The Art of Healing

Overcoming Autoimmune Challenges: Dr. Maggie Yu's Path to Healing and Empowerment

• Charlyce Davis MD Reiki Practitioner

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Join us for an enlightening conversation as we welcome the remarkable Dr. Maggie Yu to the Art of Healing podcast. Dr. Yu, a distinguished physician and functional medicine pioneer, shares her incredible journey of overcoming a mysterious autoimmune disease that emerged after childbirth. Her transformative personal story led to the creation of the innovative Transform Protocol, offering new hope for those struggling with autoimmune conditions. Discover how Dr. Yu's experiences reveal the limitations of conventional medicine and the potential of alternative healing approaches, as we explore her insights into the root causes of autoimmune diseases.

Learn more about Dr. Maggie Yu here
Dr. Maggie Yu

We delve into the often-overlooked triggers of autoimmune diseases, especially those affecting women during hormonal transitions like postpartum and menopause. Uncover the hidden impact of superinfections such as COVID long haul and Lyme disease, which can wreak havoc on the immune system. Dr. Maggie also sheds light on the growing issue of toxic load and systemic inflammation, urging us to understand these underlying factors rather than merely seeking a diagnosis. This episode is packed with practical insights and offers a fresh perspective on why autoimmune diseases are on the rise and how we can tackle them more effectively.

Curiosity and mindset play a pivotal role in navigating chronic health challenges, as we discuss "Eight Out of the Box Ways" to approach autoimmune diseases.

Learn more about Dr. Maggie's book here:

8 Out of the Box

Dr. Yu emphasizes the power of personal growth and vulnerability in the healing process, drawing inspiration from thought leaders like Brené Brown and Dr. Gabor Maté. We encourage listeners to take the first steps towards reclaiming their health by seeking alternative perspectives and engaging with supportive communities. With gratitude and enthusiasm, we celebrate the energy and wisdom shared in this episode, aiming to empower our audience on their journey to wellness.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to the Art of Healing podcast. I'm Dr Charlize and thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. I am very fortunate to be welcoming a special guest for today's podcast interview. We will be getting to know Dr Maggie Yu. Dr Yu is a physician, a family practice specialist and a functional medicine practitioner certified who is highly respected in family practice and graduated from UCLA School of Medicine. She's been in practice for 25 years. Dr Yu is an author, a mother, a teacher, a speaker and a thought leader.

Speaker 1:

Dr Yu has become a force to be reckoned with in the world of functional medicine and her journey has been anything but ordinary. Dr Yu's journey started with developing a mysterious autoimmune disease after havinga baby. After being diagnosed at the age of 36, dr Yu suffered several debilitating medical issues, including fibromyalgia, early menopause, hashimoto's, chronic pain, depression, tmj and mixed connective tissue disease. After battling her own debilitating health challenges, she recognized limitations of conventional medicine. This is what set her on a profound journey that became a personal experience that now has shaped the way that she works with the patients. She has developed the Transform Protocol, which is an online autoimmune chronic disease program which comprehensively addresses disease at the root cause. The groundbreaking protocol has not only transformed her life, but has also proven to be a beacon of hope for countless others suffering from similar afflictions. During our interview, I'm going to be asking Dr Yu some questions about how she navigated the health system, what brought her to where she is now and, most importantly, what the rest of us can do if she had trouble navigating the health system as a family practice physician.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's get started. Well, maggie, it is so nice to meet you. I'm so honored to have you on my podcast and to introduce you to my community. Thank you so much for coming on today. Introduce you to my community. Thank you so much for coming on today. Wonderful, I was reading about you and your journey. Where I wanted to start which, to me, has just been the most profound thing, is that before you became an author and a teacher and a thought leader, you family medicine. Yeah, you experienced your own health challenges and you had to look outside of conventional medicine. I'm interested to know that, a physician, what happened that you could not find the answers and the healing you needed in conventional medicine?

