suppressant, it's going to suppress the immune system temporarily. It's going to reduce inflammation, obviously that's, you know, immune suppressive. And so if you develop, ulcers in the stomach by taking Advil every day, then you might consider you're reducing stomach inflammation and there could be an infection there such as H. pylori that's eating the tissues of the stomach causing the stomach ulcers. So instead of just taking Advil, know, take Advil and take a gram of scutellaria twice a day with philodendron and some olive leaf extract in a little shot of water and that will soak into the stomach tissue and kill the infection and then the stomach ulcers will go away. Antibiotics are good if you can get the right one but antibiotics won't penetrate cysts or biofilms and so antibiotics are good at getting an infection under control but What happens is infections go dormant and when they go dormant they still proliferate and when they proliferate they wait till the body weakens through a traumatic experience or chronic stress or you know... something else, you know, or the pathogenic load just increases. Go ahead. short term. But if you're, you you don't want to get into a chronic situation of Advil every day or antibiotics every day. Yeah. Do you have any, a story of any that was like miraculous for you or a memorable patient you helped? many, every single one of them. But yeah, I mean, have just, they're all just really good people, all driven people, ah driven for health, know, people who want to feel good. ah Have you helped like families? Like whole families? I have actually. oh There was a family of a woman and I think she has six daughters and she has a husband and her husband was fine. You know, I saw him, I evaluated him and he presented as if he was totally fine. uh But her and her daughters, they all presented as if they had a Babesia infection. Um, she had a, think the youngest of them was 10 at the time. There was a 10, a 12, a 14 year old, a 16 year old, and either 18 or 19 year old and her, and she was in her forties. And these girls were like, when I first met them, you know, they, none of them had ever gone to school. They were, they were. bad. They were a mess. ah you know, I, they had tons of symptoms, just crazy symptoms, you know, uh, chronic dizziness, chronic migraines, uh burning eyes where it felt like their eyes were on fire. you know, they couldn't sleep, uh, intermittent episodes of tachycardia, um, pain in their bodies. Um, urinary retention, constipation, um, lots, lots of symptoms. And that's, that's just a very small amount of symptoms that they, that one person would have. And, know, just, it was bad, you know, they were, they were in bad shape and, and I treated all of them and cleared all of them of their infections. And she had been fighting this for a long time and she, started buying my formulas and I realized that she had started buying my formulas and I reached out to her and I said, Hey, you know, I recognize that you've been buying my formulas. If you want some help, know, let me know. I might be able to help you out. She, you know, hired me on as her, as her doctor and her, her girl's as doctor and, and got them all to a place where they're all thriving, they're all happy, they're all glowing. And, uh, they're just, You know, now they're excited about life. They're, they're afraid of, you know, they were initially afraid to go outside, you know, because they didn't want to get bit by mosquitoes and stuff. But I'm just like, I also educate people once they're done. And during the time of treatment, how to prevent this from happening again, you know? Yeah. you get through the whole process, do you have a protocol for, okay, so this is how you live your life going forward so you can hold on to your health? exactly. I do. Yeah. So do you treat people outside of Oregon? ah If the state allows for it, I will see people through Zoom, yes. And a lot of times the state will allow for it. OK, so we we will definitely be linking all that information. But if anyone wants to get in touch with you, they can reach out to you to see and then you'll be able to tell them if you can treat them or not, because I assume you would know because I mean, and we're just touching on a blip of your knowledge, like just just the tip of your knowledge on all of this. So for anyone listening, I think you really should consider reaching out to uh Dr. Lynch about all of this because as you can tell, it can be life changing, even if it's just have a conversation with him about what's going on with you, ah because it's life changing, 100%. So, and how long have you been practicing now? Not long actually since 2018. I mean, that's what is that life's gone so fast. Seven years. Seven years. So there were six years before that of school education. Yeah. years of education and being sick myself. I was sick in school. I was told to drop out. Yeah, yeah. experience actually has probably made you a better doctor, right? Because your empathy for your patients, you get it. You know what they're going, you'll listen. And I find with going to anybody when you're sick or having issues, doctor, naturopath, whatever, the first challenge is getting them to listen. and really hear what you're saying. And to me, that's always a sign that I'm in the right place if they're really hearing me. So your empathy, because of your own experience, has got to play into the success that you're having with your patients. Yeah, so. care about my patients, definitely. So you've been practicing in Ben, you have your practice and um you have your wife and your son. How are things going in your personal life? Yeah, well, things have taken it quite the change recently. my, uh, my wife just, uh, left me, I believe it was May 2nd. I helped her move out into her own house and, we share our son. She gets him seven days and I get him seven days. So, you know, we're at least. taking a break, you know, whether that looks like divorce or not, I'm not sure. uh But it was her idea and uh she wanted a break, so. Did you have any idea that this was coming? And you feel that it's something that um had been building up for years and was due to more communication or what would you say the probably the main reason is or is there a hundred little