Passion without Wisdom Isn’t Good: How to Survive (and THRIVE) During the Internet Renaissance – Podcast Episode 13

Passion without Wisdom Isn’t Good: How to Survive (and THRIVE) During the Internet Renaissance – Podcast Episode 13

The contents of this presentation are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This presentation does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

[0:00 – 1:02] Prelude

Dr. Z: How do you thrive during the internet renaissance? You have to conquer technology. You need to make tech Sabbaths a part of your life.

Mama Z: That’s why we do dark dates.

Dr. Z: We do, thanks to me.

Mama Z: No, I started it first because—

Dr. Z: Oh no. Nope. Nope.

Mama Z: You were married to your phone.

Dr. Z: Chris is my witness. Chris is my witness.

Mama Z: No, no, no, no, no.

Dr. Z: I’m the one—

Mama Z: It was long before that.

Dr. Z: Chris is right here.

Mama Z: It was before.

Dr. Z: He’s my witness.

Mama Z: Listen, mister.

Dr. Z: I’m the one who says, “Put down your phone.”

Mama Z: You might say that now. I’m the one who started it first—

Dr. Z: I don’t believe it.

Mama Z: Because we would go into the movies. And you would be on your phone.

Dr. Z: I don’t believe it.

Mama Z: Oh my goodness!

Dr. Z: If I was working, I was working to provide for the family.

Mama Z: No, no, no.

Dr. Z: That whole workaholic discussion we had last time.

Mama Z: Okay. But I’m telling you that I told you, “Enough is enough,” and that when we go on dates, it’s dark time.

Dr. Z: I seem to remember that I was the one saying, “Enough is enough.”

Mama Z: No, no.

Dr. Z: All right. We’ll let God answer that at the pearly gates because at this point our memories are a little bit skewed.

Mama Z: Well, we know that I’m the one with the good memory, not you.

Dr. Z: All right. I love you.

[1:03 – 1:30] Introduction

Dr. Z: Hi! This is Dr. Z.

Mama Z: And Mama Z. And welcome to episode 13 of the Natural Living Family podcast.

Dr. Z: Each week we invite you into our home to talk about how you can master the art and science of natural living. And we share the very same tips our family uses each and every day to enjoy an abundant life. And you’re going to love today’s talk.

Mama Z: So come on in and get comfortable. After all, you’re one of the family, our natural living family!

 

[1:31 – 2:29] Sponsor Spotlight: Air Doctor

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[2:30 – 3:52] Diffuser Reveal: Tax Day Pain Relief Blend!

Dr. Z: Yes, you are part of our natural living family. And we’re so excited that you are tuning in to episode 13 because we’re going to talk about passion without wisdom isn’t good and how you can survive and thrive during what I call the internet renaissance. This is going to be life changing, life transforming and for some of you, marriage saving, job saving, health saving. This can be one of the most important things that you’ve heard in a long, long time.

But, Mama Z, before we dive in…

Mama Z: Before we dive in—

Dr. Z: What crazy concoction do you have for us today? What are we doing?

Mama Z: So because this is airing on April 15th, Tax Day, I want a simple pain blend to ease your worries. And we’re going to do wintergreen, pink pepper, and sandalwood. And Dr. Z here is like, “What are you putting in this diffuser?”

Dr. Z: This is a little—wintergreen, I think you added a drop extra.

Mama Z: I did not. I did not. It did not even drip out an extra drip like sometimes it does. It did not. But it did drip out an extra drip.

Dr. Z: Wintergreen is strong.

Mama Z: It is. But the pink pepper and the sandalwood were so nice together. So anyway, good Tax Day blend for you.

 

[3:53 – 10:17] Navigating the Easter Holiday

Dr. Z: Yes, this is airing April 15, 2019. And well, a couple days from now, happy Resurrection Sunday, April 21st! This is really important. And what I want you to do, for those of you who struggle during these holiday seasons—and stay tuned. We are going to have several episodes in the future especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas on how to navigate during the holidays.

But a big issue with Easter/what I call Resurrection Sunday is people use it as a time to gorge. They’ve fasted. They’ve restrained during Lenten season, especially if you’re Roman Catholic or part of an Orthodox church. And you see, like me and my family, we used to see Easter as a way of eating a bunch of chocolate bunnies and eating a bunch of cake. And I just remember feeling sick, even as a kid. It was just, “Hey, let’s eat a lot of bad food.”

And we don’t want you to fall into that trap. And so now is the time more than ever to really recommit your health to the Lord. And God will guide you to ways that you can navigate this. And there are a lot of different holiday tips. And we’ve covered several of those on previous episodes. But anything really quickly? Really, really quickly, how to survive Resurrection Sunday without falling into bad habits.

Mama Z: Yes! So at our house growing up, we always had dinner with Uncle

Gene. And it was based around us all cooking together and making things that we still make today and have at our Resurrection Sunday.

Dr. Z: Oh yeah. Go to NaturalLivingFamily.com. Gene’s scalloped potatoes—gluten free, dairy free. Awesome yumminess.

Mama Z: And this is one of the other times during the year where we will do a turkey. And we always know where it has come from and all the things that went into making that turkey. And we’ll do some other family recipes that are favorites. And Gene also had a very special way that he would do parsnips. And that’s still a favorite of ours today.

Dr. Z: Yep, so go to the website, NaturalLivingFamily.com. Lots of recipes.

Mama Z: Lots of recipes.

Dr. Z: Turkey brine, stuffing, scalloped potatoes, lots of yummy treats you could do. That way you can eat guilt free but full of taste and flavor. And let’s remember the reason for the seasons, y’all. It is to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we just thank God for what he did because truly…

And all the more reason during this season to appreciate that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever [shall perish],” right?

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: “That whosoever shall believe shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Mama Z: Absolutely. And the church that I grew up in had a brunch where they had an egg casserole. And then they would have cinnamon rolls. And it was so funny because they did frozen fruit forever, and it was not quite thawed. And so we still talk about breaking your teeth on the frozen fruit.

Dr. Z: I love those. They’re such a sweet group of people.

Mama Z: They are sweet! But what we do and what we did even when we lived there was we had gone to our church. And then we would join my mom at her church. And we’d get altogether. And we still make a healthy cinnamon roll.

Dr. Z: Oh, I love them!

Mama Z: That you love them.

Dr. Z: But, like last week, though, don’t have too many because I tell my fat pants story. And now I gain a little weight. But yeah, be careful. All good things in moderation.

Mama Z: So what we do with that—and this is one thing that I would suggest to you—so if I make a 9×13 pan, what we usually have leftover is half of it. So I will actually transfer it to an 8×8 pan. And I’ll freeze it. And then we’ll have it somewhere later down the line or when we’re traveling.