Speaker 2:

I would say that it mirrors many of my colleagues, probably including you as well. I would say that we, as physicians, become you as well. I would say that we, as physicians, become well. Actually, any teacher becomes the best teacher in our area of greatest suffering. So what happened to me was that you know I was. I loved being a family physician. I was a wonderful family physician. I was really good at it. I was a workhorse. I was one of those people that I would see 20, 30 patients every day go home and chart six, seven hours and come back and do it and come at me. I became medical director of our clinic. I was teaching young family physicians and managing them in a large practice or a large medical group. So after the birth of each child and as we talk more about autoimmunity, you'll see why this is a pattern During my pregnancy and after the birth of each child, I developed more and more chronic health mystery symptoms that I couldn't answer.

Speaker 2:

I didn't even know what they were, and it culminated so that I had my first child at 30, my second at 33, and each postpartum event brought me to my knees and I didn't fully recover from either. I had C diff infection. I had hair loss, weight gain, I had depression, brain fog, add symptoms, depression, anxiety, and it didn't get better and it culminated at the age of 36. I went into full-blown early menopause where my FSH level came back at the level of 80. We all know what that means as physicians.

Speaker 2:

So I was in medical menopause at the age of 36, which is not common, right. But at the same time I was being told by myself and my colleagues and what I told other people is oh, you don't need to test your hormones If your FSH is 80, or if you haven't had your periods for a year. Your hormones, we know, are low postmenopausal, so why bother? So I started getting doors shut at me with symptoms of chronic pain, fatigue, brain fog, add, depression. I mean I felt damn suicidal and it got to the point where my health had taken such a blow that it affected my career. I mean I lost my job, I lost my mind and I lost my marriage.

Speaker 1:

Whoa.

Speaker 2:

Wow, when you are there, you don't have a choice. I got to the place where I realized doing anything different would be better than where I was at. And yeah, and that, to me, was what really pushed me outside the box, because, operating as a peak physician, peak performer, trainer, teacher in that realm, I was in a system that didn't answer the mysteries around my own health and home's own health symptoms and the complete devastation, decline of my professional and personal life and health. So it didn't provide me the answers. It became my greatest area of suffering. It became my charge and my mission. I had to save my own life and that's what triggered me to say, hey, you know what? I'm really smart and I could put all my MD smarts how can I apply that to learn maybe a hundred other tools to deal with this very difficult to solve chronic health array of symptoms. So I put it together and I started to really look outside the box, everywhere, anywhere, all the time, so I can figure out how to save my own life. That's how this started.

Speaker 1:

So for the listeners, because most of my community aren't physicians, but I guess what I'm. What's kind of struck me is that just you know for the listeners to know that as physicians, when we go in to see a doctor, you know it's a mixed bag. Sometimes we come in with an advantage as far as we can speak the language you know. We can speak the language to our practitioner. I know in my own experience when I've had to see another specialty, it depends. Sometimes I can't speak their language, sometimes I'm just kaput and I'll just say treat me as you would anyone else, cause I can't think like that. So I guess what I wondered in your journey? And you said you were getting doors closed on you. So you, I mean typically when you're a physician, you say doors closed on you. So you, I mean typically when you're a physician, you say, hey, I'd like to check my hormones, and you were being told no, you don't need to, you're not having any periods.

Speaker 2:

Your FSH is 80. We know you're in menopause, so it would be post-menopausal normal At 36?. That's what was gynecology. My colleagues, these were my friends.

Speaker 1:

So what were you just supposed to walk off and be?

Speaker 2:

like cool 20 years ago. All right, I mean, I am 50, I am 54. This was 18, almost 20 years ago, yeah. And so doctors don't test hormones. Even now, women and men and children are getting hurt, that hormonal door slammed in their face when they're dealing with tons of complicated health symptoms and mental health symptoms. Still hasn't happened to learn the difference of what. What is actually what I mean when I say hormone balance versus, you know, hormone replacement therapy or just a denial or medical gaslighting, right? So for me, this whole idea around hormone balancing is really critical.

Speaker 2:

At that time, oprah Winfrey did an interview with Suzanne Somers and Suzanne Somers was, I think, she wrote a book and it was all about bioidentical hormones, ivs and this and that, and people thought she was nuts and people thought Oprah was nuts for even promoting this, and so it was almost as if there was like a waging war battle going on at that time between everybody should be on Premarin and fake progesterone, fake hormones and horse hormones. Oh, now all these studies are coming out saying that's the devil, and then Suzanne Summers and Oprah coming out saying it's all about bioidentical hormones and every grandma should be on high doses of bioidentical hormones. It was like a waging battle. So it was like a huge taboo, and so for me, even as a physician, to go ask for my hormones to be tested. It was as if I was asking for voodoo or taboo medicine. Wow.

