Are you in a house of mirrors?

(0:00) Hi, this is Dr. Daniels and welcome to Healing with Dr. Daniels. This is the Sunday, October 25th, 2020 edition. Today’s topic is, "Are you in a house of mirrors?" I'm going to talk about how, if you are in a house of mirrors, how you got there and how to escape. I'll identify and dispel the confusion that people are experiencing concerning their health and help them exit their house of mirrors. As always, think happens.

(0:40) But first, we have got to take our turpentine. I have my trusty dessert spoon, which I prefer, and I’ve got my white sugar. Since you’re going to be your own pharmacist and doctor, it’s important to label things and keep them safe. I have my turpentine and I like to use a plastic pipette, but you can use any measuring device you want. I’ve found that my dose is half a teaspoon, which fills the pipette right up to the neck. So, I draw it up right to the neck, and if it doesn’t quite get there, I’ll add a little more. You can see it’s not quite full, so I’ll suck it up right to the neck. Now that I have my turpentine ready, I’ll grab my sugar, which is white cane sugar, and I’ll do this over here to avoid dropping it all over the computer. I’ll squish it right there—half a teaspoon—and add some water to wash it down. It’s very important to rinse it all the way down, so you can feel it moving from the esophagus to the stomach.

(2:46) That brings us to our Shilajit. I’ve recently started using a chopstick for this. Chopsticks are easy to clean, inexpensive, and abundant in my house. Shilajit is gooey, like tar, so I use the chopstick to get about 200 milligrams, which is about right. I add it to water, and you can see it doesn’t dissolve readily, so I let it sit. By the time I’m done, it will be fully dissolved. If I get around to it, I’ll drink it down; if not, I’ll drink it after the show.

(3:42) Now let’s talk about Vitality Capsules. They’re amazing, and they are our sponsor—yay! Vitality Capsules are an internal cleanser gentle enough for everyday use. They help you reach that three-bath-a-minute-a-day goal, which makes taking turpentine a wonderful and smooth experience because it helps the parasites have an easy exit. You can find Vitality Capsules at VitalityCapsules.com.

(4:19) Many of you have asked if there will be a sale on Vitality Capsules. The short answer is, not right now. Each ingredient in Vitality Capsules goes through rigorous testing, and we’ve added an extra phase of testing to ensure the ingredients are up to snuff and effective. This makes it difficult to find all the ingredients of the appropriate quality at the same time to make batches on the schedule we’d like. This means we can’t guarantee the quantities necessary for a sale. So, what I recommend is buying whatever amount of Vitality Capsules you’re comfortable with at the present price. There are discounts for higher volumes, and if you buy the highest volume, which is 20 bottles, the price is pretty close to our sale prices. That’s the story with Vitality Capsules. They come in regular and extra strength. The extra strength contains cayenne pepper, which makes it a little more vigorous—that’s the red bottle. The green bottle is the regular, which doesn’t contain cayenne, and it’s effective but offers a more gentle experience. I personally prefer the green bottle. However, if you have a respiratory problem, cardiac problem, or chronic pain, you might want to go with the extra strength. That’s the story of Vitality Capsules.

(6:04) Now, onto today’s topic: "Are you in a house of mirrors?" First, let’s understand what a house of mirrors is. For that, we’ll refer to Wikipedia, our authority on all matters. A house of mirrors or a hall of mirrors is a traditional attraction at fairs, carnivals, or amusement parks. The basic concept behind a house of mirrors is to act like a puzzle or a maze, where participants face obstacles in the form of mirrors and glass panels blocking parts of the maze they can’t access yet. Sometimes, these mirrors are distorted by different curves, like convex mirrors, and the glass gives participants unusual and confusing reflections of themselves—some humorous, some frightening. The house of mirrors concept has also been used in comics. For example, Batman is seen chasing the Joker through an amusement park into a hall of mirrors. The house of mirrors is used to create suspense as the Joker can’t clearly decipher what’s real and what’s just an image. When you’re in a house of mirrors, everything reflects back at you, and the mirrors even reflect themselves. You can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, and you can’t figure out where the break in the wall is to exit the house.

