Valerie: Rise. Renew. Reconnect. Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every episode ignites hope and healing. I'm your host, Valerie Huang Beck, and I'm on a mission to help you embrace your unique potential and become the vibrant visionary you knew you were meant to be.
Charlie: Shimmer fire in the darkest night of Phoenix burst It's ready for flight.
Shadows may come try to tear you apart but you're the flame.
Valerie: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to from the Ashes podcast. I am your host, Valerie Huang Beck, and today I am co host because I have a special guest, Dr. Charlie Tran, and we are going to be doing a crossover podcast today. So for those of you who don't know me, who might not have joined me on this podcast before, I'm a vitality and vision mentor. And this podcast, from the Ashes, is really to tell stories of overcoming obstacles, of recreating self, and of healing from the inside out. And I know that Dr. Charles Charlie here has a very similar story to share. So today we're going to be digging into both of our stories and seeing what comes up. So welcome, Dr. Charlie.
Charlie: Yes, thank you, Valerie. Yes, thank you, Valerie. And thank you to the audience as well as my audience here. The self Healing Journey podcast, where we actually share other people's stories about how they found healing through just trusting their own divine wisdom and intuition within so that we can really start taking sovereignty back of our health. And so I am a doctor of acupuncture. I also do astrology to help people kind of find their life and spiritual purpose as well as I do sound bath and reiki to really help the spiritual aspect of our healing. And so I'm excited to be able to also share a story with Valerie as well in her own story of what she was able to work with in terms of her own healing and be able to find her own power in being able to self heal. So thank you.
Valerie: Yeah, thank you so much. All right, let's get started. Where do you want to start? Should we start with your story or mine?
Charlie: I could definitely start with my story of, like, you know, coming from, I guess, the ashes. My story is actually started back in 1998 when I graduated from high school and went into USC for computer engineering degree. Actually computer science. Computer engineering, which was at the time a big dot com push. And I eventually got into the multimedia aspect of computer science where really it's all about. That was like the HTML early days. And then we went into Flash and really this is the beginning of the Internet where people were actually communicating online and the Digital world opened up to a whole new space, right? And so, you know, I enjoyed that time as stayed at USC and kept staying in LA for about 20 years. So my journey there was actually going deeper into programming and online development and ended up actually at Disney. I ended up at Disney to make games, make online games for movies, for TV shows. So, like a lot of Pixar movies I came in during Wall E and left around like the. I know we were cars 3. There's so many cars now. And so I spent a few years really going from like a technical engineer to really recognizing that, like, I always love the creative arts. I love being artistic in the gaming experience really kind of made me go from like a gamer of games, a player, to like an actual creator of games. And that made me really start analyzing. Wait a minute, like, am I just not playing my own game, right? And am I just only playing the game that I've been given, or should I actually start creating my own game? Right? That real experience I wanted to have. And so working at Disney, I really got to experience a lot of different multimedia experiences and ways to be really creative. I did improv classes. And so that really. And that was just on the side that was like, aside to like all the technical stuff I had to do in programming and developing games. And so I decided to leave Disney eventually because I just felt like there was a restriction of stories. You know, now we're seeing reboots all day long. So you could see what's happened to storytelling at Disney. And I just felt so, like, creatively repressed. I was like, no, like, I don't think corporations should be doing this too. And what was happening is a lot of artists were being let go and they were bringing in only managers to manage stories. And I felt like this was not going to be a place for me to kind of continue developing my skills. And so I left Disney. I actually traveled around the world because that's where I felt like stories were forgotten. And these stories, ancient stories, were actually where I felt like I was closer to. Almost like I felt like I was an old soul and I had been come back and I had to remember my story. And so leaving America to go to Egypt, to go to Peru and Europe and different places that hadn't been and. But they had. Ancient stories made me kind of recall that, like, actually the story of mankind is much older and wiser and creative. And so, like, to me, I felt like I got to go to the. To the temples in Egypt and read the original comic book that was like, pasted on walls about who we are as humans. And so that made me realize that, like, the real stories weren't being told. So that's why I decided to kind of go on my own and actually went into virtual reality and started to develop a virtual reality game with using astrology as its basis. So it was called a star kingdom, and it was creating astrology as a celestial clock. And so you gained your abilities based on learning your astrology chart. And so in a way, it was like a personal development tool, just because at the time, I was seeing so many people making games that was all about destructions and, you know, just. Just continuing all the bad habits that we want to change in the world. But yet you're like, making games that copies exactly all the things we hate about the world. And so I wanted an opportunity for us to. To have a game that actually helped us develop ourselves better. Right. Because today, like, getting a coach to help you develop your own personal skills is not very easy to find. So I was like, look, if your astrology code is actually who you are, and it gives you a little bit more insight on who you are, why don't we make a game that actually support that? And unfortunately, I was too early