I Think, Therefore I Am With Dr. Anna Marie Frank
Ready to unlock the power of your mind for a healthier life? In this episode, Dr. Anna Marie Frank joins Adiel Gorel for an enlightening conversation about the powerful mind-body connection, and the relationship between what we think and our physical health. Viewers and listeners will be excited to hear that it is possible to not only transform your mind, but by doing so can also transform your health. We are what we think! So tune in and learn practical strategies for rewiring your thinking, optimizing your nutrition, and incorporating supplements to support brain health and overall wellness.
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I Think, Therefore I Am With Dr. Anna Marie Frank
Exploring The Mind-Body Connection For A Healthier, Holistic Life
Everyone, it’s a pleasure to be here with you again. It’s always great to learn new things from the wonderful people that we bring to this show. Today, we have Dr. Anna Marie Frank. I’m very excited. I know that you’re going to learn a lot from her. Welcome to the show, Dr. Frank.
Thank you so much for having me.
Rewiring Your Mindset: A Journey To Healing And Happiness
There is a lot that you cover. You do a lot of things and I have a lot of questions for you. Maybe we can start but you giving us the path that led you to where you are.
Thank you. Ultimately, I struggled with my mental health since I was in high school. I struggled with depression. Back in those days, we didn’t call it depression. It was something we kept silent within us. I was an athlete. I thought going to college was going to fix me. That’s what’s going to make me happy. I was a D1 athlete. I went through college and did my undergrad. I still wasn’t well with my mindset and my mental health.
I thought I was going to be better once I got my first job. I start making some money and move across the country. I moved from Michigan to California. I found myself in a job and was doing well. You could check all the boxes, but I still wasn’t well inside. I had good health insurance, so I thought I was going to go to a doctor. They’re going to fix me. I spent about 15 minutes with this doctor. He put me on three mind-altering medications at 23 years old. I went on a downward spiral that lasted for a while.
Luckily, I had this little light inside of me that said, “You are the only person that can make you happy. You need to figure this out.” I set forth on a journey to find natural ways to ultimately rewire my mindset, rewire my biology, and help myself heal from the inside out. What got me on this path was my struggle with my mental health and chasing that carrot. We think we’ll be happy when and truly, happiness lives within all of us right here in this moment.
What did you do specifically? The medications weren’t something you wanted to do. What happened? How did you bridge this gap?
I started to think that if we could rewire computers, I could probably rewire my mind because I thought something wasn’t firing right. Something wasn’t right in my mind. I started to try to look at life through a lens of what if everything was going well for me. I was looking at everything in life as if it was going bad, things that weren’t happening for me, my boss was a jerk, I didn’t have enough money, and the economy was bad. I was blaming everybody else.
First, I started to own out where I was at in my life and I started to look at what was possible in my life and what was going well. I then started to realize I was exercising as if it was a punishment. I had to exercise because I ate this, or I had to exercise because I didn’t want to get fat. It wasn’t like I was exercising to enjoy how my body was moving. I wasn’t exercising because this makes me feel good and happy and it creates endorphins.
I stopped using exercise as a punishment, and then I started to look at the nutrition and what I was eating. I started to use food as fuel for my body. The eating healthy started to happen in my 30s, the exercise was happening in my 20s, and then it wasn’t until my late 30s that I started to work on that mindset of mine. Once I started to shift the way I was thinking about my life and the way I was speaking about my life, everything around me started to change. It was a lot of little things that I was doing to essentially rewire how I was feeling inside.
Brain-Boosting Supplements: The Benefits Of Natural Ingredients
We talked about transforming our brain health. You did mention that it starts with food and the way we eat. Do supplements come into play too? I know that your background has to do with some of the people who work on the brain or who do brain work. I know you certainly settled on certain supplements that might help. Can you talk about that a little bit?
As I started to research the brain and learn about different nutrients and raw materials that impact how your brain functions, I learned things like tryptophan and vitamin B6 are two raw materials you need in your body to even begin to make serotonin. I started to supplement with those. I started to discover herbs and anti-inflammatories that are natural to this earth. Not ibuprofen but some different supplements like ashwagandha.
I started to play with these supplements. In 2020, I started to formulate my own line of nutraceuticals. That’s where I came up with the Bright You. It was the first formula I formulated and that was me taking six different bottles of product on my counter and bringing them all into one bottle so I wasn’t taking so many pills, which was great. The Bright You is neural protective and anti-inflammatory. It has curcumin and the Resveratrol. These natural things are so important.