(8:08) When I was a kid, we’d go to amusement parks or fairs, and I’d visit the house of mirrors. Back then, it was like a quarter or fifty cents to enter, and it was almost impossible to find your way out. The first time I was in a house of mirrors, it was a terrible experience. But the second time, I figured out the trick: don’t look at the mirrors. Instead, look away from the mirrors and focus on the floor. The floor is the one part that isn’t reflective, and it’s the only thing in the house of mirrors that there’s just one of. When you focus on the floor, you can quickly see where the walls start and end, and you can easily spot the exit. Once I figured that out, I was always the first one to exit the house of mirrors.

(9:07) So, we’re going to talk about the house of mirrors in a real-life example today, and I’ll share some examples from my life and give you tips on how to apply these concepts to your own life. For me, realizing that I was in a house of mirrors made a world of difference. If you don’t realize you’re in a house of mirrors, your chances of getting out are almost nonexistent because you’ll be staring at the mirrors, just like the Joker in the Batman example, thinking it’s real when it’s not—it’s just a mirror. You’ll end up spinning in circles, wasting valuable energy, whether it’s time, money, or physical energy. We want to help you get out of your house of mirrors.

(10:01) As many of you know, my mother is navigating her 88th year on this planet. While some people would consider it a blessing to reach that age, it comes with unique challenges that most people aren’t prepared to deal with. My siblings and I have gone to great lengths to prepare for Mom’s final years, whether it’s 1 or 12, and to make it a pleasant, wonderful, and happy time for her. But we’ve faced amazing challenges. The important thing for us is that there are so many of us, and so many grandchildren, that we can share responsibilities, with each person contributing in their area of strength. My mother is definitely a bright cookie. She mastered computers at age 60, was my computer specialist in my medical office when I was practicing, raised six kids, has a zero-mortgage home, retired from the post office, and is overall very successful. My dad has passed, but he left her well off, so as an 88-year-old, she’s more successful than most.

(11:39) Last time we left her, she was, and still is, in what she calls a skilled nursing facility. She’s told me the nurses there have special skills. She’s determined that she needs to exercise her leg to improve her ulcer, relieve her pain, and increase her mobility by getting to the bathroom. She figured all this out herself—no doctor or nurse told her this. She sat in bed sorting through all of it. She also realized she gets more pain relief from exercising her leg than from taking a pain pill. So I get a phone call from her, and I’m thinking everything’s fine—Mom’s happy in the skilled nursing facility, and we’re happy. But then I get a call out of the blue, and here’s where the house of mirrors comes in.

(12:51) Mom calls me because she has shingles. She launches into a long explanation about herpes, the recurrence of a childhood chickenpox outbreak, how she might have infected herself by touching a private area, and so on. She wants to know my opinion. So I say, “Mom, first we have to examine a few beliefs here. It might be a shock to you, but your beliefs are your house of mirrors, and you’re surrounded by them. Most people have themselves in this echo chamber of beliefs, which puts them in a situation where they’re totally frustrated and powerless.” In Mom’s case, we examine the mirrors and actually remove them. Once the mirrors were removed, Mom, seeing clearly, figured out her own solution, which wasn’t what I expected. But let’s see what happened.

(14:06) I asked Mom, “Do you really have shingles?” Her first belief was that she had shingles, that the people at the nursing home knew what they were talking about, and that they had superior nursing skills. I said, “Mom, let’s clear this up. What are your symptoms? Do you have any pain?” She said, “No, I don’t have any pain.” “Do you have any blisters?” “No, no blisters.” “Is it all crusted over?” “Yes, it’s crusted over.” I told Mom she’s highly contagious. So, we have several beliefs here: she believes she has shingles, she needs medicine, the medicine will help, and she’s contagious. She also believes she’s in a safe place where she’ll be helped, and that her leg ulcer is improving. If we take all these beliefs as true, the action is clear—take the medicines and sit tight. But she’s calling me, not because she believes she’s in a house of mirrors, but because she’s thinking, “Maybe there’s something I can do in addition to these drugs to get better faster.”