into the experience of gaming because people just wanted gun games. People were paying for gun games in virtual reality. And it was unfortunately, men and boys playing VR. And so I was like, clearly this is not the place I should be introducing this kind of technology to the world. I should be going, maybe consider that this technology is for everybody playing this reality of the game. Because at one point we're like, do we put in suits now so I can feel the game in virtual reality? And I felt like I was literally taking people into what I call the false light, the. The. The. The illusion of reality by creating these digital worlds. And so I was like, no, actually, let's kind of rethink. Maybe I am a player in this game, and maybe I am now a creator. What kind of world do I want to create if this is the video game, the real life? And so I started to go deeper into my own spiritual practices, my meditations, my achieve development. And then I had gone through a few plant ceremonies during my time of awakening. And so I was well into integrating a lot of that in my virtual reality experience. And then that's when I realized I was actually just perpetuating the system. I was trying to leave. And so I said, look, I talked to my guys. I like, I am ready for the greater mission. I feel like I am not being placed in the best position of my skills, because now I can see I'm not just a body. I am an eternal spirit that reincarnates for really awesome video game time. So Dr. Or Charlie Trin, at the time was the video game character I was playing. And I was like, let's actually go deeper into this practice. And so my guide said, it's time for you to go home. And I thought, okay, let me go help my family at home. Because I had really, at that time, also, for me, I was escaping living at home. Home is all doctors. My sister's a dentist. I have a pharmacist. You know, all our cousins, a lot of doctors. And for me, I was like a. A gamer. You know, I was a engineer, which in Asian culture, it's still acceptable as a job that is okay to be Asian for. But I was. I was kind of missing that healing aspect, because playing video games all day long and being a computer all day long, now we see there's so many different issues. And so I felt like my health was suffering during that time, too. So in deciding to move back to Houston and work with my family and connect back with my family, my ancestors were like. And I had someone actually who was able to see spirits. She said, you have a spirit that's following you. Almost like it's. It's trying to tell you to maybe consider going into acupuncture school. And at this time, I had no thoughts of going to acupuncture. I grew up with acupressure. And I always went to the Asian guy in. In some house, and he was like, acupressuring my toes and hands. And you're like, oh, my God, this hurts, mom, what are you doing to me? Right? Because, you know, we don't know any better. I was a, you know, Asian kid trying to understand this Asian culture. And today, now, when. When, When. When my guys literally started to show up in front of other people to let me know that they were here for me, I kind of decided to take the hint. And I applied to acupuncture school, and that was the beginning of me reawakening, remembering my natural. I've. So I've. I've done a lot of past life regression and meditation on the things that I've done. And I've been a healer many times. And when I saw. Went into the clinic room and they were needling people, and, like, something clicked. It's as if, like, I was watching myself in another time following another doctor, and I had practiced needling People before. And so by the time I ended school, I had realized that I was so drawn to something that I thought was me, which is gaming. But being sent by an invisible force, like an invisible guide to go study acupuncture was like. Like a whole nother level of understanding this video game. And so I started to trust these intuitive guidance a lot more. And going into my own practice of the. Meditate of the. The medicine, of going back to my Eastern traditions, that's when I was able to hear more ancestors coming through. And so it was really interesting because during the time right before I was really going into my ancestral roots of medicine, I was way more playing with the Galactics. I love the Pleiadians, Arcturians. I was. I still am in. In connecting to all these higher beings. But a lot of my ancestors said that they were them from another past life, and they were coming down to Earth to guide us on how to use their technology for us humans. And so our ancestors have been cultivating really, what I call ancient ET Technology. And we are the culmination of that medicine in genetic form. Right. And so I realized that my ancestors were like, we've been waiting for you to be the expression of this medicine that needs to come back. And I was like, whoa, that's a lot of pressure. Like, I just wanted to be like some geek playing with video games. And like, no, like, you have to now be the creator. You have to start recognizing your divine powers by, like, letting go that you're not just the vessel. Charlie Tran. Yes. Charlie Tran is the vehicle that I'm expressing this magic in and medicine. But our spirit, our soul is so ancient. And when we're able to remember this ancient medicine, we are actually able to be honoring our ancestors and what they cultivated through their lifetime to pass on to us in this lifetime. So my journey really started when I finally graduated, and I was facing the. I'm a doctor. And I was just like, people are like, Dr. Tran, and they're like, I'm looking around like, who's Dr. Tran? You know, I couldn't recognize that it was me. I was being asked to represent, you know, an Eastern traditional doctor. And for me, I didn't like the word doctor because I was struggling from what Western doctors were doing, right? And so. And then my. My sisters. I have two doctors in the family, a doctor of pharmacy, doctor of dentistry. Right. And here I am, Dr. Vacuum.
So, you know, and it's really tough because a lot of us don't talk about this, but, like, I grew up Actually, at one point, not appreciating my Asian culture, hating it, thinking, oh, my God, why did you make me so weird? I wanted to be like every other American. And being Asian was so weird at the time when I was growing up here in the States yet.