Speaker 1:

So and I hear what you say about you know this happened some time ago, but I don't actually feel that it's changed in conventional medicine. That's the point. Yeah, I don't think it's changed. Nothing has changed there.

Speaker 2:

Nothing has changed there, and so the amount of misunderstanding around hormones between doctors and patients is astounding.

Speaker 2:

And I talk about this in the book in the chapter about hormones is that people don't realize that there's little to no true hormone experts out there that understand what hormone balance means and for mental health, let's say whether it's ADD, depression, anxiety, brain fog, right, any of right, and every one of those symptoms that I talk about and I deal a ton with long haul POTS, mast cell activation, autoimmune diseases but every single one of those symptoms have a basis in hormones and a lack of hormonal balance. And the problem is then people come from a podcast like this or reading the book and they say, well then I need to go ask my doctor to get my hormones tested or I need to get on bioidentical hormones, but the problem is there's a lack of true hormone experts. Because I talk about following the money. It has been big businesses for natural and functional medicine doctors or just regular doctors, gynecologists, to say I'm a hormone specialist and what they really are is they're a hormone pellet mill.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I have been curious about that because I've had patients in and out of those programs, in and out, and the part that has always confused me is that they're not necessarily better with their symptoms.

Speaker 2:

Correct Getting bioidentical hormones, fake hormones, doesn't mean your hormones are balanced. And then the problem is the main type of hormones that people are getting is hormone pellets from quote unquote hormone experts or functional or naturopathic physicians. And the reason for that is following the money Every time. If I, let's say, you're working with someone who's teaching you the skills which is what we do I teach people. Recognize what those patterns are, learn the skills to balance your hormones, get all the tools of which. Maybe you need hormones, maybe you don't, okay, but even if you did, it's very small amounts for balancing, just so you guys know.

Speaker 2:

So the problem is is that if you follow the money, like most doctors and whether you're conventional or whether you're, let's say, you're a hormone expert and you're a functional medicine doctor or a naturopath that insurance doesn't cover, well, how do you make your money?

Speaker 2:

Right, you make your money by charging a lot for your visits, so it's time. Or you make your money by sales of products and services that give you a lot of cash flow, and hormone pellets give a lot of cash flow. So they're hundreds, even $1,000. Every time you go in to get hormone pellets, you got to go in and do it every three, six months, depending what the regimen is, and so it's like a recurring subscription cash cow for the doctor's office and so a lot of practices. They don't want to spend time teaching you the skills or uncovering patterns. Why don't I just get every single person into a pellet mill where I can get a, you know, nurse, practitioner, physician assistant, somebody else who's lower wages, lower expenditure than hiring another physician or educator or true instructor, and just do pellets, pellets, pellets, pellets, so that people get on pellets and they get crazy ass. High doses of these bioidentical hormones that in fact, is causing more problems.

Speaker 2:

Some people need what I call heifer doses of hormones. Okay, most people don't. They're getting way too much hormones and it can actually exacerbate the problem because hormones turn into other hormones and breakdown products. So we're creating a system where people will build up a lot of these hormones and it is toxic to your health. It is really taxing on your liver. It's really taxing on your gut. It's really tasking on people with autoimmune diseases, mystery illnesses. When you got this crazy ass buildup hormones and your liver is struggling against that, it exacerbates conditions that we call really commonly like fatty liver. So this is like a hell storm we're brewing in these hormone pellet mills. That is currently the standard of care.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, that's everything you just said. I loved it because, the way I'll say it is, it's a balance. We're looking for what works for you, but it does seem like a lot of. What I see is this excess just piling on more and more and more, and that's a conversation I frequently have in my practice. Do we really need that much?

Speaker 2:

No Microdosing. Microdosing.

Speaker 1:

It's true, and what I see in my own community. It is exactly what. I hadn't thought of it as like a pellet meal, but I see just these mega doses, mega. And then when I meet the person, they're still having a lot of symptoms. I think, well, you know, you know, as a supplement helping you. So, maggie, I did want to ask you as an autoimmune expert. I just happened to catch a sound clip on the news several days ago about the increasing incidence of autoimmune disease, oh yeah. And then I started doing a search and, sure enough, kind of got confirmation of that. So I wanted to get your opinion, your expert opinion, on what would be behind why we're seeing more autoimmune disease.

