0:01

Dan and I have been in Los Angeles for about

0:03

ten years each now, and

0:05

at times both of us have had stints

0:08

living in the neighborhood our office is located

0:10

in, and we've watched it change over

0:12

the years. It's called Atwater,

0:14

and it used to be a working class family

0:16

neighborhood, lots of little jewel

0:19

box homes, a hardware store, a couple of

0:21

gas stations, some dive bars, a few

0:23

local gangs. But over the past

0:25

decade the neighborhood has changed a

0:27

lot in the direction of wellness.

0:31

You know how when you don't see a little kid for a few

0:33

months and then you see them and it feels

0:35

like they've grown a foot and turned into a completely

0:38

different person, but their parents don't notice it. We

0:41

lived here, watched it happen, and still

0:44

it's shocking even to us as

0:48

mom and pop shops close down here. A

0:50

florist, a clothing store, and a five and dime

0:52

have all shuttered in recent months. Atwater

0:55

is becoming a sort of microcosm of

0:57

the wide world of wellness, and

0:59

if the industry can tinues on its current trajectory

1:01

of a seven percent annual growth rate, it's

1:04

only going to get worse or better,

1:06

depending on you if you're me or

1:08

not. Perhaps the most

1:10

surprising thing about this trend is that it's not

1:13

just happening in the rich part of town. We're

1:15

not in Beverly Hills or Malibu, and we don't

1:17

have any local Kardashians to keep wacky

1:19

businesses afloat here.

1:21

It feels scrappy and truly experimental.

1:25

The rents are still cheap enough to take a chance on

1:27

some new weird wellness product or

1:29

service, and if it fails, it

1:31

seems like there's an endless line of folks waiting

1:34

to try their hand at becoming the next neighborhood

1:36

wellness guru. It's gentrification

1:39

and cultural appropriation on all

1:41

natural steroids. Let's take

1:43

you on a little tour. We're

1:45

walking out of our office, and

1:48

what I wish is that we were walking out and

1:50

taking a right because

1:53

down that way is where the good stuff is. What's

1:55

the good stuff? Gold Star Diner, Chicken?

1:59

I think that way? No,

2:01

wait, what we like a Kentucky fried

2:03

chicken? Taco Bell. It's just Taco

2:05

Bell doesn't

2:08

need to be anything else. So

2:16

you're feeling awkward about this because we're gonna walk

2:18

through our hipster neighborhood, and

2:21

we look like a Portlandia sketch. It's

2:23

just mom hipster and Dad

2:25

hipster, which is us no,

2:29

all right? As soon as you come up from under

2:31

the train tracks is

2:33

where kind of where it starts.

2:37

Oh, I want to go into the Copper Keg because the Copper

2:39

Keg has a real robust

2:41

CBD business going. If

2:44

you don't come in here to scrutinize the ingredient

2:46

list on each pastel colored canned

2:49

beverage, the Copper Keg looks

2:51

pretty much like any other convenience store. Where

2:54

I grew up in Michigan, the Copper Cag

2:56

would be called a party store. Maybe you had

2:58

a corner store or a bodega, same

3:00

difference. They sold the usual stuff

3:02

cigarettes, beer, candy, chips, pop.

3:05

In mid Michigan, there was also always

3:07

a wide array of schnops, peach

3:10

and peppermint being the most important, but a

3:12

good party store also had cinnamon and apple

3:14

and cherry and a lot of other stuff. I never tried

3:17

party stores stock what the neighborhood wants,

3:20

and our neighborhood in La clearly

3:22

wants a new kind of party.

3:25

So I want to want to show you. There's CBD

3:28

biz. Here's um

3:31

that's what that is. No, but that's a non GMO

3:34

sparkling something or other.

3:36

There's a whole bunch of macha stuff.

3:39

But here that looks good.

3:43

Twenty milligrams of hemp extract. All of

3:45

these are CBD things

3:47

that are expensive.

3:50

Do you have the kombucha like the but

3:54

the beer kind? You do? Yes?

3:56

There we go this stuff boots craft

3:59

but this this is good. Here hard

4:01

kombucha grapefruit that's four point five percent

4:03

alcohol and that's seven percent up there. You're

4:06

going for the seven are you? Yep,

4:12

you're gonna drink your CBD and

4:17

man, that's a weird tasting. I kind of like

4:19

it though. Okay, it

4:21

begins, It already began at

4:23

um Copper Keg. Yeah, but we're

4:26

about to um enter the zone,

4:29

the wellness zone. Yep,

4:31

Past life Regression pop up. This

4:34

is a pop up. It's

4:37

a meditation and wellness pop up shop.

