Dr. Erica Elliott on Purpose, Healing, and the Courage to Begin Again

In this powerful episode of I Am Refocused Radio, we’re joined by physician, adventurer, and memoirist Dr. Erica Elliott, whose life story reads like a mythic journey through danger, discovery, and deep healing.

Author of the memoir From Mountains to Medicine, Dr. Elliott shares her incredible path—from teaching on the Navajo Reservation and surviving life-threatening mountaineering climbs in the Andes, to finding herself through breakdowns, therapy, and her calling as a healer. Through raw storytelling and hard-won wisdom, she reminds us that the path to purpose isn’t linear—it’s forged through faith, curiosity, and resilience.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to I Am Refocused Radio with your
host Shamaiah read This show is designed to inspire you
to live your purpose and regain your focus. And now
here's your host, Shamaiah Reid.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Once again, we are here today and we have another
amazing show learning for you'll. We have our guests today,
doctor Erica Elliott. She's not just a physician. She is
a healer of mountaineer, a former Peace Corps volunteer, a
woman whose life reads like a mythic journey. She has
something that we're gonna be talking about. Elire in the

(00:38):
show is her memoir From Malains to Medicine, But she
has a previous book that we also learned about. But
before we get into that, we need tell a little
bit more about what she does. Her personal story is
a roadmap for anyone searching for meeting and you know
how it is. Sometimes we live in a chaotic world
and we need some extra help. In her own words,

(01:00):
every life changing experience has enriched me and prepared me
for fulfilling excuse me, phone, fulfilling my ultimate destiny. So,
without further ado, lanning the plane here we go to
get to our guests right now. So once again, on't
say to you, doctor Erica Elliott, thank you for being
on the show. How you doing today.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
I'm good. I'm very happy to be here with you.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I appreciate you being on. When you think about your experience,
we have been marred, I mentioned months ago, you know
how life can just come out of nowhere and give
you curve balls when you think about some of the
things you've been through, kind of share with us some
of the things that you learned from your own experience,

(01:45):
especially with your mountain trips and those things.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Okay, Well, it started out me thinking as a little
girl that there was a purpose to my life, but
I didn't know what it was. I thought there's more
to life than just going to school and coming home
and watching TV and eating dinner and go to bed.
But I didn't talk about it because I thought people

(02:12):
would think I'm some kind of nerd talking about purpose
in life, and so I kept it to myself. But
I had a strong feeling that I'm here for something,
and I didn't know what it was. And it took
a long journey for me to find out what it was.
But first I had to find out who I was,

(02:32):
and so I was had a very harsh upbringing. My
father was a general in the army. He wasn't the
harsh person, but he was gone all the time. And
my mother was Swiss and raised us in the old
style where you hit and slap and say this is

(02:53):
for your own good. And so I had a very
distorted view of myself. It didn't match what my teachers
were saying, how you know, wonderful and kind and smart
I was. And the impression I had from my family
was that I was no good, never good enough. I
think all my sisters and brothers had the same impression
of themselves. And so when I when I finished high

(03:19):
school in Germany, because we lived all over the world
because of my father's work, I didn't know what college
to go to, and so I just sort of winged
it and picked this college that sounded very interesting. And
it was in nineteen sixty six. And when I came

(03:40):
to America at the end of high school and went
to this college, I was in such shock because people
spoke in a weird way. It was like hippies, and
I didn't understand all the lingo, and they dressed really weird,
and they took drugs and stuff like that. So I

(04:00):
did what I always did when we moved around to do.
I tried to learn the language, meaning learn hippie talk,
and dress like the people and do what they did.
And so I did that, and I tried out drugs
and all that stuff and had a complete psychotic break
because I'm not that's not how I'm wired. And so

(04:27):
I made a suicide attempt. And that sounds pretty awful,
but it was the best thing that could have ever
happened to me. And that's the story of my life.
All these terrible things end up being a portal to
some huge transformation. So here's what happened. I sat in
front of I felt like my life was worthless and
I couldn't think right because all these influence of drugs