Speaker 2:

There's a seven to 11 fold increase over the last 60 years in autoimmune disease diagnosis. Some people are saying, oh, it's only because we're diagnosing them more, having more tests to diagnose them. That's not actually true. So they've even done studies where they've taken blood samples from people who were in the military, like 60 years ago, and blood samples from people in the military now, and the presence of the amount of antibodies meaning your immune system attacking your own body, is up seven to 11 fold. So it's not just we're diagnosing it. Better is that we are triggering our immune system. And the basis is this is that your immune system is there A couple main roles. One main role is to identify a germ outside your body. So if you're a germ and I'm going to kill you. Second role to identify in your body you're a cancer cell, you don't belong here I'm going to kill you. Third role is your immune system works as an allergic system. I'm allergic to you and I'm going to react and send histamines and raise histamines levels to trigger an allergic reaction. So those are some of the major roles of the immune system.

Speaker 2:

And why has there been an increase seven to 11 fold? And why is it predominantly? Also, why do women have at least a four or five times higher risk of having autoimmune diseases than men? Number one we're gonna go right back to what we just started talking about is hormones. We are having more and more hormonal exposures, imbalances now than we ever have, and women are more susceptible to fluctuations in hormones than men, and women are having higher and bigger fluctuation levels than they ever did for a wide variety of reasons. So I'm going to say that hormonal change and flux men, women and children are at an epidemic rise and we are more ill-equipped in dealing with it than ever because the financial pressures, the lack of education and doctor's training that we have. So what I see is an epidemic of, for example, postpartum women, women going through menopause, suddenly coming down with these crazy health symptoms, and a lot of them don't even know it's autoimmune.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of them don't ever even get diagnosed, because, in my own experiences, 90% of autoimmune diseases we can't even diagnose because there's no blood tests that exist.

Speaker 2:

So, you just have chronic fatigue, you just have brain fog. You just have pain or neuropathy and holy hell, it's autoimmune. You just have pain or neuropathy and holy hell, it's autoimmune. These hormone changes actually turn on autoimmune attack. Hormone changes turn on autoimmune attack. I want everybody to write that down, if you remember nothing else. Hormone changes turn on autoimmune attack. So if you think about all the different times in your life, whether you're a woman, man or a child, then you have vulnerable periods of time when that will turn on any sort of genetics that you have for autoimmune disease.

Speaker 2:

And now not only hormone changes, but infections. So if you have a super infection like COVID long haul, if you have Epstein-Barr, if you have Lyme, there are super infections that will irritate your immune system and irritate it so much that it starts to attack. So we now know there's additional triggers, like the infectious triggers are also going up of these super infections. And then the third problem is the lack of our ability to detoxify our bodies, our lives and our minds. So we build up toxic load, inflammation load in our body. We're becoming incubator in tanks for it. It's not just our earth in an environment that's getting toxic buildup. Our bodies are becoming reservoirs of toxicity, inflammation and autoimmune attack.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for shedding some insight on that Cause. I know that it was something that I've witnessed and it was one of those soundbites you hear on the news and I thought, whoa, wait a minute, it must be getting to be pretty big if it hit the five o'clock news. Thank you so much for sharing that Cause. I think it's something we'd all been witnessing, so I did want to ask you what would you recommend as a first step? If I am someone who is experiencing what you survived and I'm in the conventional medicine model and I'm not doing well or I'm getting sicker, what would you recommend is the first step I should do to start climbing out of this? I really wanted your opinion, particularly because you were a physician who had to do this. There's millions out there who aren't physicians, so what would be my first step to take to get going in the right direction?