reasons? Well, there's a few, but one of the main ones was uh the parenting dynamic. I love my kid. He knows I love him. I give him love, but I also hold him accountable. And I also... uh provide consequences when I feel that they're needed and I feel that they're reasonable. ah My wife doesn't believe in consequences. I don't think that, uh you know, she holds our kid accountable as much as need be. And when I do, ah it becomes a shit show. ah For example, you know, we're sitting at the table and And, so, you know, I just like, my kid, he, he tried to, you know, to stir things up. And I gave in to it. And I just, you know, like, for example, I'd be like, Hey, bud, please. put your napkin on your lap, you know, for the 50 millionth time, you know. And he'd just kind of roll his eyes and look at his mom and uh know that his mom would stick up for him and then she would just be like, you know, and she was like, in my house, know, manners didn't really matter. And so, you know, and then he would just like sit there and chew with his mouth open. And I'm just like, it just wasn't pleasant, you know, to sit at the table with my family with, you know, eating because here my my kid in junior high school is like trying to stir things up. He's actually doing it and succeeding. And I'm the only one holding them accountable. And then it just becomes this triangular, stupid thing. And and and then. you know, that's one thing. And then whenever I would have a conversation with him, she was like right there, you're like looking and, and making, you know, and she's like, anything I would say after the moment I'm done, she would say something like right on top of it to change my words into something else to make it how she wanted my words to look like to him. And, and I was just like, fuck, I can't even parent my kid, you know, so that sucks. it's almost and that's not something you would know is going to happen until you have a child together. You can't predict that that the two different parenting styles, you wouldn't have known that until and it probably it probably was slow to happen, right? It probably wasn't so obvious right in the beginning when you first had him and that as he grew and then, you know, It's kind of slow building. So that's a really hard thing to predict, you know. It was a hard thing to predict. ah I will say that... It can go both ways. You know, you can't really blame anything. You know, you can't blame trauma. You can't blame experience. You can't blame anything. You just, you do what you do. You have responsibility for your, your actions and you make sense of what you do and own it and live it. And that's what she owns and lives. And that's what I own and live. And it, hadn't worked and it's weird and yeah. you have to be a team. Even if you disagree, even if you disagree, that has to be behind closed doors. Like we'll talk like almost like we're going to talk about this later, but you can't do that in front of the children or the child has to at least believe you guys are on the same page because the child is going to to push the boundaries as far as they can. Yeah. Yeah. if there isn't a set boundary and they can tell the parents aren't on the same page, they're going to take advantage of that. They're going to stir the pot like you're saying. It's just what they do, right? Especially as teenagers. So the number one thing is, we may disagree on where the peanut butter should go, but we'll talk about it in our room later. We're not going to argue about that, that they put the peanut butter away wrong in front of them. You know what mean? You have have each other's backs or else you lose control of the situation, if that makes sense. for sure. I, yeah, I, I've made note of that so many times and it just, it just, it wasn't ever a harness. We went to see a counselor and the counselor was like, you got, you, can't, can't do that. You know, you, you gotta talk about these kinds of things in private. You can't interrupt you, blah, blah, blah. And you know, and, and so It's a respect for your spouse too. And I'm sure it's, what do you do in that situation, right? Because you probably never thought it would end up here, right? In your wildest dreams. it's interesting. So I think a lot of Gen Xers midlife are separating and are getting divorced for many different reasons. um But I think... A lot of times there's unpacked trauma or there's trauma that needs to be dealt with and sometimes in our midlife is when it's really hitting us and we're either going to acknowledge it and resolve it and heal or we're going to continue to deny it. But when that happens too, it comes out in other ways. So, and I'm not saying that's what happened here. think everyone deals with it differently too. Yeah. And that's where you may not. It may not line up. Yeah, the breakdown of the relationship. Yeah, yeah. Because um things either need to be dealt with or not. Yeah. And if they're not, then there's a breakdown. Yeah. Yeah. Because you hit that point. So, I mean, either way, I wish for you on your path, um peace with this situation, whichever way it's going to go. Because I know you're still, this is pretty fresh still. Yeah, it is fresh. Yeah. I mean, I love my wife, you know, and, you know, but I also realized that, if we, if we can't get it together, then it might not be, I don't know. I mean, I just don't know. It might not be a good, a good match. And huge life shift, you know. it sucks. It really sucks. You know, I, I, I really regard family as, you know, a sacred thing. And, you know, when I, when I have my family, you know, it's like, I take care of my family. took fucking great care of my wife, you know, and I take great care of my kid and family is really important to me. Um, probably cause I didn't have much of a family growing up. Right. now when it's gone, you know, fuck it. It took me like a month just to get my shit together. was like, and then it was like eight months of knowing that she was going to leave. And I was just like, okay, you know, it's like, I, I wanted to, I wanted us to work on it. She didn't. I was like, okay, you know, so, you know, I just got super bummed. You know, I stopped working out and, and, uh, I was anticipating her leaving and then she left. And then I was just. fucking bummed, you know? And