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David Sandstrom 0:00
Hey, Natural Nation. In this week's episode we're talking about forgiveness. And this is a huge topic because a lot of people have trouble in this area, they struggle to offer forgiveness. But the trouble is when we withhold forgiveness, it affects us spiritually. It affects us mentally, emotionally. And it affects us on a physical level as well. So there's hardly an area that we can identify for natural and holistic health, it's any more important than being able to offer forgiveness to those people that have hurt us. I'm talking with Ron Ramsey. Ron is a licensed Christian Marriage and Family Counselor. And he comes at things from a biblical Christian perspective. And if you're not of that persuasion, I encourage you to stick around anyway, because what he shares is so important that I believe anyone can benefit from this. And I also encourage you to stick around to the end of the interview because he has a very generous offer for the audience at the end. So let's jump right into my conversation with Ron Ramsey.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 0:57
Well, you've probably heard people say things like the one of the primary reasons for marital discord is finances, or it's communication. And the reality is those are symptoms. The real problem in marriages is unforgiveness and unforgiveness comes from self centeredness.

David Sandstrom 1:20
Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach, and this is episode number 86. Today, we have in the show Dr. Ron Ramsey. Dr. Ron is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. He's the author of the book 40 days to forgiveness, a Christians Field Guide to the Forgiveness Journey. His book leads readers on a life changing forgiveness journey. Dr. Ron, Welcome to Natural Health Matters.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 1:55
Well, thank you and appreciate you inviting inviting me on your show.

David Sandstrom 2:00
Yeah, well, I really appreciate you taking the time, I've been looking forward to our conversation for a couple of weeks now. Because I really believe that forgiveness is a massive natural and holistic health issue. When I wrote my book, The Christians guide to Holistic Health, I outlined the idea that we are spirit we have a mind, and we live in a body and we really want to maximize our health potential, we've got to address all three areas. And for me, forgiveness is firmly planted in the spiritual component to health and wellness, because that's where it all starts. If we fail to forgive those who have trespassed against us, then we're going to be holding on to undesirable emotions, like anger, resentment, bitterness, even rage, and all those can translate into physical health challenges if we don't address that. So this is a really huge topic. And I'm looking forward to talking about this subject area with you, because you're obviously an expert. You wrote a, I believe it's a 400 page book on it. Is that right?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 2:58
Yeah. Four and a half pages. Yeah. And I was worried that that might be too long. I gotta go on more.

David Sandstrom 3:06
Yeah, yeah, I totally understand that. When I was writing my book, I tried to whittle it down, and just get to the essentials, you know, there's stuff that you have to leave out. Because nobody's gonna read 1000 page book, right, it's gonna pass it by?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 3:18
Well, for people that are not readers, I would just preface my book by saying that it's broken into 40 days, as the title says, and each day doesn't take more than about a half an hour to go through, there's a short reading part. And then there's worksheets. And if you took all the worksheets out of the bucket would knock over 100 pages out of it. There's really only about 275 pages of actual reading. And if you just do a little bit each day, it's pretty easy to get through it.

David Sandstrom 3:50
Well, you know, you've been very generous with making that summary or the workbook available for free. So I took advantage of that free download. And I went through that workbook, part of your, your work, and it was it was very informative. I think you had some good stuff in there. So I would encourage the listeners to go to is there a website that they can go to to get that?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 4:09
Yeah, 40 days to forgiveness.com. And you need to spell out the word 40. If you put in the number, it'll take you to the publishers website. Okay, and that won't do you much good. Yeah.

David Sandstrom 4:22
Okay. Very good. And of course, put a link to that in the show notes of the episode as well. So Dr. Our, what I'd like to do is go start off with going over some of the myths when it comes to forgiveness, because he knows a lot of people have holding on to some misunderstandings of what forgiveness actually is and isn't. Can you go over some of the highlights for us?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 4:41
Certainly, well, one of the most common things that I hear particularly in marriage counseling, is that whenever they apologize, I'll forgive them. And an apology might reduce your unforgiveness. It might make you feel A little better for a while, but it won't bring the emotional peace, that true forgiveness will. And then there are people who think, well, I'll just over look at forgive and forget. And there really is no such thing as forgive and forget. Once you've experienced the transgression, you can't unexperienced that. And you can't forget it. That's just not the way the mind works. Right? You could repress it, but it's still there. And that the memory of that transgression is still going to affect how you think, how you function spiritually, and how you relate to other people. Because it's, it's very easy for us to displace forgiveness from the source of the transgression to other people.

David Sandstrom 5:46
Yeah, yeah, that's really good. So that's what we want to get to is we were not we were human beings, we're gonna remember the event. But we want to get to a point where we can remember that event with more grace and without experience that knot stomach anymore, right? Where it's creating stress.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 6:03
Yeah, yeah, the real challenge is to change our spiritual state. Because in our carnal state and our worldly state, it's almost impossible for us to be truly forgiving. It's amazing to me, my book is based on behavioral science research, as well as on the theology of forgiveness. And it's, it's kind of amazing to me that the research shows that empathy is the primary way that we it's the fulcrum that we overcome forgiveness, or overcome unforgiveness with. But for Christians, empathy should be the easiest thing in the world for us to do. It's hard to believe that people who are not Christians can truly adopt a spirit of empathy when somebody has hurt you or created some pain.

David Sandstrom 6:56
Yeah, yeah. So that brings up the idea of, there's really a difference between the Christian view on forgiveness and the worldly, or the secular view. So maybe we'll dive into that a little bit deeper. I know, you know, to be Christ like is to be others centered, because Christ's love was, of course, not self centered, but others centered. So we want to, we want to participate or spend more time in that mindset. And of course, we need to get there before we can offer forgiveness, correct.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 7:25
Right? The steps in the forgiveness process, I think are the same. Whether you're approaching it from a worldly perspective, or a Christ centered perspective. The difference is by being Christ centered, it makes it easier for us to go through the steps. And I believe that forgiveness, at the heart of forgiveness is being other centered, like you said, but being other centered from the perspective of being concerned for the eternal welfare of the person who's transgressed you. When Christ was on the cross, he asked the Father, to forgive the people for what they did, and Stephen, said, Lord, don't, don't hold the sin against them after they got through stoning him and left him for dead. Right. And so if Christ and Steven were worried about the eternal welfare of people that that killed them, torture them, basically. I think that's a primary focus for us. And yeah, it's very difficult to have an eternal focus on someone. If you're not don't have Christ in your heart. You don't have a Christ like perspective.

David Sandstrom 8:36
Yeah, totally agree with that. You know, and because this is a very deep topic, and there is an other centeredness, too, but there's also a selfish benefit to it as well, because as I said, at the at the top of the show, if we don't do this, well, we actually do harm to ourselves. And I don't know who hadn't who's quoted initially, originally. But a failing to forgive is like drinking poison, and expecting the other person to die.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 9:05
That's one of my favorite sayings.