(04:49):
and stuff. So I sat in front of a stove,
turned on the gas and nothing happened. So I lit
a match and the whole place blew up. I was
blown out of the chair against the wall, and I
had burns and stuff. And the upstairs people came and
threw me in the shower, and they knew what I
was trying to do, and they reported me to the dean,

(05:11):
and the dean said I had to see a psychiatrist,
which in those days only completely crazy people saw a psychiatrist.
And so the psychiatrist was this amazing black man. He's
a first black psychiatrist to graduate from where my mother graduated,

(05:32):
at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and so wow.
But I was so ashamed that I couldn't talk to him.
He was very kind to me, but I looked at
the floor and just cried, and he kept trying to
get me to talk, and finally got up and he
opened the door and said, you can go now, because
you know, if you're not going to talk to me,

(05:54):
there's no point in staying here. I said, well, I
can't go because then they're going to tell my parents,
because they said if I didn't see a psychiatrist, they're
going to report me to my parents. So and so
I said, well, if I talk, I can I stay.
And then did I talk. I mean, all this stuff

(06:14):
came out, and he was the best psychiatrist I could
ever imagine anybody having. He never told me what to do,
and he never gave me pills. He treated me with
huge respect, and it was the first time in my
life that I felt seen and heard, the first time

(06:35):
in my life, and so I could figure out my
own problems just him holding that sacred space for me.
I realized that I was smart, I wasn't stupid, and
that I was really a good person. And I discovered
who I really am, and I was really excited because
it wasn't who I thought I was at all. And

(06:57):
I was so thrilled. And that's when my authentic life began,
and it took off in a huge way. And so
that's when I went to work for the Navajos as
a school teacher, like in nineteen seventy one, two and three,
and I learned to speak Navajo. So they opened up
their whole world to me. I saw ceremonies that white

(07:19):
people have never seen and never will see. I participated
in Paoty ceremonies and saw true miracles, and I don't
use that word lightly, true miracles. And that's how I
learned to speak Navo. By the way, is in the
Peoti ceremonies, all of a sudden I could speak Navil.
How do you explain that? I can't explain it. I

(07:41):
guess you'd have to be some kind of quantum physicists
to be able to explain some of these things, and
so that was a life changing thing. And what I
learned from that experience was that I love to teach,
and not just teach anything, not teach to teach. I
love to teach things that would empower people. These fourth

(08:04):
grade students had been treated very badly by the white
teachers who thought they were stupid. They weren't stupid at all.
They were incredibly smart. It's just they knew that these
teachers didn't care about them, and they gave them stupid
books like Dick and Jane that they couldn't relate to.
And so when I learned their language, and which was

(08:28):
really hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. And
I'm linguistic, but I never had language like that. It
was like Chinese or something. And then they really opened
up and I could see how they wanted to learn.
They learned so fast. When I came there, they hardly
spoke any English and they're in the fourth grade. And
by the end of the first year, three of my

(08:51):
students won a speech contest, a regional speech contest. I mean,
I discovered so much about myself that that that I'm
an educator that whatever I end up doing in life.
It has to be something that educates, that informs, that
helps the person in some way, and it has to

(09:12):
be given with love. And so it was so profound
what I learned. And then when I joined the Peace Corps,
see this ten year odyssey before I realized that medicine
was my calling. I learned all these things that helped
me eventually be a better doctor. And so I knew
I was heading in the right direction, but I still

(09:34):
hadn't figured out that it was medicine, even though I
come from a whole lineage of doctors in Switzerland. Why
didn't I realize that this was in my DNA and
this is what I should be doing. I think it's
because I wanted to find my own path. Well, it
happened to lead exactly where my lineage led, and so

(09:54):
but it took me ten years to get there, and
ten wonderful years that made me a better doctor. So
what I learned climbing big mountains. I joined all male
climbing club in South America. They allowed because they thought
American women weren't real women because we didn't have a
man with us all the time. We wore pants, and