Valerie: Sorry, where did you grow up in the States?
Charlie: I grew up. I grew up in a little bit in Oklahoma and Texas.
Valerie: Ah, okay.
Charlie: And. And some years in Cali, we were just trying, like, as Asian people, trying to find the best Asian area to live in. And you guys know Texas, California, the two places, we just ended up in Oklahoma for a bit. If you guys know there's a big Vietnamese community there, but Texas, Cali is your big Asian cultures, right? And so my dad loved Texas. My mom loves Cali. And so it became this, like, back and forth, like, no Texas, no Cali. And I was like, oh, my God, the. The whole. And you could see there's a different Asian vibe and culture in the two states. So for me, it was like, okay, I'm just going to go become an engineer, be very American. And, you know, like, this whole Asian thing wasn't for me until I realized it was so for me. And I had to just heal my own disposition because I feel like we are the generation that represents Asian dash American. We are in the fusion, the culture where I was raised Asian, but lived in an American culture. And so being able to finally come to terms with both my Asian side and my American side, now I get to be an outspoken Asian person pushing Chinese or Asian medicine. Right? Because our stereotype is Asian people are quiet. And so being dash American, like, no, these Americans have told me to speak up. So I've taught myself. Gotta speak up, gotta speak up, because thank God, not gonna listen. If you go, you want somebody to punch your needle, sir? Like, you need. No, like, it's like, hey, you need some acupuncture. You need support. And that gave us that confidence that we're not just these doctors in Asian corner Asia Town. And you're gonna go find this random Asian doctor to treat these conditions that the Western medicine can't do. And so this was the major revelation is I had to actually now represent what it is to be a modern Eastern doctor. I can speak English very well, so I'm able to speak with those who. Who. Who aren't Chinese, who aren't Asian. Right. And who like acupuncture. But maybe they don't want to speak with someone who has broken English. They want to speak with someone who speaks very well English and can Describe, you know, what is happening to them. And so that, to me, was suddenly like, my calling. And I found that what I learned in gaming was that simplify the information so that people can absorb it. And so a lot of times in my clinic, I don't get fancy in words. I just go, hey, you ran out of water, you're dehydrated, your body's thirsty. That's it. Here's the medicine. Just do it. You don't need some fancy words, some fancy medicine name. Just, you're thirsty, your body's thirsty. That's it. And people appreciate that because they're like, you're right, I feel my skin is dry. And what happens, it will confirm what they're experiencing intuitively. But no one has ever explained it to them that way. And so that's been like my, like, reviving myself back into my spiritual mission because I was willing to trust what I call the paranormal reality, which I call basically like Hunger Game guides. That's just listen to us and help us whenever we're ready to ask for help.
Valerie: Okay. So I. I have so many different angles and that I want to take this. And I have questions, too, but I do want to ask you about this spiritual sensitivity that you've had even before you went into Chinese medicine. You know, even while you were doing gaming, you were doing astrology gaming. I would love to know a bit about how that developed for you. Like, you know, was that something that you've been interested in as a child? Was that cultivated in your family? Yeah. I'm curious.
Charlie: Yeah. Yeah. I was always the weird kid. I was always the one asking the question that only adults could even try to answer, that all the kids around me thought I was super weird. And so already I was living in a world where I had to, like, know my audience. And so when I went into engineering is when I was like, oh, maybe this paranormal stuff needs more evidence, and maybe I'm just making it up. And so during my time as an engineer, yeah, there was this moment where I kind of like, led myself to believe I was a robot and I had no feelings. And. And I had to let go of these emotional feelings I was having because maybe I'm making things up. I think I know how people feel, but maybe I don't. And. But what happened is I started to have problems with relationships with people in general because I was like this engineering, like the engineering thought pattern over wrote my own conscious programming where it thought that, like, emotions was useless. Yet I'm a very emotional, empathic person. And so that's where my creativity, when I got to Disney, realized, like, no, we don't want to be an engineer. Like, I always wanted to make, like, real home human robots. And to me, that was that power of spirit in technology. But, you know, for me, it was kind of like I was again, the weird person. Like, why do you want to put life into a robot? Right? Because I was always trying to find the humanity in tech. And so it. It was not always easy because I would play off sometimes these intuitive hits as like, oh, I don't know, I'm just making it up, right? And we say this a lot. I'm just. My imagination. I'm just making it up. But when I started to realize that those making it up made more sense than me following what I read in books or in classes, I was like, I think there's a disconnect in my programming. And I couldn't come to terms with it. And so I decided to. When I was at Disney, I started to be more creative. I started to kind of go, maybe that creativity is where this, like, paranormal energy works in. Because you cannot create evidence behind these creative thoughts. But, you know, they happen when they actually become an actual game. You. You like something you came up in a game, and you actually build it so someone can play is actually grounding out a thought, an idea. And. And because I was able to do that in the digital format, I realized, like, no, actually, this place where we play with thoughts and ideas and emotions is this weird. And people were starting to use word quantum already. And I was like, I don't know if that's the word. So I decided to go more into the witchcraft, the witchy, the astrology, the paranormal, where everybody