Dr. Z: The kids love it for a treat.

Mama Z: Yeah, they do.

Dr. Z: And race day. Those are race day treats. We’ll do a family 5K/1 mile for the kids. And that’s the kids’ race day treat. If they race and if they finish, they get a cinnamon roll.

Mama Z: Yeah, and if they don’t walk. If they run the whole time. And they’ll be running. And I remember one time Esther was like, “But I’m hurting.”

And I’m like, “It’s a 5K. You’ve been practicing this for months. Seriously, you can do this.”

“But my body…”

And I’m like, “You’ve got to tell your body to be quiet.”

Dr. Z: Buffet that body, girl.

Mama Z: And I’m like, “Do you want the cinnamon roll?” And then once we would start talking about the cinnamon roll, then it would be all we’d talk about then.

“But I want that cinnamon roll.”

Dr. Z: Yeah, you probably don’t want to talk about cinnamon rolls while exercising. Might not be the best focus.

Mama Z: No, no, no. That’s what she was talking about because once you mention it—

Dr. Z: That was her motivation?

Mama Z: Yeah, once you mention it, then she can’t get it off her mind. All she’s thinking about is that cinnamon roll because it is such a special treat. And so we have the same things. But we do it in a different way. We do a crustless quiche.

Dr. Z: Yes, they’re yummy.

Mama Z: We do a breakfast casserole. And I’ve got lots of different ones that I’ve made over the years.

Dr. Z: And so many of these recipes are in our new book. And that’s another thing to celebrate because three weeks from today—or I’m sorry.

Mama Z: Yay!

Dr. Z: From tomorrow. Three weeks from tomorrow, The Essential Oils Diet is going to hit the shelves. And we already have presold thousands of copies. It’s already a bestseller, which is just humbling and such an honor and a privilege. And so thank you all.

And if you haven’t, go to EssentialOilsDiet.com. Preorder it. And more importantly, just not only preorder it. But join our Essential Oils Diet Challenge. We talked about that last week. And when you preorder the book, you get tons of free special gifts that we created. Mama Z has over four and a half, five hours of cooking demos, exercise demos, a shopping tour, plus (I think it’s the most valuable piece) a golden ticket to join our Essential Oils Diet group where we work with you and help you in a group setting. And you’ll be accountable and blessed. So if you want to learn more about that or if you want to hear about my fat pants story and just all about that fun stuff, go back to episode 12.

Mama Z: It’s nugget filled.

Dr. Z: Oh, it is.

Mama Z: 12 is nugget filled.

Dr. Z: It’s a long, nugget-filled one. But this one’s a little different because one thing I recognized—and we were talking to the YouTube/Facebook crowd before because we record these on video. And we were just chatting with them before we started this audio recording.

 

[10:18 – 13:26] The Controversy over Dr. Z’s First Book

Dr. Z: And when I wrote my first book The Healing Power of Essential Oils it dawned on me that there is a lot of confusion out there. It just didn’t dawn on me. I was smack hit in the face with it because we’ve had dozens and hundreds—literally hundreds—of emails and comments from people saying, “Well, Dr. SoAndSo says we shouldn’t do this. But you say I should. And this aromatherapist says this. But you say no.”

And I started. And I will say an element of it was a level of insecurity that I’ll be willing to admit. If you haven’t, watch last episode. I get really transparent. I’m not embarrassed about my shortcomings because we’re all being made perfect in Christ Jesus. Amen?

And so I was very insecure. And I felt at the very early stage of my career that I needed to defend myself. So I would email people back, share research. And you know what? It got to be useless, especially with controversial topics like vaccines. And we’ve had a lot of you ask us about vaccines, which we might want to do a whole episode on that in the future. I’m not going to convince other people. I’m not here to convince other people. I’m not here to argue with people.

And as much research as I could share with you about why I’m “pro-choice” on vaccines, why I don’t feel the government or the medical institution should shove them down and make them mandated, people will have other research that suggests otherwise. And so it just becomes an arguing match. And the Bible says, “Don’t even discuss or argue with a fool because it’s just not worth time. It’s like grabbing a dog by the ears.” And so if someone’s in a mindset where they’re argumentative and basically they’re just trying to win you over to their train of thought, I stopped that.

And why am I mentioning this? Because in my book, I talk about four ways to get the most out of this book. And in the new book The Essential Oils Diet, we have an abbreviated version. But here’s in a nutshell. What do you do? How do you get the most out of what I call information age and overload?

So what we’re going to do today, we’re going to define what internet renaissance is. We’re going to help you not fall into common pitfalls because when I was writing my first book and all these comments, all these questions, all these concerns, I was like, “Look. This is how you get the best out of your research. You have to limit the voices that you’re listening to. You have to keep in mind that people have differing opinions. And you can’t get yourself obsessed with what you’re trying to consider as being the absolute truth because a lot of this stuff is relative. And other than the Bible, there is no real absolute truth in this world because everything is dependent upon me and you. My biochemistry is different than you biochemistry. The way that I react to something is different than the way that you react to something.”

So I started, and it just dawned on me. “Wow! People need help because they’re confused. And the reason they’re confused is because there are too many voices that they’re listening to. And the reason there are too many voices they’re listening to is because the internet has no filter.”

 

[13:27 – 21:27] How Do You Navigate This Internet Renaissance?

So why am I saying this? Because today we’re going to help you navigate what I call the internet renaissance. We are living in this day and age that has been unprecedented since the Italian Renaissance. And I’m trying to help you be not what Mama Z calls a bull in a china shop where you are looking for information online in a very unwise but passionate way.

Mama Z: Are you saying—because we’ve called you a bull in a china shop. Are you defining yourself in that way at some times?

Dr. Z: Yes, I have a tendency to sometimes be a bull in a china shop. You can explain what that is. But here’s the bottom line, y’all.

Mama Z: One of these times, I’m just going to bring our two tablespoon measuring cup.

Dr. Z: We’ll talk about that later. Passion without wisdom isn’t good. Passion without wisdom isn’t good. And we want to show you how to survive and even thrive—Capital T, capital H, capital R-I-V-E—during this internet renaissance.

So the book of Proverbs says in chapter 19 that enthusiasm without knowledge is not good. Haste makes mistakes. So what does that mean for us today? When knowledge about virtually everything is at our fingertips, we live in a time that has been unprecedented since the Italian Renaissance. And we know the Italian Renaissance. It was the resurgence of beautiful artwork and music.

