Why it is Important NOT to Convince Others to Your Way of Thinking

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Hi, this is Dr. Daniels, and you are listening to Healing with Dr. Daniels. This is the Sunday, March 21st edition. Today's topic is why it is so important not to convince others of your way of thinking and how this can make you healthier. Yep. Yipper.

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But first, I'll give you a brief report on mom. Mom is doing superbly. She had a helper who came in every day and decided, you know what, can't come in anymore because I have a bad back. The person decided to start moving and lifting heavy furniture at their personal residence, and they just couldn't wait. So mom actually is able to locate, interview, and hire replacements all by herself. Yay! So now mom, at the ripe young age of 89, is totally independent in managing her own affairs, and we're all very happy for her. And I'd like to reiterate that she survived a New York state nursing home situation. Yes, the year is 2021 for those of you who are watching this in the future.

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Then, of course, there's Vitality Capsules. Yay! Vitality Capsules are available at, of course, vitalitycapsules.com. This is the internal cleanser that is comfortable enough for everyday use. And, of course, they are our sponsor. So please visit vitalitycapsules.com and get yours today.

Finally, we are going to take turpentine. Yes. So first, we're going to get our sugar. This may seem silly, but you should label your sugar. Why should you label your sugar? Because there's a lot of white things in your kitchen that are granulated, like salt, for example, or if you have granulated ascorbic acid. So label your sugar.

Then we're going to get our spoon. This is a teaspoon that I'm using, not a dessert spoon. The reason I use a teaspoon is because I can put the sugar on the front half. It makes it easier to scoop it off. Okay. And this is turpentine. Again, label your stuff because there are a lot of oils you might use. Maybe you use grapeseed oil. I don't know. But they're all clear. And this is my little pipette. It says disposable, but I reuse it. And it turns out that right up there at the neck is the 2.5 cc or half teaspoon mark. And that's the amount that I take every day. And I take it every day because I feel so good taking it. And so I do.

Alright, now you can see it's almost up to the top. And that's close enough for me. This is my sugar. And we're going to squirt that on there. Get all of that on there. Yes. I have our water, glass of water. Now putting the sugar kind of just not always at the back means I can get my lips all the way around it and scoop it off. And I have turpentine all over myself. Yay! Easy turpentine done. Next is sugar.

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This is Shilajit, also known as Momijo. I'm from Russia. People say, Dr. Daniels, I can't read that label. No, I can't either. It's in Russian. It's one of those things. I get mine from eBay. I have a chopstick because the dose is 200 milligrams, which fits very nicely on the tip of a chopstick. And we open this up. Hey, Dr. Daniels, how do you get this? Why is it so hard to open if you open it every day? Well, I have a second one in the kitchen that I use every day. So this one only gets opened every week for the show.

Oh, I heard a crunch there. There we go. Okay. You can see this is one gooey mess. Dr. Daniels, why do you take Shilajit? Well, first of all, what is Shilajit? Shilajit is a mixture of about 86 trace minerals. That is a bit more than 200 milligrams, I dare say. So I'm going to scrape some off the edge there. Trace minerals that your body needs as cofactors to activate the enzymes it makes. So if you're missing trace minerals, your body does not activate the enzymes it makes. And even though it's making these enzymes, your body just seems like you're just a day late, dollar short, just a little bit sluggish. Bam. This is also nicknamed destroyer of weakness.

Why does anyone even need this stuff? Well, it turns out because you flush your toilets, and the water goes into the ocean or wherever, not into your garden to fertilize your plants and recycle your minerals, then you have a mineral deficiency. So the plants you eat don't have these minerals in them because you're not recycling your waste to fertilize your plants. It's just the way it is living in a first-world country. Okay, here we are. Put it right in there. As you can see, it does not readily dissolve. It does dissolve a little bit, but as you can see, it takes time. It's still there. So we're gonna let that sit. We're gonna be patient. Put that right there. Maybe drink that at the end. Okay, put this turpentine away. Bam. I feel like I've already accomplished a lot.

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Okay, it brings us today's title, which is why it is so important not to convince others of your way of thinking. This is so, so, so important. And I would tell you many of my biggest life issues and even crises have been resolved by my positive relationship with people that are very different from me and have a very different life experience and a different set of beliefs.

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So this is why I just cannot say enough about having a positive relationship with and even befriending people who are substantially different from you. So I'm going to give you some examples from outside the health realm and then move into the health realm. It'll be easier for you to see. And let's get started.

So first, it's from a movie, but it demonstrates the concept that people who you have been trained or conditioned to fear and hate may actually act on your behalf in critical situations. So be open to it. So the movie is The Piano Player, and basically, there's this Jewish piano player during the Holocaust, and he was a performer, of course. And the word got out in the Jewish community that if you could just get on this particular train, it would get you out of town, and you would be safe. And so all the Jews got on this train, and they just rushed to get on the train. There were no spaces. And so the piano player just barely got on the train, grabbed onto the train, pulled up onto the train. And so the audience watching the movie is like, oh, thank God he's going to be safe.

