Dr. Tricia Pingel 0:04
We always think about stress as like this, you know, Oh divorce and finances and career. But being constipated is stressful to the body, being low in iron is stressful to the body, going through perimenopause is stressful to the body. Having a medication in your body is stressful to the body. The body doesn’t know what the stress is. It just knows I’m in the woods. I’m in fight or flight, I need to run from this bear, and it adapts. I’m on a mission to explain and help people understand that in order to be well, we have to change the way we respond to stress.

Blake Schofield 0:46
Hi, I’m Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of The Bridge to Fulfillment®, mom to three, USA Today top 10 professional coach, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to expand women’s perspectives and empower them to achieve greater impact at home and work without sacrifice. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment®.

Blake Schofield 1:21
Welcome back to The Bridge to Fulfillment®. Today I am so excited for our guest expert, Dr. Tricia Pingel. She is a naturopathic physician and energy expert who is also known as the Hip Hop Energy Doc. Dr. Pingel has helped hundreds of people restore their health, showing them how to identify the stress that’s actually causing their symptoms, restoring nutrition that’s been depleted by stress, and assisting them to change their mindset to repel incoming stressors so that they can return to their happy, vibrant, and energetic selves. She is the CEO of Pingel Progressive Medicine, the CEO of Total Health Apothecary, and the author of Total Health Turnaround, which has sold over 60,000 copies. She’s appeared on countless shows and in publications. And it’s no secret that this mom doctor and hip hop enthusiast is known as the Hip Hop Energy Doc. Dr. Pingel is commonly found dancing all over social media, cheering on her two boys of football, creating healthy vegan recipes in her kitchen, and snuggling her three dogs and cat at home with her husband in Phoenix, Arizona. After experiencing her own health struggles and personal loss, she strives in creating a community of positivity, gratitude, and living every day to its fullest potential. Without further ado, I introduce you to Dr. Pingel. And the amazing conversation that we had.

Blake Schofield 2:54
Dr. Tricia Pingle Welcome to the bridge to fulfillment.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 2:58
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.

Blake Schofield 3:00
I’m so excited for you to be here. And despite the fact that you and I are both laughing, that we just went through maybe the most disastrous technology zoom thing I’ve ever experienced. We are here. And I’m really excited about this topic. And I’m excited about how this conversation is going to help change people’s perspective about stress how it’s really impacting their lives and what they can do about it instead.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 3:25
Yeah, I’m excited to talk about it as well. And our little zoom example is a perfect example. You can’t control what happens, you just have to adapt, right?

Blake Schofield 3:33
Yes, you just have to roll with it. So with that said, I often ask my guests to come on and just share a little bit about their background and sort of how they ended up in the journey that they’re on. And so I’d love to open it up that way, because you have a really fascinating background and experience. And I think our listeners can learn a lot just from learning a little bit about you.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 3:53
Yeah, I’ve kind of twisted and turned a lot throughout my life and what I’ve done and where I’ve been and I’ve had to pivot a lot. And I think that’s what has honestly attributed to my happiness is just learning how to just run with it and figure it out as I go. Because I think so often we just don’t as women. We just think like we have like one path and one thing to do. But yeah, you know, I was, I was funny enough in high school, I was voted most likely to be famous. I was in the entertainment industry as a kid. I was a model, I was an actress. My family was in that type of thing. I never would have dreamed of becoming a doctor and it wasn’t really laid out for me to become a doctor. It was kind of like, well, you’re going to do this as I started to grow up and I started to watch people’s behavior. And I started to kind of get an interest in my own health. Just from my experiences in that industry. I started to open myself up to going into medicine and started learning biology and biochemistry, ended up in the veterinary world and was going to become a veterinarian. And right at about that point, my dad had a massive stroke ended up in the hospital in a vegetative coma for about three months. We ended up having to let him go. And in that time I was talking to, you know, the doctors and trying to ask questions and trying to like, figure out, Is there anything we can do? I don’t want him to suffer, you know, what can I learn?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 5:11
And I was kind of, I guess, taken aback by the lack of education, the lack of support as a family member, and kind of started to say, wait a minute, there’s a area of medicine here that I think I could contribute to, because I love education. I love biology, I love biochemistry, I love helping others. And I feel like there’s this disconnect in medicine. And I decided in that moment, I was like, Alright, I’m going to treat humans instead, instead of instead of animals, and I kind of made a pivot. And when I was looking at conventional versus naturopathic, naturopathic just made sense, because I really do believe in taking care of yourself paying attention to what foods you’re eating, paying attention to how stress is impacting you. So it was really attractive to me. So I kind of made a shift. So I went from a childhood model to a naturopathic physician, you know, over the course of 25 years with lots of twists and turns. And that has continued. And I know we’ll talk tons about this. But that has continued into other challenges and, and other things that have just cemented that I’m in the right place at the right time. So now I’m just running with it.