4:40

Friday, November one, join us on All Saints

4:42

Day for an evening of recalling former

4:44

pass and releasing ancestral trauma

4:47

and then next door hot

4:50

yoga

4:54

for those making a mental map at home. The Copper

4:57

Keg is on the corner. Next door is

4:59

an empty lot that will probably become

5:01

like a giant sensory deprivation

5:03

tank or something. Next to

5:05

that is the pop up. And then two doors down,

5:08

so this is the crystal shop. That's

5:10

where I get all my well a lot of my crystals,

5:13

and I absolutely love it there. And in the

5:15

back they also do hold on meditation

5:18

for your kids, working with master

5:20

crystals, living your five

5:23

D life. I don't know what that is, Soul

5:26

retrieval, give me my

5:28

soul back, experiential

5:30

kabbala. I should probably go to soul retrieval

5:32

though. But right

5:35

there in the windows on the shelf

5:37

is Dotera, the

5:39

MLM essential oil company.

5:42

They sell it insectrystal matrix. Okay,

5:45

so here's a coffee shop. Do you

5:47

want to go in and see what they have in the fridge.

5:50

So so far on our walk we've seen a party

5:53

store with alcoholic kombucha, an eco

5:55

conscious salon, a psychic a farmer's

5:57

market, a crystal shop that doesn't open till noon,

6:00

past life regression pop up, a sound bath

6:02

place, hot yoga, and a

6:04

cafe with lots of vegan options. Right

6:07

next door to that cafe, there's another cafe

6:09

with lots of vegan options, but they lead more

6:12

with food than with coffee. That's pretty

6:14

much the same place twice. So

6:16

here's the Tarot truck.

6:19

You're gonna get your cards read? Sure?

6:22

Yeah. So it's three cards or twenty five bucks,

6:24

five cards or thirty bucks, and ten card

6:26

Celtic crosses sixty five bucks if

6:29

you charges buy the card. Oh,

6:32

she's busy, okay. Then we

6:34

have a record store, a

6:36

teen ty tin tea record store, and

6:38

then we have a popular I'm talking

6:41

so quietly. But then there's juice. This

6:43

is what's it called the juice, right, organic

6:45

juice, nut milk, smoothies,

6:49

vegan ice cream, and raw snacks. I

6:52

like just saying nut milk. Yeah. And there's

6:54

the jewelry that loves you back. There's

6:56

a necklace for clairvoyance, a necklace

7:00

for protection, a necklace for

7:03

reflection. Do

7:06

you want to get a CBD hemp shot mimosa?

7:08

Real quick, a CBD hemp

7:11

shot mimosa. Okay, let's going

7:14

so that the Barkay,

7:21

all right, cheers, These are beautiful. She

7:24

put a little strawberry. Okay,

7:27

I smell it. Smell it, no, not

7:29

at all. I'd taste it and smell it

7:31

the CBD. Dan

7:35

is a much nicer person than I am, so

7:37

it's not out of the ordinary for him to withhold

7:39

snarky comments until we're behind closed doors.

7:42

But his politeness during this walk was

7:45

remarkable. He seemed genuinely

7:47

curious about the past life regression, and

7:50

he said something to the effect of rats when

7:52

we saw that the crystal shop wasn't open even

7:54

after the CBD mimosa, or maybe

7:57

because of the CBD mimosa. I

7:59

couldn't get him to shit talk the neighborhood

8:01

with me the way I wanted to. So

8:03

I think you have a more favorable

8:06

view of wellness in general, in

8:09

that if you walked into a room and

8:11

you were like, I'm

8:13

a vegan, I

8:16

enjoy smooth jazz, I

8:18

have crystals all over my house and

8:21

macromay. I have a Tarot

8:24

reader in my very close family who

8:26

I respect their readings and

8:29

for sure. Yeah, and I'm from the Pacific

8:31

Northwest. Yeah, and I'm a hippie and

8:33

I can't wait to move back there someday and live on the

8:35

Organ coast. From my Tarot cards

8:38

and my tea, you have so much. You have more tea

8:40

in your house than anyone I've ever met in my life.