goes to the occult to try to find if there was something extra. And that's when I learned from. I had a palm reader look at my hand, and. And within an hour, she described my traumas of coming to America. My traumas of holding myself back, my traumas of hiding because I was afraid to be myself. She's like, you are so psychic. You know things before people know. You should be using this skill because it's in your. Like, you're inherently psychic. I was like, what are you talking about? This woman is, like, scaring me because she was reading me, and I was, like, looking around, like, is there a prompt where you're able to see so much of me? And I spend years trying to find me, and you can do it in a second. And I felt like, oh, my God, like, the paranormal exists, but Maybe it's not paranormal because I just don't have the words. So that's when I go and try to prove, like an engineer, let's look about what it means to be psychic. Because like at that point, I wasn't looking for what that meant. I was just using what everyone's saying. You're psychic, you're this. I was like, no, no, I'm gonna read it. So I read books. I read books on channeling psychic. I read books on blink. So Malcolm Gladwell, and I love him because he scientifically explains intuition. And so he talks about the tipping point and consciousness. He talks about the point where your, your intuitive hit is built from actually you developing very strong evidence based practice to confirm your natural intuition, that you allow intuition to take over because you can trust how it's being developed. And so I started to realize that a lot of my instincts were always there, but I was turning them off. A lot of us do this. We go, oh, I'm, I must be making this up. There's no reason I would know this. But that's exactly where actually our intuitive gifts are, is we naturally know things because there is this deeper connection that we all have. And until we describe it as now, today, quantum entanglement, you, you're not able to explain these invisible connection that we have. We talk about mothers and children all the time, but we never realized that like we're all mothers and children of somebody. That means that all of us are connected to each other. And so that's the deeper I think, I believe the Internet is actually a plagiarism of our conscious ability to connect psychically to each other. Right? Because if you understand how technology is, I really believe that it is plagiarizing what is a natural ability in the human consciousness. And so consciousness, quantum mapping and how we're talking about quantum computers, they're literally copying our ability as humans to quantum leap into notions of, of, of, of potential ideas and solutions and then making it real. That's what we're doing with computers today. So I felt like there was a much more powerful ability of like consciousness and psychic. The word psychic was just a no way to tap into consciousness. So, so that's when I realized like, no, actually I should lean in more to the science of the metaphysics. Because if we can understand it, then I realize like I was built for the metaphysics, but I always get stuck because they stop physics at the physical reality, but not in the mental space or the conscious space. When we're coming up with these ideas and that's when, like, to me, my. My conviction of the metaphysics is I proved it scientifically, not through the woo woo, not through the meditation, not through the prayers. But there's so much evidence, science, proof. You know, we talk about Masaru Emoto and the power of water and how water retains emotions. That's a scientific experiment. So to me, I was like, no, actually, the paranormal is much more exciting to live and to be in as a scientist, because it's still the unknown. Yet I feel like a lot of our ancestors actually knew how to work with it. And they were already delving into this quantum field, which today we call the psychic realm, where you're accessing these invisible informational bits. So that's why I feel like we're technically much more of antennas of. Of a reception. And we tune. That's why they said we tune our antennas depending on vibration, so that we pick up thoughts of people when they're happy. You can look at someone and go, that person's happy, and I'm receiving what they're feeling. And that's when I realized that I already had these skills, but I just put them aside. So when I went into acupuncture, also, acupuncture wasn't actually because we're tcm, so traditional Chinese medicine, which is the acupuncture, the medicine that was developed post communism. So communism already had their place in cutting out some of the stuff. Like, they took out a lot of the mental and emotional connection of our medicine. But that's kind of where the power of the psychic realm is, the spiritual realm, where people and their emotion can change reality itself. And so today, now, I feel like acupuncture gave me the. Almost like the electrical engineering version of accessing our electrical magnetic frequency in our bodies. So I used to make computers and, like, create wires and connecting motherboards and pieces, checking voltage to see if there's electricity going there to make sure if there's a break in electricity, you have no access to this part. When I do acupuncture now, I'm putting needles along channels if they're having breakages. So I tell people, I didn't lose my engineering background. It developed from synthetic tech to organic tech. And I work with the human body as the vessel that the spirit, the ghost in the shell, embodies, right? And, you know, ghost in the shell, right. And it's very much Japan. So it shows that, like, you know, we're finally at the point where art is facing reality and reality is facing art, and the art is the computer, the tech that is reflecting back our own consciousness. So. So that's why now, today, like, I'm so in on the spiritual aspect of it. I don't call it occultism anymore. It's actually mysticism. I call it the dao. The dao is everything we don't know that we are exploring as souls and the things you know is known. But it's not the dao or it's not spirit, because once you can call spirit spirit, then it's not spirit. Right? And so to me, it. Now I'm much more excited to be in this mysticism of trusting as the universe unfolds versus thinking I know we know everything already in science.