David Sandstrom 9:07
Yeah. And it's true because we pour toxins into ourselves at a spiritual, mental, emotional, and ultimately a physical level. By holding on to these toxic emotions. We don't call them toxic emotions for nothing. So in your workbook, you talk about you said, we can experience physical and mental benefits by forgiving. It builds a deeper relationship with God and it releases us from negative thoughts that hold us captive. And of course, Jesus said He came to set the captives free, and he came to destroy the works of the enemy. So can you talk a little bit about the personal benefits that we gained from forgiving?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 9:44
Well, forgiving, and let's talk about unforgiveness that's, that's really forgiveness as an antidote to unforgiveness. And it's unforgiveness that affects our our well being and well being is made up of our biological self. Our social self, because being unforgiving towards one person, as I said earlier, it can be displaced and affect your relationships with other people. There's a cognitive component to it. unforgiveness affects how we think it can affect, it can become a distraction for us, as we ruminate on what happened to us and, and unforgiveness is also a spiritual condition. And that erodes our spirit, it builds wall around our heart, and our heart is the place where Christ resides.

David Sandstrom 10:36
Yes, so it prevents us from getting closer to others. And you know, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about forgiveness, it's in the Lord's Prayer. It's all throughout the Gospels. And this forgiveness is a big deal to God, because he knows that it harms the ones he loves. And he wants us to have relationships, which is really what the spiritual component is all about, to me is our relationship with God first, and then our relationship with one another. And finally, the relationship with ourselves. That's the spiritual component to health, this topic of forgiveness, it impacts all three areas of the spiritual component. So it's it's really a topic worth diving into and taking seriously and I know a lot of people don't want to do this, because revisiting that pain is hurtful. But the freedom that's available by going through this process, and I'm sure you're aligned quite well in your book, is is worth pursuing.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 11:28
Well, I want to go back to what you said about Christ talking about forgiveness. Because there's an interesting point there that people don't realize, we're told in a number of places in the New Testament that we're to love and we're to forgive, as Christ forgave us. So he's our model for forgiveness. And the only way we can really be forgiving, based on his model, is to have a heart that's like kids and have the mind of Christ. And I'll get into that a few minutes how we go about doing that?

David Sandstrom 12:03
Yeah, yeah, that's excellent. Yeah. Because in our flesh, selfishly speaking, if we can't get beyond ourselves, we're not going to, we're not going to want to forgive, we're not going to want to go through this process, we're going to, we're going to feel like we're somehow punishing that person. As a result of holding on to this, we by holding on to this resentment, but the truth is, that person might not even know they hurt us. Right? I mean, then I ended up being bothered by this, but we are.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 12:29
Right? Well, you said a minute ago that forgiveness is something we do for ourselves. And I think that's another myth about forgiveness, is that we have to go to the other person and work out the forgiveness with them. Jesus told the story about if you have odd against a brother, and you're at the altar, leave your gift at the altar and go to that brother, and seek forgiveness. And that's true. He, the victim is responsible for seeking out forgiveness from someone else. But when, but when we're a victim, the person that is going to benefit the most is us. Yeah, restitution with another person is not always required. It's required of Christians in the body of Christ. But it's not always required with people that are outside the body of Christ. Right, something that we do for ourselves for our own well being.

David Sandstrom 13:24
Right? Well, we should pursue relational reconciliation, and make, as Paul says, make sure there's nothing we have done that interferes with that process. But the fact of the matter is, reconciliation is not always possible. But it's not required in order to forgive forgiveness is unilateral. Right? I mean, it's always offered one way. And this is another myth is it always goes to the undeserving. Right? We don't we, you know, somebody might be inclined to say, well, they don't deserve it. They don't deserve my forgiveness. No, they don't. But you should offer it anyway.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 14:00
Exactly. That's part of the definition of forgiveness is offering beneficence and empathy and love to a person that doesn't deserve it. Right,

David Sandstrom 14:09
Right. Yeah, that's a good stuff. So you have in your book, you have what you call the ACTION model for forgiving another person. So right, I'd like to hear about that. Because it's important to take some some actionable steps from listening to a podcast like this, let's, let's not just stay in the theory only level, let's talk about what someone can actually do. To say, okay, you know what, I'm ready. I want to take this on, I want to tackle this. I know the person that I that I need to forgive. So what would you say to that person? And how would you outline this process for them?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 14:43
Well, the first thing I'd say is forgiveness is not a feeling forgiveness as a behavior. And what I learned from the research that I've done is that it's a behavior that anyone can learn. Anybody can develop the skill to be forgiving. And so I developed a model that I Call ACTION, because that's what's required to be forgiving is to take action. But each of the letters in that word stand for a different step in the process.

David Sandstrom 15:12
Can you give us the the the quick version, and then we'll get into each one individually?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 15:16
Yeah, the the first letter in the word action stands for acknowledge, to acknowledge what's happened to you the type of transgression it was, how it's affected your feelings, how it's affecting your willingness to think differently about the person. The second, the C stands for commitment. Research shows that unless someone makes a commitment to try to forgive, they probably won't be able to totally forgive. The T stands for transitioning, transitioning from a mind that has negative thoughts about the other person to Christ like thoughts towards the other person looking at them from a godly perspective. The I stands for internalization, which means that we internalize the Spirit of God through prayer, meditation, scripture study, and fellowship. And as we return internalize the Spirit of God in our heart, we're able to look differently at the world around us, but particularly at the person that's transgressed us, The O stands for openness. Once we've developed the mind of Christ, and we've worked on our spiritual maturity, we still have to be open to looking differently at the other person, and thinking differently about the effect that is going to have both on their eternal well being as well as our wellbeing for forgiving them. And the N stands for nurturing. Just because we forgive someone in our heart doesn't mean that we'll never think about it again, it's possible that we can be triggered, and can think about something that's happened to us years ago. And we can end up right back in the same vicious cycle of rumination that we started out with in the beginning. So nurturing means being willing to continue with our spiritual growth. But also being willing to go back through the action steps and repeat things, repeat steps that maybe will be helpful to us to continue on our journey towards forgive towards sustaining forgiveness.

David Sandstrom 17:39
All right, very good. So that was a good 35,000 foot view. So let's look around and go back to the very first one, acknowledge. So I'm thinking that in your counseling practice, you probably have people that would deny that they even need to forgive someone, it would be my contention that you don't get past infancy without having someone in your life that you need to forgive.

David Sandstrom 17:59
That's true. We all walk through life with unforgiveness. It starts in our infancy, infancy acknowledging that there's unforgiveness in our heart, and acknowledging the level of that unforgiveness, the type of unforgiveness, how it's making us feel, how it's affecting our relationships with ourself as well as with other people, is the first step towards being able to commit. If we're not clear on what's really happened to us and how it's affecting us. Why would we go about committing to forgive someone else? So it's an important step to get to kick off the forgiveness lifecycle with?

David Sandstrom 18:46
Yeah, do you find you spend a lot of time on that with with your do you call them clients in your office?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 18:53
Well, the biggest thing I spend time on is figuring out which one needs to forgive which one, cuz they're sitting there pointing fingers at each other. Well, it's your fault. No, it's your fault. Yeah, so I actually, I actually have a dog therapy dog that goes with me when I had my counseling practice. And when clients would get into bickering back and forth like that, it's not my fault, you need to forgive, you need to apologize. He would sit up and look at him. And I would ask them if they wanted to visit and go over and jump up on the couch in between them and sit there and look back and forth at him and calm down. And that was kind of funny to watch him do that

David Sandstrom 19:34
interesting. Never heard of a concert doing that before. But that sounds really good, especially if it's a mellow dog like a retriever or something.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 19:42
Yeah, well, here's a real sweet talk.