Speaker 2:

I love that question because a lot of people are out there and they are listening to me say some really big words and I want to shrink it down to really small words that have big impact, because the predominant audience that it's in your audience, in my audience as well, is and that's where our symptoms so, really, when you're dealing, when struggling with symptoms like chronic fatigue, brain fog, pain, insomnia, anxiety, right Weight gain, hair loss, right Rashes, hives, increasing allergic reactions, bowel problems Suddenly your life is starting to be, you're getting anxious even going out or saying yes to things, because you're wondering what's going to happen to your body, like what it is is. I think people are losing, are at a place where they have very low amount of health certainty in themselves. Their body becomes unpredictable. They don't trust themselves or their own body anymore. This is the place of most people that I am talking to right now and that's the reason why most of them are in your audience or listening to this podcast right now. It's these symptoms and where people get stuck is that they get stuck in what's the diagnosis or who's the super special, rare specialist that I can find that's going to fix all these symptoms, and I want to say that that's the opposite of what you should be doing is to keep going and going to try to find a diagnosis, because the diagnosis doesn't present itself. The diagnosis of these types of symptoms don't present a solution. When you're looking at complex, invisible, chronic symptoms, the most important thing is to know that there's multiple different what's causing it? The number one question we should be asking is what's causing this? What's causing it, not what is the diagnosis. What can I name it as? What's causing this problem? Because if you know and you can figure as what's causing this problem, because if you know and you can figure out what the cause of this problem is, then you can fix it. If you don't know causation, knowing the name doesn't really matter. Find the cause of it, and the number one step, first step, that everybody here in the audience can take is education, which is what I did.

Speaker 2:

We don't take an educational, active, educational approach to the fight for our lives. We don't. We take a passive, like we're cow to slaughter approach when it comes to health I'm serious Like we take sick care, factory medicine, as if like, oh, we're just going to keep going down that conveyor belt. You got to jump off that fricking belt because it is killing you. You're going to die as a result of it. They're not here to save you. Get off that fricking conveyor belt.

Speaker 2:

The first step is awareness. I will not participate in this conveyor belt, or I will participate in this conveyor belt to the degree that it serves me, meaning like, if I need that doctor to order these tests, if I do really need that prescription, like that's the conveyor belt route, right, and if that whatever aspects of that that's helping your problem, great. But that is not your. That is not your Messiah. Your Messiah is a different path. The different path is number one chapter in my book.

Speaker 2:

You got to lead with curiosity why the heck is this happening? What is this? Who are the people that's saying something different about this? Who can I learn more from? Right? And so education is the first step, right, first action step that you take.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to this podcast, you're getting educated and you're hearing an alternative point of view that doesn't exist anywhere else. So if you're listening to this podcast, in the podcast notes right now in the comment section, interact, say, tell, tell me, tell, dr Davis, like, what are some of the symptoms you're dealing with? What's going on? What are some of your questions Maybe you should question. Maybe you think you know what the cause is and you should question it. Start a dialogue, because what happens is when you start connecting with people like Dr Davis and myself, you start connecting with our audiences in the comment section, in our communities, you are going to start hearing different approaches to this problem. Example this podcast, great resource to learn. Another example my YouTube channel. I have, at the time this recording, 1,400 videos on there on every topic you could imagine, and I joke about it and I'm like maybe people should start asking about their hemorrhoids and there might be a video for that.

Speaker 1:

Your blog is where I've. I swam around in your blog, yeah, that's what you know. After hours I like to read. I love your blog. The blog article I mean in listeners in your show notes there'll be links to every way to reach Dr Nikki. But I really enjoyed the blogs, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like Dr Davis, you learned. Like the reason you're doing what you're doing right now and you have a smile on your face and you're passionate and prolific at what you're doing is because you went outside the box to learn something different than what you were medically trained to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, locally I'm the witch doctor locally.

Speaker 2:

It's a joke here. So yeah, I'm a witch doctor here everywhere.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I just want to have that hat on. I'm a proud witch.

Speaker 2:

The crystal caring is since burning internist, I have a lot of my patients and clients call me magic Maggie. Same idea Magic Maggie, dr Magic Maggie. And so for me I mean, look at you. What was the first step that you did to jump out of your lane?