then after a month, I was like, okay, you know, here I am, you know, time to, time to get going. And, uh, you know, I got my life. got some more time on my hands. It's time for me to kick some ass and, uh have you thought about because I know you were really into mountain biking, snowboarding. um Didn't you like take people? Were you a guide or something? Like you took people. I wasn't necessarily a guide. No, but I, I, I did ride a lot. was my, my passion, you know, it was like, that was my, that was my thing was snowboarding and mountain biking. And I've been mountain biking more lately. Uh, been mountain biking with my son, actually. He likes to mountain bike and we ride dirt bikes too. And ski together. But, uh, yeah, I've done a little. I was just going to say, like going back to the things that always brought you happiness before, maybe putting more time into those. You know, like when you snowboarded, um where did you go snowboarding? Where would you snowboard? ah Basically where I would live. ah So if it was Ashland, was Mount Ashland. If it was Bend, was Bachelor. If it was uh Utah, was many different. was either Snow Basin, Snowbird, Solitude. And then I would take trips to Washington or Alaska. I snowboard in Alaska, snowboard in Washington, Crystal Mountain. uh Alaska had to be insane. Alaska was pretty, pretty amazing. Probably the most amazing place I've ever seen in my life. I've been to the people there are just incredible. You know, everybody's just kind of stuck in the, in the nineties and, that's awesome. And, uh, they're super, super nice, super sweet. and, uh, very hospitable. Uh, the mountains there are. Absolutely incredible. Yeah, yeah. thought about maybe planning a trip like a snowboarding trip out there? I have thought about that. I'd love to do that within the next couple of years. Go up there with my son and ah take him up there. of those places. heliski or heli board up Did you ever do that? Did you ever heliski or helis? Did you really? huh. Yeah, Brian, you remember Ryan McCune who stayed with me in the Guam house for a little bit? Kind of like, back then he was kind of like a skater punk kid, but super nice. I think vaguely, vaguely. he hung out with, what's his name? uh From uh Juno. Mark, Mark Schultz. Yeah, yeah. Nice. He broke his femur heli boarding, I think up in Alaska. Oh, no way. I remember him. Yeah. Remember him? Yes. He was in a cast, a full cast for a while because he broke his leg doing that. Yeah, Mark Schultz is a king, man. He's, he's, he's a bad ass. He rode for a Glissade for a while. He rode in the X Games. I believe he won the X Games one year. He rode the border cross. He rode a Glissade, a 168. And I actually bought that board from him that he, that he rode on. And it was my favorite board I ever had. It was a custom board that was made specifically for him. And uh, uh huh. Yeah. picture. remember he had a picture. It was framed on this wall, like either the house or his room of him doing a flip. back then, know, it's not like it was a digital camera. had to do that with film and all that. So it's pretty good. Now it's a good thing. Peterson, were buddies. They hung out quite a bit. Yeah. was running ref guides, I think, right? Wasn't he floating down like the Klamath or road or something? Yep. So you would jump out of a helicopter and snowboard? Where did you do that? uh Valdez, Valdez, Alaska. Atlanta, yeah, you don't... Yeah, no, I mean, people have jumped out, you know, uh you know, staged photography, you know, things. uh no, Valdez, AKA, yeah. were those those old skiing movies? What's that dude's name? He would make this Warren Miller. Warren Miller. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there is a lot of Warren Miller. There are a lot of Aldi's clips. How many times did you do that? Quite a few. I mean, I went up there twice to do it, but, you know, the one time I stayed there for like a month and a half and I stayed with Ryan. He's a guide and he's, basically, owns a mountain up there. His dad owns a mountain and it's huge. I mean, it's bigger than any mountain, most mountains down here. And, but you know, it's, costs millions of dollars to put a resort on there, but you know, he rides. snow machines and ah sleds up there and then snowboards down. m when you were doing it, was it like a community of you guys that would go do this together? uh in the spring, there's what's called the King of the Hill competition. know, King of the Hill competition is put on by, um, it used to be the world extreme skiing, competition Wes, who was put on by Ryan McKeown's mom. She started it and people, all the best, uh, skiers or all the big mountain skiers from all over the world would go to Valdez and compete and ski. You know, there was like three or four events. Um, And then they're the king of the hill followed that, was the snowboarding competition. And I would go up there for that. wouldn't compete, but I would go up there during that time and I would meet all the pros of that time and, ride with them. And, uh, yeah, I rode like with all the leading big name snowboarders in the world up in Valdez. And it was absolutely incredible. You know, was these, these guys were pretty, pretty amazing. And, I met my, uh, my favorite, my favorite person, my favorite writer, Matt Goodwill up in, uh I can't remember the name of the bar there in Valdez. We were all hanging out, uh, one night after riding, there was just a ton of people in the bar and, he walks up to me and he was like, Hey, what are you doing? I'm just like, just hanging out. We were talking about the day and he asked me my name. I asked him his and. He was like, all right, well, maybe we'll, we'll ride together. And I'm like, yeah, sounds good. I hope so. Just super nice, humble guy. And he looked like, he looked like me, you know, I was like, it was weird because I'm looking at this guy who was like, you know, six foot something long hair, lean, you know, just a nice calm dude. And unlike any other snowboarder I saw there that was just a fricking loud skate punk and And then Ryan walks up to me and he's like, I just saw you met Goodie, huh? I'm like, who? He's like, Goodwill. I'm like, no way. He was like, that was Goodwill? He was like, yeah. I was like, whoa, shit, dude. That's fucking awesome. He's like my hero, man. I mean, that guy is fucking amazing. Yeah. last time you snowboarded? I didn't ride this year, but I rode the year before. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. age, think I'd be, that's really impressive. I'm gonna get a pass next year. I just didn't ride this year just because of, you know, the whole family thing and, and I was, it's, it's 25 minutes from my house. Yeah. do live in a really nice, desirable outdoor activity area. Yeah, for sure. So when you mentioned herbs, how you work with herbs, just, I don't think this is an herb, but I do have to ask just with what you do, have you ever done an ayahuasca experience? Yeah, I have. know, it's one of the things that, you know, my spiritual teacher says not to do is to alter the consciousness. He was like, you know, become one with God consciously. You know, don't alter your consciousness. Don't, you know, don't fix it. But and so I, you know, I prayed one night, you know, I was just I was going to do I was I got invited a few times. to do ayahuasca and it never felt right. And then my friend invited me and I was just like, yeah, I like you. You're cool. And she said, it's really cool. It's with these two women who are, it's just a uh magnificent experience. And uh she says that you never know how things are going to unfold, but um it's pretty incredible. And so I thought, okay, I'll give it a shot. ah And so I ah remember praying one night, I'm like, look, I know you don't want me doing this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Protect me, stand by me, keep me from going to the hospital. ah And so I've done a lot of things that you don't want me to do. And this is one of them. And so where did you do it? Oh, I did it up in Washington over by Mount Rainier and there was a piece of property up there with a big yurt and, and I think there were about one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 of us, nine or 10 of us there and a, a shaman and then her, uh, assistant and You know, so it was very ceremonial. She was, I believe she was South American of some kind. I don't know where, but she, she was a, I don't know, a shaman. ah And then there was this shaman's assistant and it was, uh you know, we, we, talked about it and it was like a five hour journey, I think. maybe five, six hour journey one night. And then the next night it was the same. And then the next day after that, there was like a breathing ceremony, which I was like, okay, well whatever, you know, I've that, that practice created. I, I'm, I, I'm a Pranayama, you know, I have a mastery in this, you know, so no big deal, but it was a big deal. And even that was like, fucking blew my mind. I was like, holy shit. You know, these guys, they were the real deal. And have you guys done ayahuasca? No, but I researched it and I've seen videos about it. I'm too scared. I'm too nervous. was going to say, if you're into it, I'm game. Did you do it two nights in a row? How would you describe it? well, it's different for everybody. And we all took the same, the same amount. And uh the person to my right, you know, we all had our, our zones, you know, we had this great big, huge, thick mat with some blankets and a few pillows and, you know, knee pillows, all this comfort stuff. had a barf bucket next to us in case we, you know, needed the. vomit and because there's a lot of vomiting that goes on with some people and luckily I didn't never got nauseous uh and uh And then the person to my right he was vomiting the whole time dry heaving it sucked But whatever, you know, he had his own trip and then you know, everybody had their own trip and then there was a you know, one other person who experienced nothing my friend was She left. She was just, she left her body and she was like, she, she couldn't remember a thing, but she was going through it hardcore and she needed a lot of attention from the shaman at the time. And they were like working on her and doing all this body work and stuff. And she was flopping around like a fish and, and, and me and during this time they were playing this, they were like, they had drums. had all these Native American like cymbals and bells and they were singing and they were dancing and they were dressed in this native outfit and they were just amazing. They were, it was just this God-like experience that was just absolutely fucking incredible. And they, they made it so incredibly amazing. Just what they did, what they know. was like wild. during that what kept your attention? Because if you've got someone flopping around like a fish, another guy throwing up, that sounds heavy to me. Like if I'm tripping, I don't think I want to be dealing with that. But how did that go down like that? Yeah, yeah. My experience, I was holding on for dear life for probably a good three hours. basically, luckily I had some windows above me in the yurt. I chose a spot where there was windows. Like if I were to lay down, I could look at the sky. I wanted to be able to see the sky. And so, you know, I drank the medicine. the mother, you know, what they call it. And, and I was like, okay, you know, here we go. And you know how you start a mushroom trip and things kind of start to get like woozy and you're like, okay, 45 minutes of this until it really opens up and gets nice. Well, that never happened. I mean, it did happen, but not for three hours. And so it got to the point to where I was hallucinating like a motherfucker. I was like, It was so freaking crazy hallucinogenic and dizzy at the same time. So, I mean, I was like extremely dizzy. Everything was moving. The light overhead was, and it was dark, but it was like a dim light and it was doing its own breathing thing. I don't really remember too much of all the hallucinations I had the first night, but it was mostly just how I felt in my body. felt like I had like, if you were to put your hands and hold onto the ends of the power lines of uh the outside power lines, you know, like all that electricity just pumping through all my nerves. my God, it was too much. It was way too much. and I, so I felt all this electricity just bursting through my body and I was hallucinating like a motherfucker and I was just like laying there looking at the sky and every time something like my I