(10:17):
we were very independent, and so they didn't know how
to categorize me, so they just said okay, I could
join them. And so I learned a lot climbing mountains.
I learned how to overcome fear. I learned how to
take one step at a time to reach the top.
And I was the first American woman to climb the
highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, which is Alkonkawa twenty

(10:40):
three thousand feet. And all the time I was teaching
the native people about nutrition, and I was working on
a bilingual book to help them learn Spanish. It was
Spanish in Quetchua, that's the language they speak. So it
was a wonderful time. And then I came back to
the States and I taught for Outward Bound. I was

(11:03):
an instructor and that was life changing too, seeing how
all these people really changed on these twenty one day
twenty three day courses, like profound changes. And so anyway,
I decided to get my master's degree in experiential education,

(11:24):
and it wasn't very demanding. So I decided to take
some science courses because at Antioch College it was so crazy.
I tested out of all my science requirements. So I
wanted to get an updated science education and so I

(11:44):
signed up with all these young students ten years younger
than me, and I discovered every one of them was
in pre med. And I had this false idea based
on my uncle, who was a genius, a Swiss doctor, genius.
He was my only role model for a doctor, so
I thought you had to be a genius to be
a doctor. Well, it turns out all these students were

(12:09):
pre med students and I was the only one that wasn't.
And I thought, oh my god, they're not geniuses at all.
They're just memorizing. And I thought I can do that.
And so then I went to the admissions counselor and

(12:29):
I said, I think I found what I'm supposed to
be doing, and I like to be a doctor, and
what are all the steps I need to take? And
he said, look, I want to give you some advice.
I think you should go into being a professor at
a university. I said why and he said, well, you know,
I've looked at it's very impressive you're a folder. But

(12:54):
you're too old for one thing, I was twenty nine
when I was talking to him. I mean, these the
old days. It's not like that anymore. And number two,
you're a woman. I said, what does that have to
do with it. Well, it's harder to get in as
a woman in those days. Number three, he said, you
don't have any money. You were in the Peace Corps
and it's very expensive and you'd have to get a

(13:16):
huge loan to pay it off. And I said anything
else and he said, well, you didn't have any science background,
because I tested out of all the things. I had
a good education in Germany. And so then I broke
all the rules. I prematurely applied to med school because

(13:38):
he said I was so old. So I thought I
have to hurry up so that I got I got
a letter of requesting an interview from Stanford, and I
went to show the advisor and he said, well, I'm sorry.
I thought I was giving you good advice. Anyway, Stanford
wanted me because I was. They said they were looking

(14:00):
for one percent of their student population. That was quote
out of the box, and I guess I'm out of
the box. And I discovered I really am out of
the box because when I when I ended up going
to University of Colorado because they paid for my whole thing,
and so and so I was so eager to learn

(14:26):
all the stuff. The first two years at anatomy and
physiology and all that stuff, I just couldn't get enough
of it. I was so excited and everything, but gradually
I smelled a rat. Something wasn't right. In the next years,
we were learning stuff that I knew wasn't right, like
saturated fats are cause heart disease. I knew that wasn't

(14:49):
right because I lived with all these people back in
the days before jump food, who lived on saturated fats,
like the NATO people back then. Everything's changed now, it's
not like that anymore with the junk food. But they
were slim, strong, nobody had heart disease or strokes, and
they rode horses until they were ninety five or something.