David Sandstrom 19:44
Well, you know, my wife and I have been doing. We've been leading marriage groups for the last 10 years. And one of the things we have observed is that when couples first show up, we have basically an informational meeting. I know that 9 out of 10 of the people sitting out there in the audience Kids are thinking to themselves, Okay, it's time to get my spouse fixed. It's time for them to step up to the plate and change the things they need to change. And they're not even thinking about the things that they need to change. And if you asked a couple, hey, out of out of the out of all the conflict that you experience, how much of it is your responsibility and as a percentage, and how much of it of it is your spouse? And women tend to be pretty realistic? They'll say, Well, I'm probably responsible for 60%, he's 40%. That's what you'll hear. And when you go to you go to the men, you'll hear something like, oh, well, it's spot 90-10. You know, she's responsible for 90% responsible for maybe 10%, of course, is probably not accurate. But the point is this, are we willing to take ownership for our 10% for whatever the percentage is? Are we willing to take ownership for that and work on that? Because that's the point you need to get to to make progress in your relational intimacy in a marriage. And I think the same could be said here in this forgiveness process. What What role do have I played in this? And what role do I play in my recovery from this?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 21:07
Well, you've probably heard people say things like the one of the primary reasons for marital discord is finances, or its communication. And the reality is, those are symptoms. The real problem in marriages is unforgiveness and unforgiveness comes from self centeredness, I would maintain that both couples are 100% responsible, because each of them has 100% of the of the responsibility for forgiving, and 100% of the responsibility for humility, to accept forgiveness from their partner and to accept reconciliation.

David Sandstrom 21:53
Yeah, that's, that's good. I agree with that. It's true. And it's all about ownership. Right. So what about commitment? What? What can you say to that as far as the follow through for these people? Well, I think Well, for us, I want to correct myself not for these people, for us are the same boat. Yeah,

Dr. Ron Ramsey 22:15
right. Yeah, I really wrote this book for me, and I'm just sharing it with everybody else. It's been quite a journey for me in my life to deal with unforgiveness. But commitment is, um, it's important to emphasize that when I say commitment, I say, try to commit, to try to commit to help yourself, forgive the other person. Because if you say, I'm going to commit to forgiving this other person, and then you fail in some way, then you give up. But if you say I tried to commit, then you'll keep working at it's kind of like the, the person you had on your show recently, who talked about staying committed to working out and to, to exercise,

David Sandstrom 23:07
Chad, Chad Austin,

Dr. Ron Ramsey 23:08
yeah, finance guy, he made a good point that we're all human, and we're all going to fail. And the question is, how will we pick up the pieces and move on, after we fail, so we need to give ourselves permission, to not be able to perfectly commit, and to perfectly forgive someone else. But it's a journey, it's something that we work at. And when we are committing what we're committing to, is to think differently about that person, first of all, and second of all, the show of beneficence towards them, which means good deeds and, and good works. But the reality is, is we may never interface with that person again. In fact, in 40 days to forgiveness, I talk about what about situations where a person is in an abusive relationship? And I've just cringed when couples have come in, or one member of a couple of command one spouse, and they tell me that their pastor has told them that they need to go back home, and stay in an abusive relationship, and just forgive the person and pray for him. And I don't believe that at all. There's plenty of examples in the scriptures, or God made a way for people to escape harm, even Christ when he was preaching in the synagogue, and people were massing around him and he felt threatened. He found a way to escape and to get out of the the only time that he really didn't escape was in the garden. And that was because he was fulfilling his destiny. Right. So I believe that reconciliation is not always necessary or possible, and that we're we're in relationships that are abusive, or someone else is trying to control us and doing it in harmful ways. I think we can still forgive them. And we can pray for them. But I don't think we need to work on reconciliation with them.

David Sandstrom 25:15
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And of course, there's situations where there's abuse going on. And I don't think any competent counselor, whatever. Well, I suppose there are some, but if you're competent counsel, you would never counsel somebody to go back into that abusive area? Well, it happens. Yeah, that's a shame, there really is a shame. You know, one of the things that you mentioned just a moment ago is understanding and acting in a beneficent fashion towards that other person. And I think that's really key here. Because, you know, we've had a lot of episodes on the show on mindset. And really, our beliefs are what govern our thoughts and actions. And if we explore some of the things that have happened to us to shape our beliefs, we can say, okay, now I understand why I react that way to fill in the blank XYZ.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 26:04
Yeah. And that's acknowledging part, right?

David Sandstrom 26:07
So we can we can do that with ourselves. But what we have to do here in this process is do that with the other people and say, those people, too, are also broken, sinful people that have been hurt by others themselves. And that I think, can go a long way towards helping us be in an empathetic state towards that person of the perpetrator that did something harmful to us.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 26:31
Yeah. And you don't have to go too far to read about stories of people whose who have had loved ones that have been murdered. And they've forgiven them and now have gone to the prison to visit and have actually led them to Christ.

David Sandstrom 26:47
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are good stories. Those are always good to hear about. So step three, transitioning, let's talk about that a little bit.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 26:56
Well, the vicious cycle of, of unforgiveness is a cycle of rumination, where, when we're not able to cope with the transcription that we've experienced, we, we begin to think about it. And as we think about it, that turns into a narrative. And the narrative begins to snowball and take on new meaning of its own. And we keep telling ourselves that narrative to the point where we start to believe it, and it has a life of its own. And once that's happened, we get into a vicious cycle of just going around and around and around, and not really stopping to look at the facts. And when we're in that cycle of rumination, what happens to us is, we begin to develop ways in our mind that we would like to get back at the other person, we begin to rehearse what we'd like to say to them if we had the chance, or what we'd like to do to get even with them. And I couldn't have done that. Yeah, I call those negative intentions. They're things that you intend to do if you had a chance, but you may never act on them. So the real key to transitioning is transitioning from negative to positive intentions towards the other person. And that's an internal activity. That's a, that's what Paul talked about in Romans 12, when he said, your spiritual worship is the renewal of your mind. So it's the renewal of your mind that you're transitioning to. And, and the next step internalization is is the way that you go about doing that.

David Sandstrom 28:33
Okay. So, in other words, we want to start retraining our minds to respond in a different way than we're accustomed to, when we, you know, this might have been going on for decades, right? I mean, this stuff, stuff can happen to us in childhood, and we could still be wrestling with it in our 50s and 60s. So yeah, we really need to retrain our minds, to be renewed at Romans 12. To be renewed by are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. So that's, that's a huge part of this, isn't it?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 29:04
Right. And the reason why it's hard for us to do that is because the renewal of our mind is driven by what's in our heart. And what happens is when we're unforgiving, we begin to build a brick wall, a stronghold around our heart, and strongholds for something in ancient times that they built to protect something precious. And our belief, unconscious belief is that if we stay around somebody who's harming us in some way, that it's going to harm our spirit, that it's going to harm our our love for Christ, that it's going to break us down. So we build this stronghold. And unforgiveness is the way that we lay the bricks around our Spirit of Christ. And what happens when we do that is the Spirit of Christ can't get out. It can't shine out of us to other people. And that's unfortunate. because sometimes the Spirit of Christ that comes out of us is the only opportunity some people will have to experience Christ on this side of heaven. Right? And even though we may not directly shine that light on the person that's transgressed us, we can imagine shining that light on them, and we can pray for them, which is awesome. All in my mind is the same as his shining light of Christ into their life. Yeah,

David Sandstrom 30:30
yeah, that's really good. Yeah, there's, there's a lot here, right? There's a lot to consider. And if you don't, if you're not systematic about it, I don't think this is not going to happen by accident, right? You can have to be deliberate and have a framework to work with, in order to really navigate this this process because it doesn't come naturally, does it?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 30:51
No. And the research proves what you just said, the research proves that forgiveness takes time, the more time people spend on their forgiveness journey, the more the more what they learn will stick. And the research also shows that you have to be intentional about it. If you don't have a set of steps, and you're not intentional, you probably won't fully forgive another person.