But what really was the pivotal, game-changing, history-changing event during the Italian Renaissance Era was the advent, the creation of the printing press where now everyone had access to books, versus before only the elite. And only the priests, the rabbis, the leaders would have access to the Bible. The commoner never even had a Bible. They would just listen to the Bible when they went to church or synagogue.

So around the 15th, 16th century, books started to become widespread. Knowledge started to increase. And that is what changed the world—that knowledge became available to the commoner.

Well, things just settled after a few hundred years. And people started getting a lot of knowledge. Books were being distributed. But next thing you know, 20th century hits. 1980s, 1990s, boom! 21st century. Now the internet is in virtually every household all around the world, even third world countries. And everyone has equal opportunity because even before then, books were still pricey. So the poor, the commoner couldn’t afford many books. Even though they were available, most couldn’t afford them. Virtually everyone can afford internet access. Or there is internet access to most people on the planet. And that’s evident by 2.5 billion people that use Facebook alone. So when you think about this—

Mama Z: Libraries. Other than just in their houses, there are so many places. Even at the UPS store, they have where people can rent time on their computers there.

Dr. Z: Yes, we see that. And so you go back to the 15th century, people were limited by their time. They were limited by their finances. They were limited by the amount of books that they could read. Now there is no limit, especially people in America and industrial countries—Australia, the EU, all over the world—who have phones, smartphones that have internet. You have unlimited access to unlimited information at all times.

So what are the common pitfalls to this in the context of natural living? Well, first, there’s no regulation whatsoever. Anyone can say anything. And the reason I hosted the first Essential Oils Revolution Summit, the reason I wrote my first book The Healing Power of Essential Oils was because we had so many people come up to us absolutely confused about how to use essential oils.

And I realized as I was researching because one of my clients at the time commissioned me to write a series of public health reports about essential oils. And I realized that—

Mama Z: Right? Because you just thought it was smelly stuff under my counter.

Dr. Z: I did until I—

Mama Z: Well, you experienced them in our births and stuff like that. So you saw some of the powerful ways that they were used. But I love how you were then open to learning more about it.

Dr. Z: Yes, because you’ve been using oils for 25 years, ever since you’ve been a young girl, 14-ish years old, right?

Mama Z: Yeah, something like that. 13, 14.

Dr. Z: Yeah, and they were in part of my healing story. And so as a public health researcher, I was trained to sniff out financial bias. And every—and I’m not kidding—every single—and I looked at hundreds. Every single website that I looked at had a financial bias when they were teaching about essential oils, whether they were part of a network marketing company which, by the way, bless your heart. It’s not a bad deal. You’ve got to provide for your family. And there are great opportunities out there. Or whether or not someone was an affiliate, whether they wanted just to promote a company because they wanted to get Amazon commission or commission from another company.

Every website I looked at—oh, I would say but one. But one. There was only one. Since then, that one website, that one researcher has now become an employee of one of the largest essential oil companies. And now he’s on the medical board. And so I say he sold out, jokingly.

But we’re the only ones who do what we do. We are the only people that I know of, at least with any sort of reach online, that teach how to use essential oils non brandedly.

And so when I was doing this research, when my clients were asking me to write reports on oils, I realized there’s no unbiased information out there. There’s way too much bias. And so that’s why we hosted the summit. That’s why we wrote the book. And so that’s a common fall of internet renaissance—anyone can say anything. Most of what’s out there is financially biased. And it’s hard for people to navigate the truth. Do I ingest oils? Do I not ingest oils? Do I use them on babies or pets? You’ll find the most crazy, contradictory information. And you can’t trust Google because what you see in the top three, four, five hits on Google doesn’t mean it’s the best, doesn’t mean it’s the most visited. It’s just what Google puts there because Google has an agenda.

So this is the Italian renaissance, now the 21st century version. I call it the internet renaissance. So Sabrina, what about a couple examples of friends and family who’ve gotten themselves in trouble because they’ve been misled with all this information online?

Mama Z: Oh, I know. There are so many times I get, “Well, hey. I saw this on Pinterest.” And these flu bombs and these other things. And then they’ll be like, “Do you really want to take in this much essential oils?”

And I’m like, “Let me see what you’re looking at.”

Dr. Z: Nope. Nope.

Mama Z: And then they give me the recipe. And I’m like, “Oh no.” What about you burning your face because you had gone on and found that—and I’ll never forget that. I remember it smelling like burnt pizza sauce. And I rolled over in the bed. And I’m like, “This won’t last long.”

Dr. Z: Because I developed a pimple. And I went to Dr. Google. And Dr. Google told me—because I looked up natural remedies for pimples. And the first three or four articles I read said put straight oregano on your skin, on your pimple. And that was before I had any training in aromatherapy, before I was even a professional researcher. And I burned my face badly.

Mama Z: So many people will text me, Facebook me, call me, and ask me, well, what’s my opinion. “This is what I found.” And there was just so much bad information out there.

I attended my first summit, the Grow Your Own Food Summit. I was like, “We’ve got to do this with essential oils,” because even at that time we were teaching classes together and doing things regarding essential oils by that time. And people just did not know. And I think it’s important if you’re going to use these plant-based compounds that you know what to do with them and use them in a healthy and safe way.

 

[21:28 – 27:37] Fad Diets and Misinformation on the Internet

Dr. Z: And so one of the biggest and most profound ways that we have found our friends and family, especially our natural living family online that have gotten themselves in trouble with this internet renaissance, are these fad diets.

And so I’m not here to pick a fight because I know people are militant and defensive of their diet as they are of the favorite essential oils that they use. So we’re not here to argue which company is the best. I’m not here to argue which diet is the best because people are like, “Well, this diet saved my life. This oil saved my life.” And so they’ll argue and fight tooth and nail.

But because of media, because of marketing, and because someone might be famous or they have a big reach—couple million people following them on Facebook—or whatever, it’s like their voice becomes gospel. And if you look up the trend of where we’re at with fad diets, one that hits us really home and one of the reasons why we wrote The Essential Oils Diet was to clear up this confusion about carbs, fats, proteins, macro/micronutrients, and everything in between because we don’t count calories. We don’t count carbs. We don’t live by numbers. We look at nutrition labels to find out whether or not we’re eating whole food ingredients.

Mama Z: Yes, we’re looking at the ingredients, not the fats, the carbs, the proteins and all of that.

Dr. Z: And so we don’t want to debate keto, paleo, whatever O it is that you’re following. That’s in the book. We’ll save that for the book and maybe a future episode because you’ll find a trend.