Blake Schofield 6:18
Hmm, that’s awesome. Right Place Right Time, I think there’s really nothing more beautiful than knowing that you’re on the path that you’re meant to be on. And I think so many of our listeners are struggling and seeking and looking to find that. So I’m excited to dive a little bit more into your story. Because I often find those of us that have truly found our paths of fulfillment and happiness and peace, we went through our own journeys, and then had to connect back how all of those dots were always there, all those signs were always they’re leading us in the right direction. And once you can begin to understand that you can begin to start to see it in your life, you said, you know, you went from Okay, I think I’m gonna be a veterinarian, you go through this horribly tragic experience with your dad. And it really opened your eyes to this gap and opportunity. And then you started researching and you decided instead of going the traditional methods to go neuropathic, for those people who maybe don’t have a background in medicine, and don’t know as much about that, could you give a little bit more of an understanding about what naturopathic means, and how that might look different than somebody who’s used to just going to a traditional doctor.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 7:23
Naturopathic medicine really looks at the root cause and the entire being. So it’s a holistic discipline. Now with that we learn in medical school, the pharmacy, and the diagnosis and the lab tests and the you know, but the way that we go about treating it is a bit different. For example, if you come to me and you say, you know, Dr. Pingel, I have a headache, or waking me up every day, one side may say, Okay, we’ll take Advil, the other side may say, Well, why do you have the headache? Right? And let’s figure that out. So often, when I start doing investigation, and I start narrowing it down, it turns out that there’s some inflammatory process in your body, maybe you’re allergic to oatmeal, and you’re eating oatmeal, and it’s causing inflammation and that inflammation is causing a headache. The way I like to look at symptoms is symptoms are our body’s trying to communicate with us. And I think in a time of stress, what we’re in, we’re just always surrounded by stress, and it just keeps getting more and more and more. And we get disconnected. It’s like our head and our bodies just stop, they just, they almost just cut off, and then we start looking at symptoms and treating symptoms, rather than looking at okay, well, what am I supposed to learn from this? What is my body trying to tell me? And how can I change that. And so naturopathic medicine takes a farther approach into the holistic aspect of it. Sometimes I use medications, rarely, but I do if they’re needed. And then herbal medicine, nutritional medicine, lifestyle, medicine, and a ton of Mind Body, reconnecting that head and that body. Because the healthiest people I know, and the happiest people I know, are people that know what their body’s trying to say. And I think that’s the key to health.

Blake Schofield 8:56
I appreciate that so much, because what you’re talking about is solving the root cause, which I have such an appreciation for, because that’s what I do every day in the work I do with my clients, it can become really easy to search for the band aids. And I think as a society, we’ve been taught you just have a headache, take some Advil, you’re unhappy in your career, change jobs, you’re having a difficult time in your marriage, get a divorce. And often we aren’t truly looking at understanding what are the deeper levels of what’s going on in our life, and how are we contributing to them by maybe ignoring them, or seeking alternative methods versus actually figuring out what’s going on? And so I so appreciate what you’re doing because I’ll share a little bit about my personal journey because you shared a little bit with me before we have some similarities in terms of what we grew up in experienced.

Blake Schofield 9:46
At the age of about 10. I started getting sick all of the time. My elementary school was overloaded and we ended up in you know, those little like, near almost like the little mobile home things that they have for schools that are too big, right? So my classroom was in one of these mobile homes and I was sick almost every single month, like go to the doctor. And they’d be like, Oh, you have another sinus infection. And it was medicine after medicine, after medicine, after medicine, I should have probably failed fifth grade, thank you, Miss Barker for not failing me, even though I actually technically was like below the days of school threshold. And that continued on actually for several years, where I was just so sick all of the time. And I would get such bad migraine headaches that I would literally close off in my room and write like silence and dark for days to try and help get over it. And after two years of going through this and suffering and just never finding a real solution, I started studying for myself, what’s wrong with me.

Blake Schofield 10:44
And back in those days, we didn’t have internet, we would go to the library, right and research. And I said, You know what, I think I have allergies. Because every time it rains, I get really sick. And I read write pollens come out of trees, this this and that I’ve noticed certain times of the year I’m more sick than others. And I’ll never forget going to a doctor at 12. And I told him, will you please test me for allergies? I think that I have them. And he said to me, basically, who do you think you are? How dare you tell me that. And basically call me a control freak. At that point, my mom fired him, my entire family fired him. But it took me another five years and seven doctors. I was 19 when I finally got tested for allergies. Because I had doctor after doctor after doctor tells me that it was something else, I went through CAT scans. I mean, I went through the wringer. And at 19, I got tested, we found out I was allergic to 50 things. And so I can look back at all of those signs and symptoms inherently I knew something was wrong. But I was being constantly fed pills, then all these other things instead of actually getting at the root cause of why I was sick. And as a result of that experience as a child, it really altered my perspective about doctors and medicine. I avoid medicine, like the plague where I can.