could feel my consciousness wanting to slip out of my out of my body out of my control and It's okay if I leave my body, but it's not okay if it leaves my awareness and so in order to keep my awareness I had to fix my attention on something different like every five seconds. It was like, okay, that light bulb, that plant, that this, that that, that this for like three hours in order to just keep my awareness with me. it's like a five hour ride. Yes. And you know, after three hours of it, it was like, start to come down and then I'm like tripping and you know, then I'm like, okay, I can sit up now. I can sit up and I can watch and I can listen. can like, I can be a part of this experience a little bit more, observe how everybody else is doing and It was just so, so spiritually magical what these women were doing. was like it just blew my mind. And is it the only thing you ingest the whole time or do you come down and like pass around a pipe and smoke weed or anything like that? No, at the very end, like when, everybody has come back and everybody's like clearly back, then they bring in this great big, huge, like platter of different types of fruit, like fruits and berries and stuff like that. And we're just like, Oh boy, that looks fucking good. And, you know, and so then we eat some watermelon, take a little drink of some water and, uh, What's the goal, though? Like, what what did you get out of? Well that was one experience and my next experience had to do something with the first experience. ah you go in with that the second experience was completely different than my first experience. But the intention that I went in with was... to be more productive with my work, to... ah just become more pure, a more pure individual and um to uh somehow magnetize energy to fulfill my mission on this planet of what I feel like I need to do. uh So that was my goal. What did I get from it? I don't know. ah you know, you hear of these miraculous stories of this, that, and the other thing, I will say my, my second, uh, and this may have something to do with it. My second experience the next night, sometime it was some, for some people was more intense for some people was, uh, different for some people was more mellow for me. was different the next night. It was for me as I felt this. so much energy of love physically flowing in waves through my body. was so much and so intense. was like, it was, uh, it was too much. It was too much for me to handle. was too much love. was too much. was too much. It wasn't arousal, like sexually, but there was a component of that type of love there. And, you know, but it was like this, just this overwhelming, like if there, if it could be water or something that flowing up through my body consistently of love. And I was just like, Holy shit. It was like, I was almost sick with it. And, and then I, I had these, you know, and then I had, it was hallucinating and I was inside of a human body. And being a doctor, you know, I think about what I'm doing. I think about what I'm doing and, and my own body. And I think about what I'm doing and with other people's bodies inside their body. I, that's what I think about, you know, during the day. And so here I am inside of a human body and I'm seeing like, you know, I'm just like, I'm smaller than a, a microbe and microbes are like these giants. Like I'm seeing parasites. I'm seeing, uh, You know, I'm seeing people's veins, their tendons, their bones, you know, their, their, uh, blood vessels. And I'm seeing what's in their blood vessels. And then I see this, you know, this, this crazy, uh, you know, demonic looking like, uh, microbe just come straight at my face and it's open its mouth. Like it's going to just consume me. And I'm like, you can't do that. You know, I knew that, you know, I was okay. I'm like, that's not going to work. You can't do that. And, you know, and then it disappeared, but I really like saw what I see, you know, what I visualize. It was incredible. And the message. Yeah. And the message I got from that is like, you know, it, on one hand, I. I was like, saw like something and I was like, motherfucker, I will kill you. And, and I do kill you. And on the, and then I, I checked myself. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute here. I'm like, this is mother nature. I'm like, this is mother nature's other side. I'm like, mother nature wants me to see her in this way. and respect her in this way and know that this is how the cycle of life keeps going, you know, through these invisible microbes, keeping the cycle of life moving. And yeah, I mean, if we learn about what keeps the cycle of life moving and we can get on top of it and lengthen our lives and lengthen our quality of life, but still recognizing that this is what keeps the world green and pure and ah moving, you know, that to me that it was a message that I needed to understand that, that I needed to respect, you know, this force and these microbes. And some of them are dark forces, you know, they, but there are dark forces associated with mother nature and You know, to me, I understood that I need to respect them. And that's kind of what I got up, yeah, yeah. Two, three years ago, yeah. something you would do again? Yeah, one time is enough. I think all the things you've done, honestly, I keep going back to that moment when you were open and authentic and honest in the Guam house with these guys. And I feel like your life really began there. your authentic life and then I look at everything you've done, everything you've done. And not just becoming a doctor and helping people, which is what you do every single day, help change lives, but um searching out your mom and searching out family and raising your son and all of these real experiences. And on top of that, your snowboarding adventures and the ayahuasca and everything physically you've done, the mountain biking and the yoga and the meditation. Have you ever stopped to take stock to see where this all started and where you are now and all of the vast experiences you've had? And it's all because of you tackling life and your motivation? I've never stopped to think about it. Yeah, like take stock of what you've accomplished. Yeah, yeah, I think about it and. uh I appreciate it. Have you taken any moments to be proud