Our brain is only 3% of our body, but it utilizes up to 20% to 25% of all the raw materials that we use or that we ingest, all the oxygen that we take in, and the blood flow. When we’re not getting the right nutrition, a lot of people are not even eating healthy because of our food, supplementation can be helpful for that.
Our brain is an energy sucker and we need to make sure that we’re filling our body with the right things. Supplementation has been a great thing that I’ve used. I started to formulate Happy You, which was taking 5-HTP, Tryptophan, the B6, and these other raw materials to help with serotonin production. What I realized is I was “depressed,” so the doctor put me on antidepressants. Yet, none of these anti-depressants were making me happy. I thought, “Maybe I’ll supplement with some things that are shown to help with serotonin.”
Our brain is an energy sucker and we need to make sure that we're filling our body with the right things. Share on XI have a general question for you. This is not about what you do. It is in general. A lot of people who are listening to us right now or watching it are already under certain regimens of how they eat and how they supplement. One of the things I always wonder about is when a doctor or a researcher comes up.
Let’s start with the supplements. Here is this bottle. It was distilled from six different things and that seems very convenient because now you take only one instead of six. However, the regimen of one of our listeners may already include four of the six things that are in that. Now they either disrupt the regimen that they are on, subtract from the regiment to take this, or they take too much of four of those things. In a way, maybe there is something to be said for the six bottles.
I agree. You have to find what works for you and everybody is different. Using a combination of important minerals, vitamins are very important, and herbs that are adaptogenic. We also use a lot of plant stem cells and general therapies at my center, which are amazing in how they work in the body. You are your own formulator. You have to find what works for you. A lot of people like myself can come out and say, “I have this great product.” The reason I have this great product is because I use it for myself and it worked for me. I’ve used it with clients over the years and it works great for them, but it may not be the right one for you.
I always encourage people to find what works for you and listen to your body. It doesn’t necessarily mean better. What I mean by that is the cost of your nutraceutical doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s better. Get with a practitioner or somebody who understands how to read these labels. Anyone can come into my office and they’ll bring a whole bag of what they’re taking. I’ll read what form of vitamins it is and what they’re taking and say, “This looks good.” I can also respond-test them. Is their body testing positive towards this or is it testing negative towards it? We have to be our own doctors, first and foremost, because we know our bodies better than anyone else.
I always found that in the hands of a skilled practitioner, it is a very useful thing to do.
That’s very helpful. I can have somebody that I’m debating between two plant stem cells and. I can’t decide. I go over with the client the difference between the two and I ask them what they think. They’re like, “I can’t decide either,” then we test the body. We asked the body what does the body want? The body tells us every time. It’s a fun and great thing tool to be able to use.
There’s more and more evidence that comes into the latest research. Everybody knows about the microbiome and the second brain we have inside of us. The more our microbiome is in harmony or the way it should be, the more we are connected. If we only listen, we are connected to ourselves in such a way that we become an expert in the sense that you’re talking about. You feel and you almost sense. Some people dismiss it, “It’s just a feeling, but those feelings mean stuff.”
Biofeedback: How Your Body Communicates With You
Your body knows. Our body remembers everything that’s happened in your life from when we were in our mother’s womb to what happened yesterday. Whether you can speak it and say it is a whole nother thing, but the body does remember and the body can give us information. This is called biological feedback. If your body starts to have acid reflux, that is your body’s way of telling you that your pH balance and your gut is not right. That’s an amazing mechanism.
Your body knows. Our body remembers everything that's happened in your life, from when you were in your mother's womb to what happened yesterday. Share on XIf you’re getting a headache, this is an amazing mechanism to tell you that you may have an imbalance with your electrolytes or salt, or maybe you had a hormone shift. The body is constantly talking to us. I can look at somebody’s tongue and it can tell me so much about somebody and what’s going on within them. It’s like the tip of the iceberg. I can look at someone’s fingernails and it’ll give us information.
The challenge is in this country, we’re no longer trained on how to look at the body, listen to the body, and see what is the body trying to teach us and tell us. What we’re taught now is we have to draw blood, we have to open the body up, and we have to do surgery. We have to do something extreme to find out what’s going on. More often than not, your body already knows and it has already been trying to tell you. It’s just that we don’t know how to put up our antenna and get that frequency to understand.