David Sandstrom 31:19
Right? Yeah, absolutely. So the next step would be not to we did we cover internalization enough to Is there anything you wanted to say to that anymore?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 31:27
Well, internalization I talked about earlier is prayer, meditation, Bible study, and Fellowship. I did some research on what different theologians have written about spiritual disciplines. And I've tried to look at what they all shared in common. And the things that they shared in common that are tangible that we can have control over and do something about are the four things that I just named. So I put a lot of emphasis on that in 40 days forgiveness, I walk people through, first of all, assessing what's your level of prayer is now what's your level of meditation and so forth. And then I have some encouragement in there for different ways that we can try to improve that. One of the things that was part of my previous career working in manufacturing and doing leadership development, was teaching leaders that continuous improvement is part of the manufacturing process. Well, guess what? Continuous improvement is part of the Christian process. So internalization

David Sandstrom 32:38
The manual, the manufacturers manual for human being absolutely teaches continuous improvement, no doubt about it.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 32:44
So internalization is ongoing, continuous improvement of our spiritual walk.

David Sandstrom 32:50
Excellent. Excellent. That's really good. All right. So openness, what do we have to do there?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 32:58
Well, openness is breaking down that stronghold that's around our hearts so that the love of Christ can show through, if we develop spiritual maturity, but we don't focus on breaking down the stronghold of unforgiveness, the Spirit of Christ doesn't get out and shine into our mind. And it doesn't get out and shine into the lives of other people. So being open to changing to changing ourselves, rather than thinking about the other person changing for us, is what openness is about.

David Sandstrom 33:31
Okay. All right, very good. It almost sounds like it wouldn't fit the acronym. But it almost sounds like that would be one of the more important things to consider at the beginning of the process.

Dr. Ron Ramsey 33:42
Well, acknowledging helps us do that, and gets us started in that direction. If you're if you don't acknowledge how the transgression has affected you, then you're not really going to be open to committing to try to forgive the other person.

David Sandstrom 33:58
I see. Very good. Yeah, I like that. Alright, so nurturing. What's that all about?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 34:04
Well, and it's important to accept the fact that as humans, we never forget anything. We might not be able to recall things to our memory immediately. But everything that we experienced stays in our mind. And we can experience have experiences in our life that remind us of a transgression that's occurred. And it will recall those memories back to our consciousness, or may recall them in a way where we displace that old unforgiveness onto a new person that doesn't deserve it. And so, in order to nurture that we need to, first of all, continue to nurture our spiritual growth and our spiritual maturity. And then second of all, we have to be self aware enough that we can realize that we've been triggered and go back into 40 days to forgiveness and look at worksheets that we did that can help us recall the journey that we've been on. Because really, the book is designed to be a journal. And that's why I created a workbook for people to write in. So that that work big book can be something that you refer back to. And I'm making that available on my website for free.

David Sandstrom 35:25
Yeah, yeah. And what's, what's the URL at your website?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 35:29
40daystoforgiveness.com and spell out the word forty? Forty.

David Sandstrom 35:35
Forty days to forgiveness? All right, very good. All right. So if there was one thing that you want the Natural Nation, the listening audience to take away from this interview, what would you want them to take away?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 35:48
Well, I think you said it earlier, when you said that self centeredness I don't know if that's the word you use. But self interest is what really, forgiveness is all about. And I think we need to realize that as human beings, we are self centered. We are programmed and wired to protect ourselves. And when we're protecting ourselves, we put up walls and barriers between us and other people, that make it difficult for us to be forgiving. So I believe the most important concept here is to acknowledge that we are self centered, and to give that to Christ, and invite Him into our heart, where the Holy Spirit can burn and and can shine both in our own mind for ourselves and give us emotional peace, but can also shine on to the eternal welfare of other people around us.

David Sandstrom 36:45
Excellent. I like that. All right. So Dr. Ron, if people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way? Is that your website? Or do you have something some way to get ahold of you?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 36:55
Well, what I've done on my website, I'm going to try this and see how it works is I've set up a forgiveness coaching process. I can't counsel in other states, because I'm not licensed in other states. But I can coach people on their journey through 40 days to forgiveness. And so the first coaching session is 20 minutes, and it's no charge. And to initiate that you go to my website, you have to fill a little information out because I need that information in order to send you a link to a site where I do my telehealth counseling. And if you want to continue coaching after that, then there's of course a fee for it. But we can work that out in our first conversation together.

David Sandstrom 37:43
Okay, very good. Well, that sounds great. Ron, is there anything else you want to share before we wrap things up?

Dr. Ron Ramsey 37:49
No, I don't think so. I appreciate you having me on. And I hope that the message of forgiveness is helpful for people. I hope that this book helps to change the culture of the church and make us all more loving and forgiving.

David Sandstrom 38:05
That it's going to do that. Thank you. Thank you so much for writing it and thank you for being here today. Right? Thank you. For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/86. There you can find an audio as well as a video version of the podcast. I always include a downloadable transcript, and some type of a content upgrade to help you go deeper with this subject. Thanks for listening. That's it for now. I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed


1:02
So learn your language is all about aligning in identifying that inner voice with the story that you're telling yourself, about your health, about your relationships, about anything in your life that is holding you back. So I guess that would be aligning yourself what are those limiting beliefs?

1:25
Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach, and this is episode number 85. Today we have in the show Dr. Ryan Wohlfert, Dr. Wohlfert is a certified mindset specialist, a certified chiropractic sports and biophysics physician, he's helped 1000s of people incorporate a healthy lifestyle to make natural pain free living possible. Dr. Wohlfert Welcome to Natural Health Matters.

2:01
Thanks for having me, David, I appreciate you allowing me to come on here and share this important message of mindset and even dispelling some of the misconceptions people have about it.

2:13
Yeah, excellent. I really appreciate you taking the time. You know, as most of the listeners on this show know that my contention is that we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. And today, we're going to be talking about the mental portion. And everybody's heard of working out. But I think some of us need to do some working in. And because we all have some limiting beliefs that are holding us back from achieving our goals.Now you say that, according to the National Science Foundation, 80% of the 60,000 thoughts we have every day are negative, and 95% of those thoughts are recurring. So could you speak to that a little bit?