(15:09):
And then when I lived in Europe, when the rate
of heart disease was way lower in Europe, this was
long time ago, they ate tons of cream and butter
and all that stuff. So I knew something is wrong,
but I didn't have all the data. And fast forward
many years ahead, we discovered that all the lies that

(15:34):
were given to us by corporations like the sugar industry
in the seventies. They were so afraid because the hippies
quote the hippies were telling everybody not to eat sugar,
that it caused heart disease. And so they did something
very sinister that you can look it up yourself in
the New York Times in twenty sixteen. I guess it
took that long to tell the truth. Maybe they were

(15:56):
afraid of getting shot or something if they tell the truth.
I'm just kidding. But anyway, so they paid three Harvard
researchers to lie and make a fake research that other
research is built on showing that it was fat that
caused heart disease. Well, back then we didn't know the

(16:17):
difference between good fat and bad fat. And like bad
fat ken yes, cause cart disease, but good fats are
extremely beneficial for you, like butter and coconut oil and
duck tallow and so forth, and ghee and all that stuff.
And then they told us, they told us to eat

(16:40):
margarine hydrogenated fat. I thought, this is a crazy world.
I'm learning stuff that's crazy. They're telling us not deep
butter and to eat some fake butter called margarine, which
later was determined to cause heart disease. So I lived
with what's known as can native dissonance and being an athlete.

(17:03):
I wanted to be at the top of my class.
That's that's sort of the athlete in me. But in
order to do that, I had to betray my soul
and go along with all this stuff that I knew
wasn't true in order to you know, be part of
the herd and be accepted and not rejected. And they
called people who who really, in my heart were they

(17:26):
called them quacks, and so I didn't want to be
a quack, you know. So anyway, so it was really rough.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
And then.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
When I became a single mother, I did something that
really betrayed my soul. I joined corporate medicine because I
had to. I couldn't deliver babies all night. I had
a baby, and so I had to be there for
him and go home at five and make a decent
income and not work on the weekends so I could

(17:57):
be a real mother to my baby. And so corporate
medicine was awful. You had fifteen minutes or half an
hour if it's a new page, fifteen minutes to order
a lot of tests and then just give a pill
for everything that's wrong with you. I thought, this is disgusting,
but I didn't know what to do, and I didn't

(18:19):
want to be called a quack for you know, thinking
for myself and doing things that really worked and looking
for the underlying reason of why they're sick. I couldn't
do any of that. It was awful. I felt like
a complete robot. And then a disaster happened, and just
like the disaster in college, this disaster saved me. So

(18:42):
what happened was this was a brand new building, a
full of toxic chemicals. Once a month, I felt like
I had the flu, and I found out from the
janitors that their pesticide schedule coincided with my diary or
journal of when I felt like I had the flu.
I was getting sicker and sicker, and I didn't know

(19:04):
what it was. I didn't know environmental medicine. Now I'm
an expert. People come from all over the country to
help me figure out their medical mysteries, which I love doing.
But then I didn't know all that stuff. But I
was here. I'm a world class athlete, and I'm so
tired all the time, full of rashes, and my balance

(19:28):
is off, and pretty soon my thinking's off and I
don't know what to do, and it's getting worse and worse,
and finally this patient comes in and the exam rooms
are no windows, and it's a small cubicle and he
sits there and he's rambling, and my brain is so

(19:50):
scrambled I can't follow what he's saying. And all of
a sudden he stops and he looks right in my
eyes and he says, doctor Elliott, are you all right?
And then all of a sudden I couldn't hold it
in anymore, and I just put my head down and cried.
And he came and sat next to me and put

(20:11):
his arm around me. He said, doctor Elliott, tell me
what's wrong. And I said, I don't know. I think
I'm dying. I can't think anymore, and my eyes are blurry,
and I listed all these things and he said, I
know what's wrong with you. And I said what's wrong
with me? And he said you've got sick building syndrome.