And so about one minute later, it was clearly a German soldier with a gun, takes him, pulls him off the train, throws him to the ground, and shoves the butt of the gun into his neck. I was like, oh my God. So the German soldier then takes this piano player to an abandoned building and tells him, you stay here. And so it turns out that the train was actually going to a concentration camp, and everyone who did make it on this train was exterminated. So what actually happened then was this piano player, a Jewish person trying to flee the Holocaust in a state of extreme fear, his life was actually saved by a German soldier. And this happens a lot more often than one might think.

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The second is a more kind of close-to-home perspective in terms of being in the United States. So here I was in the United States, and I was practicing medicine. And of course, everything went terribly wrong. And it was a public situation. And long story short, I was sitting in my office, no medical license, wondering what to do, and watching my life basically go down the drain. And so these two white guys walk into my office.

Now, to understand just how white these people are, these two guys, they're white, from the suburbs, Republican, well-to-do, very segregated lives. And they walk in, and they're also techies. So this is 2004. So the internet hadn't really become like a mainstream situation. So here I was at a low point, and these two white guys walk in, and they say to me, Dr. Daniels, we're aware of your situation. I said, yeah, I guess everybody is. I said, we know what your problem is, and we have the answer. I said, really? What's my problem? I said, well, I don't have a license. That's not your problem. Your problem is not that you don't have a license. Irrelevant. Your problem is not that you're female. Irrelevant. Your problem is not even that you're black. Irrelevant. Your problem is you don't have any money. Your problem is you need money. That's your problem.

You need money. I said, really? Well, there's a novel idea. That's interesting. And so what's really interesting is that they distilled my problem down to an essential, very narrow problem, whereas all of my supporters felt that my problem was government persecution, that my problem was losing a license, that my problem was unfair treatment, that my problem was that I was female, and my problem was that I was black. Yeah, I mean, the list was endless. But these guys said, no, no, no, no. You only have one problem, and your problem is that you need money. I said, okay, sounds good. What are we going to do about it? He says, well, we've got the answer. Give us $3,000, and we will put you on the internet.

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And you can imagine, I didn't even know anyone that had internet access back then. It just wasn't a thing. I said, hmm, that is interesting. $3,000? They said, yes, $3,000. I said, well, tell you what. Honestly, that's about what I've done in the last three months of level marketing things that did not work out. So here's $3,000. Well, didn't they just set up VitalityCapsules.com and put all the payment mechanisms, everything in place, and make this moment that you and I are spending today possible? But if I had been paying attention to all of the social cues that I should separate myself from people with white privilege, or people of a different gender, or a different race, or a different economic level, then I would have been totally lost. There would have been no way for me to turn things around.

So it's so important to maintain a cordial relationship with people who don't feel the same way that you feel about things. And that is one thing I was actually famous for. I'll give you another example. So the local newspaper or publicity outlets, I did not know that this was a thing, but what they do is they have these closed-door meetings with what they perceive to be newsmakers or people who are on the forefront of different trends. And so I was invited to this meeting, and it's for efficiency. They invite like four people or so. So I was invited, and then the president of the homeschool association was invited, and then two other people were invited. So I just sat there because, I mean, they invited me. So if I figured they had a question, they would ask me, and I would just answer.

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And so they started asking this poor homeschool lady these questions, and they clearly had a negative bias about homeschooling, and they were giving her just an incredible amount of heat. And at some pause in the whole situation, I said, well, I homeschool. Oh my God, Dr. Daniels, you homeschool! And so I was able to lend some support to her and befriend her. Of course, my reasons for homeschooling were radically different from her reasons for homeschooling, but the point is it's a practice that has many positive points. Now, this lady, of course, was white, female, slender, suburban, and the overlap between her life and mine was not great, let's say. But the point is being able to befriend her and even offer even just a little modest piece of support, it just totally gave her the space she needed to regroup, and they backed off, and then re-engaged with a more information exchange type posture, which was really super, super positive.

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Now, the other thing I'd like to mention too is, you know, I mean, there's just so many of these examples, but my husband, even though he is deceased four years ago, and someone left a question on the internet saying that me and my husband had come to Panama to escape something or other. Not true. My husband had been an expat for at least 30 years before I even met him, and so he was already down here in Central America when I arrived, and we happened to meet. But at any rate, so my husband was from a group, in many ways, different from my background. So he was a California type person, I was a New York person. This was like, you can think 40 years ago when there really was a difference.

And so when he was hungry, he would get his gun and go shoot something. Maybe it was a squirrel, maybe a possum, maybe a deer, maybe a pig, whatever. But that's just the way it was done. There was never any thought of, I don't know, welfare or worrying about money. I mean, if you're hungry, why don't you just go shoot something and eat it? And maybe someone else in the family had a garden or something, and you just trade them some meat for their vegetables, and there you go, you just had the whole thing handled. Now, my background, of course, was peacenik, no guns. If you're hungry, you go to the store and you buy something. And so these were two very different backgrounds. And again, his background, male, white, Republican. And my background was if I ever even thought about voting Republican, I would be disowned. And at the same time also, he was a heavy meat eater and I was vegan.