of yourself? Um. Self-pride, yeah, I I give a lot of credit to, I give all the credit to God. I mean, I'm blessed, man. I look at everything as God's grace. So, you know, self-pride, I feel grateful. Not necessarily proud, but grateful, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you would be an inspiration to anyone listening. know you are just hearing your whole story. It's inspiring to me. And I know you feel the same way for sure. um But who inspires you? Do you have any peers or any other Gen Xers that have inspired you? You know, there's a, I, there, there's people who change throughout my life who inspires me. And, in regards to Gen Xers, I was thinking about this before the show, you know, I was thinking about, okay, who are some Gen Xers that, that are inspiring to me, who I, who I currently really appreciate and who I currently like. And, you know, there's a couple who are on the cusp. that are outside the cusp and by a couple of years. And I will mention them last because they were outside the cusp. But the first ones that I want to mention is I like Eric Prince quite a bit. I think he's a pretty incredible individual. uh I think uh Eric, he lived a life of really wanting to understand uh you know, history and the world and the way that, you know, the world operates. And I think he has a lot of integrity in terms of, you know, wanting to do the right thing. Um, and he wants to know truth on, know, what's going on. Uh, Dan Bantino, um, another one who really made, you know, the best of himself, you know, he's He may or may not be a spiritual person and that's okay. Everybody has their, you know, their strengths and their weaknesses. But one of the things that I feel that Bongino has done is he's made the best of himself. Eric Prince has made the best of himself and he still does. And you know, one thing I want to say about Bongino is he's in a place where he was elected to be the assistant director of the federal bureau of investigation. And to my understanding, you know, this is a party that's, that's mostly governed by democratic nature. And this may or may not be true, but that's just my understanding. he, you know, when he's, you know, asked if Epstein was, you know, killed or if he committed suicide and he said he was killed, you know, regardless of whether he's right or wrong or being honest or not, it's like if he's being dishonest, look at who he's running up against. You know, he is running up against some forces that are much, much bigger than him. And if you look at him and the way that he responds, If he's not right, take that into consideration. You know, don't judge him by his character, you know, of saying that ah Epstein killed himself. In my opinion, like I don't judge his character. You know, he's, you know, some people, their hands are tied with some certain things and you just got to realize that. um Ed Rolland, he's another one. Ed Rowland, he's the lead singer of Collective Soul. I just love that guy. He's such a cool dude. He's such a free spirit and he's just full of just full of grace, full of love. And, ah you know, I've seen him live and the Collective Soul with my son and it was just an incredible show and they're just incredible people. And he's he's such a uh good performer and a good man. Matt Goodwill. who's a Gen Xer, ah my snowboard hero, very humble, very good at what he does. And I have to say that there's aspects of Tom Cruise. There might be some things about Tom Cruise that I don't know about that could be... We all have dark sides. You know, but there, you know, there's some rumors about his wife, his kids, his spirituality, what have you. But I'll tell you, man, he's a hard worker and he's very disciplined. And I mean, the guy works out, he eats 700 calories a day. You know, he knows his body. He, he, he presents very well. He doesn't let people push him around. Um, he's a very solid individual and I've always enjoyed watching his shows. Um, Sean Ryan, Sean Ryan's outside the cusp of, of, you know, being a Gen X or he's more of a millennial by a couple of years, but, uh, you know, he was, he went into the military. did he have really, did he have much time to really get into the millennial type of vibe? Probably not. And, uh, so, I mean, I, I really like what he's doing. I like that he thinks outside the box. I like that he is. interviewing ah dignitaries from out of this country to see how they view of what's going on in the world, not just inside of our country. He wants to know the truth of what's going on. Also, he's a good man. ah You know, and then there's Michael Jordan. mean, Michael Jordan, I mean, he's he's outside the box. He's by, you know, a couple of years into the baby boomers. think he was born in a baby boomer started it or not. Gen Xers started in 65, but Michael Jordan, man, he, he's not just a talented individual, but he's a workhorse. You know, he worked harder than the energy that he had to win. It's like, I watched after watching him listening to him speak, you know, watching his show, it's like, man, That guy, like he pulled, know what it's like to draw from energy that you don't have to make stuff happen. And he did that. And, you know, it's pretty incredible. uh Women, you know, I, these are, know, Nancy Mace is, is new to me in terms of my, my awareness, but I was watching her the other day and I was like, and I looked into her and I'm like, wow, she's, she's a bad ass. You know, she's, she's a really cool woman. You know, she's, um, You know, she's, she was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel. and, uh, you know, she's on the U S house of representatives and, know, she's, she's all about, you know, figuring out the truth of what's going on also to my understanding and my, you know, my, uh, woman type of. what you call, Gen X or crush, uh that I don't think about. But when I do think about if there is a crush, a Gen X or crush, I'd have to go with uh Catherine Rollins from Hawaii Five-0, who is uh Michelle Borth. So I think she's pretty cool. I like her vibe, she's gorgeous, uh she seems to be a good woman too. yeah, and that's my... That's a good list. I think that's so interesting. I love that you have that. You actually, you've inspired me to maybe um ask people for that. It's got me thinking. I can't