8:42

You have like a hundred tea tea I

8:44

know. And you also have like air

8:46

plants. I have beads. You have prayer

8:49

beads on the wall. You have the moon cycle poster

8:51

on the wall. I have tapestries. I have the moon cycle.

8:54

I have prayer beads

8:56

on all adorning my wall.

9:00

I'm vegan. Um, I

9:02

like to smoke grass. You

9:04

call it grass too, by the way, a

9:07

joke for the show. No, no, no. I've

9:09

seen some stuff in your fridge that I've like not

9:12

seen in someone's refrigerator since maybe

9:14

the late eighties early nineties, like

9:17

what well, the nutritional yeast

9:19

for one, Oh, I love nutritional

9:21

yeast, And then there's others. That's a very

9:23

polarizing topic, I think. By

9:31

the way, all of your condiments are in baskets and your refrigerator,

9:34

well, that's my fridge

9:36

is old and grumpy and doesn't have good

9:38

shelves and stuff, so I have

9:41

to put baskets in there

9:43

so I can separate. But it's pretty messy right

9:45

now, to be honest. My

9:48

family is pretty new ag on

9:50

on my mom's side, and

9:53

then my sister, of course, who

9:56

does terror readings, is a yoga teacher,

9:58

a life coach and makes

10:01

soaps and candles and all kinds of

10:03

stuff, and I do. I love it. I'm

10:06

not laying myself on the line from

10:09

a like personal opinion

10:11

standpoint the same way that you are right,

10:14

because I'm looking at the FDA and

10:16

stuff like that. It's it's a lot because you're

10:18

a believer. I

10:20

think when confronted with science, I

10:22

don't you know, depending on how it's

10:25

researched and studied

10:27

and pieced together and published and all that, Like, it's

10:30

hard to argue, you know. Okay,

10:33

here's a genuine two parter. Genuine

10:36

Do you believe your crystals do anything other

10:38

than look pretty? Oh

10:42

my god, no, no,

10:46

I'll say this, No,

10:51

Dan, they're rocks.

10:54

Yeah. What they do for me, What

10:56

they do for me, I know for sure they

10:59

And we've talked about this. I mean, this is

11:01

like, that's the same thing with the essentral oils. I

11:03

love aromatherapy, I love essentral

11:06

oils. I love all of that, but I

11:09

don't necessarily think that they carry a

11:11

frequency, and then my frequency has to be a certain

11:13

you know, you don't sit there and hold a crystal and hope that

11:15

it does the thing that the papers that it

11:18

was going to do. No. But see here's

11:20

where it gets tricky. I have

11:22

crystals in my house because I think they're beautiful

11:24

and they are very peaceful to me.

11:27

Same with plants, but with the crystals.

11:29

I will say that I shop

11:32

for crystals based

11:34

on the advice of the person at the crystal

11:37

shop or from

11:39

one of my three crystal

11:42

books.

11:43

Um

11:49

so I will read them and then look

11:52

different crystals are supposed. I

11:55

look at it like, if I'm going to buy a crystal, I

11:57

might as well buy the one that matches

11:59

what I'm looking for, you know, as

12:01

far as the way I

12:03

feel, and if it doesn't work,

12:05

which I think they probably don't

12:09

probably maybe, I don't

12:11

know. From

12:19

the outside, Dan and I appear to be

12:21

of the same ilk. If you're picturing

12:23

him is some barefoot hippie Matthew McConaughey

12:26

type character. Stop the

12:28

outside of Dan Galucci looks like a tough

12:30

guy. He's tall and brooding,

12:32

and he has knuckles, tattoos and neck tattoos.

12:35

My favorite tattoo of his is a crappily drawn

12:38

electric guitar with the words a rock and roll

12:40

scrolled above it. I look

12:42

like a manic Pixie dream mom.

12:45

But the fact that Dan has himself tied in knots

12:47

about whether or not crystals actually work

12:50

highlights just how different we are. It's

12:53

something we kind of avoid talking about in our relationship

12:55

because we know, deep down we just disagree

12:57

about this stuff. The only time

13:00

really dig into how different we are is at restaurants,

13:03

and there our annoyance is directed to others.