(20:33):
And I said what's that? And he said this building
is toxic? And I said, what do you mean toxic?
This was back when people didn't know that stuff, back
in nineteen ninety one, two and three, And I said,
how do you know it's toxic? He said, whenever I
come in for our appointments. I feel horrible. I get
a scratchy throat, my nose runs, my eyes burn, I

(20:58):
get a headache, and I can't think. You need to
get out of here. And I said, but I can't
because I have to support my son and blah blah blah.
And he said, well, you can stay here and just die,
you know, or become totally incapacitated and be disabled the
rest of your life. And if you don't leave, I'm

(21:18):
going to tell your supervisor. And I said, how could
you do something like that? He said, have you ever
heard of an intervention? I'm doing an intervention. I'm trying
to save you. And so the next person who came
in had so much perfume on I had no idea
what she was saying. It was so toxic. And that's

(21:39):
when I realized, okay, I got to get out of here.
So I thought, my life is over. You know, who'd
ever want to hire me? I'm a wreck, I'm sensitive
now to everything. What am I going to do? I
lay on the couch and cried, and then someone knocked
on the door. This three days later and asked me

(22:01):
if if I could, if I could have an appointment
with her. I said, well, I was so confused. What
do you mean? And she said, well, I was your
patient at the multi specialty clinic. I can't say the name.
I'll be sued. And I really liked you. And I said,

(22:22):
but I can't see anybody I got brain damage. She said,
I know the nurse told us all about what happened
to you, but I have the same thing you have.
So could I could I come into your home and
have an appointment? I thought, oh wow, this is so weird.
And so she came in and she talked and talked,

(22:44):
and I made eye contact and tried to look like
I was really following her and saying uh huh. But
you know, I couldn't understand each word. I couldn't string
them together. It's like learning Greek. And all of a sudden,
she said, are we done? And I said, well are you?
Are you dumb? She said, yes, how much do I you?

(23:05):
I said, I didn't do anything. You don't know me anything.
She said, doctor Elliott, you don't understand. You are the
first doctor that's ever listened to me and taken me
seriously and understands me. And I'm going to tell my
friends about you, and so Anyway, I was so honest

(23:26):
with everybody. I told everybody that I'm brain damaged, and
I act like I'm demented, and they still kept coming.
And gradually I got better enough so I could learn
environmental medicine. I eventually got board certified, and then and
I was after five years, I was like really healthy,
and I had more patience than I could handle. They

(23:47):
were all desperate to get not only seen and heard,
but just get some advice. And gradually I had real
things to offer them. And that's when people start coming
from all over the country. And then it wasn't just
environmental issues. Pretty soon it was just anything that their
doctor couldn't figure out. And like I remember one patient,

(24:08):
wealthy businessman from San Francisco. He'd been to fifteen doctors
trying to find out what was wrong with him. His
mother told him about this person in Santa Fe, which
is me. He came out here. I figured out what
he had in ten minutes. And it's not because I'm
a genius. It's because our medical system it is messed

(24:31):
up for chronic conditions. It's great for surgeries, it's great
for trauma. But anyway, what's my secret? How did I
figure it out. I talked to him and I had
a timeline when were you fine and then when were
you not fine? And he said, well, in winter of
twenty sixteen, I started feeling bad. And I said, well,

(24:53):
did you ever have times where you felt good? And
he said yeah. I went camping for two weeks in
Alaska and I felt great. And I said, what happened
when you came back? I felt terrible. I said, it's
your house, okay, let's go over it. There's three main
things in the house that can cause problems. One is
a gas leak. Two is full of toxins, like you

(25:15):
put pesticides in your house and stuff like that. Three
is mold. And I said, let's start with mold. Is
there any evidence of water damage in the place you're renting?
He said how would I know that? And I said, well,
there'll be stains on the wall, buckling of the paint
around the windows, there some discoloration. He said, oh, it's
full of that. I said, you have mycotoxin poisoning. Those

(25:39):
are poisons made by the spores of the mold, and
they can totally They're neurotoxic, like any toxic chemical damage
your nervous system. You need to get out now and
then we'll make a plan of how you can get well.
And so that's anyway. I love my work and people

(26:00):
say when will you retire? I say never, never. I
love helping people empower them with knowledge and helping them
feel good. Brings me enormous joy.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Well, once again, I've been listening Focused radio talking to
our guests today and doctor Elliott, I want to say,
I'm glad I let you take the floor, because I'm like, no,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ask another question because
we gave what series of stories, and these stories I
think are very helpful for anyone who listens or watches,