think of anybody, but... No, but I think if you sat down and gave thought to it, you know, that's definitely, that may be something we add to the program. So thank you for, if you don't mind us stealing this concept from you. for it, yeah. I love that. think that's great because we are such the generation that gets ignored and not talked about. Everyone goes boomer millennial Gen Z. And so it almost would be cool of us and our guests to speak about Gen Xers that have inspired them to kind of bring some awareness. Like a lot of people like, I didn't know they were Gen X. You know, cause we've done so much for society and for the culture, but because we grind, and we do what needs to get done and we aren't loud about things, people don't realize, they forget about us, I think. I think that's great. I might bring that in with what we're doing. So thank you for sharing that. one more person I want to mention and that's Dave Mustaine. uh Dave Mustaine, well maybe he's not quite a Gen Xer. Dave Mustaine is the lead singer in Megadeth and uh I just like the guy. I think he's, you know, he was, he's very passionate about what he does and uh he's a good man with good intentions. He's a good dad. He's a good family man. ah He's loyal. He's an amazing performer. uh He's unique, authentic, and I think that if we just stick to our authenticity and know ourselves, then we're living pretty gracefully. We're living God's work, you know? Yeah. of us Gen Xers, many are just discovering who they are midlife because they've been grinding so hard or they've been in fight or flight or their nervous systems have been going crazy from trauma and now that they've gotten to midlife, they're actually finally giving themselves grace and that's when they're really starting to live their authentic life. I think it's an exciting time for Gen X and for Gen Xers. yeah. Yeah. are changing aging. You if you look at the boomer SilentGen, we're changing aging. Like we're going to keep living and up into 100. Yeah, we're going to keep tackling new things, reinventing ourselves, starting businesses, know, snowboarding in Alaska at, know, 60, you know, all the things like nothing's going to stop us. We we take no excuses. And I think that will be a great example. Mm-hmm. age for the millennials and the Gen Zs and the Gen Alphas. I love that. if I can say something with that, what I'd like to say is Gen Xers are, they're coming into more power in life right now, like you said. And uh this is the time when they are going to be showing up and shining and having an impact with society and with this world more so than any other time in their life. you know, I just, from my experience and from what I know, you know, one thing that, you know, not that anybody's asking, so I'm imposing is, uh, you know, get over your evils, you know, get over your shit. And when you get over your shit, get over your fucked up tendencies. whatever they are, identify them, look at them, get over them, and then God will move you. Grace will give you the life that you are supposed to give this world. Yeah. Exactly. I love it. Yeah. Right. Mm hmm. Yeah. Right. no space for what should be. You have to get rid of it and create the space so what is meant for you uh can come. So, no, and I pray and hope for that for all of us for sure. So, and on that note, The last question I always ask our guests is, where do you see yourself in five years? Wow. ah I know the answer to that question, but it feels... ah edit. I'll just say what I feel and hopefully it comes through. I see myself. in five years as an individual who's put forth, knowledge and inspiration for people of the causes and sustainers of disease and, know, a big way. I want to get my message out there and, and how to prevent this from happening, how to eliminate it. and You know, I, I kind of want to be a, it's not that what I want to be is, I want people to wake up and see what's, what's really going on here. And, you know, health wise and medically. And, you know, I'm not going to share everything I know and what I see in terms of, you know, medicine, I'm not here to be a whistleblower, but what I am here to do is to help people understand the causes and sustainers of chronic illness and how to get their health and their life back and keep it back. um I also would like to open up a, an inpatient clinic at some point um to, for people who can't help themselves get on their feet to help them get on their feet and then educate them once they get on their feet to help take themselves further to their next levels of health. So those are some goals I have. And so I want to write. Um, I'd like to, um, talk, you know, publicly do some traveling, uh, obviously do some. Posting I started that a while back before my separation and then I stopped everything because I just kind of went dark for a while because of my separation and uh You know now now I'm back and so I got to get working and uh so Those are those are some goals I have and to and to play music play more music. Yeah and continue to use the outlets that bring you joy, music being one, music being one. And you had touched on writing. Have you thought about putting your knowledge into a book? Yeah, I've started writing. I started writing a book. There's, there's, uh, I could write books for a long time. Um, it feels like, but, but yeah, I liked the idea of writing. It's, you know, I have to work and, you know, make money and pay bills and, you know, and have free time to nourish myself and you know, when there's and work on my house and when there's time to write, then write, but you know, it's, it's, it is. Yeah. Yeah. saying, you know, you're you're nourishing yourself, but writing is almost draining because it's such an outlet that it takes a lot out of you. And you're like, yeah, yeah. Well, that's something that um I think I've always thought God kind of is at the hand of when you're ready, when he's ready to have you release something like that, it just kind of happens effortlessly. So, for something like that, you may kind of be humming along in your life and then all of a sudden it happens. It's that moment. So, it's there, it's existing and then that moment will happen because it would be an amazing way for you to get this information to the masses, to many more