This is not something that relates directly to what you do or the things that you use. Sometimes you get out there on the web and get bombarded with, “We have formulated the most unbelievable protein collagen in this bar. Our bar is so good. All the bars in the world should close. You should buy our bar because it’s so amazing.” You look at this bar and you remember another piece of advice that comes from all corners, “Don’t eat or don’t use hyper-processed foods.” That bar is hyper-processed.
They include the beautiful protein and the beautiful color but it’s processed. People forget what happened to veggies, fruits, and certain proteins, depending on how you eat. There’s still the tendency to say, “This bar or this pill can be my savior,” because this is a society that’s like, “I don’t need to do anything. I just plop some things in my mouth and I’m done.”
The Dangers Of Reductionism In Health And Wellness
That’s a very dangerous approach and that’s called reductionism. That is how our country is showing up in the world. The Western world is all about looking for that one thing. The one thing that’s going to make us the most money, the one thing that’s going to fix our health, the one thing that’s going to make us happy. I’m here to tell you that if any person or any company is trying to sell you this one thing as if it’s going to change everything for you, it is a lie.
It may be one stepping stone to improving your life but we should not be putting all our eggs in one basket. You should run the other way if somebody is saying, “I’m the practitioner. Everyone needs to come see me. Just see me.” Heck, no. I have people come to see me and then I’m like, “I think you should go see this person as well.”
That’s it. It’s nutrition and health. The only reason it has gotten confusing is because of what’s being advertised to us. We’re being told what to think versus being empowered to listen to our bodies and to think about how I am feeling. Does this feel right to me? It’s the same thing with workouts. Do this one type of workout and it’ll change everything. It’s a stepping stone.
The power of marketing is very strong. Not just in the US but worldwide. I have a theory. You can hear me speak with an accent. Decades ago, when I came to this country, I made the observation right away that everywhere you go, they give you water to drink. It’s not just water. It’s ice water. Being from another country and I was young, I would say, “No. Thank you. I’ll just have water.” They said, “Ice water coming up.” I said, “No, just water. No ice in it.” I started saying to my friends, I think in English or in the US at least, they don’t have a word for water. They don’t have a word for it. They call it by a different name. They call it ice water. That’s the word. In England, beer is at room temperature. Here, when somebody talks about beer, it’s always ice cold.
I started thinking about what brought all this. I think it’s me and I want to hear what you think about this. Back in the day, we used to buy on the street. There was a cart with huge blocks of ice. It would bring them to our house and it’ll help us cool, some of the food and then a company, I don’t remember the name of the first one. I’m going to assume it was frigid air.
They came up with a product called Frigidaire. They wanted to sell it. The marketing machine went into overdrive in cold water, ice water, ice cream, ice this, the ice queen, and the ice king. That became the dream. I think it started there. This is only my theory. I could be wrong. It remains and to this day, ice water is the way to go. Many people from many countries come here. They say, “No, I just want room temperature. Ice is floating in my water. What do you think about that theory?
It’s probably not far from whatever the truth is in that. Probably somebody created a way to make ice and then we needed a reason to need ice just like Ford Automotive. Back in the day, we used to have trolleys in most towns and all cities. You look around and there’s a trolley in San Francisco, but where is the trolley that was in Bakersfield California? Where is the trolley that was in Grand Rapids, Michigan? Where are all these trolleys? Wait, because we all needed to get our own car.
That is the power of marketing. You’re right and I didn’t even realize it because I was born and raised in America. Everything was ice. I started to study Chinese medicine. I also worked with this acupuncturist. She was in her 80s and she’d come up to me and I’m wearing a short-sleeve shirt right now. It’s summertime here and she’s like, “You need to wear long sleeves. You need to heat the body.”
It’s all about heating the body and keeping the body warm. You would never drink cold water. It would be either warm tea or room-temperature water. I’m with you on that. It’s something, but it’s something that was marketed towards us, and like sheep to slaughter, here we go.
Silencing The Inner Critic: Overcoming Self-Doubt And Embracing Your Uniqueness
You wrote a book. Nobody likes a bully. I like that you wrote a book about don’t be a bully to yourself. That is quite intriguing. The title is very catchy. I’d like you to talk about it a little bit.
We all have this voice inside our head that pushes us to go and be and to do our best. I have accomplished a lot in my life. I was an athlete. I’m not average at all. However, this voice inside your head tells you, “You’re still not good enough. You still need to work harder.” It doesn’t allow you to enjoy the successes that you’re having. That’s when it becomes a problem. I had that problem ever since I was young. I was never good enough. Nobody likes me. I was not smart enough. This voice would take over my mind.