(16:05) I told Mom, “Shingles is exquisitely painful. It’s so painful that you’d wish you were dead. It’s like sharp, cutting, boring razor blades all over your skin, or like someone lit a match and put it to your skin and it keeps burning.” She said, “Oh, no, I don’t have that.” “Okay, Mom, then you don’t have shingles.” But she wasn’t convinced, so I looked up shingles for her. She said, “Well, they say it’s highly contagious. Do other doctors believe what you’re saying?” I said, “Mom, I don’t have a license anymore for a reason, but let’s see what other doctors say.” We asked Dr. Google about shingles. Google said shingles are contagious but not before you get blisters, and not after the blisters when you’re in the crusty phase. So, Mom, if you have no blisters, then according to the authority here, you’re not contagious.

(18:00) Mom was still concerned because the nursing home staff had put red bags all over her room, filled with trash that wasn’t being taken out. She thought they were bringing in red bags from other patients’ rooms and putting them in hers. I said, “Mom, you’re not in control. You’re not running the place.” She wanted to know who to complain to. At this point, her insurance had run out, and she was paying $560 a day. The staff believed she had a highly contagious condition, so no one would come to her room or respond to her calls. Piles of trash were accumulating in her room, with some bags yellow and others red. I told Mom, “We’ve established with Google that you’re not contagious, so this red bag, yellow bag stuff is just drama to intimidate you into taking these drugs.” One drug, gabapentin, is for pain, but she doesn’t have any pain. The other, valacyclovir, is antiviral for herpes, but she doesn’t have shingles. Neither drug is necessary.

(20:01) We removed another mirror—she’s not contagious, doesn’t have herpes, and doesn’t need the drugs. I asked if she had a rash, and she said yes. I then asked if she was getting better or worse. She thought her ulcer was improving, but when she entered the facility, she didn’t have this crusty skin condition. That’s new, so we’d have to say she’s getting worse. If her condition is contagious, she likely picked it up at the facility because she didn’t have this problem at home. We have to assume she’s getting worse, and the location isn’t safe. The nurses may have skills, but they’re not benefiting her. She liked how they changed her bandage, so I suggested videotaping it so that whoever changes it when she leaves can watch and follow the same steps.

(21:19) Despite her leg ulcer improving, the skin on the rest of her body was deteriorating, indicating her immune system was transferring resources from one part of her body to another. I pointed out that she was malnourished and consuming a diet that couldn’t support her immune system to repair both her leg and maintain her skin. We removed a few mirrors, and she realized she wasn’t in a safe place, didn’t have shingles, and didn’t need the medication. The red and yellow bags were just drama to pressure her into taking the drugs.

(46:51) Now, you can tell when you’re in a house of mirrors when you have a belief that is confirmed by every information source you can find. That’s a sign of a mirror. If that belief leads you to a place or state you don’t want, like a lifetime of drug taking, pain, or sadness, then it’s likely a series of beliefs trapping you. You need to question each belief and remove the mirrors that are misleading you. Imagine if your belief was false—what would the alternatives be? Try to identify the beliefs behind your actions, flip them, and you’ll see a different picture of clarity, hope, and success. I hope this helps you leave your house of mirrors and find a smoother, easier road to happiness and health.

(48:09) So, what was my mom’s course of action? Her real problem was the skin condition and her legs. She was exercising her legs more, so her body decided to allocate more resources towards her legs since she was using them more. Her real solution was to literally put more skin in the game, so to speak. I recommended that she boil up some pig ears and make pig ear soup to help her body repair the skin. Mom called up one of her granddaughters, who is a chef, and asked her to make the pig ear soup. But the conversation didn’t produce the soup, so Mom decided she needed to get home to cook it herself. That was a good idea—she knew exactly what her body needed to heal.