Speaker 1:

It was education. And I will say, as I was reading your story because it really the first thing and as I was reading through your blogs, watching reviews, I thought this woman graduated from UCLA. Guys, this is, I don't like to. I hope you understand what I'm saying, maggie. I don't like to categorize people, but if anyone could contend with the medical system, it would be you. Does that? I mean? You know, with your experience, you worked in it, you were the medical system. I mean, with your experience, you worked in it, you were the medical system, and if you were screaming for help, oh my gosh, she couldn't do it. My own health, thank goodness. It wasn't so much my health, it was curiosity, and it was the same questions in my practice, coming back and back, and then my natural curiosity that I started to listen to functional medicine podcasts as a patient. Yeah, yeah, it was curiosity. I never thought it would bleed over into my practice. I thought they would stay separate.

Speaker 2:

No, you can't.

Speaker 1:

Once you see it, you can't unsee it. You can't unsee it, and that's what I assumed is because patients were asking me. 10 years before I even started to look, they started to ask me questions and I would think that's weird. I don't understand. Then I started oh, this is what they're seeing. Oh, my goodness, they're right, maggie. Can we just let the listeners know about your book?

Speaker 2:

actually, going to do one up that I'm going to give all your listeners a copy of the book. So in the show notes those of you guys that have made it through this part of the podcast already, I'm just letting you know up front in the show notes there's going to be a link where you guys can get a free copy of my book, because I sure as heck wants you guys to read that first chapter called leading with curiosity.

Speaker 1:

Eight out of the box Cause. That's where I think that would be a perfect place to start for those that are young.

Speaker 2:

It's eight out of the box ways to transform your health, and it is a series because my intent is to create a series of eight out of the box ways to solve any any problem, and I think about it in that way, and I love the number eight. It's an infinity sign because I think that when you grow people's minds right, when, when you grow people's minds and you lead with curiosity, that growth is infinite, the potential is there, is infinite. So I couldn't have dreamed this future for myself 20 years ago when I was on that bathroom floor, but at the same time, through curiosity, education and action steps, taking action over and over and over again, I'm here. I'm here, and so what I did with the book Eight Out of the Box Ways was to put my eight top best lessons that my clients always tell me. Like because we have, you know, client interviews all the time. I love, like don't just take, listen to me. We interview two to four clients every single week that are graduating from various programs that we have, so that they can share their experience. Because, to me, success leaves a strategy, not clues. Success is a strategy, and so I want successful people and we interviewed them. And no matter what your health problem is. You go on my YouTube channel POTS dysautonomia. No matter what your health problem is, you go on my YouTube channel POTS dysautonomia Sjogren's. You could have nearly died from Crohn's Graves. I've seen it, I've done it all. I laugh at those. I laugh at danger, right so they're not hard, they're solvable problems, and I interview people who have successfully overcome them and share how they did that, right. So in the book I have tons of case studies from real people about you know, I've worked with thousands, right, so those case studies are great and they are also the real people that are on my YouTube channel for interviews.

Speaker 2:

But I didn't think I was going to be an author. I always thought I'm a good teacher. I'm really good on video. I can talk. I don't know if I could write, and once I made that decision to do that, because patients and clients were asking for it, I realized you know what I actually love to write. I had to keep editing it down. It's very long. I think it's 278 pages somewhere around there. But I love to write and I do think there's a lot of people who like to read and on top of it-.

Speaker 1:

That's my personal learning styles reading, so you're reaching people like me. I would much rather read a book than yes.

Speaker 2:

I'm about connection and I recognize there are people who connect their reading. So that's why the book was written, and I just finished recording the audio book. So by the time this podcast is going to be released, I wouldn't be surprised if the audio book on Audible will be available by then as well. And I narrated it.

Speaker 1:

Nice, perfect, thank you. Thank you so much. And for my final question, because, as I was reading your blogs, you did mention in several of your blogs recommendations you give for complimentary therapies right Before we started and. I were discussing Reiki. Can you share with us what your favorite complimentary therapies are for autoimmune patients?