Once I started to work through this voice, I was around 38 years old. It was over 10 years ago. I was like, “If this was something that I was born with, like this voice inside of me that was so critical, or maybe it’s because I was picked on and bullied and whatever. For whatever reason this voice showed up in my life and started dominating everything I was doing, I needed to silence it.”
Once I was figuring out ways to silence it, I was like, “I’m going to write this down for my children. If my children ever struggle with this, at least here is some knowledge from your old mom that might be able to help you.” It was a Google document that I sent to my sister and she was like, “You need to make this into a book.” I was like, “Someone like me makes it into a book. I can’t write a book. I’m just an average person.” No, not so average. Yes, I can write a book and so can any of you out there. That’s what I did. I turned it into a book, and it’s a personal growth guide to remind all of us that we are unique and we are special in our own way.
That voice inside our head doesn’t get to dictate our level of happiness, and our level of success. Who you are is the one witnessing that voice. You can talk to counselors. You can talk to therapists and doctors and they’ll say, “You just need to be happy. You just need to love yourself.” It’s hard to love yourself and be happy when you’re not doing lovable happy things for yourself.
You’re not thinking the thoughts. You’re not moving your body. You’re not eating the right food. You’re not surrounding yourself with the right people. You’re not doing things that bring you joy. The book is a reminder that we get to choose our life versus life happening to us. When we start choosing the right things, we can start essentially getting that happiness to live at the forefront of our lives.
I completely resonate with what you’re saying. I can bring it up to the highest level of achievement. The Olympics are on. That’s once every so many years. People are watching and some of these people have dedicated their entire lives to being in the absolute elite and world class. These are the top of the top. One of the names that was in the news today is Simone Biles, the gymnast.
She is an old gymnast now. She is 27. Many of them are 14, 16, and 17 maybe because you’re more pliable, whatever it is. She was in the last Olympics where she was poisoned to win all kinds of gold medals. She withdrew citing psychological problems. The whole country was mad at her because we lost all these gold medals. It’s almost like she belongs to us, but that was part of the problem when you operate at the highest level possible. She was singular. No one could even be there. She was lonely at the top.
Now, being your own critic became a deafening noise, “Why does my second toe curl when I do the flip?” You can get to infinity with criticism and perfectionism. You see her performing her routines and she’s injured by the way, but still better than anyone else. The better than anyone else at the very top of the heap is not perfect. She’s not an AI-driven robot who does everything perfectly. That would be super boring. She corrected it and she landed and it’s not perfect. Imagine how many opportunities she has to be her own worst critic and bully. It got to be so bad that she had to stop and it’s a miracle that she got back.
There’s another star. His name is Caeleb Dressel. He dominated in the last Olympics in swimming. Once again he too retreated from the sport and the same thing, perfectionism, the self-bullying. It’s not just somebody saying, “I am an average person and I criticize myself for not being at the top.” No. These people are in their field.
They are at the very top and they self-criticize. It’s important in the field of money. Somebody can say, “I’m worth so many millions. This guy that I race is worth 100 million. Are you kidding? I’m not even a billionaire. They become a billionaire. Look at Elon Musk. I could have been worth 300. It never ends. We talked about stress. The things that affect our body are physiology and chemistry like this self-criticism. Your book is very intense.
The Olympics And The Pressure To Perform: Overcoming Self-Criticism At The Highest Level
Every single thought we have and every word we speak carries a vibration of frequency that impacts our biochemical makeup. When we’re having a mental health challenge like what Simone Biles was going through, this is why her physical body could not function. It is the greatest lesson for her. It is going to afford her some of the biggest strengths that we haven’t even seen within her for going through this. It may not show up on the mat or the beam, but it’s going to show up in other areas of her life. She will probably become so grateful for that experience.
That’s the lens through which we get to choose to show up and view our Lives. We get to go back to the good, the bad, and the ugly. We get to say, “How do I want to choose to witness this and see?” Once we choose to shift the way we witness something from our past or see something from our past that maybe wasn’t so great, we get to shade it with a different color in a way that’s going to perpetuate us forward and help lift us as a human. This is the ultimate hack.
It comes from your mind. When you start doing things like that, it starts to physically make you feel better. You no longer feel like someone who’s not smart. You no longer feel like somebody who isn’t beautiful, who’s rejected, who’s a loser, and who’s all these things because you’re choosing to start to view yourself through a different lens, but we can’t do that without the challenges. That’s the other thing.