13:06

Not once in any restaurant

13:08

have we gotten handed the correct order. He

13:10

always gets my cheeseburger and fries

13:13

every time, and they give me his kale

13:15

salad every time. So

13:19

the crystal makes you think about happiness

13:22

by reading about it bringing you

13:24

happiness, and you see the word happiness a bunch of

13:26

times, and then you talk to the person

13:28

at the crystal shop after you've read your book about

13:30

how to Seek Happiness, in which crystal is going to make you happy.

13:33

It's gonna harmony, right,

13:35

it's gonna but it's gonna activate those parts of your

13:37

brain that are thinking about those things, which is just

13:40

as good as journaling. Yeah, But there's something

13:42

that's really important that I believe in firmly,

13:44

which is the placebo effect. I really

13:47

believe in it for all of these things I'm saying.

13:49

That's what'm talking about supplements. I believe in it from

13:51

my crystals. If I determine

13:54

from reading and from talking to someone

13:56

at the crystal store that some

14:00

think, could you know, I

14:02

don't know, balance out my chakrash?

14:05

Yeah, whatever, you know. I look in

14:07

the book, I see, oh well that

14:09

that I could use that, and then I go to the

14:11

crystal shop and if they have that crystal

14:14

and it's cheap enough, then I'll buy it. Now I'm feeling

14:16

protective of you, and I don't think we should put this on the show.

14:18

Why I'm not feeling protective

14:20

of me, I am why because

14:22

this is hogwashed? Because people are

14:25

going to make fun of me. No, I don't know, because

14:27

you're talking like a crazy ros Okay,

14:30

raise your hand if you're making fun of Dan right now for

14:32

believing in crystals, Like I'm

14:34

not putting money on whether or not a crystal

14:36

works. You're saying the same thing I'm saying is setting an

14:38

intention can actually make that intention

14:41

happen. And I'm saying you can do this everything with

14:43

journaling, and you're saying, why not make

14:45

it look like a crystal? And that's

14:47

fine. I think that you totally can.

14:49

Yeah, I agree with everything he said, And

14:51

I think it just looks a little less, it looks

14:53

a little more sane if it's like a daily to

14:56

do list. M don't

14:59

you think? No, Well, now

15:01

we know that Dan does not believe

15:03

in daily to do lists. But

15:06

crystals, I think it's important.

15:08

I mean, I think that your

15:12

face. I think the surrounding yourself

15:14

with with elements

15:17

from the earth, you know, like

15:20

like beautiful rocks and plants

15:22

and all that kind of stuff. I think it's nice.

15:24

I think it's important. I

15:46

think I thrive on stress or

15:49

something. You for sure

15:52

one hundred percent thrive

15:54

on stress, and wellness

15:57

is the opposite. It's supposed

16:00

to be the opposite. Like you want food

16:02

that's going to get in your body

16:05

in a tasty way quickly

16:08

while you're in the middle of a lot of shit

16:10

that you have to deal with. Yeah, I like fast

16:12

food. Is that what you're talking about? Fast food? Yeah?

16:14

Absolutely, I love fast food. Yeah, you like fast

16:17

and it's food and it's great. This

16:19

is not an ad for Taco Bell, but Taco

16:22

Bell is the greatest fast food

16:24

of all time. It's reliable, you

16:26

know exactly what you're getting, no matter which Taco Bell

16:28

you're going to, and you don't need any utensils to

16:30

eat it. And it's filling and it's spicy, and there's lots of

16:32

beans, and beans are great for you. Plus

16:34

I don't personally have any tummy troubles with Taco

16:36

Bell. Yeah.

16:44

Well, yeah, I think a lot of the wellness

16:46

stuff is like, just take a chill bell man, And

16:48

I'm like, what

16:51

what if I chilled out? What would I even be

16:54

like? I would be like, well,

16:56

you make it sound like it's a switch and you

16:58

turn it on or ony. No. No, I'm just saying if

17:01

I suddenly it would have to be for me,

17:03

I'd have to fall on my head. Again. I

17:05

make this joke a lot that any major shift

17:08

in my personality would have to come as a result

17:10

of a traumatic brain injury. And I know it makes

17:12

people uncomfortable, but it's funny because

17:14

it's true. I did fall on my head

17:16

when I was six, and it did change me.