Valerie: Awesome. So I'm going to attempt to connect what you just said with a little bit of this conversation piece on sovereignty and health. And I'm gonna also try to connect it with Ayurveda, since I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner. In the Vedic wisdom, that's called prana. It's. It's the inner knowing. And I consider myself to be less on the. I am still very intuitive, but in a very different way. I understand this inner knowing as the key to being sovereign, and that being sovereign in health is. Is vital for us to be healthy.
So bringing it from really the cosmos of, like, there is a fabric of cosmic intelligence to how. How does that manifest within each individual person? But each individual person has access to what we call this inner knowing. And the. The willingness to be connected to it, the willingness to cultivate the connection, is what allows us to also guide ourselves in health. So I want to see if there's any parallel from your understanding, from the spiritual understanding and from the Chinese medicine system that, that also points to that. Right? Because the cause of disease actually in the Ayurvedic system is when we are disconnected from our inner knowing.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For us, we come at it more with this idea of stagnation and flow, right? Is that when we run into stagnation, we run into pain, we run into a blockage of flow. And when you're not in flow is when you basically forget yourself, right? And so everything is all about creating this cultivation of flow. We talk about kundalini is this very common way of describing this. This flow in the spine, we call it. We talk about the microcosmic orbit. In Chinese medicine, Tai chi, qigong is all about cultivating the flow inside of us. And so for us is when we actually connected to this flow, that we're actually able to sense this invisible Realm, this invisible connection. And so it's interesting because in our own culture, the Asian culture, we tend to practice. Don't make sound. Don't be loud. Just listen, right? And so because of that, we. We really developed this ability of really listening to the. Did you know that the silence. Make noise? What do you mean? Listen to the silence? You know, and, like, you could see the west be, like, so lost, right? Because they're just so loud. Like, what silence? I don't know silence. Because I can only talk. And when I talk, it's all about me, me, me.
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: And so. And so, again, this whole, like, Asian American is learning how to. When to not talk and learning to talk.
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: And so what I love about what we learned in east was really powerful in a. In being able to sense the unseen, the invisible. Because really, the universe is constantly speaking through us, through the things that happen around us. However, like, in the west, it's so busy talking and dominating and telling you how to move, and you have to take action. Very young, very masculine in action. And the east was very feminine. Let things happen to us, and we're just flowing. Like, you can't stop the universe to flow, so you just flow and surrender, right? And so for us, we. I think there was a lot of pain and suffering in, like, being victim of your fate in the East. And I think coming here to America, you learn like, no, you are creator of your own reality. Take hold of it. But if you're not paying attention to what's happening in your reality, you're just dominating, abusing people, punching people to get your way. And so you actually miss that maybe that person was an opportunity for you to connect with. But you're so busy talking about you, you, you. You're not connected. And so it is just in that simple way of just connecting to silence, connecting to the. To the. To nature, connecting to landscape that I feel like we are connecting to this invisible conscious wisdom that is inherent in everything because everything moves in this nature flow. So that's why we, like a lot of people, even Asia, we do nature landscape all the time because we see the intelligence of the greater dao, of the greater spirit in nature. Everybody being in float, when we come to cities, you're like, why do we hate cities? Because everyone's honking, everyone's going against circadian rhythms. Everyone is like, well, I need to be here, so you get out of my way. So there's always this push and pull, and no one's flowing in divine rhythms. And that's where you could see why you're so disconnected to spirit. Because spirit is always moving within us and around us and in a different culture. You know this in Asia with Shinto, right? Shinto Buddhism, where everything has life force, everything has purpose, everything has spiritual. And so we talk about this in colonization, where you're like, oh, I came here to take this. I don't want your gods. No, it was never gods. It was a spirit of the food. And when you say you don't want the spirit of the food, you just want the food. Our Chinese food, our Asian food, you lost. Like, a lot of our food is based on medicine. Actually, when we say sweet and sour, because you're using the sour and the sweet flavor to heal your liver and spleen. So it's medical grade already in our culture. But when you say, I don't want none of that, you know, your prayers around your food. I just want your food because I like your food. It's you taking the physical and releasing the spirit of the food. And that's why today, when we say, why are you disconnected? You don't even care that the food has spirit. You don't even care that every little thing, you have a spirit. And I feel like that's where I know a lot of Westerners are trying to, like, they love Buddhism or Hinduism or Ayurveda because they're starting to realize they have to listen more to these visible aspects.