2:53
Well, yeah, I think a lot of people listening or most people listening, understand inherently that just in their daily lives, they're more likely to just focus on the negative thoughts or focus on the negative comments, or replies or whatever that people make to them. Right? Because our brain is geared towards that for our protection. Like, for example, in you know, in our practices, you and I, we have to train our brains to do this. But in general, our default mode network is we could have 99 patients 99 clients, say, You know what you did a great, I appreciate your help with this. And then we have one that says that that wasn't happy or gave us a bad review. in which one

3:48
or which one do we focus on we focus on,

3:50
it's that same thing in life. And so we have to train our brains to actually focus on the the opposite, because that's not the default network that we take. So if we know that that's happening out, I love that expression, we have to work in that just work out. I love that that's beautiful. I'm gonna have to steal that one, or borrow it. That but think about all the thoughts that we have on a daily basis. And here's the thing, most of these thoughts aren't even conscious, because our brain can't, doesn't have that bandwidth. Consciously. We have every, every moment every second, we have inputs coming in, into our brain into our body. And our brain has to decipher of those 4 billion inputs. But you know, all you know, physical, mental, psychological, emotional all either outside of us or inside of us that it's scanning to see okay, is this safe or unsafe? It has to whittle it down to these again, these 4 billion they're not obviously conscious to you Write these conscious thoughts, right? But it has to whittle it down to like, basically seven to 11 conscious thoughts that we can have. So there's a lot going on in the background. So of these 60,000 thoughts that we have every day that are negative sorry, 80% of the 60,000 that are negative, most of our plane in the background directing our actions, habits and behaviors. So if we're constantly just trying to fix our actions, in behaviors, to create great healthy habits, like eating better, like exercising, like journaling, like praying, then then it's going to be met with not necessarily resistance, but you're going to probably get frustrated, because it's not going to stick. Because we have these stories that we keep telling us all these negative thoughts that are playing in the background, that are recurring over and over and over again. So that's a little bit more background of that.

6:00
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I say, don't listen to what somebody says, watch what they do, if you want to know what's going on, in their mind, look at their actions, because the beliefs drive actions, and we can see their actions and if we observe that we know what their beliefs are. So I think that's kind of kind of along the lines of what you're talking about here. So we've got to get to the root of, instead of dealing with the symptoms of these incorrect beliefs, get to the root and address those beliefs, and then the symptoms will improve on their own. Yes,

6:30
Exactly. We are improving the health of our mind of our body of our spirit. it too many times I think we focus on and that's part of the maybe those negative thoughts too, we try to figure out, okay, why is this happening? Or how can I get rid of this symptom? How can I get rid of this malady or ailment rather than okay, how can I improve what I'm putting into my body? What into my mind, and by a side effect, you know, I call that a side effect automatically. And it amazingly, you know, I say that sarcastically because that's how it works. Amazingly, your body gets better your body heals, the symptoms go away, and the healing process can start like that. But that doesn't necessarily mean the symptoms gonna go away that fast. Just like if you use an example, in my office, when I, you know, I'm trained as a chiropractor. So if I give an adjustment, for example, and somebody said, Well, it still hurts, like, well, yes, we have to the healing has started. But now we have to continue that. Just like if you, you know, if you stepped on a nail, right? If you stepped on a nail, and it's stuck in there or a tack, and you pull it out, guess what, does the pain go away immediately? No, because the damage is done. But now the healing can start that that nail is out of your foot, so that the healing starts right away, immediately, just like with these four pillars that we're going to be talking about with mindset, but you might not feel the effect and feel that adaptation immediately.

8:11
Yeah, that's really good. You know, I was coaching my devotion this morning. And when we were talking about the study was talking about First John one, nine, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and then cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So it starts with confession and acknowledgement that we've done something you know, a little bit amiss. And then we need forgiveness. Sure. But if forgiveness is kind of like pulling the nail out, but now we've got to start being cleansed from that unrighteousness. Right, and the healing process takes place. So I think that really fits with what you just said,

8:44
Isn't that amazing? How that works out? Right? And my devotion was about Joseph and like, the betrayal. And how can we have these, these obstacles, and these are the circumstances and situations in our lives just like he did. But we have to be faithful in, in what God is planning for us. In not to us. He's not doing this to us, but he's planning for us just like Joseph did, and then that, you know, you know, eternity in heaven can come in. So yeah, that's I love getting in. When I do my devotions. In this three minute devotions book, I basically just I close my eyes, and I just like flick through it. And whatever it stops on that's what I'm reading for the day. And it's always an application for the day and I'm usually I'm like shaking my head smile. And that that was the one for the day because it always hits at that right time.

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. And Joseph had a role to play in all that right. He didn't just say, Hey, God, fix all this. No, God was there is with him. But that story account says over and over it. God was with Joseph, but Joseph had a role to play. He had to step up to the plate, right. It was his turn on stage. Ah, and the same is true with all of us.

Exactly. And that's, you know, I want to mention another, like survey or study that was done that matches with. It's the actions, but our beliefs direct the actions and how we feel about ourselves direct our healthy actions in the International Association of Applied Psychology actually did this study of two and a half million Americans. And what it found was, again, I'll just summarize it, when you don't feel good about yourself, and who you are, again, your identity your being, then you don't necessarily do healthy stuff. Right? You might do it for a short period of time, but not a longer period of time. So again, these unconscious drivers we call them in the mindset world, is these they are driving and directing our actions and habits, not the other way around. Now, yes, we have to do the work, of course. But how can we limit or avoid or get rid, I will say, get rid of identify these limiting beliefs that we have, that are directing our conscious actions, because we can go to all the self help seminars we want we can we can read all the health books that we want, we can, you know, do the latest workout, and to do the latest cleanser fast. But what how is that going to sustain us? Is that going to sustain us and be sustainable? Because we can't out goal set an unsuccessful mindset. That's, I'll have to credit that with my mentor, Brian Grasso, where I learned this system, eliminate your limit system.

11:39
Good stuff. Yeah, I want to I want to display one more analogy to this before we jump into the four steps. And that is, I learned this from Dr. David Ferguson, who wrote the book, Intimate Encounters and it's a it's a book for enhancing relational connectedness in marriage. And he talks about early on in the book, the concept of an emotional cup. And the idea is each one of us has a limited capacity to handle emotions. So we can think of it as a cup. And most for most of us, the our cups are full of the junk, you know, the the anger, the disappointment, the resentment, maybe even bitterness or rage. And when our cup gets filled up with all that junk, then we have very little room left for the good stuff like love, joy and peace. So what happens is, when we get stressed or a cup gets pushed, that stuff starts to spill out of the top of the cup. And the stuff that spills out is things like, you know, biting sarcasm, stonewalling all those negative things that take place in a relationship, the stuff that people find themselves in the counselor's office talking about that those are just symptoms. The problem is their emotional cup is full. If they can drain that emotional cup primarily through forgiveness, forgiveness, confession and forgiveness, then the symptoms just kind of disappear on their own. So that's what we're talking about here. If we can address our our limiting beliefs, the beliefs that are based in falsehoods, then we're going to live a healthier, more productive, more fulfilled life. Am I am I am I on the right track here?