17:19

Let's talk about that, sure,

17:21

Yeah, I mean you had a pretty

17:24

significant brain injury

17:26

when you were younger. So what happened. I

17:29

fell out of an open staircase

17:33

onto cement floor on

17:35

my head from the top of the stairs,

17:38

which is like a ceiling height.

17:40

That they called it a diving accident. A

17:43

diving accident, Yeah, it typically

17:46

when somebody shows up with that injury at

17:48

the hospital, it's from diving into shallow

17:50

water head first. And where

17:52

were you as an oppertuncil on Michigan.

17:55

You were pretty isolated when it happened. Yeah,

17:57

So it took us a while to get out

17:59

of the up and to a trauma

18:01

center in Lower Michigan. And

18:04

it was like pretty traumatic for your parents

18:06

as well, because that that ride took a long time

18:08

and we had to drive from the up

18:11

It took us well like overnight basically

18:14

from where we were where there weren't

18:16

trauma centers to the

18:19

University of Michigan Hospital where they had

18:21

cat scans and MRIs and things like

18:23

that. What happened? What did they

18:25

say when you went in? I mean what internally?

18:27

Just that I had a severe concussion. It's called

18:29

a contra coup lesion. The

18:32

contra coup is just like the way your brain

18:34

shakes inside your head where you get a bruise on

18:36

one side of it, but it's not the side where

18:38

you hit. I mean, I remember it was all black and

18:40

blue on this one side of my face and

18:43

head, but I don't. I can't

18:45

remember the exact angle of the injury. I probably,

18:47

I honestly have, like not in

18:50

my adulthood, followed up on this neurologically,

18:52

like with a doctor. And

18:55

I probably should get a cat scan.

18:57

At some point I just stopped getting them

18:59

a certain I don't. Maybe I

19:01

just don't want to go in for it, but I probably

19:03

should. But for you as a kid.

19:06

Yeah, and if anyone wants to listen

19:09

to all the details, there's this American

19:11

Life episode where you talk about it, right, Yeah, with my

19:13

parents they're on it too. Yeah, it's good. What

19:16

did you notice after that? I mean, how

19:18

long did it take you to feel the effects

19:20

of that? Not it hurting

19:23

or you know, the immediate effects

19:25

of what how a brain injury would feel,

19:27

but more psychologically and

19:29

you know, otherwise it never

19:32

went back to normal? What was normal?

19:35

Not having migraines all the time, you

19:37

know not. My

19:39

daughter was asking me about Goldie was asking me about

19:41

this the other day, about kindergarten.

19:44

Sorry, and

19:47

I don't remember it really. I

19:49

know what my school kind of looked like, but

19:53

um, I don't remember my

19:55

teacher's name. I don't remember any

19:57

class, any of my class

20:00

maids. I remember stories my parents

20:02

told me, but I don't remember actually like being

20:04

there, so

20:07

I couldn't. I don't know if anybody else does.

20:09

Do you remember kindergarten? I remember

20:12

some things about it, and I remember my teacher's

20:14

name for sure. You don't have any idea

20:16

who that was. I just remember being

20:18

sick after that, and

20:21

also it like I'm sorry, I'm crying. I need

20:23

to talk more reasonably, like no,

20:25

it's okay, this is really, I mean, this is

20:28

this is a huge dramatic thing

20:30

that happened to you. Well,

20:32

I didn't find this out until much later, first

20:34

of all, like having Really, I'm

20:37

just gonna say this, I hate it when people refer

20:40

to migraines while they're having one, because the

20:42

kind of migraine that I would have. You can't

20:44

even talk to people, right, You

20:47

can't, like you're I

20:49

go blind. The paint is really

20:51

really severe. There can't be lights on,

20:54

no television, don't I just can't

20:56

form a thought other than out O out

20:58

you know, like this herr and then it

21:01

becomes really overwhelming over the course of

21:03

a few hours, and you end up

21:05

vomiting from the pain. You're

21:08

just puking and puking. And I

21:11

remember like going back to school the next

21:13

day and I would have like my eyes

21:15

would be all swollen and black, and not

21:17

black and blue, but those capillary like purple

21:20

spots all over my eyelids from dry

21:22

eaving. So that's

21:25

a thing that went on until adulthood,

21:28

but it's luckily it's not happening

21:30

now. But the other thing I learned

21:33

when I got much older is that people

21:35

who had a TBI traumatic brain injury

21:37

something crazy like seventy or

21:39

eighty percent of them deal with depression

21:42

and anxiety for the rest of of their

21:44

life. And I already have a

21:46

genetic predisposition for that. So

21:49

I mean, sometimes I wonder if I hadn't fallen

21:51

on my head, just

21:54

would'd be a happier person? Would I?