Speaker 2:

My favorite movement is really important, like, just so you guys know, every person that I work with we talk about my mindset to my growth curriculum. You have to grow your mind. And another sentence to write down is the body always follows the mind. So if you don't grow and work on your mind first, your body ain't following. And, to quote Dr Gabor Mate, you know and his concepts, the body, like, keeps score. So what happens is is that he has associated and I have as well that certain specific types of thought patterns or types of trauma causes your mind to be in a pattern of self-destruction. And so what I've learned from myself having multiple autoimmune diseases, with Hashimoto's, mixed connective tissue disorder, also neuralgia, a lot of neuropathy neuralgias, autoimmune related, and my hormone thing, by the way, early menopause at the age of 36, all hormonal, all autoimmune, autoimmune attack against my ovaries, my adrenals, yet an unnamed autoimmune disease that is rampant. So what I learned was that it's really critical to grow your mind. So when I think about other health strategies, to me one of the most important health strategies is to strengthen your mind, challenge your mind and grow it like you're a ninja, you're a warrior, you're a gladiator. Renee Brown has talked about how vulnerability and how I want to be the gladiator in the ring with the blood, sweat, tears my foot on the ground, dust in the air, dust in my mouth, like spitting it out, to be like I'd rather be with that person in the ring with that level of vulnerability because I'm playing, I'm playing. I'm not going to be a spectator, I'm playing. So for me, personal growth, work and development of yourself to create adaptability, flexibility and curiosity and growth of your mind is the most number one health strategy.

Speaker 2:

And the way that you start that is go read my book with the chapter. The first chapter is lead with curiosity. The last chapter is from mindset to mind growth. Those two chapters bookend the book on purpose because you begin and you end with growing your mind. Number two great authors like Brene Brown, right. Great podcast episodes here I already saw in this channel about growing your mind. Right and look at, read Dr Gabor Mate's book and his books around autoimmunity and what thought patterns that are really common For me, like learning that the number one thought pattern that people have. I'm going to have you guess and I'm going to have the audience guess. What do you guys think is the number one thought pattern I have found in treating tens of thousands of autoimmune patients.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say it's probably along the lines of I can't get better. I'm always going to be sick. Is it something like that?

Speaker 2:

It's lack of forgiveness.

Speaker 1:

Oh, like I did it to myself. This is my fault.

Speaker 2:

I can't forgive them or I can't forgive myself, I deserve to be punished. Yes, yes, okay, lack of forgiveness really is very high judgment and it begs the other side of it, which is punishment. And lack of forgiveness of self is self punishment, which feeds autoimmune disease like crazy. I mean that could be a whole other podcast interview, but you could, I mean audience. If you guys want to follow up on how forgiveness and lack of forgiveness is the major trigger of autoimmune disease, I would love to explore that. But that is what I have found is people who are have lack of forgiveness for itself or others are high judgment in, in their, in their thought matrix, the thought patterns, and that high judgments demands justice, which is punishment.

Speaker 1:

I see that it does. Yeah, I need to rectify, I need a correction.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I need justice and so, believe it or not, that translates also. Whatever lack of forgiveness you have towards others, it's the same you're doing to yourself and so, believe it or not, that translates also. Whatever lack of forgiveness you have towards others, it's the same you're doing to yourself. And so you're demanding justice and punishment towards yourself, so you're actually fueling your autoimmune attack to kill yourself and hurt your body.

Speaker 1:

Wow, so that is such a powerful statement. I think that we could probably close there. Other than, let me ask you one more time, maggie, for the listeners, what is the best way to find you? I think you're very easy to find, but if you could just verbally remind us how to find you, you can go to drmaggiucom, that's my website.

Speaker 2:

You could go to maggiumd, which is my Instagram, which is my YouTube handle. You could just head that. Those directions in the show notes is my book. If you go on Amazon, look under Maggie UMD book and there'll be eight out of the box ways to transform your health. You can find me, find me there. I'm about connections, so I want to connect and talk to you. No-transcript, full-time team members working in that group to actually connect, provide resources and help people get educated, and that's the place for people to ask curious questions from other curious people who are open and learning Wonderful.

Speaker 1:

So, listeners, thank you so much for joining me. In your show notes you'll see links to reach Dr Maggie. You'll also see a link to sign up for my weekly newsletter. If you have not, I usually recommend signing up for my newsletter because you'll get a copy of everything right to your phone. You don't have to rush to save it, and all of Dr Maggie's links, including how to get a copy of her book, will be there. It has been such a blessing, dr Maggie, such a blessing for your energy, to have you here. I cannot thank you enough, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me on. You are a great interviewer, I love enough. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. You are a great interviewer, I love it. Thank you, and I'm excited to share this with my audience as well your podcast. Thank you everybody. Thank you so much.

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Dr. Charlyce

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