Valerie: Ooh, okay. Yes. There's so much in there that I want to talk about in. So in Japan, we always say itadakimasu before we eat, and it means, I humbly receive you. Right? And after we eat, we say, go chiso ma deshita. And so it's like, thank you for the meal and whatnot. And it is talking to the food. Actually, it's not. It's not a. You're not actually talking to anybody else. You're not talking necessarily to, like, a God. But in Shinto, right, there is spirit and everything. So it is very ingrained in the practice. And having been here just about a couple of weeks now, I'm refreshing what it feels like to be in a system that is integrated into nature. Even if I'm in the big city, I'm in Tokyo. I still feel like it is just so much more intentional, and there's so much more of that. Everybody is working in harmony for each other. You know, there. There are constantly signs reminding us to, like, be aware of. Be aware of our surroundings, be mindful of other people. It's just part of the Society here. And I've forgotten how much that really brings so much peace and it allows for the silence. And. And the silence is. Is very sacred. You know, like in the city, people really are. They put so much effort into allowing for other people to have their space, and. And so we don't feel like this pressure constantly on us. And when I was living in California up until, you know, I was living there for 13 years and up until three weeks ago.
Was in that culture, I. I have known how bad it was for me. I have known, I have felt it. I have been trying to get out of that for a long time, but just noticing how much it has affected my health, how much it has affected how I operate. Like, I subjected myself to a lot and it, you know, noticing how it wore down on my body and my mind, in spite of all my efforts, in spite of studying Ayurveda, in spite of doing yoga, in spite of doing all of these practices, environment, and the way that you are mindful and how other people are mindful around you really matters. And so I do, you know, when I see people really trying in the west to integrate Buddhism and, And Chinese medicine and all that, like, I understand. And then I've heard you also talk about how it's really important for people from the Western world to embrace their own indigenous healing. So I want to ask you a little bit about. Because when they try to adopt, you know, Eastern modalities of healing, when they try to appropriate that, it doesn't. It, you know, I think it gets them to a place where they can start to. But they're also. It can be a little problematic at the same time. Yeah. So I want to hear your thoughts on that.
Charlie: Yeah, Yeah. I feel like, you know, I. I mean, being in the West, I really do enjoy their history and their culture. I love their European culture. I'm the big Renaissance fan. Just because I feel like I've had lifetime there. And so, you know, for me, ironically, like, I'm fanboying European culture. Right. Yet they're fanboying our culture because, ironically, is this exotic experience that they are not having. Right. Yeah. And so what's really interesting is when you have the Western culture now, you know, liking our stuff and kind of coming to our stuff and wanting to appreciate and becoming like, it is like, that's great. And then sometimes, though, I kind of go, so what are you bringing to the table? And it's like, oh, I'm just now Asian and my name is like, you know, Chinchoni. And you're like what, what happened to your western name? Like, you don't have to become full on Asian. Like, you know, you see this in the Indian culture too, right? And so.
Valerie: Oh, totally.
Charlie: Exactly. I mean, really, right now that yoga vacation is big. And so a lot of times when we, you know, we end up in these like, you know, new yoga festival conferences. And it's a lot of Europeans or what I call Americans, Westerners, you're like, so where's your indigenous culture that you are actually remembering as you're remembering, you know, another culture's version of it? And the reason I say that is because just like my ancestors cultivated in my genetics, the way I look with the medicine, I believe that the pale Europeans had cultivated powers with their ability in their DNA. So today, like when people want to talking about cold punch, that's most likely a western medicine from the Nordic Europeans, because none of us are swimming in cold *** water like that, right? Maybe high Chinese, probably in Japan. Yes. But like most, you know, I'm a tropical Asian, right? So Vietnamese tropics. You know, I was born in the Caribbean, so very warm, warm weather abilities, warm weather food. So all of our medicine is to deal with warm weather treatments and diseases. So my body's conditioned to handle foods. In the tropics, you start saying, hey, Charlie, you need to do cold plunges. Like, okay, homie, like, I'll learn your cold plunge. But it may not be my medicine because my body didn't grow up with cold plunges, right? And so if anything, by saying cold punch is good for everybody and it does this for everybody's body is actually disregarding again, our natural cultivated genetics that our ancestors passed on and why we look the way we do. I think we have gotten too caught up on the way we look is how we judge each other versus no, actually the way we look is how we get these natural affinities to things, right? So like, if we have dark skin and we can handle the sun, we usually really good at being out in the sunlight, vice versa. This is what happened where the pale skin didn't have the sun, but they were really good with the winter. So their body can handle winter. And that's why, if you notice, a lot of Europeans run really hot all the time. Run really hot. They're so hot, I tell them to cool off. That's why they have AC at 60 degrees in this place. You know, every. I know all Asians complain about the crazy AC in American stores because it's like every Asian is wearing a giant coat and Americans are Like in shorts and shirt. And I'm like, genetic differences. That means your medicine is for your genetic optimism. And so that to me was like, okay, fine, you give me coldplunch. We give you sauna. Because sauna is basically what we experience. Experience. Every summer in the tropics, it's hot as hell. Down here in Houston, it's really hot. So we get natural saunas. And so that's a good time to practice detoxing the body and releasing what we call really cholesterol and calories is when you release because you're getting in the sauna experience. And so our bodies are built to handle this heat. So you put someone in this crazy heat into somewhere that's cold, they might end up running into symptoms and diseases that their body's not used to. So with that deeper thought, I was like, westerners, like, where is your native medicine that you were able to grow up with? And so we find that the issue was the druids, the Wiccans and pagans that people have, you know, demonized in European culture. Or ironically, I believe they're medicine men and women who were cultivating European medicine to support. Support their bodies and genetic constitution. So now we come into this country and everyone's like hodgepodge coming together. And here's like, here's my culture. Here's my culture. And the other one's like, I forgot my culture, Brad. Like yours, yours and yours. And you're like, sure, you can take some, but what are you offering? Because, you know, it is in that offering that we're actually doing this give and take. And I think the European. This is why I think we're. We're really like a post colonialism culture. And so in colonialism, you just take. You don't really. You. You supposedly want, so you don't need to give them back anything. But actually, actually we're, to me, a conscious programming of people and our intelligence come together to trade information so that we can come up with much more diverse way of healing ourselves, because we all come from different places. And that, to me, is a power of diversity and in genetic. In culture and medicine. So that's why my big push is like, hey, I want Europeans to actually use the remembering of our medicine, but to remember, hey, maybe that will trigger your own native heritage that your ancestors cultivated in your body.