21:56

Would my schooling have been different if

21:58

I hadn't been the kid that's like racing

22:01

out of the room because my parents sent me to

22:03

school with a migraine, and I'm racing out of the classroom

22:05

because I'm gonna puke all over the desk again, and spending

22:08

so much time in the nurses office, and my

22:10

parents having to leave work to pick me up, and

22:12

like them deciding every time I had a headache

22:14

if I was old enough yet to stay home alone,

22:16

and just I

22:19

often missed the fun days of school

22:21

too, because the causes of my

22:23

or like the triggers of the migraines, could

22:26

be anything, and the main one

22:28

was like excitement or stress. So

22:30

I would get them on Christmas morning

22:33

often. But yeah,

22:35

anyway, so it's not just about the physical effects,

22:38

because it there were changes

22:40

to what happened socially.

22:42

There were changes with how you were dealing

22:44

with your parents. They're asking if

22:46

you can stay home by yourself, Yeah, you know

22:48

when you're pretty young. Yeah, you talked

22:51

about being kind of fatalistic. And I

22:53

wonder, well, I think that having

22:55

an injury like that, like an

22:58

accident, any kind of accident, but

23:00

one that isn't a broken

23:02

arm or something, which I understand is also traumatic.

23:04

But when you break part of your brain, did

23:08

you think this is going to last forever? Yeah,

23:11

that's what they told me. They didn't say you're

23:13

definitely going to suffer from this these

23:16

migraines and stuff forever. But there's

23:18

a good chance that when you go through puberty

23:21

that could trigger it. They told

23:23

me, you know, becoming pregnant could trigger it.

23:25

So that was like really scary prospect, and I put that

23:27

off as very, very long as possible,

23:30

and my doctors and my parents kind of

23:32

started training me for like, how are you

23:34

going to live your life as an adult on your own

23:37

if you are just completely out of

23:39

commission, How are you going to have a job? How

23:41

are you going to go to work? Like You're going to have to

23:44

learn how to power through these

23:47

episodes? And that

23:50

was like a real

23:52

shitty prospect. It did not feel

23:54

hopeful. Luckily, my first

23:56

job, I was in high school still, so by

24:00

afternoon when I would have to show up

24:02

at my job, I would I'd have some time,

24:04

because I always get my migraines in the middle of the night,

24:06

I'd have some time to figure out if how

24:08

much I'm going to be puking by that time. Do

24:11

you think that this whole experience kind of informed

24:14

some of your skepticism and my

24:17

fatalistic view of the world. Yeah, And first

24:19

of all, what does that mean to you? What does that actually, my

24:21

fatalistic view is that

24:24

something will kill all of us. And

24:27

it seems self indulgent and

24:31

frankly classist and

24:34

othersts to believe

24:36

that you can buy

24:39

your way out of that inevitability

24:42

or meditate your way out of it, or some

24:44

shit. You can't. You're gonna

24:46

get sick and die. There was never any

24:48

medication that I could take when I had a migraine, because

24:50

I'd just throw it up immediately. I

24:53

kept a food chart. Mozzarella

24:55

was off the list for years because

24:57

I had a migraine one night after I had Monza

25:00

sticks. I don't even know if that's what caused it,

25:02

you know, but we would go down the list

25:04

like did what did you have yesterday? What did you have yesterday?

25:07

What did you have? You know, and checking off things on this

25:09

there was an actual list from the neurologist,

25:12

and it didn't matter. I kept

25:14

getting the headaches. It really didn't matter, and

25:16

then they just went away miraculously, also

25:20

as a surprise, you know. And

25:23

I don't feel like that has any meaning either.

25:27

To me. It seems natural that you

25:29

would, as an adult, have

25:33

a skepticism around someone

25:36

saying like this is gonna align your

25:38

blah blah blah or this year. Yeah, I mean I

25:40

don't, Yeah, I call bullshit. I

25:43

also think if that

25:45

stuff is working for someone again,

25:49

that's great for now. Something

25:53

horrible could happen to you tonight, and

25:56

then what good was all that shit? Do

25:58

you think that feeds a little bit it into the

26:00

why bother? Like? Why bother with all

26:02

this wellness if you can get

26:04

hit by a bush?