Blake Schofield 12:04
And I also though continue to experience lots of health issues in my life. But as a result of what I experienced as a child, I think many times dealt with it on my own. And I think I’m not alone in that. I think there are a lot of people who go through that, feel like their doctors aren’t listening to them, feel like those solutions aren’t really working, don’t want to be on medication all of the time. And I think we’re also to a place in our society where the levels of stress and anxiety are getting so high. I think COVID definitely tipped that in an arena. But I think there’s also many of us that have began to learn, there are a lot more effective methods when we look holistically. And so I really love that you saw this and you moved into this path, because I feel like it’s such a growing area that so many people still don’t really understand or know enough about. Because it feels alternative, when in reality, it’s far closer to, I think, how we’re actually naturally wired than anything else. Because our bodies are actually here to tell us, what’s wrong, and what’s right. But most of us have never been taught to even think about, or look at that. So if I were to ask you, how could you explain to somebody who maybe has had some difficult experiences and with traditional medicine, or maybe they think this stuff is kind of alternative? And they don’t really understand when you say like your body’s teaching you something? Or how to learn to listen to that? What would be some pieces of information you would help to maybe cross that divide for them?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 13:29
That’s a great question. I think what I’ve learned over time, and when I was in a similar situation to you, as a kid was going to doctor and doctor and having problems and everyone telling me it’s in my head, I don’t know that I was young. And I don’t know that I could grasp this concept. But what I’ve learned is when your body is sick, to show gratitude and ask it what it needs. And I know that sounds strange, because we try to fix everything. And I think we have this idea that we have control over everything. You know, if we just take control over it, if we just do 1000 tests, and we just keep pushing, and we just keep going, we’re gonna get better when really what we need to do is back up and not control it for a second, and just be in that moment for a second. And listen, stress is something that has always been there. And I think we’re conditioned to push through, especially when you’re a strong woman, like I haven’t raised us from where like, if you want what you want, you go get it right, you go get it, you’re fully capable.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 14:20
And I am however, at what expense we’re taught to just push through. And we have basically in simplicity, two different nervous systems that control how we handle every situation, we have the fight or flight which is your sympathetic nervous system, and we have the rest and digest which is your parasympathetic nervous system. And we are supposed to spend most of our time in parasympathetic which is resting and digesting. I don’t know too many people, particularly business women that spend 80% of their time and rest and digest. So when they’re spending so much time in fight or flight that leads to inflammation. Now where that inflammation lands in your body is different to everybody. But when you start to have a symptom like allergies and your body starts to say something’s being missed, or something’s going on. Your system thinks something’s going on, something’s going on. And you’re like, Oh, I’m gonna keep writing, you know, and you’re being dismissed and pushed on. And so many people accept that. But I think paying attention to that and then saying, Okay, how can I move my body into a repair phase? And what happens when I down regulate that response and allow my body to actually heal it, I find it starts to heal in these layers. It’s like, one system will start to go away, maybe another one exasperates. Because it’s like, Oh, you took care of that, hey, I’m over here, come take care of me now.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 15:33
So you work through it in layers, and those that have gone through this process of childhood illness, of just their lives through illness, may be able to resonate with that, that just take a moment. I had stomach aches from the time I was a child, I missed so much school as a kid, because I had stomach aches, not a single doctor, in the 10 years I went to doctor, ever asked me if I went to the bathroom. No one ever asked how often I pooped, not one. If they would have asked me my answer would have been once every two weeks. Never asked, right? How many years of inflammation and stomach pain and then developing into acne and liver congestion and how much stress did that put on my little 10 year old body? Right? We don’t think about that. We always think about stresses like this, you know, oh, divorce and finances and career but being constipated is stressful to the body. Being low in iron is stressful to the body going through perimenopause is stressful to the body. Having a medication in your body is stressful to the body, the body doesn’t know what the stress is. It just knows I’m in the woods, I’m in fight or flight, I need to run from this bear. And it adapts.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 16:40
So we have to change in health, I firmly believe and I’m on a mission to explain and help people understand that, in order to be well, we have to change the way we respond to stress. And you’re right the last couple years with a pandemic, you saw it go people either win. Or shoot like people either took that opportunity and grew and said, I’m going to power through this, but I’m going to learn how to take care of myself or they let it take them down. And I think these little stresses that maybe we don’t recognize, because we’re so busy running and powering through, we need to take a step back and start really recognizing them if we want to be well. Stress is absolutely killing us. And I really hope that just some of you out there listening, just take a moment to recognize that it’s okay, you might be sick in this moment. But there are things that can be done. And a lot of the times it just has to do to back off the perfectionism, just a tad. Just a tad, you know.