Valerie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is something that is a developing dialogue. I think it's very, very young. I don't see it, you know, a lot in. Even in my professional world. Like, I Don't see this. Like, I think Kalorama was probably the first conference where, you know, indigenous medicine was brought up in the context for Ayurvedic practitioners. Because up until this point, I feel like a lot of Ayurveda has been somewhat practiced in isolation, which, you know, when it comes to like, sovereignty and decolonizing medicine and whatnot, we also have to realize, like, when we are, when we are studying a foreign medicine, because even for me, Ayurveda is technically a foreign medicine. It's not. I'm not studying Chinese medicine. I have to be mindful that I can't really study it without being conscious of my background as a non Indian person, as someone of Asian descent, Chinese roots and whatnot. Like, what are my ancestral foods that are going to work in with the princes of pulls of Ayurveda? And when Ayurveda is taught, like, it's very much taught in a very specific lens that doesn't quite work if we don't adapt it. Right. And so part of the journey of healing is knowing self, knowing your ancestry and knowing your actually your very unique background as a person in this modern world.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah. So I'd love to also kind of flip now because as you're describing some of your story and as we're getting into your Ayurvedic story, I love to hear your own journey of, like, what made you realize that, like, you're healing and knowing what you needed healing and not necessarily just listening to anyone who was giving you advice. What made you realize, like, this is like, no, I need to heal myself on my own path rather than constantly either being told by a doctor, a healthcare practitioner, a insurance plan, you know, or pharmacy. I mean, pharmacists telling you, like, this is what you need to do.
Valerie: Yeah. Oh, gosh, this is a fascinating story. So I, I got into psychology at the end of high school. I took AP Psych, and I was fascinated and I decided I kind of want to study this. And so when I got to university, I ended up in psychological services. And I quickly realized that there was something off for me, not that I wasn't fascinated and I wanted to do it. I did want to become a counselor, but it's like, why are they encouraging me to become a counselor, learn this system and just kind of implement it. With me having very, very little life experience myself, I felt like there was something missing about that. It was a weird, that's a weird dynamic for someone so young to be just like, all of a sudden I'm a Therapist for other people. And so once I graduated college and having not had really any issues myself in terms of, you know, depression, anxiety or any kind of like mental health issue up until that point, which is very interesting because as soon as, as I started to adult, you know, that started to happen, like, especially in university when you're, when you're actually living a very imbalanced lifestyle, you're. And with a lot of other young adults who have no idea how to, to live life, how to, how to be responsible.
Yeah, you're just put into this pool and it just explodes. Right. And it was in college where I started to get very mysterious health problems. And this was around a time where I was binging sugar. This was around a time where I was like, experimenting with relationships and like have, you know, getting into fights and all this stuff. And I was in a hip hop group. And I remember not being able to move one day because my hip was flared up like it was. It would hurt a lot. And then, then another day, then my, my toes were swollen and then another day like I couldn't move my shoulder. And I went to the doctor at the university and I remember him looking at my issues and you're like, you're too young to have rheumatoid. And I had no idea what rheumatoid arthritis was. He just, it was very dismissive. He was like, you're, you, you're too young to have rheumatoid. You. I think it's because you have flat feet. You should go get some insoles. And so I went to get insoles and then never, never thought about the rheumatoid thing for many, many years.