26:07

Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely, definitely,

26:10

Like I definitely feel

26:13

like I have other stuff to do while

26:15

I'm here and while I'm upright, I

26:18

do not want to be spending my time picking

26:20

out my powders. You

26:23

know, well, partially because you just fundamentally

26:25

believe that there's no way those powders are really

26:27

doing anything or yeah, no, that's totally

26:29

right, but also yeah, I don't

26:31

want to spend my time on anything that

26:33

has like a sliver of inefficiency.

26:37

I don't want to spend my time on anything inefficient.

26:40

If it's inefficient, if it's something

26:42

that might not be doing something,

26:47

push it aside and let's do the

26:49

stuff that actually gets shit done or

26:51

is like a real experience in the world.

26:53

I don't enjoy the wishful

26:55

thinking the time wasted on wishful

26:57

thinking. I also wonder because I

26:59

feel like this is something that

27:01

I've seen you Just like, if you're going to do something that's

27:05

that even could be somewhat frivolous,

27:08

then you want to be having fun, right, Yeah,

27:11

yeah, a lot of fun. Yeah yeah, yeah

27:13

yeah. I want it to be funny or

27:15

fun or crazy

27:18

or whatever. I don't want it to be chill, right,

27:22

you know. No, if I'm

27:24

gonna waste time and money on something like, I

27:26

want to come out with a good story. Oh,

27:29

there goes up my alarm. I have to go to therapy next

27:31

door right now. Yeah, your

27:33

therapist is literally next door to our office,

27:36

the weirdest anyway. Okay,

27:41

Yes, my therapist is right next door

27:43

on Wellness Row. And yes their

27:46

office is filled with crystals and macromay,

27:48

and there's a bowl of Palo Santo that sits on the table

27:50

right in front of me. But for me, therapy

27:53

is a basic need. As

27:55

I said earlier, I fought with depression

27:58

and anxiety for as long as I can remember. Sometimes

28:01

it's stabilitating, other times it's

28:03

not. These conditions reduce

28:05

life expectancy by about ten to twenty five

28:08

years. There are a lot of factors

28:10

at play there, not just the potential

28:12

for suicide. We treat ourselves

28:14

poorly, and we're treated poorly by the medical

28:16

establishment because of our diagnoses.

28:19

Talk therapy is one of the few treatments that's

28:21

proven to reduce mortality and improve

28:23

quality of life. We don't really

28:26

do lobotomies or a steady diet of coeludes

28:28

these days for a reason, So

28:30

I invest in therapy. I go religiously.

28:33

One might say therapy

28:35

is a wellness practice. Yes, for some

28:38

people. They can get the same benefits that

28:40

tuned in mindfulness that keeps one active

28:42

and engaged in their own well being from

28:45

other wellness practices. Do

28:47

I think they'd work for me? I don't

28:49

know. Am I going to try to keep an open mind

28:51

and explore it? Yep? I

28:54

wish with all my heart that crystals could say

28:56

to me, Hey, it seems like you haven't been

28:58

sleeping or are you remembering to eat?

29:00

I would spend every last dime on them if

29:02

that were the case. Believe me, because Dan

29:05

is right. They are very pretty. Next

29:15

time on the dream and

29:17

the irony is that it started with an effort

29:19

by the FDA to have more

29:21

control over the dietary supplement industry

29:24

to try to have some standards for what the products could

29:26

or couldn't contain and at what levels. And it

29:29

backfired to the point that by the end

29:31

of this in nineteen ninety four, there was great

29:34

deregulation of the industry, to

29:36

the point that it was less regulated than it had been

29:38

before the FDA started its

29:40

efforts. The

29:44

Dream is a production of Little Everywhere and Stitcher,

29:47

written and reported by Me, Jane Murray and

29:49

Dan Galucci, editing by Peter

29:51

Clowney and Tracy Samuelson, with production

29:54

by Stephanie Karayuki and Lyra Smith.

29:57

The Dream is executive produced by Me, Dan

29:59

Galucci, Peter Clowney, and Chris Bannon.

30:02

Our mixing engineers are Casey Holford

30:04

and Brendan Burns. Please

30:06

rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get

30:08

your podcasts, and thanks for listening.