Blake Schofield 17:34
I appreciate so much of everything that you said, and there’s so many ways I want to go. First. Most of the women that come to me in the work I do are and have been living their entire lives in fight or flight or very high percentage. That is certainly who I was. And I’d love to come back to that and dive into it. Because I think there’s so much opportunity for people to better understand that we’ve normalized that stress. And what we’re doing is normalizing creating health issues that will eventually show up and take us out in some pretty significant ways. But before we dive in that I would just love to really validate what you said, which is this idea of our body is telling us something, our body actually will heal. If we allow it to we give it the right things, we reduce the stress. So about three years ago, I completely changed the way that I eat, I started a program really for my husband, but I thought oh, this would be great, I’ll lose maybe eight pounds and get more energy, I can take that, I’m a mom of three. And what I really did was cut out almost all processed foods. And I went natural when I started eating a lot of greens and vegetables and unbalanced my carbs and my proteins. And I found that I felt significantly different. My brain was clear, I had so much more energy on a day to day basis. And my health started to just improve my allergy problems started to improve and it didn’t fix it all. But I saw improvement.

Blake Schofield 19:01
And then last year, I went and spent some time with a chiropractor, because I’ve had a lot of back injuries and back damage, bulging discs, a lot of things of that nature. And spending time really fixing issues that I think hadn’t been fixed appropriately 20 years prior from a car accident, huge progress forward in terms of how I felt removal of stress and things that used to hit me right, right down the neck and the shoulders as many of us have. And then in this last year, I’ve really been focusing a lot on learning how to listen to my body and adapt as appropriately and I would say my allergies today, despite the fact that I went through decades of taking allergy pills and allergy shots and I had sinus surgery, like the whole thing. I would say my allergies today are about 10 or 15% of what they used to be. And so it just is in complete alignment with what you said which is right. My body was trying to tell me something and there were many things that I needed to be able to adapt in order to get to a place where I wasn’t creating all of that stress on my body. And I can be in an entirely different state. And I think there are so many times that I just accepted the pain in my neck and back is just the way it is because I’ve had all these accidents, and I can’t change it. My allergies are just the way they are, because I’ve had them forever, and I can’t change them. And I think there’s so many people going through life believing that when it’s just not true.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 20:25
Oh, there’s so much we can change. So much we can change. When I removed dairy from my diet, I no longer had constipation. But then I had to continue to heal my gut beyond that, because my Flora was off, you know, my and from that my neurotransmitters were off. And then I went through more loss and more grief, I lost my mom as well. And all of my grandparents, all of my, all of my immediate family are above watching me from above, and they all pass while I was fairly young. And when they were young. And I think one of the things that changed. And maybe this goes to your point a little bit is one of the things you know, I’ve continued to grow over the years, right? You, you clean stuff up, and then you you see what comes at you and you take your health to the next level. And the next level. I mean, I’m on like your 20 of health clean up, right, you’re never quite done.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 21:10
But one of the main things that kind of shifted this for me and changed the way that I worked with my clients and changed what I did with my career was when my mom passed, and it was about a month before she died. She was going through chemo. That’s a whole another story on just the lack of education in that and the lack of support not in the conventional world when someone’s going through cancer. But it was about a month before she passed. And she was maybe eighty eight pounds by that point. And we’re tall. I’m six feet tall. She was she was 5″10. But at eighty eight pounds, and she was sitting in a bed and I said Mom, do you have any regrets? And she said, I have one in my entire life. My only regret is why did I spend so much time worrying about that 10 pounds, because I would give anything to have that 10 pounds right now. She was so weak, she couldn’t walk to the bathroom. And we get up every day and we walk to the bathroom, we get to our car, we drive to work, we do whatever we do. And maybe you have limitations in doing that, because everyone has different places. But there’s a lot of things that we do that someone else can’t do. Waking up in the morning, you know, my dad didn’t wake up that morning, he fell to the ground. He was in a coma. He never came back. It was gone in an instant. My mom spent hours and hours worrying about her weight. And what calorie restriction could she do to eating a whole bunch of processed foods in order to fad diets and this and that, which was a product of the modeling industry. Unfortunately, that’s what she had learned. And that’s what she was taught.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 22:29
We were taught when I was a kid to drink a lot of milk could give kids lots of milk. Well, it was literally changing my health in a negative way. So I think what that moment did for me is I realized, all right, we can spend a lot of time worrying about everything and focusing on every little detail. Or we can just take one step at a time, realize this is a process, keep growing, and keep being grateful and listening to our body. And if something isn’t going our way, that means we’re not paying attention. We’re not listening, we need to just backup and listen and figure it out. It may not be you how you think it’s going to be though, you know, it may be your own process. And your body’s going to take through your own process. And you will get through it. And I’ve been through a lot of it. So I’m with you. I understand that people out there. They’re like, Oh, yeah, whatever. I mean, I had a couple years ago, I didn’t have any hair up on my scalp. It had all fallen out. Just from the stress of going through chemo with my mom and watching her die. I mean, it was horrible, right? I had hair falling out wrinkles, bags under my eyes, I had no muscle tone. I was exhausted. I wasn’t sleeping well. And I did exactly what you did. You know, I looked at my diet again, I started incorporating different types of exercise. I started doing mind body and I started to practice gratitude. That was the game changer. Because I had always done all of these general diet, things I’d always eat and fairly well cleaned a lot out. But it wasn’t until I made that choice to say, Okay, I’m going to live right now. And I’m going to just deal with what’s happening. And it’s okay, I don’t have to let that bear scare the crap out of me, every time I’m hiking in the woods, I can just enjoy the lake and the flowers and go a different direction. And I think that’s a really important point. And it’s a good takeaway for everyone out there listening. And I hope that helps. Because there is so much you can do one step at a time.