I always used to be like, “God, why are you letting this happen to me? I’m so unlucky. Why is this happening to me again?” You can show up and say, “Why shouldn’t this happen to me? This is happening to me for a reason.” Crazy little things can happen. My son is 14 and got stuck at an airport all by himself across the country. He called me at 2:30 in the morning, “Mom, they’re closing the airport with all the flight stuff,” and I had nobody to pick him up.
I get to choose. Do I freak out and freak my son out, or do I say, “People sleep at airports all the time. You’re going to be fine. Go to baggage claim.” Even though inside, I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” I get to choose the lens through which I am witnessing this experience with my son. A lot of times, we let our emotions get the best of us.
Our brain is the strongest pharmacy on planet Earth. We can choose what chemicals we want to fire and wire. If you want to fire and wire fear during something like that that’s scary and there’s unknown, that’s one way or you go to gratitude and say you’re going to be fine. He’s going to be okay. There are police officers there and there’s security there. Everything is going to be fine. He’ll be able to be picked up in a few hours. He’s going to make it.
How old was he?
He is 14 and this was at 2:30 in the morning in Nashville. Tennessee and I’m in California. That was a test. I’m like, “All right.” He’s fine and he’s flying back tonight. He’s going to be fine. Life is interesting and life is full of experiences and we get to choose it.
That’s a heavy type of experience and being a mother to your son, I know how I would feel if one of my children were stuck. Still every day, just by living, we make many bad emotions. We walk around, we go up the stairs, we go there, we get in the car, and we do this. Also, we make hundreds of little decisions. I’m going to grab this. I’m going to drink this. It’s too cold. I should have. Every day, we make hundreds at least of moves and little decisions.
Let’s say we are an exceptional person and 90% of those moves and decisions are good and successful. We walked the right way. The 10% failed. We stubbed our toe. We didn’t bring the jacket when it was cold. We didn’t do this. It’s so easy to go to the 10%. “I should have. If I only did this.” Those things are being a bully right there.
We’re supposed to have challenges every day. This is what helps us grow. Do you choose to accept the challenges that are showing up or do you choose to waste your energy and complain about them and get super stressed about them? It’s interesting but nobody ever taught me to have a choice in that. I had to learn that over time. It’s like I get to choose how I want to view this, how I want to experience it. That was a Brand New Concept to me once I figured that out.
We're supposed to have challenges every day. This is what helps us grow. Share on XI’m going to get to your book because just the fact that you wrote it and those thoughts went through your mind, plus operating a few books, the layer of creating a book, meaning you now put your best into it, you go through an editor, and you put so much work into it. I want to read it. I want to get the benefit of it.
Thank you. That’s the beautiful thing about books. A mentor once said to me, “Why would you try to figure it all out on your own?” Why don’t you read somebody who’s written it down for you? They’ve already done a lot of the legwork for you.” I love reading and I read lots of books. It’s incredible. It’s like getting all the nuggets. You still got to live the life. You still have to make mistakes and all that, but it is very helpful. That’s for sure.
How do you get to Bakersfield? How did you end up from Michigan to Bakersfield?
I graduated from university in ‘05, and there weren’t many jobs. I was looking to move to New York, Florida, or California. Bakersfield at 22 years old offered me the most money and I thought, “I’ll go there. That’ll make me happy. I was a teacher. That’s how I started my career off and did that for a while, and then got into corporate wellness, and did that for a while, and then started to get my Doctor of Traditional Naturopathy. I did my PhD and started working with people and found that I loved to work with people. I started my own center and here I am 27 years later.
The Theta Pod: A Deep Relaxation Experience
I am a little frustrated because some of the things that you have there, we have them here. Marine County, just North of San Francisco. We have all of those things. We have them, but I would have liked to try them over at your place because I get a good sense of them. Let’s talk about some of those machines and services. Let’s start with the Theta pod. Can you talk about the pod a little bit? I’m curious. I know I can find it locally too.
This experience is almost forcing you into a meditative state. You’re lying down. There’s this eyeglass that you have on. Your eyes are closed. It’s triggering your optic nerve. Binaural beats are going. We program the machine with some suggested music, and you go into a deep relaxation. A lot of people have a hard time meditating. This is the opposite of a float tank, the opposite of meditation. It stimulates your brain so much that your brain is like, “Forget it. I’m exhausted.” You go into this deep meditative state. It’s about 30 minutes and then you come out of it feeling like you slept for three hours. It’s a and it’s a great machine. That’s one of them. What other one would you like to know about?