(49:00) However, we didn’t get to discuss with Mom the fact that she was scratching her skin. With a crusty rash and the fact that she’s in a nursing home, the likely cause could be scabies. So, I’ll have to check in with my contacts in Syracuse to get her treated for scabies. The point is, by removing the mirrors in her house of mirrors, she now understands what to do. She’s already fixed her own mobility issue with no help from the nursing home staff. The physical therapist didn’t assist her; instead, she called up her grandkids who are all into working out, and they guided her on exercises. She did those exercises and, lo and behold, she’s able to get out of bed, into a chair, and walk to the bathroom, handling things independently. Yay!

(51:00) Now, let me give you an example from my own life where I was surrounded by a house of mirrors—a bunch of beliefs that led me in circles without any solution. When I was 23, I developed mild low back pain while I was in medical school. In medical school, you learn about these things, but I was also in a strange city, Philadelphia, and I befriended people who were older than me, in their 50s. One elderly couple I knew, the wife was bedridden with lumbago, which is what they called low back pain back then. They were middle class and had access to all kinds of medical interventions, yet this was the best they could do—being bedridden with back pain. I thought, “No, I don’t think so.” So, even though I was in medical school, there was no effective intervention for low back pain. I decided that wasn’t the route for me.

(52:30) Instead, I started walking more and decided that I was not going to end up in bed with severe back pain, unable to walk. However, the mirrors in my life at the time included the example of this elderly woman’s total failure, the medical school instruction that said low back pain couldn’t be improved and required pills, and the side effects of those pills—bleeding to death or becoming a drug addict. I didn’t want either of those outcomes, so I started walking, and my back pain disappeared.

(53:46) Then at age 40, I started getting wrinkles. It was devastating—I got horizontal wrinkles across my forehead, even without raising my eyebrows, and deep lines from my eyes all the way around. I also started getting crow’s feet. It was a big deal for me because, of course, the mirrors were telling me that getting old meant getting wrinkles, and that’s just the way it is. Medical school said the solution was plastic surgery, while the cosmetics counter offered expensive youth serums. My mother even told me, “It’s about time you got a wrinkle,” which wasn’t exactly encouraging. But I wasn’t okay with it. I wasn’t okay with wrinkles, so I started trying different beauty spas and eventually found a youth serum for $20 for a sixth of an ounce. It was just liquid vitamin C. That led me to develop my own facial regimen that eliminated all my wrinkles.

(55:09) I tried different oils on my face, one after another, but why did I keep trying? Because I didn’t accept the information from the mirrors around me. I had an issue—wrinkles—and I focused only on solving that problem. I dismissed any option that told me it wasn’t possible to solve the problem. If a plastic surgeon couldn’t guarantee to solve my problem, there was no point in pursuing that route. I didn’t have a choice about getting older, but I could reject the mirrors that told me wrinkles were inevitable. So, I figured out natural, food-grade materials to dissolve wrinkles, and I’ve evolved my approach to include eating differently to maintain my skin’s health. At 63, even my neck looks good—no need to hide it with a scarf.

(56:30) I’ve written a book called "Do You Have the Guts to Be Beautiful?" where I share many of my secrets and the methods I used to fix my wrinkles. To this day, I don’t use cosmetics, I don’t use soap on my face, and I stay far away from the cosmetics counter and the surgeon’s knife. And it’s working out.

(57:10) The next challenge I faced was when I decided to do the splits at 60 years old. I had always wanted to do splits, but even at 10 years old, I wasn’t flexible enough. At 63, people told me you had to be 10 years old to do splits. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I did research, but all the information I found was from people under 30. Still, I thought, “Well, I don’t look my age, so maybe I can do a split.” I started stretching and exercising, and I felt so much better. My whole body improved—my arms and legs got stronger. For those who can’t do a split, here’s a pro tip: until you can do a split, you have to support yourself with your arms, which actually strengthens them.