Blake Schofield 24:11
100%. And I love your comment about gratitude, there’s been so much that’s been said so much that’s been studied about how impactful that is. But what I hear actually, is that you took gratitude mixed with non attachment. Yeah, to the future to the past to a certain outcome. It was I’m grateful for this moment. And grateful for the things I have with no expectation about what it has to look like, what it shouldn’t look like or what I wish that it had looks like. And I think that for those of us that are Type A drivers that grew up in environments where it’s like, yeah, go make that thing happen. But sometimes we can have a fear of well, what if I do that and then I actually don’t, I’m no longer motivated to accomplish things or I, you know, I’m not successful or I don’t create what I want, and I would tell you, what you’ve discovered is also what I’ve discovered, which is, you can actually achieve far more peace, fulfillment, happiness impacts, when you can be grateful. And you can be in the moment, and you’re no longer constantly pushing, or hustling to bring things to your life. Because again, often when we do that, we’re trying to force things that maybe aren’t for us.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 25:23
We’re just bringing more bears, we’re in the woods, you’re hiking, you see a bear your buddy, because, and then you turn the corner, there’s another bear. And I know so many people, and I’m guilty of this, I invite bears. Sometimes, like when I’m not paying attention, I’m like, oh, yeah, come on, in. Why the heck did I let that bear in my life? Right? We do that because we’re kind of trained to keep moving. And it’s kind of sad, because there’s so much beauty and each and every one of us. And I think being goal oriented is fantastic. But I think you’re 100% right. You can’t attach yourself to what you think that goal is gonna look like. People ask me all the time, well, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Where are you going? I don’t know, I just know that I’m going to show up every day. Present 100%. Present in my life, I’m going to be present in my kids lives, I’m gonna be present with my clients, I’m going to be present with you in this moment. And we’ll see what comes of it. And it’s so freeing, and it’s, I sleep so much better now. Because I’m not worried about tomorrow, I’m just worried about waking up, and seeing my kids and my family and spending a moment with them. And then in the next moment, I’ll figure out what I’m going to do. And that’s not to say that I’m not organized, or that I don’t plan out things because I’m a businesswoman, I do but if things change, it’s okay. You know. And getting rid of that attachment is so important. So important.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 26:37
And I think in this society, too, with social media, and just constant buzzing the cell phone that goes off all the time. Every time by the way, guys, every time, the cell phone rings or buzzes or your notifications go up on your phone, you’re stimulating cortisol, so that’s a bear. So if you took a day, and you just counted how many times your cortisol was stimulated, 50 years ago, it might have been twice, you know, or hardly at all. And now we’re being stimulated, like, what was it, kids check their phone 80 times per hour, on average, check social media 80 times per hour. So at times per hour, there’s only 60 minutes in an hour. So it’s once per minute, we’re stimulating cortisol in this specially in this younger population, and it breaks my heart as a parent, I’m the mother of two and my kids aren’t on social media, I’ve luckily been able to avoid that so far. But that’s not to say that they aren’t being stimulated constantly by other things. And we have to set good examples of how to handle that for them. And the in our own respects, we have to let that go as well, and just let go of that need to always have to be seen or what are other people doing or what.

Blake Schofield 27:43
Yeah, and I think a huge part of that is that, number one, it’s dopamine hit. So it feels good. And so we just keep doing it, because we get addicted to that energy.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 27:53
Oh, yeah.

Blake Schofield 27:55
I think the other piece is we have a huge fear as a society, because most people don’t understand that our beliefs are formed by the time we’re seven, and that pretty much everyone has a belief system that they’re not good enough.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 28:07
Yeah.