Of course, the one that everybody has and talks about and does and goes. I want to talk about your sauna. What kind of sauna is it?
We have a medical-grade full-spectrum infrared sauna. It has infrared far, mid, and near in it, which is a little bit different than just a far infrared sauna. I have an outdoor sauna. Some people come and have this whole outdoor experience where they go from the sauna to the coal plunge. This sauna has about 100 pounds of Himalayan salt in it. It’s a steam sauna, which is an old-school sauna. You can put water over the rocks and it’ll create steam. It’s like your old-school sauna. It’s great. It’s a little bit different than the infrared sauna, but infrared saunas don’t get as hot as the outdoor old-school sauna because your body absorbs infrared heat.
There’s a new door that opens up when we talk about it because there is a camp that we love in favor of firing for it and only firing for it. There’s a camp that says only near-infrared.
Be careful of both of them. Be careful of that. I know it works for you.
For some people who have tried to build a sauna that incorporates both, one of them could suffer. One of them could not be as effective. Usually, the near-infrared is not as effective in a full-spectrum sauna. Do you want to talk about all of this a little bit?
Ultimately, it comes down to finding what works for you. The infrared sauna for a lot of our clients, they liked that one because it doesn’t get as hot as the outdoors that can get up to 165 degrees. For the indoor, we’re looking at 129 to 132. The reason is that with infrared, your body absorbs that heat. As the sauna is trying to go up in heat, your body is absorbing some of that heat. Doing more of the sweat that’s coming out of the infrared sauna is going to be more like a serum, more of a deep detoxification.
In the outdoor sauna, you’re going to lose a lot more electrolytes. You are going to sweat a lot more. It’s a little bit different. We have people that do both. It depends on their personal preference. We have some people that count less high heat, so they’re doing the infrared and they’re coming in and that low heat is good for them and they feel comfortable in there, and then we have people to that are more claustrophobic. The outdoor sauna is a lot bigger and it has a big glass. It’s a barrel sauna so it has a big glass window on it and there’s a glass window on the door and they love that.
The key is to find what works for you and then do it. That’s the other thing. People always ask, “When should I take this vitamin? When should I take my probiotic?” When are you going to remember to take it? There are some things that there’s a time and a place, but if it’s something you can do whenever or wherever, the key is just to do it. For a lot of people, it’s like analysis equals paralysis. Just give it a try. Find what works for you and go with it.
The Quantum Intake: A Holistic Approach To Health And Wellness
What are the goodies do you have there that I remember?
I’m going to tell you my favorite thing to do with clients. I do a full-body quantum intake. I can do this in person or remotely. I use biofeedback. I scan your brain. I scan your digestive system. I scan whether you are deficient in any macro micro minerals, amino acids, or hormones. This is the gamut. I use that machine. That’s one of the tools and then I look at your tongue. I look at your fingernails. I have you send me photos of your face or if you’re in person, I see your face, and then we figure out what’s going on with your foundations of health.
I listen to how you’re thinking about your life or how you’re speaking about your life. I’m listening to the words you’re using, how the tone of your voice is coming off, and then I look and figure out what can we do to support this person’s foundation of health so they can live the most optimal life that they want to live. For anyone who’s struggling with dis-ease in the body, we can always go back to the foundations of health and restore those. A lot of times, the symptoms or the things are struggling with start to dissipate.
They usually go right to the issue that they think that they’re having and say, “It’s just my thyroid” or “It’s just my digestion,” and then we look and focus on that one thing and we’re missing a whole aspect of healing when we’re only looking at one thing. I also incorporate the energetics of healing, which I believe the future of medicine is frequency and energy.
If we go inside every single cell in the body until we can’t go any further, the only thing that’s left is energy. To not address the energetics of the human body, I believe we miss a whole aspect of healing. That’s why a big portion of what we do here is also energy medicine and working on people’s energy and frequency and we do that in a lot of variety of ways in-person or remotely.
I find it so true. People forget so quickly. Even medical doctors could forget that we are a whole body interconnected by so many networks with the blood system, the nervous system, or whatever else. They say, “The left side of the upper point in your shoulder joint is this. Let’s work here.” The funny stuff is the orthopedic stuff. The orthopedic stuff. Somebody comes to a bodywork practitioner. I learned several forms of bodywork. Somebody comes and says once again, “It’s my left shoulder right near the rotator.”