And I’m inviting you to do something here, though. I’m inviting you to get outside of this—what is it? Face first in the grass viewpoint that we have as worms in a sense and get up there like a bird. You ever hear of this phrase “20, 30,000-foot view”? Get up there as high as you can. Soar like an eagle like Isaiah talks about. We don’t have strength. Renew like the eagle. I love the eagle, by the way. So much symbolism. So much strength and power. Soar like an eagle as high as you can to look down on what you’re doing with your life. And it’s really hard because when we have our nose in the dirt like a worm—and I’m not calling us worms. But think of the analogy. Do you want to be an eagle or a worm? I’d rather be an eagle.

So if your nose is in the dirt and if you’re only focusing on what’s first in front of you, the next meal, how much you weigh, how much whatever it is, how your clothes are fitting today, and if you don’t take a bird’s eye view, you’re going to completely miss the forest for the trees.

And so what I want you to do is look with me. Look what’s happened to the

diet craze. Why, for example, is the ketogenic diet being recommended by all these “natural health” doctors and mommy bloggers on the planet now? Why is it the new biggest thing? What happened? Why did it used to be paleo? And why five, 10, 15 years ago was it all about Atkins? Why do these diets completely take over the internet by storm?

Why do so many people follow a trend? And that’s a question I have because all it takes is a couple thought leaders. And I know it. In the functional medicine world, there are a few very prominent thought leaders that all the other doctors just follow. All the other bloggers just follow.

We know people right now who are known as “ketogenic diet experts.” And they weren’t preaching keto five years ago. They weren’t talking about meat or carbs or any fat 10 years ago. It’s like an opportunity. And some people it flat out has to do with money. And the number one most searched health term last I checked on Google was ketogenic diet. And that’s a big thing. So it doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for you.

Again, I’m not going to judge or judge not. But what I’m trying to paint the picture of, this is what happened in the Italian Renaissance. So when someone types up “lose weight,” “cancer,” “diabetes,” “autoimmunity,” when someone says, “What should I eat?” And you start getting inundated with all these blog posts and you see a trend, it’s like, “Well, God must be guiding me to go get on keto.” Or, “God must be guiding me to go vegan.” So it can get really, really confusing.

And so that’s one of the reasons we wrote The Essential Oils Diet, to help bring us back not only to nature, but bring us back to what God really says about food. And we need to go back to what would Jesus do, y’all. Whatever happened to that phrase? I love that. How would our Lord and Savior live? What would he have eaten? There’s a great book. Good mindset. What would Jesus eat?

So when it comes to how to survive and thrive during the internet renaissance, first, my recommendation is limit the voices you listen to. And Google searching will get you in trouble. When you’re looking with a very innocent mindset at a topic that you’re not sure about, if you just randomly Google something, you’re going to find everything under the sun. And chances are, you’re going to leave that experience more confused than when you started.

So our recommendation is to limit the voices you listen to. And I know what the Bible says. The Bible says, “In a multitude of counselors, there is victory and safety.” But what does that really mean? It doesn’t mean you ask every Tom, Dick, and Harry, every person on your block how you should raise your kids. No, you have a few, multiple counselors; a few trusted people that you submit yourself to, that you allow to speak into your life.

So what does that look like in the internet renaissance? My recommendation is to find two or three websites, two or three doctors, two or three bloggers that you trust. Just two or three. Two or three people that you can submit yourself to and learn. That’s what I did. And I’m practicing what I’m preaching here, y’all.

Mama Z: Absolutely.

 

[27:38 – 33:19] The Keys to Navigating the Truth

Dr. Z: Sixteen years ago when I met Christ, I had a Bible in one hand. And the other hand, at the time, I had a mouse, an old PC.

Mama Z: And you had a flip phone.

Dr. Z: That was actually before—actually, yeah. And I had a flip phone. And I was reading everything I could about health. And the only person I had at the time that I trusted was Dr. Joseph Mercola. And I let Joe Mercola, Dr. Mercola—since then I’ve actually had the privilege of meeting him a couple times. And I’ve told him this. He mentored me. And he never met me in his life. I got his emails. I read his newsletter. Everything Joe came out with, I was like, “Man, this is great! Manna from heaven about health!”

I trusted him. Why? Because I looked at his credentials. Why? I read his stuff. Why? It resonated with me. And it was good. And I followed recommendations. And I felt better. I looked better. And again, I saw him as my mentor.

So instead of Googling “best essential oils for fungal infections” and then getting 15 different websites or 15 different opinions from 15 different people, most of whom aren’t qualified, by the way, to even give recommendations on health. Find a few people whom you trust. And then go to them.

And one thing we’ve been blessed with is we have lots of people who have trusted us over the years. And I’m talking hundreds of thousands. We’ve had more than half a million people sign up for our various newsletters in the last three, four years alone. And that’s a lot of people who trust us to teach them. How many people subscribe to this podcast? It’s such a blessing.

Mama Z: And I think one of the things is, though, that we are really consistent. And it comes from the same place. And we don’t change what we’re preaching. We’re saying the same things over the number of years that we’ve been doing this, whether it was quietly and helping our friends and family or reaching out and helping so many others. And so that consistency is an important thing when you’re choosing the people who speak into your life.

Dr. Z: And we need to remember what the Bible says, too. A lot of wisdom in the Word of God. In I Thessalonians chapter 5 is, “Seek after the Lord. Seek truth and hold fast to what’s good. Test all things.” “Test all things and hold fast to that which is good.”

So just because, let’s say, I say something—and yes, I’m educated. I’m a smart guy. Got some experience behind me. Just because I say something doesn’t mean it’s right. Just because your favorite mommy blogger or DrSoAndSo.com says something doesn’t meant that it’s right, y’all. So what we have to do is we need to do our due diligence.

So my recommendation—limit whom you listen to to two or three people, two or three websites. And then once you get to a point where you feel like you’ve learned enough—there was a point where I was like, “Okay. I’ve been under Dr. Mercola’s mentorship for a couple years. I’m ready to branch out.” And then I submitted myself to other people. And I learned. And now at this point I have become the teacher. The student becomes the teacher. It’s a really fun transition where now we pour ourselves into research, pour ourselves into helping people. And then we share our results with the world.

Mama Z: I would say we’re the biggest guinea pigs.

Dr. Z: We are the biggest guinea pigs.

Mama Z: And people ask me about this or that or this crazy thing or that crazy thing. And I’ll do research on it for a while. And then if I feel like it might be beneficial, then I’ll try it out for a little while. And then I’ll tell people about it and that kind of thing because people are inundated with things all the time. And so we don’t just jump on the next bus. It takes us a while to really do our research and check things out and then let you guys know what we’re looking at.