Blake Schofield 28:08
And if you don’t work through that, you’re gonna have a huge fear of missing out. And what if something happens, and I’m going to be in trouble or, you know, I’m rejected, or I get fired. And so we’re literally living our entire lives in that fight or flight fear cycle. And so I love that you mentioned that earlier. Because ultimately, I look at the first 40 years of my life because I left corporate at 40. And that’s when I said, I’m done. I’m done with this. I got shingles at 28. After having my first kiddo, that was my first big warning sign. But it took me a while really to get out of that and understand the impact that the day to day stress I was living under was really having to my life. And so I spent the first 40 years of my life I think probably in fight or flight 75 or 80% of my life. I was just constantly living in that arena. And I think there are so many women just like I was. And so for those women, what would you say Dr. Pingel? What’s the first step they can take? Because if this is a continuum, right place where maybe I’m on the extreme, and I’m living in fight or flight most of my life, too. I just show up fully present with no expectations and just grateful. So how can someone begin to move from the continuum of I’m living in fight or flight, what you’re saying is totally how my life is, and I don’t even know how to begin. What did they do?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 29:31
A couple things. Number one, you have to prioritize you. You have to and then to take self reflection how many times throughout your day, are you not prioritizing you? For example, it was interesting when you said the dopamine hit, you know, you’re scrolling and you get a dopamine hit. Well, every time you stimulate dopamine, in biochemistry, you lower serotonin. So there’s this balance that’s going on and then all of a sudden when serotonin gets low and dopamine and norepinephrine get high we don’t sleep as well. We have more worry, we have more anxiety, and we have this need to check more, what more is going on, what more is going on? Right, but we’re actually impacting our resting phase. So prioritize you by first looking at how many times do you fall victim to that bear throughout your day? What are the things that are causing that and start paying attention to it and pay attention to how you feel afterwards? Do you grind your teeth? Do your dues, your cheek skirt shore? You know, do you find yourself snapping at your kids when they asked you for a sandwich? Like, what are the little things you’re doing that are having a negative impact on your life? And are they actually something that you’re doing that if you prioritize you, you could resolve.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 30:30
That’s the first step. I mean, I take people through this healing process with basically four prongs nutrition exercise that helps the parasympathetic nervous system and also tones you supplements to replenish everything you’ve depleted, because when we’re under stress, and we’re running from there, we deplete so many nutrients, most commonly, B vitamins, vitamin C, and minerals, right? All of these are important for inflammation, they’re important for the immune system, they’re important for your mood, right. And then number four is the mind body piece is just that gratitude piece. And I have found I have taken numerous people through the first three steps and they will get a certain distance, they really will. But they don’t get there, till they hit that mind body piece. So my first thing is start working on that because it’s the hardest thing to switch because we have been trained to go and always be aware of what everyone else is doing instead of ourselves. So number one, prioritize you and then start working through all those little things as you identify that journal them. Am I having allergies? Could this be allergies? What could it be? What could be triggering it? Is it worse when I’m really busy? Does that happen? When I’m on vacation? Do you know how many people have symptoms, they see me for years, they have symptoms, I’m finally like go on a vacation, they go on vacation, they’re like, Wow, Dr. King, oh, I didn’t have a single gut issue while I was on vacation, I’m like I think we’re onto something here, right.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 31:48
And I want to also say on that those of you that are afraid to prioritize yourself, because you think you’re going to lose everything, you’re not going to be on top of everything, and you’re going to let other people down. You’re wrong. Actually, by prioritizing yourself, you can do so much more, do so much more for yourself, do so much more for other people, and get rid of the things that don’t have to be there and let them go release the outcome, as you said, but that’s number one, and you can do it. I’ve watched countless people do it. And it’s incredible, as a physician, to watch somebody go through this process, like it warms my heart, it makes me cry to watch them grow, to a point where their lives are at a totally different place. Even if they still have some health symptoms, they’re at a different place with it and continuing to act on it every single year. And nothing gives me more joy.

Blake Schofield 32:38
Right. So feel all that that’s how I feel as well. So I see that transformation for my clients, because some of the things you’re talking about are mirrors of what I go through with my clients. Because we get stuck in these patterns of not taking care of our health because we prioritize everyone else except for ourselves. I think as women in many cases, we’ve been taught to do that. And this is citee, it’s time to start shifting that to understand that when we take care of ourselves, we have so much more to take care of other people. And then we also raise our children to learn to take care of themselves. Because if you have a similar experience to me, and that when you grew up, right, you’re watching the experience of your parents. And that’s what we all do. And we watch what they do. And we mirror and we pair it that because that’s what it looks like I grew up with parents who were workaholics. And so it made sense that I ended up becoming a workaholic. That is what I believed life should look like. And so as moms, we have to stop and say what I want my child to experience what I’m experiencing. And almost always the answer’s no.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 33:45
The powerful statement. Right? Really it is. Yeah. I mean, I grew up and everything was about what everyone wanted you to look like stand in front of the camera. Hold your head that way. Nope. We don’t want you to give that impression. We want you to wear that. No, we need you to be this person today. No, oh, well, no, we don’t like that. You look too fat. We’re going to put you over here. We’re going to change your hair. We’re going to shorten your hair, we’re going to tell you who you’re supposed to be. And I watched my mom go through that. And that’s why her biggest regret was wearing a better weight. Because in her entire life, she had to pay attention to what everyone else thought of her. And I just thought it’s exhausting. It’s just exhausting. I just want to pay attention to who I am right?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 34:21
Now I want to give my whole heart to somebody and be present with them. And I think it’s true. We do and I look at some of those before I kind of went through this transformation and watching her through and I’m sure I’ve passed to my children traits that I’m good enough to help them reverse, right. But that’s okay, too. So I think there’s also an acceptance that we blame ourselves for things maybe we did wrong or things we said or things. And then we have so much hate for ourselves over how we handle the situation. Like we’ve all had a bear. We’ve all handled inappropriately. We’ve all screwed up. I think that’s the nature of being human. And I do believe 100% that our failures are actually our growth opportunities and if you don’t fail, you will not move forward. And so if I went through life and I did everything perfectly. I don’t think I would be where I am today. I think every single failure I made took me to where I needed to go. And I’m going to make so many more my kids are now entering or they’re teenagers, I’m sure I’m going to screw up royally and the next couple years, and they’re boys, so I don’t truly understand why. But that’s okay. So embrace those failures, embrace them, they are the true growth opportunities. And that’s where that gratitude comes in. I don’t call it a failure. I don’t, but why am I going through this? And what is the world trying to teach me here? What do I need to just slightly shift so that the next time this comes along, I don’t make the same mistake?