13:12
Well, yes, and I love that. I mean, I love your cup analogy that that is a beautiful, perfect analogy. And I use a similar one like with health and the stress and threat bucket. But no, I mean, as you're speaking it's, it reminded me of what's called the negative cycle of like, so we all have this, this cycle or we have triggers that trigger these catastrophizing thoughts. And it could be like those, those negative emotions or those non serving emotions, in the moment, the anger, the fear, it could be a trigger, like being lonely. I'll tell you my triggers, like where my mind starts racing too much, is if I'm going to it's similar to a lot of people if I'm hungry, right, if I, if I don't have the sugar, or sorry, the fuel going into my brain will now it's going to be more reactive in the back. If I'm tired, if I haven't gotten good sleep, if I'm lonely, if I'm by myself and just allowing my my thoughts to go if I haven't gotten enough like movement or activity, if I'm sitting at a desk all day or you know, standing too much and not actually having purposeful movement. Well now that's going to lead into this cycle of, of negative thoughts where I'm going to you know, I feel this loneliness, I feel these these thoughts, these these that are flooding in and then it's affecting my action. So now, instead of serving actions now I take more like it's called self soothing, where I might binge watch TV or I might avoid and procrastinate on things that I know I should be doing. And then when I do that, well now I go into the descent. I go into the pit of being passive aggressive of have these emotions and these these things coming out, like you said, when it spills out into different symptoms, how do I feel? How do I act? So that I mean that's and then guess what? That leads right back into the more triggers and more self self soothing. That's why it's the cycle and if we can catch that cycle wherever we can is but especially those triggers and hadn't had it off at the past, then it's not going to lead to that spillover. So yes, I Yeah, totally love that.

15:30
Yeah, we're on the same page. And that for sure. So let's talk a little bit about the four step process. So feel me and I'm curious to hear too, because I really don't know that. All right,

15:41
so I'll mention them. First, the four the four pillars of mindset training. So learn your language, count your wins, review your direction, imagine your outcome, and I mentioned them just to put it out there. And there's, you know, their steps, but the way I teach it, and the way I instruct people to do it is in this order, but it doesn't have to be, we have to try we have to learn from it, we have to grow and adapt if we need to. So let's start with learn your language. So we mentioned that these negative recurring thoughts tend to be mostly unconscious, right? They're they're playing in the background, we don't necessarily hear them, we're distracted by so many other things in our lives, that were go go go a lot of the times, and then even the symptoms that we feel we're so preoccupied with those, we don't know that voice, and we all have a voice that don't worry, you're not crazy for having this voice speaking to you. And, you know, sometimes it helps to think of it, that's the devil that is that is trying to get into you, that is trying to, you know, don't make you do things or think things that aren't necessarily true. So learn your language is all about aligning in identifying that inner voice, with the story that you're telling yourself, about your health, about your relationships, about anything in your life, that is holding you back. So I guess that would be aligning yourself what are those limiting beliefs because in this, you know, mindset we hear, okay, just think positive, just say affirmations. But these voices this, this language that is playing this internal dialogue that is directing us, if we don't bring it out of the shadows, if we don't identify that it's there, it's going to continue, you know that the story that it's telling me is going to continue directing you in the way that you've been going. And we've we've we all have them, we just have to align to that. And the way that I do that and instruct people to do it is I use a journal I write down. So at the beginning of the day, you know, in the morning, and it's usually after I get up, drink my water, do some like brain neuro training exercises, and then do mobility work. Because I want to put my mindset like, you know, I've been doing this for a long time, in a more serving place. So I check in, I check in with myself, what and I asked myself things like, what am I thinking? What am I doing? What are my actions? What have they been? Have they been serving me or not? How am I feeling? Like what are my physical symptoms? And then even what are my? No, those are the four Sorry, what am I thinking? How am I feeling emotionally? How am I feeling physically? And then what am I like? What are my actions? Am I procrastinating? Am I avoiding?

18:55
That's really good. So that's kind of like a process of discovery. Right? Let's try it out. Let's try to get underneath the surface here, have a little look under the hood, so to speak, and figure out if there are if I'm having some thoughts. And I think what I hear you saying correct me if I'm wrong, is that if you're feeling stressed in some way, or you're feeling, I don't know, short tempered or whatever, you it might be worth exploring, well, why do I feel that way? And that might point to the negative thought, am I right?

19:25
Yes, in in what we want to get better at as we go is at the beginning you might start experiencing it, that emotion too much, or experiencing it and then going down into that pit going down in the descent instead of just what we want to get to as a point of, of just observing it. Just seeing that it's there. Understanding that it's in the background, and then eventually, it becomes less and less and less in these in what I want everybody to understand is these thoughts are never Like we and honestly, we never want them to go away, they're not a bad thing. They're not. They're there to protect us. But we don't need them to protect us from getting that email written or or talking to a spouse. We don't need that, to protect us from that. So we can, instead of being you

20:20
Can you give us an example of what a negative or a false thought would would look like, just so

20:27
Things like typical, so you could just the things that you're telling yourself like, I'm so stupid, I'm not enough. I'm never like if our health, I'm never going to be healthy, I'm always going to have this. You know, a lot of times a common expression is it is what it is, I can't do anything about it. So like these can'ts and always, those are almost little triggers like oh, that's, you know, is there a can't is there always, because if that's the truth that you're in reality that you think you're in? Is that really the truth. And we want to start poking holes in those in the language that we're saying and change the story, or sorry, change the meaning of the story, because, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say, maybe you had a bad lot in life, maybe you were abused, maybe, you know, you've been through divorce, maybe all this stuff, that stuff happened. But the meaning of that doesn't have to be your downfall, the meaning of that doesn't have to take you into that descent, we can choose to accept that and be aware of, okay, what is this mean now, or how did this work out in my favor, and that actually jumps into the second pillar, which we'll get to is counting your wins in retraining the brain because learning your language is all about deconstructing that narrative and that story that we have, identifying what that story is. And then like, step one, A is just in the moment, interrupting that thought. But you can do it a couple of ways. One, as you're getting used to it, setting aside 5 - 10 minutes a day, just getting in the habit of writing it down, instead of just in your brain, either get it out, like dictating it into a microphone or video or something like that, or writing it down. I know when I'm in that dissent in that negative cycle, when my cup is overflowing, if I continue lying in bed, allowing those thoughts to go, instead of just getting up and moving, journaling and getting it out, it tends to snowball even more, if I don't identify that trigger and do the things that I know that has helped me to stop that negative cycle to get that the cup emptied out as fast as possible. And it's not dictating what I'm doing. It's good stirring my during my day. So they could do it then. And then you can also I'll mention this as, again, as you get more familiar with what these, that inner story is. Now throughout the day, if it pops up, you'll be able to identify it. And then in the moment, this is one of those these, I'm leaving you on the edge of your seat right here. Because this is one of the biggest things that helped me out in the beginning when I learned this for myself, is you identify it, become aware of it, and then you interrupt it. Just you say it's there, you have this maybe a kill switch, we call it where it's like something that brings you out of that unconscious narrative into the conscious where you're like, Alright, stop, you know, that was one of mine was okay, stop, I hear you. I see a stop it in the beginning, that thought might come back a minute later, two minutes later, just interrupted again and again. And again, you're training your brain to just not even getting in a conversation with that. So these different kill switches that I've used, okay, stop, said, How is this serving me today? You know, like, just something like that something that we're consciously saying to ourselves, What would Jesus do? That's another really good point in those things, definitely helps us to identify the language, learn our language, and then also a little tip there of interrupting it in the moment. It doesn't matter if it comes back 50 times a day, you just interrupt it and you get better at it, the more you practice it.