(26:40):
because what I got from all that is, even though
life gave you, you know, a lot of surprises and detours,
you still navigate it and navigate your way through it,
and it still positions you to help and serve other people.
I love the parties where you're outside the box according

(27:02):
to people. I think sometimes that's the best place to be.
You can be tied down to so much textbook study
things that unless you're actually in the field, you really
don't know what you think you know. It's good to
have textbook type ideas and stuff, But the real work

(27:26):
is when you're actually in the field, real life situations.
Because last time I checked, when you're in the field,
it's kind of hard to dig in your backpack and see, okay, ABC,
what I have to do next. Sometimes you can't. You
don't have the luxury and time to do that. You
have to just do what is happening in the moment.

(27:48):
And that's what I got from your story. And I
think for you to be still recognized and respect as
a professional doctor who is now just going for the
pocket book, but going for the art, that's in this sense, well,
there's now enough people in the professional world who listen

(28:12):
to people into what is actually going on in their life.
Sometimes it's just a rubber stab and transactional next. But
what we learned today, I'm sure our viewers and listeners
will see that this is an example of what you
can be as a professional actually listen to people's heart.

(28:33):
You said earlier in the story, you need help. The
gentleman open the door said you can leave now, but
you chose to talk, and he chose to listen.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah, he was. He saved me. He helped me begin my
real life. He's the God sent that man, and if
I and had a break down, I'd probably be some
professor at a university and totally miserable, never finding my real,
true heartfelt calling in life.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
If someone's listening to this right now, and obviously I
always want to tell people, if you ever feel like
you're going through something, always seek professional help. I always
see a doctor, and don't ever just like you brush
it to the side and try to heal yourself or something,
but always get you know several opinions. You don't have

(29:34):
to always be boxed in to whatever's being told to you,
but always want to make a disclaim. If anyone watch
the show, always see professional help. With that said, you
understanding your profession how important it is for people like
you to share your knowledge with patients. If someone's watching

(29:54):
and listen to this and they feel like they need
help navigating getting to the right doctor, what words of
wisdom would you share with them to encourage them to
make sure that they do they all or I guess
best they can.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
I have an exercise I have my patients do who
are really troubled, and it sounds really simple, but it's
very hard. I tell them to look in the mirror
and do this every day and lean over, go into

(30:34):
the bathroom, turn on the light, lean over towards the
mirror so you're like two inches from the mirror, Look
into your eyes unflinchingly, and talk to the two year
old that we all are, we all have a two
year old inside of us, and say I love you,
and I'll never abandon you, and we'll together, we'll get

(30:58):
through this. We'll get through this. And so many people
they try it and they just start crying. They just
can't do it. And but it's it's when they do it, it's
life changing. That simple, tiny action is life changing because

(31:18):
you're showing love for yourself. And when you do that,
you'll find the right path. See with the psychiatrist, he
helped me love. I love myself for the first time
in my life. I realized I was a good person.
He helped me with that. But you can you can

(31:40):
do it yourself with this simple you try it, you
try it. It's it's not as easy as it sounds.
And you make unflinching contact with your eyes in the mirror, unflinching,
and you say with all your heart, I love you,
I'll never abandon you, and together we're going to get

(32:00):
through this. We're gonna find the way we're gonna do it.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
That's great because I've heard people say, you know, how
you see yourself is how you're teaching others to see. Yeah,
I think that holds a lot of weight because if
you don't believe that you can get through it, my
guess is that you're going to start taking actions that's

(32:26):
going to mirror that way of thinking, that that belief
system that you have. And a lot of times when
you start surrounding yourself with people who you can look
up to and aspire to be like and learn the ropes,
so to speak, then they challenge you to see that