Blake Schofield 35:37
Right, was that yeah, I often say you either win, or you learn and life is always teaching us something. And so when you said that earlier, I just wanted to come back, because you are right, as parents, I think often we can blame ourselves. And a big shift for me was to come and understand that just based on how the human brain is formed, and how we are wired, that even if you’re the perfect parents, your children are still going to form limiting beliefs or still have things are going to have to work through. And if we live a life without challenges, we never grow. And what I often see is that our parents, our teachers, and I look at your circumstance, and I think the world wouldn’t have you and what you’re doing today, if you hadn’t watched your parents struggle, if you hadn’t watched the health issues happen with your family. And while tragic, in so many ways, has created something so beautiful, but now it’s helping hundreds and 1000s of people to be able to understand and avoid those same mistakes.

Blake Schofield 36:37
And so when we wish away, sometimes the hardest parts of our life, I think we don’t really realize the beauty that comes from it. Because I had a, you know, 18 years of struggle in corporate America really trying to figure out what how I could do fulfilling work and have the balance, right that I wanted for my family. And it at times was wonderful, and at times really challenging. But I wouldn’t throw any of that away because of the ability and the impact I’ve been able to make with so many people because of the struggles that I went through. And I just think there’s an element of understanding that the stress that we are creating in our lives is driven in many ways, like you mentioned, could be environmental could be what we’re putting into our bodies, certainly is not listening to what our bodies are telling us an understanding that mind body connection is important. But I think there’s also this element as the way that we’re looking at life very much from this lens of self depreciation, and having to be in control, as opposed to everything is perfect exactly as it is. And how can I just be in this moment? How can I learn? How can I grow? And how can I be grateful for what I have? And by doing more of that, it just creates more of the right opportunities for me to create more of the life I want?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 37:55
Yeah, I mean, you live at a higher frequency, you just live in a different and it to be honest, it’s a lot more fun. Like if you’re a game player, like I’m a I like to play board games with my kids like strategy games and things like that. When you’re playing a game. It’s like when you’re playing Monopoly, and you buy up all the railroads and it doesn’t work. What do you do? What kind of ditch the railroads and let me go for buying properties or whatnot, you switch it up, you make it fun? And I think when you approach life in that type of way, okay, well, oops, that didn’t work. So what am I going to buy property now? Like, what am I going to do? How am I going to switch my strategy, it makes life fun. And my goal ultimately, with what I do, and part of the reason why I’m goofy on social media, and I dance and I have fun is that we’ve lost so much joy, and so much connection to ourselves and just enjoying the process along the way. We really don’t have much choice. You know, when we wake up in the morning, we’re going to live that day most likely for that day. And so we might as well have fun with it. There’s just a lot more lightheartedness that I think we just need to embrace again. And I always think of young children, you know, when my kids were toddlers, and how much joy they got out of seeing a butterfly, or rolling in the grass or cash, it didn’t even matter a frying pan gave my son all sorts of enjoyment and a spoon and just finding those little things throughout their day that give you enjoyment, and remind you to reattach with the fun in you.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 39:11
The curious in you, and just kind of always keep seeking and growing. And I think that’s the key to health and throwing a bandaid on things, like you mentioned earlier, for symptoms and always looking at symptoms and not looking at the holistic being is to our demise greatly. And we wouldn’t do. Yeah, if you had a plumber, and they came and you had a leak, and they didn’t replace it. They just threw a band aid over it. You’d be pretty mad, like you’d be like, Okay, I’m not hiring that dude anymore, right? So, but yet in healthcare, we go and we just throw a bandaid on it and we’re like, Okay, well, we’ll see how it goes. It’s not gonna hold very long, right? It’s up to you to say, Okay, why did that break in the first place? How do I replace it? And then how do I keep it that way so it doesn’t deteriorate further. And just that small shift in health, it’ll change the world. It’ll change our health care if all Let’s can just embrace that in ourselves and love who we are and just start changing the way we look at things. I think it’s a very valuable tool that you can easily attain.