24:33
Excellent. I'd like to back up review just a couple of things you said because you dropped a lot of value bombs there. One is when we use the word never or always, that should be an alert for us. That should be a red flag. Is something always going to happen. Is it never gonna get fixed. One of the things we go over with couples in our marriage group is if you're saying to yourself, things will never change. Well, then you're as you're claiming the you know the future. So who's the only one that knows the future? That's God, right? So when you say things will never change, you're playing God. Stop that. That's not a productive thought. So the words never always should be an alert for us. Well, wait a minute, let me let me be examined that thought, is that really true? Probably not. And then the other one was to write those thoughts down. So we have to think it right. But we got to get it outside of our minds and make it tangible. So the process of writing we experience it with our senses, we experience a kinesthetic, you know, movement of the hand, and we actually see the words on the page. And then I would add to that, read it to yourself out loud, so that you can hear it and engage another one of your senses. And it makes it more tangible and more real, it takes the intangible what's on the inside, it makes it tangible. And now we can deal with this monster a little bit better.

25:52
Yes. Beautiful summary, I wholeheartedly agree. And, you know, with learning your language in, I mentioned it, we want to get to a point where we're, hopefully right at the beginning, where we're just observing it, it's not us at that is saying that's it's something it's this unconscious story, that we keep telling ourselves that has been, I use word implanted that has been in our brains and building a lot of times since childhood. So it's been there for a long time, whether it's our parents, writers, pastors, religious leaders, whoever in the thing is these these thoughts? They're not real. They're not based in reality, you might your story tells you they are. But just like how you said, David, is that the actual truth? If you think that's the actual truth, and there's no other options, that means, you know, everything, and you're playing God, which you're not. So yes, no, and we want to move on, I would say, move on. But like I said, learn your language is the deconstructing part of it, just like if we have an old shack of a house, that, you know, maybe it was burned down, and we can't really remodel, we got to knock it all down. And now we have this fresh plot of land that we can start reconstructing the house that we want. And that's that's the mindset. So now, that's where we start with count your wins. Another way to say it is finding the evidence, because count your wins sometimes sounds like it's okay. It's just positive thinking, with positive thinking, why that doesn't work. Always. Or as much as counting your wins is, when I think of positive thinking. I'm thinking that you're saying things that maybe haven't happened yet, but that you want, I'm I am healthy, I am going to be healthy. I am getting you know, I am rich, I am, I am enough, these types of positive thinking. But what count your wins is, is you're actually identifying you're actually listing out the forward progress of your goal to like towards your goals. So you think about what is your goal, like what goal do you want, whether it's for your health, your wealth, your relationships, your business, whatever it is. And every day, you sit down, and you bring conscious thoughts to that. Let me give you an example. So a colleague of mine, actually, she presented about this journaling process on my chronic pain masterclass a few weeks ago, and she's a mindset specialist. She, but five years ago, she was bedridden. She, I mean, she was bedridden with with pain and just suicidal thoughts. But she started to count her wins and she was in a spot where it's not like she was out running a mile every day or two miles. We're like, All right, that's that's my when her wins. A lot of times during the day was she got up from bed and went to the bathroom by herself. Wow. So so she slowly, inconsistently and simply practice counting the blessings, the gratitude. And sometimes gratitude is hard for people to understand because gratitude, you want the emotion. But if you're still so down in the dumps, you can't muster up that emotion. But if we can identify the actual things, the actions that we've taken towards the goals that we have on a daily basis and writing those down, now we're bringing our conscious thoughts to that rather than the unconscious narrative that we've been saying over and over again. So counting your wins finding the evidence every day. Typically after dinner is when I will do this. But even throughout the day, you can do it but to give somebody a framework at the end of I would say not necessarily at the end of your day. A because then other thoughts can come and maybe interrupt your sleep. After dinner you write down. Okay, what are the things that I did today that led me towards my goal, like the action. And actually, it doesn't matter how small they are, it doesn't have to be a big aha moment you ran a marathon that you, you have no processed food today that you, you know, you had nine hours of quality sleep in the last 12 to 24 hours. What are the things that led you towards reaching your goal, and that is finding the evidence that is counting your wins, and that's starting to reconstruct and retrain your brain. This is, if you're so down in the dumps, and I use that word a lot for that term a lot. If you're so down, like my colleague was that you know what you are, that's all you're hearing is the story. All you're hearing is the language, sometimes, and a lot of times we start with count your wins, and train them train you to do that. Start with that, because if we, we want to have some wins, we want to see we want our brain to see the actual great things that we're doing no matter how small they are. They're leading us to that. So that

31:15
Yeah, I like that a lot. That speaks to the idea of brain neuroplasticity. And they say, neurons that fire together, wire together, right? So we want to start making those neural connections, make a thought habit pattern where those neurons get stronger, and those connections get stronger and stronger. And that's what he talked about here. And that's, that's really good stuff. This is based in really good science. I love it. It's good. Yeah. So it's

31:40
absolutely a science, it melds the neurology, the science and the application of it. So it's, it's really neat. I mean, I, I remember my mom always saying just think positive, just Yeah. And she still, you know, when I was growing up, it's think positive, think positive. And I'm like, Yeah, right. And it just little things, I think back to my life where, you know, I play sports, and I still do, but even in high school, or I play basketball, in it's these in how we frame our wording and how we frame our, what we're telling ourselves, I would go in for a layup. And if I would say don't miss it, rather than make it a lot of times I miss it. Right? You know, we're gearing our brains towards the negative rather than Alright, let's, let's work on that. And so when I make it, yeah, and I make the winning shot, or not even just, if I'm done at the end of the day, or at the end of a workout at the end of a session, or I make my smoothies, like before we hopped on here, David, I made my smoothies for tomorrow for my wife and I, and I just put them in the blender. And then I didn't blend it up yet. I save that for tomorrow. So I'm saving time with that. And I'm also doing something healthier. So that is a win. So like, every day, I do this, every day, I write down my smoothie, I write down, like if I had some healthy foods, or whatever healthy foods that I had to eat for lunch, maybe salmon, maybe cod, maybe sardines, like I'm gonna have today, I write that down. Or if it's on my schedule or my list, I'll circle it and bring my conscious awareness to that. So that's part of counting your wins and finding the evidence of how you're reaching your goals. And this is a simple and consistent practice.

33:34
So that process becomes like a snowball just gets snowball going downhill, it's getting bigger and bigger as we put that into practice.