As you may remember, we have a skeleton. The skeleton is all connected. I could push here and your shoulder feels it moves. Maybe if I push directly where it hurts, your body is going to clamp up because it’s too much. Maybe from here, it’s going to be gentle. People forget and then doctors too want to quantify us into little cogs of a machine and they would prefer if we were like a car with the carburetor and you replace the carburetor. That’s what they do in many cases. It’s true that we are one whole. That’s even before all the stuff we talked about our thoughts and emotions. The more holistic you can be, the more useful it’ll be.
The Future Of Medicine: Energy Medicine And Frequency Healing
I believe any physical ailment that we get or that develops in the body is due to an emotional blockage that is stored in your body whether it’s your own thing or something to lineage. When we talk about emotions, that’s another big aspect that is not even looked at. I think back to when I went to that psychiatrist. He would ask me whether I wanted to hurt myself. “Do you want to kill yourself? Do you want to hurt other people?”
Any physical ailment that we get or that develops in the body is due to an emotional blockage stored in your body. Share on XHe would ask me all those horrifying questions, but he didn’t ask me, “What did you eat today? What good thoughts did you have today? Were you able to be outside today? When was the last time you gave someone a hug? When was the last time you set a goal and thought about the future you desire?” These are the questions that we should be asking. These are the things that we should be inquiring about from our clients and patients. It’s not being done.
The other thing is that’s not how these doctors were trained. Back between 1900 and 1920 to 1930 in this country, our whole medical system got a huge makeover due to The Flexner Report and the Rockefellers and the Carnegies in this country. It was for a reason. The petrochemical industry came out and they had these synthetic things that they could make pharmaceuticals out of and follow the money.
This is why, 1) We should never make decisions about our health based on fear. 2) You should always ask why and keep asking questions, and 3) You get to figure out what works for you. You get to choose the practitioners you work with. If it doesn’t feel right to you, ask questions. Find someone else. Get a second opinion. It’s amazing. I have so many experiences in my own life. We could do a whole other podcast on that. From 14 years old to about 30 years old, I have so many run-ins with a medical community that I went along with because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.
I agree. The medical school curriculum has become more like, “Here’s a symptom. Here’s the drug. This drug has a side effect. This was a drug for the side effect. It has side effects so here’s a drug for the side effect.” Again, I came here from somewhere else. I remember seeing the Holywood movies. You see the life in the United States and people living in LA, New York, and San Francisco. I noticed that in many movies, when the person is in their bathroom or they open up the cabinet, you see all of these little translucent orange-ish bottles that contain drugs.
Many people have 1, 2, 3, or 4 of them. Part of the movie too is they are taking their drugs. I said, “What is this?” I remember when I came here and for a long time, I almost felt like a strange guy. I don’t conform to life here. I don’t take any of those orange-ish boxes of pills. There’s another thing by the way that used to be very common. Now, it’s a lot less which I think is great.
You talked about how we have challenges on a daily basis. How do we deal with them? If you look at the movie’s specialty maybe up to 1980 from the past. Every time there is an issue, “My girlfriend left me,” the next scene, they’re in their hotel rooms pouring a stiff drink. If something bad happened, order at the bar or drugs. Those are messages. I don’t want to put down MDs or the medical profession.
They are amazing.
They’ve come up with unbelievable stuff.
Hands down, Western medicine is amazingly out of this world when it comes to surgery and saving people’s lives. We’re killing it. We’re doing a great job there. Where I think we’re not doing a good job is preventive care. We’re not doing a good job of keeping people healthy. The day that we can come together with Western, Eastern, and Chinese medicine and bring in naturopaths and nutritionists and have it be all one, that’s the day that we’re going to see a lot of success and start to change the health in this country.
We're really not doing a good job at preventive care. We're not doing a job on keeping people healthy. Share on XIt’s unfortunate that you just follow the money. I had a little girl in here the other day. She was three years old. She poops once every ten days. When she and her mom walked in, she had a bag of different medications from the doctor. She’s like, “This is our last hope. We’re not sure what to do. She’s taking all this stuff and still not going.” I spent about two hours, which is usually about my first session with someone.
We went over all these things and did these little exercises with their whatnot. I called her dad. Three days later, she pooped that night. She pooped the next day and he was like, “We’re waiting for another one today.” Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I’m like, “Is it this easy?” What are we doing here when we’re putting a three-year-old on multiple medications to make her go poop? They didn’t even say, “Maybe try some magnesium.”