Dr. Z: And I don’t want this to come across as a sales pitch to follow us or subscribe to our podcast or join our newsletter or buy the book. No, this will change your life because there’s too much out there. There’s too much confusion. And it’s just simple. It’s just simple. Like God says, you cannot serve more than two masters. You can’t serve money. And you can’t serve multiple conflicting masters. You can’t serve God and money. So you can’t serve five different doctors because here’s the thing. And this is why it’s really important because you have multiple people, and they say multiple conflicting things. How do you navigate that?

So the rule of thumb is you limit your voices to two or three. And then you pray. And you ask God to guide you. So then what do you do? You focus on the low-hanging fruit. So you don’t do a complete lifestyle change and then throw everything out and do what I did. And it caused me a bunch of marital problems and go crazy because I’m such an extremist. I’ve learned more balance. You do things in piecemeal, and you focus on the low-hanging fruit.

And a key when it comes to navigating this internet renaissance is doing things that you know how you could do them in a very affordable, practical way. And you add piece on piece by piece by piece. Like the Bible says, “Line upon line, precept upon precept.” You don’t just dive right into the most complicated, advanced thing. You start slow.

And that’s another thing. People bite off more than what they can chew, myself included. I’ll never forget. I went from eating junk regular food to raw vegan overnight. I thought I was going to die. My body was not ready for that. I needed to ease myself into raw vegan food, and then I’m not raw vegan anymore. I’ve found my own little balance.

 

[33:19 – 34:40] Mama Z’s Real-World Experience with Navigating Multiple Voices

Mama Z: Right. Well, and even on a training end of things, I limit the voices that I have, even when I’m in training mode for the pageants because people are all going to have different opinions on different things. And they’re going to clash. So even on a practical end, not just about some of the most important things like your health, but that’s why it’s really important to have each person have the spot that speaks into your life.

I remember at one point in one of my training years I had a lot more people speaking into my life. And then here I am, trying to live up to this person’s standard and this person’s standard and this person’s standard. And those standards are all different. And I want to please the people that I am entrusting myself to. And it’s really important to make sure that you limit those voices.

Dr. Z: And we’re talking to podcast people here. And I forget what it was. Our podcast publicist, Dale. And I think he said on average the pod—it’s either you listen to zero or seven or eight. It’s like it’s all or nothing in podcast world. And so the average number of podcasts people listen to, if they are podcast people, is six, seven, or eight. Well, my recommendation is not to listen to six different health podcasts. That’s going to make you go nuts.

 

[34:41 – 39:41] Empowered to Start Right Where You Are

And here’s the other thing. And this goes back to when I first started in marketing and sales. A man whom I knew who was mentoring me in marketing/sales was a Xerox employee. And these Xerox people, man, they were intense. He said part of his training—and I’m not condoning it. But it’s an unbelievable story. Part of his training—literally a young man training—was to go to a bar and ask random women if they would go home with him and sleep with him.

Mama Z: What?

Dr. Z: Yes, to overcome the fear of rejection. That was part of his job.

Mama Z: That is ridiculous.

Dr. Z: This was back in the 80s when stuff was different. So he would go. Isn’t that crazy? I’ll never forget this. And he said, “That was the best experience.” And of course, being an ungodly guy I guess he got “lucky” a couple times. I’m not condoning that. But what I’m saying here—

Mama Z: That is horrible!

Dr. Z: You know why they did that? Because they were door-to-door salesmen of a machine that no one had ever heard of. And they were going to get 99 no’s for that one yes. And so they’re like, “Get it out of the way. And if you can’t ask a pretty girl to sleep with you then you won’t be able to do this job.” I’m not kidding. And that’s how he trained me. I didn’t do that.

Mama Z: Thank God!

Dr. Z: I didn’t do that.

Mama Z: Or else we probably wouldn’t be sitting here.

Dr. Z: But you know what he taught me? You know what he taught me, though? He goes, “Here’s how I did it.” He goes, “Paralysis by analysis. Ignorance on fire.” He goes, “The more ignorant I was,” and of course for him, it all had to do with a couple drinks and going up a woman, not knowing, not thinking about it, just seeing someone and going right there, just like going to a door and knocking on it and not even overanalyzing it. He goes, “You need to use ignorance on fire because the less you know, the less knowledge, the less you allow yourself to think your way out of it, the more on fire you’ll be.”

And I’ll say, that stuck with me now 20 years because “ignorance on fire” or “knowledge on ice.” What happens? Too much information. And how many people? And you know this is true. How many people we know, friends and family, natural living brothers and sisters that don’t do anything because they’re freaked out. They’re like, “I don’t know what to do.”

Mama Z: Yeah. “I don’t know where to start.”

Dr. Z: “I don’t know where to start.”

Mama Z: “I was going to wait till you said which thing to do because I know all this stuff all these other people say and stuff, but I know at least you’ll tell me the truth.”

Dr. Z: Paralysis by analysis. And there are many, especially in the essential oil world. Y’all, here’s the truth. Teaching about essential oils isn’t our life mission. This is not why we’re here on God’s green, beautiful earth.

Mama Z: They were always a tool in our path that we’ve used.

Dr. Z: That’s why this podcast isn’t the Essential Oils Revolution podcast which, by the way, our friend Samantha Wright has that name. But two, that was the title of our first—

Mama Z: We’ll be on her podcast.

Dr. Z: By the way, nice, little plug for Samantha. That was our first summit. It’s why it’s not The Healing Power of Essential Oils podcast or The Essential Oils Diet podcast.

Mama Z: But we intermix everything.

Dr. Z: Yes, it’s part of it.

Mama Z: Because it all works together as part of our lifestyle and what we do and what we teach people to do so they can achieve success and have balance.

Dr. Z: But the reason I’m so grateful that God put me on this essential oil journey, even in spite of Sabrina being on this journey for many, many years was because I’ve seen a lot of confusion. I’ve seen a lot of well-intentioned people just frozen. And they don’t know what to do. And I’ve had to work through this with them. Again, how do you navigate and thrive, not just survive? How do you thrive during the internet renaissance? It’s countless.

Whenever I do book signings, the emails, the Facebook comments we get, the comments we get from this podcast—so many moms are paralyzed about using oils around their kids. So many pet owners are paralyzed about using oils around their pets. Why? Because Ernie the Cat had some kind of crazy eucalyptus reaction last year. And it went stupid, crazy viral on Facebook. Now, everyone is freaked out about oils and pets. Yeah, and so it doesn’t work like that.

And so the reality is, paralysis by analysis. And you don’t want that. And so we want to be educated. We know that wisdom and knowledge are truly power. And, “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” I get that.

Mama Z: Well, and the fact that they didn’t mention the other factors along with that very old cat and all of that other stuff. And especially talking with some of our friends, the Essential Oil Vet, Janet Roark and also our good friend Marlene Siegel, the Holistic Vet, just all the different things that they utilize essential oils within their practices safely for so many animals. And they get such a rich benefit.

So all those voices, you’ve just got to go where you feel that safety and that you feel that balance.

Dr. Z: And that’s what I did. I found a mentor, Sylla Sheppard-Hanger, from the Atlantic Institute of Aromatherapy. And I submitted myself under her work. And she’s been a great mentor to me. I took her online correspondence course for my aromatherapy education. And I will say. I couldn’t have done that if I would’ve gone to two or three schools.

 

[39:41 – 42:45] Master Technology…Or It Will Master You

And that’s the other thing. Again, I don’t want to belabor the point because we have a really cool transition for the second half of the show about technology because you have to really conquer technology to really master the internet renaissance. Or technology will ruin you. Again, it’s just too much.

But most people can’t—and it’s not even allowed—to dual enroll in multiple universities, for example. It’s just hard. How do you go to two different schools and learn two different ways of thought on the same exact topic? You’ve got to choose one.

So with that said, a lot of this is prayer based. Fast and pray. Seek out to God, especially if there’s something that you’re trying to treat, especially if there’s something you’re trying to change. And just know God will guide you.

And in our opinion, the missing piece—or my opinion. I don’t know. Somewhat of a disagreement with me and Mama Z on this. We talk about this in the art of self-love, about technology. But I’m believing I’m going to win her over. Just like you wouldn’t really dive deep into the whole Wallflower thing, remember? I did my research. And I found out that Wallflowers and PlugIns were like poison. And I threw them all away. And you were like, “What?”

And I was like, “No, you’ve got to trust me.” And now you’re all about it. Sometimes, I’m a little extreme but a step ahead. I will say. I’m ahead on this one.

Mama Z: You’re not ahead. I sleep with my phone on airplane mode every night.

Dr. Z: Good job, baby. I’m ahead on this one because if it were up to me, I would shut off the router every night. And I would do all the things.

Mama Z: The only reason we can’t though is because some of our systems that are hooked up to that—

Dr. Z: I’m telling you.

Mama Z: I know.

Dr. Z: I’m a little extreme. I would do it.

Mama Z: Hey, that’s why I’m researching on some of the systems that they have.

Dr. Z: I’m searching for wifi blockers. I’m searching for EMF blockers. So how do you thrive during the internet renaissance is you have to conquer technology. You need to make tech Sabbaths a part of your life.

Mama Z: That’s why we do dark dates.

Dr. Z: We do, thanks to me.

Mama Z: No, I started it first because—

Dr. Z: Oh no. Nope. Nope.

Mama Z: You were married to your phone.

Dr. Z: Chris is my witness. Chris is my witness.

Mama Z: No, no, no, no, no.

Dr. Z: I’m the one—

Mama Z: It was long before that.

Dr. Z: Chris is right here.

Mama Z: It was before.

Dr. Z: He’s my witness.

Mama Z: Listen, mister.

Dr. Z: I’m the one who says, “Put down your phone.”

Mama Z: You might say that now. I’m the one who started it first—

Dr. Z: I don’t believe it.

Mama Z: Because we would go into the movies. And you would be on your phone.

Dr. Z: I don’t believe it.

Mama Z: Oh my goodness!

Dr. Z: If I was working, I was working to provide for the family.

Mama Z: No, no, no.

Dr. Z: That whole workaholic discussion we had last time.

Mama Z: Okay. But I’m telling you that I told you, “Enough is enough,” and that when we go on dates, it’s dark time.

Dr. Z: I seem to remember that I was the one saying, “Enough is enough.”

Mama Z: No, no.

Dr. Z: All right. We’ll let God answer that at the pearly gates because at this point our memories are a little bit skewed.

Mama Z: Well, we know that I’m the one with the good memory, not you.

Dr. Z: All right. I love you. Making tech Sabbaths a part of your life. And be sure to tune into the very end of this show because we’re going to give you a natural living tip to help you learn how to do this. But before we cover how to conquer technology, a quick word about our sponsor.

 

[42:46 – 43:48] Sponsor Spotlight: Air Doctor

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[43:49 – 54:43] How to Conquer Technology

Dr. Z: All right. How to conquer technology. From a recent New York Times article titled “Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain” by Kevin Roose. The average American picks up their phone 50 times a day spends nearly three hours on their device. Kevin says, “For the rest of the week, I became acutely aware of the bizarre phone habits I had developed.” And this was after he was doing a fast. We’ll explain this in just a minute.

“I noticed that I reached for my phone every time I brush my teeth or step outside the front door of my apartment building and that, for some pathological reason,” he says, “I always check my email during that three second window between when I inserted my credit card into a chip reader at the store and when the card is accepted. Mostly I became aware of how profoundly uncomfortable I was with silence. For years I’ve used my phone every time I had a spare moment in an elevator or a boring meeting. I listen to podcasts and write emails on the subway. I watched YouTube videos while folding laundry. I even used an app to pretend to meditate.”

Can you relate? Let’s talk a little bit about technology because the difference between the Italian Renaissance and the internet renaissance is we have this glowing screen of never-ending knowledge, whether in the palm of our hand with a phone, a laptop, a computer, whatever kind of device you might have. What are your thoughts?

Mama Z: Well, you notice it all the time. And that’s why there are so many people who are developing tech’s neck—I think that’s what they officially are calling it now—from being bent over. And if it wasn’t an issue, then people wouldn’t be doing it. So obviously, as my dad always says, “The proof is in the pudding.”

And so I think that’s pretty clear. When I drive the kids to school and you see all these kids who are waiting for the bus. And they’re on their phones. Or they’re walking on their phones. And their head is down. And they’re doing all that stuff. So obviously, people are spending a good bit of time doing that.

Dr. Z: This is unique to the internet renaissance. And again, what are the concerns about the internet renaissance? Mass information, conflicting information, false information. And I’m not getting political here. This is not about false news. This is about straight up uncensored information that anyone can see in the natural living space that gets seriously dangerous when you’re following someone’s unqualified advice to try to treat a disease or help prevent something because you’re helpless, you’re hopeless, and you’re sick. And you’re just desperate. I get that! I was the same way.

Digital wellness is a budding industry these days with loads of self-help gurus offering “miracle cures” for screen addiction. And some of those solutions involve new devices such as—and this is all Kevin from Kevin’s article on the New York Times—such as a “‘Light Phone,’ a device with an extremely limited feature set that is meant to wean users off time-sucking apps.” How much time are you on your phone? What do you do?

And I will say, myself included. I’ve been guilty of all this stuff. I was the last person in my peer group to get a phone first, a flip phone. I was the last person in my peer group to get on Facebook. I was the last person in my peer group to get an iPhone.

Mama Z: And I got my iPhone even two years after that.

Dr. Z: You did. And the reason why—or smartphone if you’re a Google whatever user. The reason I even got on Facebook, the reason I even got an iPhone/smartphone was because of my business.

Mama Z: Right. And really at that time, they were transitioning people. When I finally got there, they were going to make it more expensive to buy the older phones just because it was going to cost them more to operate them, so they said. So they pushed you into that iPhone, the technology phone route.

Dr. Z: Truth be told, I spend about 75% of my time working on my phone. And that’s become dangerous for me because what’s work? What’s pleasure? What’s not? Notifications. “Hey, I’m on my phone anyway, and I caught myself. Well, I’m doing work on Facebook because I have to post for my Dr. Eric Z page. Well, I may as well check my personal page.” And it just becomes all obsessive, all inclusive.

Mama Z: Yeah, and when you decided to go cold turkey and turn off all of your notices and notifications.

Dr. Z: Yeah, best thing I ever did.

Mama Z: Until I couldn’t get a hold of him.

Dr. Z: We’ll talk about that in a minute.

Mama Z: Oh man.

Dr. Z: That’s important. So anyway. That’s a good tip. You can actually buy $300 digital detox packages at luxury hotels or join a “digital Sabbath movement” whose adherents vow to spend one day a week using no technology at all.

Folks, here’s the truth. This is a fact. This is becoming an epidemic. It’s a huge issue. And most people don’t even realize it. How do you realize it? Withdrawals. How many times do you pick up your phone? And the really cool thing—I should’ve had it. I totally forget what it’s called. Your Apple phone, your iPhone now has a new setting where you could see your screen time. I actually think it’s called screen time. Good. It’s called screen time.

Mama Z: Yeah, it’ll say, “Your screen time was down from last week.”

Dr. Z: And it shows you many times you pick up your phone. You’ll see how compulsive you are. I found myself during any break in action, whatever it is. And I’ll confess. I found myself even while driving being compulsive.

Mama Z: Oh yeah. I would be in the car. And I’m like, “Listen. You don’t need to kill us today. Please get off your phone.” And then I would start repeating.

And he’s like, “Well, I’ve got to work here. Do you want to drive?”

And I’m like, “Well, no. I don’t want to drive. But I don’t want you to kill us. So let’s work on not picking up the phone.”

Dr. Z: It’s not good. And out of everyone in the world, I will be very open to tell you, I have a very addictive type of personality. As extreme as I am about Jesus Christ and health and wellness, I was that extreme about drugs and alcohol and pornography and all the bad things I was doing. I’m just an extreme person. I think God gave me that as a gift. But the Devil can misuse that. And the Devil can convince me to use my extreme nature in bad ways. So I have to find myself because I’m very compulsive.

Mama Z: Balance, balance, balance.

Dr. Z: I know. That’s why I’m grateful I married you.

Mama Z: And that’s why when I call, if I say, “If I call, you need to pick up.”

Dr. Z: I do my best.

Mama Z: And you need to know that I had a notification that I called. And if it’s not a good time, then that means you call me back as soon as you get that.

Dr. Z: Yes, I’m going to talk about notifications in a minute because if you haven’t—we talked about this a little bit. And I don’t want to cover everything we covered in, what was it? Episode seven, I think, or eight of the self-love series that we talked about in the Natural Living Family podcast. But we talked about loving yourself and giving yourself a technology break.

And Simon Sinek, one of the most popular TED talks in history, he talked about the addictive nature and the dopamine addiction response being triggered by notifications. I’m telling y’all. Your phone, Facebook, tweets. They know what they’re doing. They’re tapping into our neurological, not only neurology (our hardwiring), but they’re tapping into our psychology. We become addicted to notifications.

So here are some thoughts. How do you survive, thrive during the internet renaissance? How do you stop the influx of stimulation, this influx of knowledge?

First, think about deleting—and this is extreme. If you’re addicted to your phone—how about this? If you don’t know if you’re addicted to your phone, try going without your phone for a few hours. Try going without your phone for a day. Of course, it has to be within the context of safety. You want to be careful. You want to make sure your family is there. It’s a great time to do it on a Sabbath, like a Saturday or a Sunday, depending on what day you celebrate the Sabbath. When all your family is there and you know you don’t have any emergencies that you need to take care of, put your phone away.

How do you respond? Do you feel compulsive, like you have to go to your phone every five, 10 minutes? Maybe go a couple hours. Try going “dark” for a little bit. If you find yourself thinking, itching, jonesing we called it when I used to do drugs. You’re jonesing for that joint. You’re jonesing for a drug. It’s called jonesing.

Mama Z: I’ve never even.

Dr. Z: I know.

Mama Z: I’m so not in that.

Dr. Z: Hey, a lot of people deal with that kind of stuff. It’s withdrawals. It’s horrible. You fill this itch, this craving.

Consider this. Consider cutting the cord. And in that article by Kevin Roose from the New York Times, he talks about what he did. He deleted all his social media, all his games, and all of his news apps from his phone completely. So what did he do? He forced himself to go to the desktop which is much more inconvenient. And you’re much less likely to spend 10 hours a day on Facebook or Twitter or playing games if you have to be sitting in front of your computer. So he limited his social media to desktop computer time, which I thought was brilliant.

He also did what I did because I was so inspired by Simon Sinek’s TED talk. He disabled push notifications for everything, like Mama Z said, except for calls and messages from family and friends.

Mama Z: Good thing he at least got that right off the bat.

Dr. Z: He’s a smart guy because this is what he does.

Mama Z: It’s really funny because my dad, because he had to be tethered to his job, he loved that part of it. When he retired, he was like—

Dr. Z: Did he have a pager?

Mama Z: Maybe when he traveled. They always were in constant communication and all that. So he says, “Yep, I don’t want anyone to find me.”

Dr. Z: Anonymity.

Mama Z: Anonymity, baby! And so funny because we always joke. And we say, “Oh, don’t worry, Dad. We’ll tag you.”

And then he’ll go, “I’ll retweet the tweet.”

Dr. Z: How about the Bluetooth? What did he call it?

Mama Z: Oh yeah. He’s like, “Are you wearing a blue thong?”

And I was like, “That’s kind of a personal question. That’s kind of weird.”

And then he’s like, “The blue thong.” And he goes, “The thing on your ear.”

And I go, “That’s Bluetooth!” It was so funny. We laughed so hard, and still to this day. So we just joke around. But the funny thing was he didn’t have a phone. But when we drive with them to Minnesota when I was pregnant—

Dr. Z: Flat tire.

Mama Z: Yeah, we had a flat tire. But he was the first person to ask if he could use my phone.

Dr. Z: Yeah, it was for emergency.

Mama Z: Yeah, and so then we bought my mom a phone. So now we have the phone for them.

 

[54:44 – 1:00:01] Break up with Your Phone!

Dr. Z: So how do you stop the onslaught of information? Here’s the other thing. It’s news. It’s notifications. It’s tips. It’s likes. It’s tweets. It’s hearts. It’s just flush influx of info constantly coming to us. It’s overload. Disable your push notifications. Super easy to do. Once I did that, it literally changed my life. It was life changing for me.

Again, being someone who spends 75% of his time working on his phone because I’m about and about. I do my work while I’m walking. I’m doing my work while doing other things. It was so important because when I go to my phone, I don’t see a bunch of different numbers saying I have 15 emails, 25 tweets. I see none of that. I actually have to go to the app itself to get the notifications. And even then I can turn them off. The only notifications I get are if I got a text message from family or a friend or a phone call.

Studies have shown that people who don’t charge their phones in their bedrooms are significantly happier than those who do. So consider charging your phone in your bathroom, your kitchen, in a closet. For Kevin, because he was so addicted to his phone, he tells us in his article that Kevin put his phone in a safe that he charged it. Lock and key. It was that bad for him.

Take up a hobby. And this is something I thought was really ingenious. Take up a hobby that requires you to work with your hands to replace the phone addiction. And as a chiropractor, I’m telling you. One of the first things I realize, not only like Sabrina mentioned her cell phone, her text neck it’s called, was my thumbs getting out of joint and being very sore because I’m spending my time in a very unnatural way. God didn’t design us to be holding this little phone with our thumbs. No, no. We’re not supposed to be doing that. You might find yourselves with sore joints in your hands. It’s a physical addiction.

It’s like smoking. One thing that we have in our book The Essential Oils Diet is a recipe for quit sticks. Q-U-I-T, quit sticks. For people who are trying to quit smoking, there’s an oral fixation. And you need something in your mouth. So what do you do? You get a toothpick. You soak it with some black pepper oil, some peppermint, some olive oil. Let that soak in. and you get that oral fixation by having a toothpick in your mouth. But you also get those nice craving-curbing essential oils to help.

So same thing with the phone. You might have a physical fixation. So what can you do? Sew, crochet, pick up pottery, even paint.

Mama Z: And I love jewelry, making jewelry and beading. Gardening is also a great way not only to do something with your hands but earthing is another important thing, just getting connected with the ground. I love that. But it’s also healthy. And you’re doing things for your body. You’re out there. When I’m outside, I’ve got my wheelbarrow. And I’m mixing up soil and doing all kinds of different things with the different plants and all that kind of stuff. And so that is another great outlet. So if that’s something that you’ve always wanted to do with your hands, then I strongly suggest you do it.

Dr. Z: Yep, and make sure the phone is not with you when you’re doing it. If you want more tips on how to garden, check out Mama Z’s free mini master class. You can go to OrganicGardeningClass.com. And she’ll show you a lot. It’s a ton. Regardless of the space that you have, whether or not you have a yard, you live in an apartment, she is a guru with two green thumbs. Because I have not-green-thumbs. She’s teaching me.

For some more tips on how to “break up with your phone,” you could pick up a 30-day guide to eliminating bad phone habits and pick up Catherine Price’s book. She’s a science journalist. And her program focuses on the root causes of phone addiction. That includes emotional triggers that cause you to reach to your phone in the first place.

And that’s one thing, folks, I’ve realized. Social media and the cell phone have replaced human interaction. And instead of going to a friend, a mentor; instead of going to God Almighty himself, we’re finding ourselves going to a phone for comfort, for stimulation, and for more information.

Mama Z: Well, even the fact that when you’re in different environments, even going to the mall or other places, you’ll see two teenagers sitting side by side. And they’re laughing and texting each other. But they’re side by side. And they’re not talking. And it’s so interesting.

And so I didn’t realize that until I trained a young girl. And she was almost talking in text talk to me, broken up things like I would understand where she was coming from and all that. And I realized she was almost talking to me in shorthand instead of longhand. And we’re used to longhand conversations and all of that stuff. And so it’s something that you have to really work with your kids on so that they are able to connect with real people because they are going to have to connect with real people every day. And it takes a real skill. And it actually takes a focused attitude to really focus on that and not to text talk or to shorthand talk to people because it’s not a way of connecting.

Dr. Z: There’s a term for that. It’s called phubbing.

 

[1:00:02 – 1:01:49] Natural Living Tip: Are You Phubbing?

Mama Z: And to wrap up today’s show, we have a special natural living tip for you.

Dr. Z: Do you find yourself not giving complete attention to your spouse or children or friends while on the phone? Maybe you nod and mumble like you’re paying attention while checking your inbox or tapping out a couple tweets. But are you really present in the moment? I’ll confess. I have been guilty of this. And I’ve asked Sabrina, Mama Z, for her forgiveness because I felt that was wrong.

Psychologists call this phubbing, P-H-U-B-B-I-N-G, or snubbing a person in favor of your phone. And studies have shown that excessive phubbing decreases relationship satisfaction and contributes to feelings of depression and alienation.

So if you’re like me and if you’re working on your phone as a technological necessity, now is the time to get a grip. Try fasting from your phone one day a week. Give yourself a tech Sabbath. I hope it’s on a Saturday or a Sunday when you go to Sabbath or church with a friend, with your family. And have that be a time when you surround yourself with the closest people in your life. You don’t have to worry about emergencies. And keep your phone away from you. And enjoy what it’s like being tech free.

Mama Z: And don’t forget. As a special gift to our Natural Living Family podcast listeners, Air Doctor is giving you $300 off their portable air purification system so that you and your family can enjoy pure, clean air in your home all day long.

Dr. Z: Simply go to NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com to find this special link so you can redeem this deal on the show notes from today’s episode.

 

[1:01:50 – end] Episode WrapUp

Well, folks. Thank you for listening, for tuning in. We hope you’ve enjoyed the show. And as a reminder, you can find all of the Natural Living Family podcast episodes, show notes, and transcripts on NaturalLivingFamilyPodcast.com. While on our website, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter which includes a personal invite to join our private Facebook group. And you can connect with me and Mama Z one on one and meet thousands of other natural living lovers just like you.

And don’t forget, please subscribe to our podcast and leave a review. We love hearing what you have to say about the show.

Well, as always, this is Dr. Z.

Mama Z: And Mama Z.

Dr. Z: And our hope and prayer is that you and your family truly experience the abundant life. God bless! Bye-bye

Mama Z: Bye-bye!