Blake Schofield 40:06
I totally agree. And I think often the piece that people don’t understand is there’s this whole thing of like, It’s too hard. And it’s hard. And I think, well, here’s what I know to be true. Our brains are gold strapping mechanisms, if you tell your brain, it’s, it’s hard, it’s going to be hard, because you will literally make it so. But I think also, as a society, many times we’ve been taught that asking for help is weak, or that we should know the answer. So we should be able to do it ourselves. And that is one of the biggest things that is actually our barrier to things. Because if something feels challenging to us, that usually means there’s a perspective shift we need, or an approach or strategy that we’re missing. And so often in society, we just go, oh, that’s hard. So I’m not going to do it. And I struggle with that a lot. Because I can guarantee that you choose your heart in life. And often the people that go oh, this is far don’t actually understand, it’s actually far easier to make the choice to prioritize yourself to take care of your health, than the hard of getting up every day dealing with whatever it is you’re dealing with. And whatever is coming.

Blake Schofield 41:22
And I think that’s a big piece, I want to make sure that I leave because it’s the thing I see all the time, I cannot tell you the number of women who have ended up in my program in the last five plus years, who ended up with cancer, leukemia, some sort of terrible health incident. And I know very clearly, it’s because of the stress levels and the misalignments in their lives for decades before they got here. And I think we just sit as a society and we go, well, it’s just normal, everybody’s stressed out, it’s normal for me to say, how are you doing? Well, I’m just really busy. And it’s because we don’t actually understand the choice we’re making every day in that life is cancer, heart attack, dementia, whatever that is adrenal failure. And we’re not seeing the big picture for what it is, we’re just going through the motions of life. And so if there’s anything that hope comes through in this message today is that you are worthy, and, and valuable, and to your health, Mind, Body Soul matter. And you’re not less valuable than everyone else you’d love. If you gave yourself the same time and attention that you gave the people you truly loved. You not only would be able to create the life you want, you would be able to be that inspiration for others who would be able to show up in a better way. And you will be able to avoid a lot of the regrets or pain that you would create for your family by them watching you be sick and unhealthy. And all of those things, too.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 42:44
Yeah. And just because it’s common, doesn’t mean it’s normal, that we should just accept it. And yeah, I started looking at challenges when I find when I find myself saying this is hard. I now say this is an opportunity, because it is. That’s why and I’m thankful that something was thrown at me that made me look, it’s a possible open door to something that I never even considered. Instead of backing away from it saying I’m not gonna walk through that. That’s too hard. I’m like, Alright, put my backpack on. Let’s go. Let’s figure it out. And I think that’s great advice. And I hope that everyone out there listens to your advice there because it is so important for your physical health, your mental health, and just your happiness in general.

Blake Schofield 43:26
Awesome. Well, Dr. Pingel has been such a pleasure spending some time with you today. I know we’re close to time to wrapping up. So I would just ask you, is there anything I didn’t ask you that I should have, or anything that’s just on your heart that you really would like to share, before we wrap up?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 43:42
I think we’ve covered one of my biggest takeaways so many times, and that’s just that you’re worth it. And it’s okay, if you’re not perfect, and you’re not there yet. But today is a new day, tomorrow’s a new day, wake up, show up for yourself, and you will show up for others. And just you can do this. And you can ask for help. And there’s tons of us out there that can help you with so much that are just waiting for your call. It gives me great joy to help someone, I know it gives you great joy to help someone, and it fulfills our heart to help you. So don’t be afraid to ask. And really just give to yourself, you’re very much worth it.

Blake Schofield 44:16
Thank you so much. So if there’s anyone listening, that’s like, wow, I would love to learn more about Dr. Pingel or how I could connect with her. What’s the easiest way for them to do that?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 44:25
My website is drpingle.com, D-R-P-I-N-G-E-L .com. It has links to all my social media. It has blog articles, that has links to everything I’m always offering. And if you are someone who is on social media, I encourage you not to check it 80 times a day. But if you go in once a day, feel free to follow me dance along, contribute, Introduce yourself. I love meeting new people. So say hello, where you heard me and enjoy the fun.

Blake Schofield 44:51
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you learned, at least one nugget that you can take forward, because again, it’s not about doing everything. It’s about doing the one or two things that really matter. So thanks again and until next time, have a great week.

Thanks for joining me today. Rather than hope the grass will be greener, identify what the right next step is. We can help you do just that. Get clarity on where you are in your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optimal paths to get there, and the right next step to take. Start your complimentary personalized career fulfillment plan at https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan. Again, you can get your personalized career fulfillment plan at https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan Thanks again for joining and have a great week ahead!