33:42
Exactly. So yeah, these next two, and they're review your direction. And then imagine your outcome, they're very similar to to count your wins. Again, these lat those three, there are reconstructing narratives or reconstructing things that we're doing to any notice there's three of those and only one deconstructing which is learning your language, because we want to help, we want to put it in our favor three to one, the the neuroplasticity part of retraining the brain and the neurology. So review your direction, what how this is described as this is the so remember, you have your your goals, your intentions. And so this is the daily review of your goals. So count your wins is the actions that you take going towards your goals. Review your direction as Okay, I have this direction that I want to I want to lose 30 pounds. I want to gain muscle, you know those types of things. I want to walk my daughter down the aisle, you know, whatever these are, I want to look at these more short term type, I guess direction that you're going so you You'll look at that. And same thing you ask your so you can ask yourself questions. And eventually, so this is what I've I've done a majority of my mornings is I've, instead of learn your language, I've progressed to a point where I check in real quick, what's my language, but then I review my direction towards the goals that I want. So it's further reinforcing. So asking yourself things like, Why did I create this goal in the first place? What is it going to feel like, when I get there when I achieved this, this goal? What? Yes, so more of I guess you consider that more of the positive thinking aspect of it. But still, you're tapping into the emotion behind it? How is it going to feel when I reach this goal? Why did I set it in the first place? How is this serving me? Why is this? And why questions are really good? Because then it just Yeah, and sometimes you don't even need to answer. It's just asking your your brain the question is, why did I do this? Why did I do this in the first place? Why did I create this goal? What, you know, why am I why is it going to feel so good? When I reach this goal, those types of things, because then your brain starts perseverating on that starts thinking about that it getting just engulfed in that, which is what we want.

36:22
I often say this, when we find our why will find our way Yes. And the converse is also true. If we don't know our why we won't find our way. So that's, that's really good to know why you're setting this goal to begin with will will be a lifeline for you. When you when you feel like quitting, you feel like giving up, you just pull out that piece of paper that you wrote down your y on and you'll find your motivation.

36:46
Yes, I love it. Exactly. And guess what? This like reviewing your direction or these goals? They can they can evolve? You know, you might have said it, yeah, and you know, two or three months down the road, you might be like, You know what, because you are evolving as a person, as a spiritual being, as you keep unlearning things that you can do, guess what? Those goals are going to probably change to just like, again, my colleague who her goal is to be able to get out of bed and not, you know, be bedridden for a day. Well, now she's actually a mindset coach. So look how her goals have evolved over time. She's, you know, exercising, she's doing all these other things. And so that can change. That's, that's yeah, that's review your direction every day.

37:38
And she used this process. Yes. This is how she got started. Well, you know what you're talking about, it's just simple truth here. And if someone has achieved success, they're going to have to do something like this, right? Because this is the truth. This is what works. Yes. So if you're going to have success, and in, you know, transformation, you're going to be doing something like this. But I love the four steps, it really makes it more concrete.

38:04
And you know, the last one I say last, but it's imagining your outcome. So if you wanted to pigeonhole this in a positive thinking, I guess you could say that, but you know, this is one that I know I've had trouble with, or a lot of people have that I've, you know, coached on this and taught this, this system is imagining your outcome, you know, your brain and you're constantly imagining every single day. But like we talked about way at the beginning, our brain is is geared for the negative. So what do we do we start imagining the negative outcome instead of the positive outcome, the outcome that we want. And that's very simply, yes. What is the outcome that we want, and if we want it even break it down farther between, imagine your outcome and review and your direction, imagine your outcome is like that 35,000 foot view, and you've been a pilot, you can appreciate that. It's looking down and seeing everything laid out, review, your direction is more like short, like 90 day, six month type goals that you're trying to reach, you know, the Imagine your outcome, and it can be this. And again, this is the the general sense of it. But some days, you're not going to be able to be like, I can't see it, or I'm not able to see it today or so now, or in the stage of life that you're in, in learning this process. Again, I go back to my colleague, she, it was it was hard for her to imagine playing with her kids because this is like this is mine to have being a mom like well, for her. It's been a mom to her hurt her teenage boys at the time and in being there for them and not just being a dependent or a burden to them. I'm, like I say that similar to mine, because my 35,000 foot view is, I want to be healthy, I want to be married to my wife and active with her for 75 years, you know, 75, at least 75 years of marriage. So that puts me at 103 years old that puts her at 101 years old. And, you know, we're celebrating our 20 year anniversary this year. So, see, that's a 5000 foot view, I want that as part of imagining my outcome, what is that going to feel like us, you know, just being together being active. You know, being not depending on drugs, doctors or surgery, or procedures, or, or even our, even our family, we want to enjoy our girls, we have three girls, and we want to watch them and be with them as they grow up, as they move on in life, as they realize what their purpose is, and be a support to them, and not a burden in their lives. So imagine your outcome. Sorry, I gave that example. But how do you do it? How do we make that concrete a couple of different ways. I'll give you Well, one way that I like is playing a 10 second movie clip, like a movie trailer of your life and what that is going to be, you know, often we hear these near death experiences where your life just flat flashes before your eyes. So similar to that, like, what, what is that flashed that you want to see? What's that 10 second movie clip, and then you can play it, you can either play it throughout the day, at different times, like have set aside times like we do with count your wins, or learning your language or really in your direction. Or you can also play it throughout your day. So while you're brushing your teeth, while you're in the shower, while you are, maybe let's see what's driving, while you're while you're making making your smoothies, you're playing this movie clip. And it might be hard at the beginning. But again, with all of these with the practice that it takes. That's, you know, you had mentioned the actions that we take, show what beliefs that we have. So if we're taking these actions have imagined because these are at I mean, imagine your outcome, that's an actual thing that you're doing, that will help reshape the story that you're telling yourself. Because your brain, it doesn't know the difference of what is real. In what has happened and what has not. It's just has the perception of what it believes that meant. So there you go.

42:42
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Excellent, good stuff. I know we talked about you have a very generous offer that you'd like to offer the Natural Nation. So why don't you just Yes, tell us about that.

42:54
Beautiful. I mean, this can be you know, this this, our lives, sometimes we need a little bit of help little direction from somebody who's been there and done it before, and has been doing and is still doing it. So what I want to do is, I'm going to provide a link that you can schedule a call free call, call it a house call with me a Clarity Call so we can get so I can help you get clear on your mindset get clear on the direction that you want to go. Normally, it's $99 I'm going to waive that. And I just want to help direct you to where, where that you want to go. And then give you honest feedback on where you are now and help you put the pieces together, put the puzzle pieces together. So that's x provide a link for that to my calendar and you can book a call with me.

43:50
Okay, very good. And I'll put that link in the show notes for sure. So if you want to get in touch with Dr. Warford just go to my website davidsandstrom.com And look for you can search for his name and it's a wohlfert. You got it? Sorry. You got it? Yeah. Okay. Very good. You can search that way or the episode number. Not sure what episode numbers is going to be. So what's the best way to get a hold of you? If so, wanted to just learn more about your work?

44:17
Well, you know, right now, I would say if you're on Facebook, join my free Facebook group. Be your own guarantee. Like if you search on Facebook, it's a free Facebook group. It's a health and mindset driven community, where we talked about breaking free from dependence on broke a broken system. So you can be your own guarantee for your health and your life. Upgrade your health, your energy performance, give you lifestyle measures to do that. And then also, I'll give you my email address, go to Doc docatupgradedparents.com. If you have any questions that you want to ask me, that's the best way right now to reach me. I'm also on Facebook, obviously at DrWohlfert. We can be friends there.

45:00
All right, very good. Dr. Wohlfert, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with an explanation today. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me, David. For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/85. There you can find full audio and video versions of the podcast. We'll have links to all the resources that were mentioned. And we have downloadable transcripts as well as some type of a free content upgrade there as well. That's it for now. I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed