How to Thrive in Survival Mode – Podcast Episode 21

Natural Living Family Podcast, Episode 21 Transcript
Thriving in Survival Mode

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 – 0:59] Prelude

Dr. Z: Here’s something that I kind of learned how to do. And I must say, I got really good at this. I really do. Out of the all things I’m good at, I’m good at seizing the moment. I am an opportunist. I learned. I’m the guy you see on the side of the road taking a break. And how many times have you seen me walking up and down with my shirt off, trying to get vitamin D? It was a beautiful day.

Mama Z: Oh my gosh, it was so funny. I was driving somewhere, and I was, “What kind of guy is out there with no shirt on?” And it was not even hot.

Dr. Z: I’m getting my vitamin D, y’all.

Mama Z: And then as I approached, I’m like, “That kind of looks like Eric.” And I’m like, “It is Eric!”

Dr. Z: I can’t tell you how many times I would take off my shirt and get some vitamin D, go to a park, and read. Like I would have my notes. I would just study. I would walk and I would study like Ichabod Crane from that old Disney cartoon. But you know what? I was also that guy who stopped to smell the roses.

 

[1:00 – 1:38] Introducing How to Thrive in Survival Mode

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

Mama Z: And this is Mama Z. And welcome to episode 21 of our Natural Living Family podcast.

Dr. Z: Each week we invite you to our home to talk about how you can master the art and science of natural living. And we share the 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. And you’re going to love today’s episode.

Dr. Z: But before we dive into all the fun today, we’re excited to share a special note about today’s sponsor.

 

[1:39 – 2:00] Sponsor Spotlight: Thrive Market

Mama Z: As a special gift to our Natural Living Family podcast listeners, Thrive Market is giving you twenty-five percent off your first order.

Dr. Z: Plus a free thirty-day trial. Simply go to NaturalLivingFamilypodcast.com to find the special link so you can redeem this deal on the show notes from today’s episode.

 

[2:01 – 5:10] Diffuser Reveal: Salsa Blend!

Dr. Z: Well, hey there everyone! Welcome to the show, episode 21 of the Natural Living Family podcast. We are talking about how to thrive in survival mode. Let me just say that again. You’ve got to let that sink in. How to thrive in survival mode. It kind of seems paradoxical, doesn’t it?

Mama Z: And you don’t want to be a master at this, but we did have to become masters of this. So, make it your habit not to be a master of this, or not to stay there very long.

Dr. Z: Yes, because sometimes survival mode can be a long season of life. And we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about what is survival mode? What does that look like for you? What did that look like for us? And how practically speaking you can thrive.

And I’m telling you, like this is easy. And if I knew how easy it was, which I do now, it would have changed my life. I would have made my “survival mode” so much better. Then I wouldn’t have had to be in a survival mode, because there’s a shift. I don’t want to talk too much, because I don’t want to give you all of it.

Mama Z: Don’t give them all of it.

Dr. Z: There’s a shift. You go from surviving to thriving in the midst of the same chaos.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Chaos doesn’t change.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: But guess what? You do.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: Oh, that’s what this is about, y’all.

Mama Z: And wait until you hear some of our stories. You are not even going to believe some of the things that happened while in survival mode.

Dr. Z: Yea, I don’t even know what you’re going to say. So, I know what I’m going to say.

Mama Z: Oh, yes.

Dr. Z: So, first of all, what is in our little salsa diffuser here?

Mama Z: Yes, this is salsa, you know. And maybe it’s too full. It’s like salsa dancing, because we are thriving.

Dr. Z: I’m big on this blend.

Mama Z: No matter how crazy it is. Or it actually smells like salsa. But it’s very uplifting and very salsy. And remember, we do have a bigger diffuser. So, you would have to use less if you have a smaller one. But we have three drops of lime, three drops of cilantro, one drop of black pepper, and two drops of galangal. And galangal is a secret ingredient used in massage oils and also in Asian and Vietnamese dishes. So, galangal: g-a-l-a-n-g-a-l.

Dr. Z: It kind of smells like green peppers.

Mama Z: Yea, it really does.

Dr. Z: Bitter green peppers.

Mama Z: But, you know, and this is interesting. When we go and we pick off like the dead branches on some of the peppers, this is the essence of what your hands smell like when you smell that smell.

It’s not exactly like the green pepper. It’s like the stems of the green peppers. But it really gives it like a salsa smell. But it’s like very happy and very fresh and uplifting.

Dr. Z: It’s distilled from the root of a plant that’s in the ginger family and also turmeric family. But it’s from the root, the stem. But you’re right.

Mama Z: But yea, it smells like that.

 

[5:11 – 6:42] Testimonial Time!

Dr. Z: And thank you so much for your comments and feedback. We love them!

Mama Z: Yes!

Dr. Z: We love them. And I’ve been really enjoying this the last couple of months that we’ve been doing this, featuring some of your great testimonials. This comes from “Blessed with Love,” from the United States of America. I love it. And by the way, I loved your name. Some names are kind of like GSX1980-Heart (underscore). It’s like, “That’s kind of cool.” But “Blessed with Love,” I love that.

“Blessed with Love,” says about our podcast, she titles it, “Amazing Information!!” And she gave us five stars. Thank you, by the way. I really appreciate that. “Thank y’all so much! I’ve been following y’all for two years now, and I’m absolutely so in love with y’all.” She must be Southern. She’s our Southern girl, y’all.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: “Thank you for helping us learn the natural ways. I have JRA, which is juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, along with seven other illnesses. But I’ve given up Western medicine, and I’m all natural now. It’s been one year today since I’ve been off all, all my pharmaceutical drugs, thanks to y’all.”

Mama Z: Praise the Lord!

Dr. Z: What? Praise God! “Y’all are truly a blessing in my life. Thank you for doing the podcast. It’s so much easier for me to access them.”

Mama Z: Awesome!

Dr. Z: So, if you listen, and if you like the show, leave a review.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: And I want to read them. I want to read all your reviews.

Mama Z: Yes!

Dr. Z: We have way too many to read. Hundreds and hundreds of reviews. But we want to read them. And sometimes we do two or three. But we would love to give you a shout out. So, thank you so much.

 

[6:43 – 10:52] What’s in Store for YOU with Dr. Z and Mama Z?

Dr. Z: So, let’s dive right into this. Again, this topic was inspired by just a really hard season.

But not only that, it’s something that I’ve been asked to speak at professionally now. That’s kind of cool, actually, you know, being asked to speak at conferences. It’s a business conference, a business development conference, motivational conferences. And so, I shared this message. The feedback I got from the audience was just so overwhelming and so powerful. And people were coming up to me and just very grateful, some in tears, just thankful for me sharing my heart.

I knew, I knew we had to share this with you, because the last few months, obviously if you’ve been listening, have been filled with a lot of practical tips and natural living tips regarding the book that just came out a couple of months ago, The Essential Oils Diet, and Mama Z’s classes, her gluten-free Italian cooking, her salads class, her exercise class, her gardening class. By the way, there’s an exercise class coming on next month.

So, we’ve tried to really share a lot of valuable information around the things that are happening in our life. And this is a really nice season, where I have a huge to do list of things, a lot of business.

Mama Z: You do? Hah, hah, hah!

Dr. Z: A lot of personal development stuff. Well, the to do list is yours. How many more classes do you want to do?

Mama Z: I actually have so many more in the works.

Dr. Z: The sky’s the limit.

Mama Z: And the thing is, I’ve been planning for a lot of these things for years.

Dr. Z: Yea. What’s the next one?

Mama Z: Fall and Thanksgiving entertaining. We have Christmas and New Year’s. We have holiday baking.

Dr. Z: Three? Chris, are you ready?

Mama Z: We have more.

Dr. Z: Chris is like, what?

Mama Z: Harvesting, canning and preserving. I’m going to have my mom come in for that one.

Dr. Z: Oh wow! I didn’t think about that one.

Mama Z: Yes. And then we’ve got, just like there are so many other things. And I want to know other classes that people want. But there are other DIY things. We want to do videos on kombucha, how to make your own kombucha; how to make these pictures that are on the wall that look like regular canvas prints, but they cost under ten dollars a piece in total.

Dr. Z: So, we’ll have you do like a “DIY Master Class.”

Mama Z: Yea.

Dr. Z: We’ve got all these little master classes.

Mama Z: I think it will be more gifting, so you can gift people.

Dr. Z: People love your gifts, by the way.

Mama Z: Oh, yea, I love gift giving.

Dr. Z: I guess that’s what gets us on TV so much now, and radio and podcasts.

Mama Z: Oh my gosh, and I love giving gifts.

Dr. Z: I know.

Mama Z: And it’s so fun.

Dr. Z: Hey, what does the Bible say about that?

Mama Z: It’s better to give than to receive?

Dr. Z: No, what happens when you give a gift? Your gift opens up a door for you.

Mama Z: Oh yes! I love that!

Dr. Z: I know you love that Scripture.

Mama Z: A gift makes room for you.

Dr. Z: Yea.

Mama Z: Yes. And so many times when they had only asked for you, and I had seen myself already doing it with you. Like I had just had a dream about it or whatever. And it was so funny how my gifts really did open the door.

Dr. Z: Literally, her gifts.

Mama Z: Like literally.

Dr. Z: Wherever you go, you always bring a gift package, a little gift.

Mama Z: I do. I love gifts. I love giving gifts.

Dr. Z: We’re doing an updated, expanded, newer version of our garden class, which is “Organic Gardening Made Easy,” which was super popular. So, that’s coming out hopefully August or September. But we’re busy, y’all. Like we’re actually preparing for a Natural Living Family membership, which is going to give people unlimited access to all of these classes for a really, really affordable cost on an annual basis. You already heard the list. We already have a half dozen already.

Mama Z: Right. And how cool is it, because I’ve never seen anything like that where you have so many interests, but you’re able to not have to take up all the computer space. You’re able to just open it up and use it as you need it. And that’s really cool.

Dr. Z: Yep. So, thank you for that. Thank Chris and Chris’s lovely wife, Cheryl. Cheryl, if you’re listening, we love you. We know that you help out a lot, too. And you’re such an inspiration to us.

Mama Z: Yes.

 

[10:53 – 14:57] Thriving in Survival Mode

Dr. Z: And today, we’re talking about how to thrive in survival mode. Again, here’s the impetus to all of this. So, you guys have heard this a lot. You guys and gals have been listening to us now for twenty-one episodes. That’s what—five months? Hallelujah, it’s been fun!

Mama Z: But I want to set the groundwork, after you say what you’re going to say.

Dr. Z: What do you say I’m going to say?

Mama Z: Like I just know. I know where this going with school, okay. But I want to give them the framework.

Dr. Z: Well, frame it.

Mama Z: Okay, so, we left these great paying jobs. Of course, I had just had Esther. And, you know, she was a thriving little baby. Life was going good. But we weren’t following after our passions. And God opened the door for us to do that and to come down here. And everything was really leading up to coming down to Georgia.

But the thing was, when we came to visit in May, and this was even when we started talking about it, the governor at that time—

Dr. Z: That was 2009.

Mama Z: So, we came down. And the governor had prayed for a state of prayer over the rain. They had been without rain for so long in Georgia. And we got here, and I remember being at Stone Mountain, and it literally started raining. And it didn’t stop. Like it kept raining. You remember. We were sitting at the picnic tables, and it was like a river runs through it.

Dr. Z: The ground didn’t know what to do with it. The ground had been so parched and dry for so long.

Mama Z: So, that was kind of what was happening. So, we came down. Our family friend drove me down, and then the moving trucks came. But you had to finish out a month and a half of work. So, I came down here literally two days after the moving truck dropped all the stuff off. It was pouring so hard that the basement was flooding. Like legitimately all the boxes, extra boxes of stuff were like all in the basement. And the basement wasn’t finished. And it was flooding.

We pumped so much. And every place was flooded. So, it was the flood of 2009. And no place had pumps to pump it out. So, all we had to use was huge shop vacs. And we were trying like desperately to take up any of our stuff upstairs to save anything that we possibly could, because everything was being destroyed. I never remember working as hard as I did dumping all of these things out, because it was coming in faster than it was going out.

Dr. Z: With a 10-month-old.

Mama Z: With a 10-month-old.

Dr. Z: Esther was a 10-month-old.

Mama Z: And I would have to stop to breastfeed. And at one point, we were pumping and dumping so much water from the basement. I just didn’t even see a stopping point. And then two days later, I felt it after lifting all those huge barrels to dump all this water. But that’s kind of like how we started this season of craziness.

Dr. Z: And that didn’t leave us; because whatever happened, that water ended up causing a crack in the foundation that caused almost every time it rained significantly, we would have water. I’m not kidding—every time. We would have standing water in that basement no less than six times a year. Then we lived there for about five to six years, because we couldn’t afford any other option, which we’ll talk about in just a minute. But that developed into black mold, which caused us to get pneumonia.

Mama Z: And we even did interlocking floor mats that we had to specially clean every week. Then every time we had a flood, we had to like pick up all the mats, wash them all off, dry them all out, dry off the floor. And it was such a crazy thing. But literally, like your life was crazy. But whenever you would have a mid-term

Dr. Z: Oh, don’t go there.

Mama Z: I’ll tell you my side of the story.

 

[14:58 – 34:35] From Pursuing Security to Pursuing Passion (What caused our Survival Mode Season)

Dr. Z: So, what happened, in 2009, you just heard that version, Mama Z’s version of where we got. We decided to follow our passions in a way that we could actually monetize and have our career be our passion, which up until then it wasn’t. And we had good jobs. I had a good job.

Mama Z: Yea, I loved mine.

Dr. Z: It was decent money, providing for my little family of three at the time. And we decided to do the crazy thing. And I’ve had two interventions in my life from my family. One was when I left the faith that I was raised in to be a non-denominational Christian.

And the next intervention I had in my family was when I decided to quit my job to become a chiropractor. I’ll never forget my dad saying, “You’re making the worst decision of your life. You don’t want to lose this. This is a great job. It’s not a good economy.” And that was a bad economy. Actually, I wasn’t a contractor. I was one of the few people that got hired at this job as an actual employee.

And the long and short of it, it was really cool. It was actually my favorite best job I ever had, j-o-b, by the way. It wasn’t what I loved. I was actually what they called an account receivables specialist. I was a high-end bill collector for Dow Chemical, one of the largest companies in the world. And I loved it, like 8 to 5. I never took my work home. I made decent money, a lot of great benefits. I enjoyed a nice cushy life.

And to leave that to do this, what we did, to become what we became, was not what I was expecting. By the way (and this is a pro tip for you, for those of you who want to seek after something that you feel God is putting on your heart), God will show you the end result. But often times He won’t tell you what’s going on in the middle. Like there’s a whole journey piece.

Like when he told Abraham, “Hey, leave your family. And I’m going to make you a father of many nations. And your descendants will be like the sand on the seashore.” He did not explain and tell Abraham all the steps and all the waiting and all the patience and trials and tribulations. Because if he did, I’ll almost guarantee you Abraham would have been like, “Nah, I don’t think so.”

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: And me, too. If I would have known what I would have gone through, and some of which I’m going to tell you today, I would have never, ever have thought I could have endured such stuff. But I also would have not, I don’t know, hated myself enough to be like, “This is crazy. I wouldn’t want to go through torture.”

Mama Z: Right. But, there’s a couple of life nuggets in this, too. We thought we were going to own like a mom and pop chiropractor place, and go back to Michigan when we were done. But we always left everything up to God. And because of that, because we were in that direction and committed every step to the Lord, you know, our way was done in the way that God wanted it to be done.

And I had a young girl say last week, she said, “Oh, I’m just seeing if that’s what I want to do.” I thought to myself and I said it. At first, when she first said it, I was thinking to myself, “You have to get in there and do stuff in order to figure out if that’s what you want to do.” And that’s how certain passions get inspired, or certain interests that you may not know you even have, that might spur up the passion within you.

So, if you have something that’s on your heart, or if you’re like, “Oh, I’m just going to wait to see,” sometimes we have to do in order to see what God has in store for us.

Dr. Z: Yea. The Bible says, “A person’s mind will plan their ways, but the Lord directs their steps.”

Mama Z: Amen.

Dr. Z: So, you think you know what’s going to happen. But watch and be careful, and also be flexible.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: There is something–actually a future episode I already have in our potential podcasts calendar— “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.” And one of our favorite pastors, Dr. Barkley, from Michigan

Mama Z: That was one of his proverbs.

Dr. Z: Yea. So, again, here’s the thing. We ended up getting ourselves into a very significant survival mode situation. And for us, the beginning of which was a financial squeeze, which I find is very common for a lot of people. There’s nothing like putting you in a survival mode than literally surviving. I mean, think of it—surviving. And surviving, what do you need to survive? Food, water, shelter. I mean if you don’t have that, you die.

And so, people will do whatever it takes to get in that situation. People typically aren’t in survival mode when they’re trying to get that extra raise or whatever. You know, you don’t see that often. It’s like we’re talking, this is bare bones. We got ourselves in that situation.

I remember that the school I went to, the recruiter lied to me. And I was a banker, too. I managed a bank for a couple of years. And I come from a finance background. And the recruiter, by the way, got fired shortly after I got admitted into school. I’ll never forget her telling me, “Oh, how much money do you need to live?” And this is a practical thing, being an adult, going through an adult learning program that is a $300,000 investment.

Mama Z: Or more.

Dr. Z: There are significant financial ramifications to that. I mean just think practically speaking, right? You’re twenty-nine years old. You’re the sole provider of your young family.

Mama Z: Let me tell you, like the pizza today that’s five dollars will be worth twenty-five dollars when you pay back your student loans, or something like that.

Dr. Z: Oh, that was the financial aid person who put things all in perspective. But I’ll never forget when I spoke to the recruiter and the financial aid person; yes, it was both. The recruiter and the financial aid person I spoke to both told me. If it would have been the recruiter, I would have kind of, “Okay, that doesn’t sound right?”

But when I talked to Financial Aid, getting my application accepted, going through Fast Fund. Any of you who are in America know the rigmarole of getting financial aid and all that stuff. They told me point blank, “You will get whatever you need to live.” Like you’re in a graduate program. She said, “You will get whatever you need to live.” I’m like, “Okay.” I mean I knew the risk of investing in our future. And I also knew the benefits of it. So, I was okay.

But you know what? I’ll never forget that first check, $4500, to live on for three months. I don’t know anyone, single person alone—well, maybe single—but a family? You can’t live on $4500 for three months. I mean like that’s rent, right? And then food. What about gas? So, what happened was we quickly racked up the credit cards. And we ended up maxing out credit cards. We ended up getting into a really tight spot.

And thankfully, I’m so blessed. We’ve shared a lot, and I’ve shared a lot when I speak. And I talk about Sabrina’s mom and dad. They bailed us out. What was that, 2008 bailout for the government? Like they were our bailout at one point. And we were at a point of wits end.

Mama Z: Yea.

Dr. Z: Like this was now a new baby was on the way or we just had a new baby. And we were like, “We are stuck.” Like I can’t go back to my job. I have been in this now for a year and half to two years, doing the best I could do.

Mama Z: We were half way done.

Dr. Z: I wasn’t even able to work at the time. Like there’s a point in a doctoral program, especially like medical school or chiropractic college or naturopath school, you can’t work.

Mama Z: And you literally, in order to beat traffic, because you had to, you would leave between 6 and 6:30. You found that any time after 6:30 would mess it all up.

Dr. Z: Yea, Atlanta traffic is tough.

Mama Z: And then sometimes, you know, you would not be able to come home until very late at night.

Dr. Z: Yea. And that was your life, because your life is at the mercy of—

Mama Z: School schedule

Dr. Z: And clinicals, your patients, and all those things. And I became absorbed. But the financial stress caused so much stress, it caused so much pressure that there was a little bit of—and this is part of it actually, part of like the little tip I’ll share with you in a minute or two. I forced myself to find the time and to work in ways to make a little extra money. And that little extra money turned into being a little business that we started, a medical writing business. And that ended up launching what we do today.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: It all came out of necessity. Again, we’re just doing this. But we were in this survival mode situation where what happened was you don’t exercise like you normally do, because you don’t have time. You’re constantly working. Constantly studying. You’re constantly doing whatever you can do. At the time, I was still helping as much as I could with the kids. We didn’t have a nanny at the time. We didn’t have a cleaning company at the time. We worked our butts off.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: And I had like no break. My exercise was going out on a hike with Bella. I’ll give a little pro tip on how to survive.

Mama Z: You mean Esther?

Dr. Z: Yea, Esther. How to thrive in survival mode. Yea, you might be broke. You might not have time. But you want to spend a minute with your kid? Go out on a hike and get some exercise. So, there are a lot of little things I learned along the way.

Because what happened was, I found myself in a position where if I didn’t pass these classes, if I didn’t take good care of these patients, if I got kicked out of this school, it’s like you lose your job. And there was so much more of a pressure, because you had—and this is what really tripped me up—you have a quarterly threat, every quarter of losing your “job.”

You don’t have that in the real world. Like you can kind of work and you have your annual review. But if you fail a bunch of classes, you’re done. Like every quarter was D-Day. Every quarter I felt like the hammer. Every quarter you have these mid-terms and finals. And they got hard.

Mama Z: And I will tell you, every mid-term and every final, something would happen. We would have a crack in the windshield. The basement would flood.

Dr. Z: You remember the toilet overflowing that one time?

Mama Z: What happened—this is so crazy. So, I’m literally in the bathroom. And the laundry is emptying. And it started emptying out the toilet, like the water was emptying. And at first, I was like all of a sudden I heard, “Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.” And I’m like, “Oh my gosh! This is not good whatever it is.” So, I jumped off of the toilet. And all of a sudden, here comes a flood. And it literally like poured out. And then it was like pouring down the steps into the garage.

And after that, I realized that that was a sign that I had to stop the washing machine right then. And sometimes we didn’t even know where the stuff was coming from. And then we would have to snake out our whole lines and all of this crazy stuff. One time our pipes froze. You were outside with the blow dryer. Do you remember that?

Dr. Z: Oh yea. We went to Michigan on our annual trip. We came home and it was dead of winter. And I do not understand. People that build homes in Georgia, they just weren’t ever thinking they would ever get cold. Pipes are exposed out into the air.

Mama Z: We had to take a moving blanket, one of those moving blankets.

Dr. Z: Insulated blanket.

Mama Z: And then fold it up and like literally have it over top of the pipe, and then put the mulch on top of that.

Dr. Z: It froze. You’re coming home. There’s no running water.

Mama Z: I thought maybe he turned off the water. I went to wash my hands.

Dr. Z: It shook on the outside, though. And people say, “Oh, just open up the water a little bit, the faucet. Oh no, it actually froze from the outside.

Mama Z: Yea.

Dr. Z: It was just little stuff. But it was a lot of little stuff for us.

Mama Z: It was so much.

Dr. Z: And what about the trauma, though? The traumatic things happened where the enemy of our soul, the Devil, tried to steal our marriage. And I’ll never forget how some people in our lives were trying to even tear us apart in our marriage.

Mama Z: Yea, and said untruths on both sides.

Dr. Z: Yea, imagine that. Imagine you’re going through such stressful experience financially. I mean we actually got very humbled, by the way. This was the most humbling experience of my life, getting on government assistance. We got on food stamps. But I did whatever I had to do; whatever I had to do.

Mama Z: And I remember being at the grocery store in some places.

Dr. Z: Yea, that was tough.

Mama Z: Like before you had to tell them if you were on assistance. And it was like a big deal, until the computer systems were different, which ended up changing while we were on it.

Dr. Z: You needed like special approval, though, to get stuff done. It was weird.

Mama Z: Yea, to override it. And then like just some of the other things. Like one of the times you were going into finals or coming out of mid-terms. And then you opened the car door into your eye. And then you did it on the other side of the car.

Dr. Z: Yea, I don’t know what that was.

Mama Z: And you got stitches.

Dr. Z: Yea. I said I had an accident on my car door. I just opened up the door.

Mama Z: You did it on one side as a driver. And then you did it on the other side as a passenger.

Dr. Z: I did. It was the most ridiculous things. And flat tires, and just you name it.

Mama Z: And then our car, we had to get a new engine put in.

Dr. Z: And how many new babies did we have, too?

Mama Z: And then I was on bed rest.

Dr. Z: Oh, that’s a key. See, that’s the other thing. Imagine you’re in this situation. Sabrina gets placenta previa. And it was the hardest pregnancy ever. She had to go up north to Michigan to live with her mom and dad.

Mama Z: Because I could not carry over ten pounds.

Dr. Z: For five months. For five months.

Mama Z: It was four and a half months.

Dr. Z: Okay. But still, it was so much time.

Mama Z: And believe me, it was a lot.

Dr. Z: Yea, I mean all this stuff happening in this one season when you think that you’re doing God’s will and doing something. Again, kind of expect it. Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble. Take heart.” And so, we were in a survival mode where at one point it was just enough to almost get through the day.

I mean we can go on and on and on about our little stuff. It goes through. It goes through, because when we graduated, and this is a key part. I’m going to talk about this in just a minute after the break here. We had this transition. Like okay, you’re not a student anymore. You’re a doctor. You’ve got a ton of student loan debt. Now what do you do for the rest of your life kind of thing?

And we brought all that debt with us. We brought those three maxed out credit cards. Again, we maxed them out, because that’s how we had to live. I remember losing my number one largest client, because he outsourced. And he ended up getting cheaper work. You can’t blame him. I lost my number one client as a medical writer. And we could barely pay rent that month. That was really hard.

And so, this is what survival mode looked like for us. We almost lost our marriage. This is in the midst of my fat pants story. If you go back to episode, I don’t what that was. What episode was fat pants? Was that 15, Chris? I don’t know, episode 14 or 15ish. My fat pants story, like I gained weight. I was chronically stressed. Like gray hair started growing in my head.

And what does your survival story look like?

Mama Z: We all have one.

Dr. Z: What does your season look like? And for us, it was a combination of a lot of things: health, marital issues, relationship. Like I lost one of my closest friends during that time. We lost people, friends dying, family members dying of cancer.

Mama Z: Yes.

Dr. Z: I mean just stuff. Like you know, the trail, like lots of a trail, it seemed. And, you know, this spanned the time frame. What does yours look like? Maybe you’re facing a cancer diagnosis that you were given three months to live. Like maybe you’re on the brink of bankruptcy. Maybe you’re on the brink or you just had a divorce. What are you going through right now? Do you know anyone going through anything right now, that could relate to this?

You know, survival mode. And this where we kind of bring you back home to what we do, this Natural Living Family podcast that we have. Survival mode, and this is something that I learned. It produces this prolonged sympathetic reaction, sympathetic meaning fight or flight response. This is where the science and the neurology make a lot of sense. If you do not stop it, if you do not find ways of thriving in the season…And I’m not promising the season will end, because there are still elements. We actually think we’re out of the season. But this might last a while.

Mama Z: Yea, it lasted us years.

Dr. Z: Yea, it did; like eight and a half years, almost nine years. What will happen if you don’t come up with really cool ways, which we’re going to share right after the break here, you will burn out. And that is a clinical diagnosis. It has become rampant in our society. There are umpteen reasons why people are chronically stressed in their survival mode.

And the sympathetic reaction, the body was designed by God to have this fight or flight reaction when you see that bear, when your baby gets run over by a car and mom picks up the car. That’s stuff that’s happened. You get like this. Your blood shunts to your extremities. You’re just like, I don’t know what else to say. You almost have like superhuman instincts. And your senses are heightened. Your shoulders are raised. You’re prepared for battle. But that’s designed by God for just a minute or two.

Mama Z: Right. I’ve lived there.

Dr. Z: I mean that’s proven. If you doubt me, you try to sprint as hard as you can and time yourself, seriously. Your energy stores only last thirty to forty-five seconds at the most. Most people can’t sprint, full sprint, for more than a few seconds, if not a half a minute. That’s that sympathetic reaction. Once you exhaust that energy, your body needs to rest, recoup, and then you can go again.

And so, the problem is when you live in that mode emotionally, it tears down your body as if you were constantly sprinting without a break. No one in the world could do that. But that’s what we’re doing to ourselves in this survival mode if we do not get checked, if we do not grab hold of the season.

Mama Z: And if you want to see just the physical image in your head, look at any of our presidents of the United States, what they look like when they took office and what they look like when they finish their presidency. They age significantly. Can you imagine all the weight of the world on the shoulders of one person, even though there’s many more people that make decisions? And it just shows you what happens with chronic stress like that. So, it’s really important to look at it in a different way. But you know, throughout the whole process, I really felt God’s grace.

Dr. Z: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Mama Z: I know.

Dr. Z: You know why? We’re going to talk about that.

Mama Z: We are.

Dr. Z: But really quick, a word from our sponsor.

Mama Z: Okay.

 

[34:36 – 35:15] Sponsor Spotlight: Thrive Market

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Mama Z: Yes, from ingredients to snacks, it’s so awesome. And the kids go nuts.

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[35:16 – 37:25] Do You Need Heaven’s Help? Bringing God Into Your Survival Mode Season

Mama Z: So, I really felt God’s grace just over the whole situation. And, you know, God’s grace is Heaven’s help. And Heaven’s help, we needed it at so many different points. You know, we had a good neighbor, and she bailed us out so many times. We would be in the middle of

Dr. Z: Thank you, Linda! We love you!

Mama Z: Yes, we would be in the middle of Michigan, and I would be watching the weather report every day.

Dr. Z: Because of your garden and plants.

Mama Z: Well, the garden and the basement.

Dr. Z: And the basement, yea.

Mama Z: And we would try to set things up so if things happened, it wouldn’t get destroyed. And all these times she would come in and vacuum and suck out the water, and oh my goodness, so many things.

Dr. Z: We pretty much adopted her shop vacs. We couldn’t buy one. But she ended up lending us her shop vac.

Mama Z: So many times.

Dr. Z: We were that neighbor. We didn’t give it back for a year because we used it so much.

Mama Z: It was so bad.

Dr. Z: For water, not for cleaning; for like water in the basement stuff. Remember that one time when we came home from Christmas and we went downstairs? And I don’t know how this happened, but we had like a heavy-duty rack with like your shelving unit. This was not a cheapo one.

Mama Z: This was Thanksgiving. It was right before we were going to put the ornaments for Christmas.

Dr. Z: And everything fell. Like twelve totes and boxes of Christmas ornaments and china and dishes. And then like you are, again, you’re exhausted. You have just driven like fourteen hours from home back to your home. And you’ve got the kids crying, and everyone’s tired. You get home at midnight or 1 o’clock, like we always end up doing. And you go downstairs in the basement, always checking for water, because you’re obsessed with it.

Mama Z: I know.

Dr. Z: And you see everything on the floor. And you’re like, “Are you kidding me?”

Mama Z: As soon as we got home, and this would happen as soon as we got home, I’m like, “Check the basement.” Like it would be, “Check the basement.”

Dr. Z: Check the water. Check the basement.

Mama Z: Check the basement. And then, honestly, every time we had rain in the forecast, I would like set my alarm for like 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning just to go down and check the basement.

 

[37:26 – 47:22] Practical Steps to Thriving in Survival Mode

Dr. Z: So, here are some practical things you could do to thrive and survive. Well, first off, you need to recognize that there is a problem. Seems kind of obvious, but it really isn’t. It didn’t dawn on me that there was a problem until my fat pants story. It didn’t dawn on me until I tried to put on my pair of dress pants, and I couldn’t fit in them. And I’m like, “What happened here?” Like that was a real big deal for me.

Again, go back to my fat pants story. I think episode, I forget; I should know the episodes; a couple of episodes ago. That threw me for a loop. When I started thinking about divorce, that shook me. Like that wasn’t in my paradigm ever. When whatever, fill in the blank. You need to recognize that there is a problem. And then determine in your heart to regain control of your life. That’s the first step.

Again, you don’t do anything yet. It’s very introspective. And then, I remember, I went to you. I confessed some things to you, some sins, some negative emotions, and harbored unforgiveness and ill-will towards you that I had. And so, I shared my heart with you. So, you share your heart. I recommend sharing your situation with a spouse, a loved one, a counselor, or pastor. Again, this is all internal work first, before you even do anything like “physical or practical.”

Then, you’ve got your stuff ready. You’re emotionally set. You have your prayer support from your friend, your loved one, your pastor, your counselor. And in your heart, you’re determined. And, of course, you just cry out to God.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: And I would encourage you to repent. If you find yourself in a situation, often times, if you’re like me, “Lord, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got myself in here.”

Because you know what it is? And let me be very gentle, because I was willing to admit it. I would be gentle here, but not to condemn you. It is a sin to get into this situation. You should obey what Jesus and Paul have said, to cast you cares and anxieties upon the Lord, right? Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and overburdened, and I will give you rest.”

Like if you absorb the stress and anxiety and don’t go to God, there is an element where you’re out of God’s will. That is God’s protection. God’s will is your protection. God’s will is your comfort. God’s will is your peace. And it’s not like a sin issue where you’re going to go to Hell. But it’s like, “Man, I put myself in this situation. It’s my fault.” And I recognized it was my fault. I did.

And Enoch, my mentor at the time, because I was pointing a big fat finger at Sabrina. I mean I was like, “Look at her, look at her, look at her.” And he’s like, “Hey, when you point a finger at someone, you know, look at all the three fingers coming back at you.”

Mama Z: Right. And I think when you repented to me, you said, “I did think that a hundred percent of our problems was your fault.”

Dr. Z: I did.

Mama Z: “But now I think it’s only seventy percent.”

Dr. Z: That was a good start, you know. And then I went to a hundred percent my fault. But I owned up to my stuff. I owned my junk. I owned my stuff. But I’m telling you, again, use the word sin. The church really misuses that word and uses it as an abuse. But sin is not God’s will, right? So, it is not God’s will for someone to be in that situation. And He gives us the tools. He has given us His precious Holy Spirit. He’s given us everything that we need if we are willing to.

And I never really took God at His Word. When I was in that time, until I did, in that season I was really like, “Lord, I didn’t admit my issues. I didn’t admit my fault.” And I carried this burden. I went to food. I went back to coffee and caffeine. Thank God, I didn’t go back to drugs and alcohol. Praise Jesus! But I went back to things and anger and resentment and bitterness. All those things we’re not supposed to do. The Bible says, “Be angry and sin not.” I was angry and I sinned. I was really upset at you at times and other things.

So, first is own your stuff and give it to the Lord. Cast all your cares and anxieties upon Him. And if this is hard for you to do, yea, me, too. You’re human. It’s normal for this to be hard. Don’t beat yourself up.

This is why you need a friend. This is why you need a loved one, a pastor, a counselor, someone that you can trust to help you.

Mama Z: And this is like, I know I felt. I had certain Scriptures that I was just like standing on. I think I remember saying this on one of the last podcasts. But there were times in that process where you were sleeping at night, and I would just pray for you, because I knew you were going through stuff. Sometimes I didn’t know exactly what you were going through. But I knew it was just like the weight of the world was on you.

Dr. Z: It was hard.

Mama Z: And I would just pray for you, because, I mean, that’s all I could really do at some point, just to talk to God and pray for you. But I knew that as far as our voyage of what God had shown us and that we kept committing it to the Lord and He would continue to direct our paths, He did. And throughout the whole thing, we knew that we were going the right direction. But there were all these other things going on along the way.

Dr. Z: So, you work; you do the internal work. You repent, you pray. I would encourage you to fast, right?

Mama Z: Yes. That’s a big thing.

Dr. Z: Fast and pray. Cry out to God. Now, focus on some real “physical, practical things,” like making forward progress. Now here’s something. What does that mean? Do anything. Like just start the engine.

Mama Z: Start!

Dr. Z: Just start the engine and put it in neutral, and even first gear. You need to move forward.

Mama Z: And sometimes you just have to put your pants on, put your head down, and go forward.

Dr. Z: So, what I did, here’s a little thing that I did. I mentioned Esther being a baby. I would put Esther, and like I had a little backpack carrier, and we went hiking. And I remember that was probably one of the fondest memories of those tough five and a half years, of going into the woods with my daughter, hiking. That was exercise. That was breathing. That was my time away with God. That little thing, really, I looked forward to. It didn’t happen every day. It didn’t happen every week. But it definitely happened, I think, a couple of times a month.

Mama Z: I think it was even more than that.

Dr. Z: It was something that even when I didn’t, even when I didn’t want to waste the gas money, putting Esther in the little stroller and walking to the neighborhood park and letting her play. Just move forward progress; like make forward progress.

And here’s the thing; focus on quick wins. That could be, if you were like me, my job was to be a student at an extremely high level, and as a researcher to write and to produce at an extremely high level. I found myself, my vision going bad, like getting tired, obviously, after reading and studying and writing for hours on end. I really didn’t “feel like reading the Bible.” And that was one of the things that really affected me spiritually, because up until that point, I was a voracious reader of the Bible.

Mama Z: Oh yea.

Dr. Z: So, what I did was, I would put the Bible on CD, and I would listen to that, or on my phone. Sabrina has mentioned that. Or getting to my Bible verse app or my Bible app on my phone and reading a verse of the day. Like little baby steps.

Little baby steps, here’s one. Why not, if you’re finding yourself in survival mode, and if you’ve allowed (which I have, so don’t condemn yourself) exercise to escape you, like if you don’t exercise anymore, I get it. Maybe you don’t have time – maybe you don’t think you have time. Well, walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator next time. Like that’s a little win.

Mama Z: Park your car way far away.

Dr. Z: Right.

Mama Z: I used to do this in college. I would park at the way far lot. And I was training for a pageant. So, I would wear high heels and walk all the way in.

Dr. Z: And make better food choices. Again, these are just examples. Like make better food choices, just a little thing that you could do to start the motion of forward progress moving. And you’ll see what will happen is you start to be empowered. Like, “Oh, yea, I made a good decision on what I ate. I made a good decision here. I made a good decision there.” Celebrate the little things. This is so important, because no, this is not the season where you’re going to be like riding on all cylinders and crushing it on every level, especially if you’re in true survival mode.

How to thrive is to celebrate the little things. And be patient with yourself. This is so key. Self-condemnation is of the enemy. And the Devil will try to grip your joy. We know that the joy of the Lord is our strength. And he will trick us to be powerless by giving up that joy because of self-loathing and self-hatred.

Mama Z: Also, connecting with your brothers and sisters in Christ at church and in outside fellowship. That was a big one. That was one of the things, especially with the [inaudible] and other friends, that was like our lifeline. And thank God for all of our close church friends and all of that stuff. That’s a huge key in some of those phases. And we did lots of good marriage workshops, too.

Dr. Z: Yea, we started making forward progress on things. We started to do self-help things, going to marriage seminars. And a lot of it was free. I mean, again, we were broke with a capital B. And here’s one thing. Forgive yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Really, please, please, please; listen to episodes 8 and 9 of this podcast, because we cover self-love. And you need to love yourself, because you truly can’t love others as you love yourself if you hate yourself. And you need to give yourself some space. You need to give yourself some grace.

 

[47:23 – 55:54] Do You Take Time to Enjoy Special Moments?

And you know, here’s something that I kind of learned how to do. And I must say, I got really good at this. I really do. Out of all the things I’m good at, I’m good at seizing the moment. I am an opportunist. I learned. I’m the guy you see on the side of the road taking a break. And how many times have you seen me walking up and down with my shirt off, trying to get vitamin D? It was a beautiful day.

Mama Z: Oh my gosh. It was so funny. And one day I was driving somewhere, and I’m like, “What kind of guy is out there with no shirt on?” And it was not even hot.

Dr. Z: I’m getting my vitamin D, y’all.

Mama Z: And then as I approached, I’m like, “That kind of looks like Eric.” And I’m like, “It is Eric!”

Dr. Z: I can’t tell you how many times I would take off my shirt and get some vitamin D, go to a park, and read. Like I would have my notes. I would just study. I would walk and I would study like Ichabod Crane from that old Disney cartoon. But you know what? I was also that guy who stopped to smell the roses.

I actually stopped, and I smelled flowers and roses. Like I would go and I would be the one to stop to take the picture of the sunset. I learned to seize the special moments when they came. And then those special moments like today. Bella, our almost three-year-old now, she loves life.

Mama Z: When you come in the room, “Daddy!” It is so precious!

Dr. Z: I fall on my knees, and I let her run in my arms. And I’m like, “Lord, may this never end.” I hug her for five seconds, and she’s off to playing with her toys. Like I’m learning, and I’ve learned to seize the special moments.

And here’s one thing. You might want to write these things down, because they’re pretty good. Or go to the show notes on NaturalLivingFamilypodcast.com. You’ll have all this stuff there in the transcripts.

But you see what we’re doing? We’re incrementally working towards now focusing on balance, right? You need to believe and believe and do that you can live a balanced life. And that could be in every area. We’ve talked about this so many times, the seven areas of the abundant life. So, especially for those going through survival mode, it’s really, really, really hard to schedule in me time. But you have to.

Mama Z: And it’s so important, because that’s exercise, that’s spa days, massages, baths, anything to practice self-love. You know, I am a certified fitness instructor. So, it was great. I had a job at the gym three days a week. I would bring kids with me. It was free day care while I got paid to work out basically. And I mean that was amazing in that season.

Dr. Z: That was your release.

Mama Z: Yes. And the one thing that was awesome that you did was even though we didn’t have the money to do like regular massages or anything like that, you would go on Groupon. And you would like for Mother’s Day, you would crush it, and you would find like a special like a this or a that. And I would get a treatment or something, or be able to get my nails done or something like that. It was very special. So, it’s important to know that you don’t have to have a billion dollars in order to take care of yourself.

Dr. Z: So, you’re going through this season. You are practicing these very, very practical, and I would say proven, because we’ve actually, not only ourselves, but we’ve helped many people go through this. And this is not just us. This is everyone. Everyone finds their own way of thriving in survival mode, or else life just kind of passes by, right?

What happens now? Well, next, you are kind of now finding this balance. You’re working toward it. You’re scheduling in your me time. Again, things aren’t different. Like this is the key. Your situation hasn’t really changed yet. But you’re still thriving.

When this situation starts to change, and I don’t know what that looks like. Maybe that’s when the doctor says, “You know, we can’t find the cancer anymore.” Maybe that’s when you actually have two extra dollars in the bank account this month. Maybe it’s when you and your wife look at each other in your eyes, and it’s like, “You know what? We’re going to stick this through. We’re going to throw away these divorce papers.”

You need to know. Whenever the shift happens, you need to know that you can stop the grind. And this is so important, because whether it’s career, whether it’s health, whether it’s whatever, any area of life, relationships, there is a hustle season. This survival mode, you’ve got to hustle. You’ve got to make it happen. But this is, in my opinion, from what I can see, designed by God to be temporary, not permanent.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: So, this applies to you if you’re a student, your career, you’re starting a new business, you’re a single parent. Don’t be in this grind forever. And you have to stop it. This was the last lesson I’ve learned in this process. And this happened within the last year. I became, I don’t want to use the word addicted—I don’t know what else to say. It became me. It was who I was. Grinding it out day in and day out, seven days a week, became my life.

And then I looked. I looked at the balance sheet. And I looked at our marriage. I looked at our kids.Then I looked at my health. I’m like, “I don’t need to do this anymore. Why am I doing it?” It becomes habitual. You actually somewhat become addicted to it and reliant on it. There again, there’s somewhat of an endorphin rush even doing these things. And so, you need to know you can stop. And a shift occurs. Like this is when everything, like this is the aha moment, when you get back in control of your life.

And the benefits it brings are profound. Like, for example, you become less reactive and very much more proactive in all your areas of life. Your relationships with your friends and family just start to like “magically thrive.” Peace and confidence take over you. You’re less fear based. You don’t have these decisions that you make based off of like “I’m not going to make it.”

You play more. You actually enjoy the Sabbath. Like the Bible says, “Have the seventh day and rest.” You don’t hustle. So, you’re not working a hundred hours a week anymore. You start to enjoy balance. You make time for exercise. You take care of yourself. You have that intentional me time to regroup, recharge, refocus.

The next thing you know, you’re not surviving anymore. You are actually thriving. But you have to learn to thrive in survival mode before you make that transition. And I think that’s being faithful with little to give you much. I think that’s something that God will take you through. It’s a proving ground, especially for those people. We know that “many are called, but few are chosen.” For those people who are called to a purpose, to a ministry, to a business, to an influence, there’s something special that you need to go through.

Mama Z: Right. And I think, you know, another part of this that makes me think of one of our favorite pastors, he always talked about “life hinges on gratitude.” And that’s another one of his proverbs. If you look at all these things, it’s literally like getting from the scrapping mode to being grateful for what you have, not scrapping at what you don’t have. And it’s that shift. And we’re so grateful for what we have. And even when it was a little bit, you know, it’s so important. The gratefulness if so important.

Dr. Z: I remember going to picnics with you, when you would make a picnic, and we would get a pizza box at like the Domino’s or something. We would just go out.

Mama Z: Oh yea, and Whole Foods. We went somewhere. This is really funny. We went to, I don’t remember. It was like Little Caesars, to get a box. They would not sell us a box. They were like, “No, we have to have a pizza in that box.” I said, “We don’t want your pizza. We just want the box.

Dr. Z: Hah, hah, hah!

Mama Z: And they said, “No, we can’t do that.” I said, “You won’t sell me a box? I’ll pay for it.”

Dr. Z: Come on. She had it on a pizza stone.

Mama Z: “I’ll pay for it.” So, we drove all the way to Whole Foods to get a box.

Dr. Z: Thank you, Whole Foods, for giving us boxes.

Mama Z: Yea, they always do. It’s so cute, because we have a whole bunch of Whole Foods boxes, but we’ve never like gotten the pizza from there. We make the pizza and put it in the box.

 

[55:55 – 57:21] The Power of Gratitude During Survival Mode Times

Dr. Z: So, folks, we actually talk about this in episode 20, last episode, about how to keep God and family first and make them a priority. The Psalms say you “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” That’s one of the secrets to this all, having a grateful heart.

Mama Z: Yea.

Dr. Z: And if you have a hard time remembering things, maybe good things, have a gratitude journal. And just force yourself to write down one or two things you’re grateful for.

Mama Z: Right.

Dr. Z: Even if it’s something a little trivial like getting the front row at the grocery store parking spot. Or just whatever it is, have a heart of gratefulness, because that will get you in God’s presence. And the fundamental truth of all of this is there’s nothing that will get you out of God’s presence, there’s nothing that will alienate you like being in survival mode, because you feel alone. You feel alienated. You don’t feel God is with you. And that’s just a lie from the pit of Hell.

So, I am so glad that we could chat about this, because I am also so glad that you are all so engaged in our community. And you joined our newsletter. You’re leaving comments and emails. And I really hope that this spurs on some discussion in our Facebook community that we have just for you. And so, thank you so much for tuning in.

 

[57:22 – 58:39] Natural Living Tips: 3 Practical Action Steps for Thriving in Survival Mode

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

Dr. Z: To thrive in survival mode, you don’t have to sacrifice your relationship with God or your family. You don’t have to be overwhelmed and get burned out. Here are some practical tips to help you work smarter, not harder, as you build your career and business.

First, don’t compromise quality for quantity. Have a spirit of excellence. We talked about this in episode 17 of the podcast. Don’t compromise your integrity. Do what’s right no matter the cost. And be unique. Be true to yourself, whether you are building a career or starting a new business, develop your niche and follow your own path.

To be successful in your endeavors, you must also remember, step up to the plate. No one can or will run your business, run your family, run your ministry like you. If you don’t do it, if you don’t know how to, then learn. You know, don’t forget good old-fashioned blood, sweat, and tears. Sometimes you’ve got to hustle. And the hustle is real and intense and necessary. But remember, only for a season. Learn the art of saying no. The enemy of great is good. So, get in the habit of saying no to good things and hold out for only what’s great.

 

[58:40 – 59:19] Sponsor Spotlight: Thrive Market

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Mama Z: Keep in mind, Thrive Market’s prices are already twenty-five to fifty percent off. And now, they’re giving you an extra twenty-five percent off your first order, plus a free thirty-day trial.

Dr. Z: Now, many of you are going to be making a grocery run this week. So, why not give Thrive Market a try, and shop from home?

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

 

[59:20 – end] Episode WrapUp

Dr. Z: Well, folks, thanks for listening today. We hope you enjoyed the show. And as a reminder, you can find all 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. It includes a personal invite to join our private Facebook group, so you can connect with Mama Z and me 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 our show. Well, as always, this is Dr. Z.

Mama Z: And Mama Z.

Dr. Z: And our hope and prayer are that you and your family truly experience the abundant life.

Mama Z: God bless!

Dr. Z: Bye bye!