She’s had an ultrasound, this poor little three-year-old. Why? Every day, I see people here and we work on their foundations of health and the things they’ve been struggling with for years, and in sometimes months or sometimes weeks, their symptoms and things go away. I feel like I want to scream from the rooftops, “What’s happening?”
To me, this is normal like, “Try magnesium or do this belly massage for her? Do these different things. Have some blackberries each day, try some chia seeds, and let’s do these things to get things moving.” What I’m realizing is to me, this is second nature because it’s what I do. People don’t know. They don’t know and so that’s what’s frustrating about it. That’s why I’m called upon to do what I do.
Insurance does pay for acupuncture. Many doctors send people to an acupuncture practitioner. You’re seeing a little bit of a melding at least at a certain level between certain MDs and certain doctors. I agree with the notion of nutrition, prevention, and even walking outside. We had a big professor on this podcast. He’s a neuro and brain specialist from Stanford and Nippon University, the most decorated guy. Do you know what he likes to talk about? It’s forest bathing. He does experiments. He measures all your vitals when you walk in the forest and before. He loves to talk about that.
It’s powerful. Earthing, grounding yourself, and forest bathing are free. It’s easy and it will change what is going on within your biology within minutes and it’s crazy, but people don’t. Sunshine is free.
Do you have kids?
I have two, 14 and 12 years old.
Mine are not that far off, 22 and 20. Do they benefit from your wisdom or being kids, they say, “If my mom does it, I don’t want anything to do with it.
I get a little bit of both. My kids will say, “My friends think you’re always so happy all the time. You’re the weird mom.” I just giggle and I laugh. I know they pick up on what I’m doing. I don’t force anything on them. We make healthy decisions. If my kids are going to go to a birthday party and eat cake and have pizza, they’re going to do that and I’m not going to tell them they can’t. There’s a balance there. Leading by example is what I can do.
I know that when they get older and they’re making their decisions, they’re going to be able to make them through a lens of education. Whatever they choose, they’ll find their way, but I’m the crazy mom, I’m the happy mom, I’m the weird mom. I’m all those things. My daughter will say to me sometimes, “Why do you have to be so healthy?” I’m like, “Because I love it and I feel so good.” That’s all, but they’ll find their way.
I was once in a relationship. We took it seriously enough that we went to a couple’s therapy. The therapists asked us each to say what we wished our partner would be like. One of her wishes was, “I wish he wasn’t so health-conscious.”
That can put some people off.
If people want to benefit from what you do, I understand the saunas, the cold plunge, and the Theta pod are located physically in Bakersfield California, but you said you work with people by Zoom. Tell us a little more about what people can do to benefit from all your stuff. You have a website. What is it?
Happy Whole You: Remote Services and Coaching
I work with people remotely. They can do the quantum intake with me. It’s two sessions that include. I also do coaching. I’ll coach people remotely. I work with you for a minimum of three months. We can go online and you can check all that out at HappyWholeYou.com. I started my own personal Instagram page and that is Dr.Anna.Marie or you can follow our brick-and-mortar at Happy Whole You on Instagram as well.
This is great. I know we could have easily talked for six hours. Maybe we’ll continue. Thank you very much for taking the time and being here. It looks like you make a huge difference for people and that is always wonderful.
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Thanks.
Important Links
- Dr. Anna Marie Frank on LinkedIn
- Happy Whole You – website
- Stop Bullying Yourself! on Amazon
- Dr. Anna Marie Frank on Instagram
- Happy Whole You on Instagram
About Anna Marie Frank
Anna Marie is a doctor of Traditional Naturopathy, with a PhD in Natural Medicine. She also has training from the Gerson Institute, Amen clinics, Integrative Nutrition Institute, Mindvalley, National Wellness Institute, and the Wellness Council of America.
She is a lifelong learner and continues to expand in the field of wellbeing. Anna Marie healed her brain after years of depression and challenges with dyslexia and ADD. She is the creator and owner of Happy Whole You—a brain health-focused wellness center located in Bakersfield, California.
Anna Marie is the formulator of a brain nutraceutical line, which includes “Happy You, Calm You, & Bright You.” Plus, she just launched her bioavailable liquid nutrition line. She is also the author of the self improvement book, “Stop Bullying Yourself!” a guide to greater health, wealth, happiness, and success.