(32:48):
art truth. And I think that littor exercises is a
great starting point because until you can actually face your reflection, yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
I'm flinching, unflinching. I mean I have patients who go
like this, They just can't do it. They can't do it.
I guess because they were treated so badly as as
children or something. They just can't. They try and try
and then they just start crying.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, if we're all honest, we've been there before. And
I think that exercise also symbolizes truth and so you
face that truth, you'll always be in the shadows.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Well with that said, listening watching this online talking to
our guest, doctor Elliott. I know you have a website
for our viewers and listeners if someone wants to connect
with you and find out all the other resources you
have in your other books. What's the best website that
you can go to.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
There's two websites. One is my book platform, and even
if you're not interested in the books, it has a
lot of photos that you enjoy and short videos that
I think you'd really enjoy, Like one is about a
mountain lion encounter I had, you know, sniff me while

(34:09):
I was in my sleeping bag. And that's Erica Elliott
with two l's and two t's Erica with the c
Erica Elliott MD dot com. I think you find it
really interesting and it's a way to contact me too.
And then there's a blog I've been writing for the
last eleven years and it's called Musings with an S. Musings,

(34:31):
memoir and medicine all one word. And it's there you'll
find a lot of medical information that you don't learn
from your doctors. I do blogs like people who want
to see me and I'm too full up and I'm
not taking new patients. They say, can you write about

(34:53):
mammograms or something? Can you write about cholesterol or something?
And it's not the mainstream dogma. It's telling the truth
about these things and not the corporate truth, the real truth,
and so that might be useful. Also, it's memoirs. It's

(35:16):
some of them have turned into books. And then travel
like patients have given me these huge gifts like trip
to Antarctica, to Bhuton and stuff like that. I have
everything from the destitute who've lost their job too, the
very wealthy and minor celebrities. So so, but but anyway,

(35:38):
and then you'll find healthy recipes. So it's a may
launch of different things. But the medical posts you'll learn
a lot from those.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
I as his last question before we sign off is
everyone by dim everyone, but most people always find searching
for answers for best ways start living a healthier lifestyle,
pay attention to what they eat, how they exercise, how
the way life. You as a doctor, with all these

(36:12):
years unneath your bell as experience dealing with patience, and
all the studies and research that you've done over the years,
what is one simple thing that people can pay attention to.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Okay, I'll tell you. It's the foundation of all our
health and it's what we're the worst at. It's what
we eat. That's where it begins, unless you've got something,
you know, mold problem or something that has to be
tended to immediately. But unless you're in an emergency, that's
where you start. You change your diet. Get rid of

(36:49):
the seed oils, get rid of the ultra processed food,
get rid of the bad fats, switch to the good fats.
Try to eat as much organically grown food as paul.
If you eat animals, make sure they're not factory farmed.
That's disgusting, it's cruel, it's disgusting, it's unhealthy. Make sure

(37:09):
your animals are happy, including chickens. And one way you
can tell if the chicken was raised healthy, you eat
the eggs. If they're bright orange, the chicken had a
good life digging around and digging for worms. If it's yellow,
if the chicken did not have a good life, it
was just And if they say organic chicken, that just

(37:30):
means the grain is organic. It doesn't mean the chicken
had a good life. It's very misleading. The marketing we
have a health food store that is very trustworthy. They
don't go in for the false marketing. And we have
six health food stores and there's one that is really
conscientious and they do deep research for what they sell.

(37:55):
And so I would start The best thing to do
is start with the food. We have an atrocious diet
in America. It's really horrible, and we are This is
so hard to comprehend, but we are the sickest nation
in terms of chronic illness in the entire world, and

(38:18):
food has a lot to do with it. It's not
the only thing. There's tons of things that are harming us,
like pesticides and other things, but food is the place
to start.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
It's again philis from just Ready. I'm watching us online
talking to our guests today, doctor Erica Elliott. But always
want to say to you, appreciate your time talking to
us something to show today.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Thank you. I enjoyed being with you and you do
such good work. I think you're doing a huge service
to humanity with what you're doing.