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So befriending him, or actually, he met me and he decided that, wow, we could get along. Of course, I thought, well, let's not rush into anything. He seems like a nice person. Leave it at that. But his willingness to befriend me and my willingness to befriend him led to him losing 100 pounds. Of course, he was 300 and something pounds. He had a few ounces to lose. So he lost 100 pounds, which greatly improved his health. And I made up my mind to accept that he was going to eat all the meat he wanted to eat, however much that was. And he accepted that I was going to eat all the vegetables I wanted to eat, however that much that was. So we had an agreement that once we started dating that in my house, no meat, but outside of that, all meat you want.

And so for him, it resulted in much, much improved health. For me, it eventually resulted in improved health when I realized that I was getting weak, weak, weak, weak, weak from eating those vegetables. And I added liver, which he did not eat liver. He was not a liver person. But my energy came back. And because I was open to different solutions and different ways of solving my problems, I was able to not only solve my energy problem but go on to improving my hiking ability, my mobility. And now at the age of 64, I can squat, reach, twist, and get stuff out of any cabinet or shelf in the kitchen. And I even have the strength and endurance to clean my own house, which before I did not have.

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So it's really super, super important. The moral of the story is people you disagree with hold those views because they have different perspectives, different life experiences, a different skill set, and different resources. And so befriending them gives you access to these perspectives, skills, and resources. Letting them, even encouraging them to maintain their perspectives, skills, and resources enriches you and offers you portals to a better, healthier, happier life.

So the assignment from today's show, a takeaway assignment, is to accept and encourage your relatives or friends or celestias that have different perspectives. Befriend them. You don't necessarily have to visit them more often. Just have a kind word for them when you do see them. Cost you nothing and the yield is great. If there's someone whose finer qualities you admire, don't waste time envying them or hating them or wishing you had whatever they had. Just arrange time, maybe just spend an hour a week with them. Maybe it'll rub off. Chances are it will. So spend an hour a week with them.

If there's something you totally disagree with, pay them a compliment or engage them with something fun that does not involve the issue you disagree on. Focus on what you do agree on. And this goes the same with any two-part issue like pro-life, pro-choice. You can be a pro-life person and have pro-choice friends. I mean both of you can agree on baking bread together or making homemade mustard or going for a walk around the block together. So creating in your life just relationships or open communications at least with people who hold views radically different from yours or from backgrounds very different from yours is extremely important because those people can benefit your life in very really just amazing ways.

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So I think it's really important, more important, I think now than ever, to maintain those relationships, keep them cordial, and open up those avenues. Because a lot of times, people who have a different perspective can take a look at your life, at your problems, and immediately they've got the solution. It's like these two white guys. They just walk right in and say, we know what your problem is and we've got the answer. And by golly, they were right. They knew what the problem was, and they knew what the answer was. And the answer did not cost the hundreds of thousands of dollars I'd already spent on what was not the problem, by the way. And they focused on what was.

There's a lot of, I think, temptation when people that you don't share the same religion, ethnicity, background, income level with, whatever, take a look at your situation and say

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It's amazing how much personal growth can come from interacting with people who have different life experiences and perspectives. For example, consider how my husband’s experiences with hunting and meat consumption contrasted with my vegan lifestyle. By being open to these differences and finding a way to respect each other's choices, we both benefited significantly. His improved health was a direct result of our mutual respect and adaptation, and I gained energy and vitality from incorporating some of his dietary practices into my own. This kind of cross-pollination of ideas and practices can lead to profound improvements in various aspects of life.

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Even when disagreements seem insurmountable, finding common ground through shared interests can be incredibly enriching. Instead of focusing solely on contentious issues, identify areas where you and the other person can connect. Whether it’s a hobby, a shared goal, or just enjoying each other's company, these positive interactions can build bridges that make it easier to address more challenging subjects in the future. By fostering these relationships, you can gain valuable insights and support that might otherwise be inaccessible.

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Here are a few practical tips for engaging with people who have different perspectives:

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Expanding your social circle to include individuals from diverse backgrounds can open up new opportunities and perspectives that you might not have encountered otherwise. These interactions can lead to new friendships, professional opportunities, and a richer understanding of the world. Embracing diversity in your relationships can significantly enhance your personal and professional life.

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I encourage you to seek out and engage with people who have different perspectives from your own. The benefits of these interactions extend far beyond mere tolerance; they can lead to personal growth, improved problem-solving, and a deeper appreciation for the complexities of life. By fostering these relationships, you not only enrich your own life but also contribute to a more inclusive and understanding society.

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Thank you for joining me today. I hope you’ve found these insights valuable and that they inspire you to embrace diverse perspectives in your own life. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for future topics, please feel free to reach out. You can contact me at info@drdaniels.com. I look forward to hearing from you and continuing this journey of exploration and growth together. Have a wonderful day!