people, to spread that word. But I think those are amazing goals. Thanks. around helping people. And that's, you know, that's what you do. And that's what's so inspiring. And like, I want to go out and tell everybody, wait, you don't understand. So I can't even imagine how that feels for you to have the knowledge and to kind of have to temper yourself as you go through life. You know, you know what's interesting. And I think, you know, this may be commercially, but. You know, Gen Xers, we we don't. except the status quo, right? Whereas the boomers ahead of us, this Western medicine approach is what they know and it's gospel, they just won't question it. I think a lot of us are like, no, no, this is kind of, it's bullshit. Chronic disease is not getting solved. Let me look at other things. What better way to heal yourself than to go on to a retreat in Eastern Oregon Bend and hook up with you? Right. So I think it's an interesting thing in my mind. I'm ready to create like my knee really hurts. I'm going to come see you. I need a month. think we need family vacation if you're glad to meet with Pat. But we are going to put the link, of course, in the description. But if people want more information about you, what is your site? Well, um DrPatrickLynch.com is one site, Trillium Health Solutions is another site, Sky Ridge Acupuncture is another site. So acupuncture is a part of my practice. It's not really what I use to help people get people well. It's just uh the name of the website and a practice that I use um for, you know, means of pain and stuff like that for acute situations. Yeah. yeah, and we'll we'll link everything. And again, we can't thank you enough for sharing your story is an amazing story and for sharing your wealth of knowledge on health. But just your life story is has is where you came from and where you are now is phenomenal. So and we've we knew you like we met you when you were just like in that one moment, you know. And then, of course, we've been friends since then, but not We haven't lived near each other. haven't been in regular contact. So it's been such a joy for us to be able to catch up on your life. you know. Same. You're one of ours as well. Pat was at our wedding. Remember that? Very small wedding, Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, that's right. were with us. You were with us. OK, so quick story. we, the phone rang and I answered it and it was Kendall saying Nicole. And I was like, we we slept in and I was like, what? And she goes, where are you? And then I looked at the time and we quickly all grabbed our stuff, threw it in the car. And I think you drove, it should have taken 20 minutes to get there and we got there in 10. Yeah, we were flying. you remember that? Cause weren't you with us? I don't remember that part, I think... house or were you at the airport? Was it Bobchick? So what happened with me is I left. I left the hotel and uh my goal was to, I went to Vegas with like 200 bucks and that's all I had. And you know, and so I spent all my money except for like 10 bucks. And, uh and so I went out to, I don't know, a couple of uh casinos. to play some blackjack to see if I can win some money back. And I won all my money back. I got 200 bucks uh and made it to the, I think they were limos or something that were taking us to the airport. I can't remember what they were. And I made it to the limos like right as they were leaving. And I was like, sweet. I remember whoever it was that was there was like, man, we were just about to leave without you. We almost didn't make our wedding. yeah. You were you were almost late leaving Vegas. We almost didn't make it to the plane to get us to Vegas. We were in. We drove down to Eugene the night before to pick up her wedding dress and we were up late until two, three in the morning or something. Had like a nine a.m. flight and we made it from our apartment to the Portland airport in literally like like 10 minutes. And it shouldn't have taken 10 minutes, it should have taken 20. You know who was with us was John Bob. Remember John Bobchak? was. We haven't heard from him in a long time. Yeah, it's been years. Last time we heard from him, he was doing great. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a fun wedding though. It was great. It was, we just had ourselves a party. So again, like you've all, you're one of those people that are in our circle, have always been in our circle. We've thought about often we consider you family. We love that we can share your story with our listeners, but for Brian and I, it's been just a pleasure to truly catch up with you and also learn a lot of things we didn't know about you. So it's been awesome. well, it's been awesome for me too. And it's been awesome for me to connect with you guys and, and, you know, just feel where you guys are at in life and feels great. You guys are doing amazing and I love it. I love staying in it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to come out to South Florida. That's one thing you need to do. You need to come out here. And I think we need to plan a trip to Bend. I did look it up from Fort Lauderdale to Bend. The stop in Denver is 685. Okay. that's right now. Yeah. That's like when it's like really good weather. No, that's not too bad. No, So there's an airport in Bend. You can land right in Bend. Redmond, which is about 15 miles away. Yeah. and so maybe it's even less expensive or easier. Okay. We'll have to look more into that. But again, thank you. And for our listeners, yeah, of course, we'd love to have you and we'd love to have you back again, you know, in a few years and see where you're at and see how things are going. We'll stay in touch in between. yeah. I'm just talking for our listeners. will have um Dr. We'll have Pat on Dr. Lynch to see where he's at. Of course, we're going to stay more in touch with him. Yeah. but we would like to have you back in the studio and see where everything's at in life and how things are going and what new um information you can share with our listeners and all that. But we will share Dr. Lynch's information, so if you do want to get in touch with him to discuss anything you can. And thank you for listening. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them and we will see you next time. Bye.