(58:23) I got really close to the ground, but I couldn’t make that last little bit. I decided I couldn’t do it because I was overweight. More mirrors—too old, weigh too much, not flexible, it’s impossible. I was stuck in this echo chamber, but I disregarded many of these mirrors. The last one to fall was the belief that I was too heavy. I went online and saw a video of a woman who was clearly 80 pounds heavier than me, and bam—she did a split. That was it—my weight was no longer an excuse. Just by removing that last belief, I was able to do my splits in the next two weeks. Not just my right front split, but my left front split as well. A lot of people refer to these mirrors as limiting beliefs, but it’s the same concept. These are walls reflecting back messages of failure, doom, and negativity. They’re telling you that you can’t succeed or that you’re doomed to illness if you’re sick.

(59:55) Another case where I was stuck in a house of mirrors was when I came to Panama and developed a swollen leg. I had perfect health when I arrived, but one evening, I sat outside watching the sunset over the ocean, unaware that mosquitoes were eating me alive. I went back to my hotel room and realized I had about 200 mosquito bites. My leg swelled up, the skin hardened, it itched, and stuff started oozing out of it. I thought I had contracted an incurable tropical disease, and it was horrible. I tried all kinds of things—ice, elevation, natural salves—but nothing worked. I didn’t have my Vitality Capsules or turpentine, and I didn’t know enough Spanish to find turpentine in a Spanish-speaking country. I spent over $1,000 on treatments, including A&D ointment, which I went through a tube a day. I even went back to the States a couple of times, and my friends told me, “That’s it. It’s over. You went to the tropics and got a rare tropical condition that will never get better.”

(1:01:20) I lived with this for a while, but one day I said, “I can’t live like this. I don’t have to live like this.” I was determined to find a way out. I asked myself, “What would I tell someone who called me with this problem?” The answer was, “I’d tell them to take Vitality Capsules and turpentine.” So, I ordered my own Vitality Capsules from the website and had them shipped to Panama. I went to the hardware store and other places looking for turpentine, but the translation online was incorrect—it was Trementina, but in this country, it’s called Aguarrás. I started taking Aguarrás and Vitality Capsules, and in four days, the condition cleared up.

(1:02:30) The problem was that I was surrounded by mirrors—erroneous information that created an illusion of inevitability and incurability. I allowed myself to fall victim to it instead of focusing on solving the problem and dismissing each avenue that offered no solution. Imagine being in a room surrounded by mirrors—you can’t tell where the door is. But as you take down each mirror, you can see clearly—there’s the wall, there’s the door. You just walk to the door, open it, and walk through, solving your problem. It’s literally that simple, but for most people, the mirrors in the room seem so real that they can’t remove them. They believe the reflections and stay trapped.

(1:03:20) You can tell you’re in a house of mirrors when you have a belief that’s confirmed by every information source you find, especially if it leads you to a place you don’t want to be—like a lifetime of drug-taking or pain. You need to question each belief and remove the mirrors trapping you. Imagine if the belief was false—what would the alternatives be? Check your environment—what else could it confirm? If you need help, ask someone who sees things differently from you. For example, my mother and I don’t agree on much, but she calls me when she has a problem that seems unsolvable. I give her a different perspective, and it often helps her find a solution. The same goes for my life—when I have a problem, talking to people who usually agree with me isn’t helpful because they have the same blind spots. This is where having friends with different beliefs is a huge advantage.

(1:04:30) Developing the skill of making friends with people whose beliefs are totally different from yours can be incredibly valuable. You don’t have to spend a lot of time with them, but checking in with them when you have an area in your life that’s not working out can provide a different perspective or help you identify the mirrors you need to remove. Once you identify the walls (opportunities) and doors (pathways) in your life, it becomes super easy to navigate and achieve your goals. So, take the time to find your way out of your house of mirrors and create a smoother, easier path to happiness and health.

(1:05:30) Here’s a plan to help you get out of your house of mirrors: First, examine your beliefs around the situation you’re facing. Next, assume all those beliefs are false. If they are false, what alternative actions could you take? Then, try them. Every belief that’s keeping you stuck, assume it’s false. Identify the belief behind your actions, flip it, and immediately you’ll see a different picture—one of clarity, hope, and success.

(1:06:30) I hope this has been helpful to you and that it will assist you in leaving your house of mirrors and finding a smoother, easier road to happiness and health.