And as you probably know, so rheumatoid arthritis is autoimmune. My mom has lupus, and this was a much later development after Covid. But there's a history of autoimmune. And I didn't know any of this. I was completely not privy to any of this. I just remember the pain and the kind of, the weird diagnosis and. Yeah. And then for a couple of years after that, I was just living life and I had lived in Japan for three years, came back and went into an international education for my master's and I was in New York. It was a. Going from country living in Japan to big city living in New York, where everyone's at your face and just. It's crazy. You know, you see so much that you shouldn't see happen on a subway, just all this stuff. It was all this pressure all at the same time. And my mental health just went to ****. Like it just. I had a huge breakdown and I, that was when I burned out, essentially. I burned out because I was, I was in master program studying until like 2am I went to clubbing after that to, to cope, by the way. So I was, I was big into street dance. I was, I was obsessed with hip hop dance. And so to, yeah, to cope, I went to the clubs and I danced my butt off. And then I would go home. I wouldn't get home until way early in the morning and did that.
Charlie: Those were the days. I remember the days.
Valerie: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, my mental health was so bad that I once. Oh, I'm sorry. And so also there was this. I was studying international education at NYU and the program was a, basically a colonizer program. It was how to bring democracy to, quote unquote, developing countries so that they would adopt our education system. And it was super corrupt. Yeah, I, I could go on with that.
Charlie: So I am amazing. You recognized it while you're in there. Yeah.
Valerie: So it was a shattering of reality. It was a shattering of, you know, I, you know, I was, I realized I was complicit in these systems that were really horrible. And.
Charlie: Yeah.
Valerie: So all of that led me to become very, very mentally not well. And I didn't realize it at the time, but I, but I, after I graduated, because I ended up finishing my program, I flew to Cali on a one way ticket and for a couple of years I was a professional hip hop dancer and teacher.
Charlie: Yeah, that's awesome.
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: But we don't give props to Asians as much in the creative art.
Valerie: Oh absolutely. And especially like in hip hop. Right. But.
For a couple of years I was doing that and just not, you know, not really. And hip hop is incredibly healing. I could go on about that for hours, but not facing the root cause of my issues. So eventually it got really, really bad again. And there, you know, there's a whole story after this, but basically what happened was in2017 or so, I had found myself back in Cali after doing a stint in New Zealand. And at that point like all my relationships were bad. I couldn't hold a romantic relationship anymore. I used, I was miserable in my job because like I was, I was doing this tour guiding job. I was going back and forth from Japan to the US and like my nervous system was shot.
And I didn't know what was wrong with me. And so I finally was like, I really need to help myself. But I don't believe in, you know, I was still. After that many years, it's like, I don't really believe in therapy. And I've tried therapy, albeit briefly, and I, you know, it. It was very weird to me to have someone analyze you. And therapists, they're. They try to act as, like, your parent figure or whatever. It just. It was a strange dynamic, and I didn't want the diagnos.
So I first got into vipassana meditation. So I did it, one of those.
Charlie: Nice.
Valerie: Which brought me back to kind of to, like, the Buddhist roots. And I got really interested in, like, where is this coming from? So not only did it lead me back to the Buddhist roots of my. My family, but also got a little bit even deeper than that. Where did Buddha come from?
Charlie: Nice.
Valerie: And so I started doing yoga as a regular practice. I did Ashtanga yoga. And so from there, then the algorithms of Facebook picked up. I was doing these things, and they're like, you should try Ayurveda. And at that point, I was, like, ready to leave my travel job and start a new career, and I needed a direction. I was, like, going back to my counseling roots and stuff. And I finally realized, oh, Ayurveda makes a lot of sense to me. And Ayurveda actually does in the way that it's practiced in the States. It does talk about mental health very heavily because it ties in with yoga. What maybe modern TCM is, is not addressing because we aren't regulated as. As heavily as you guys are. And so we can integrate a little bit easier the spiritual, the mental, and the physical. And so, you know, the first essay that I. I read on Ayurveda was the California College of Ayurveda's essay. And I was like, this makes a lot of sense. It makes so much sense. And so I need to do this. Yeah. And that's how I started my healing journey. It was actually very, very much later in life, too. I was already over 30 by the time that this happened. So. Yeah. And I've been on that journey since as well.
Charlie: What would you say in Ayurveda made you really understand that, like, we should all have some kind of really responsibility on our own health and that it should not be even still an Ayurvedic doctor, Like, you didn't have an Ayurvedic taught her teaching you. You actually, you studied it yourself. Right. So why not just have gotten to an Ayurvedic doctor, but rather, why did you become the one to go into studies?
Valerie: Right. Yeah.
So when you go to a professional to get help, you are automatically assuming that they have the authority, they have the knowledge and everything and you're going to put your life in their hands. It's still a kind of like master to. It's kind of like a. Yeah. It. There's a power dynamic there.
Charlie: There's a Dominican. Yeah. Of information. Yeah. Or status.
Valerie: Yes. I wanted the knowledge, I wanted the. And it wasn't about status. It was. I wanted to have the power to heal myself, to have such deep understanding of who I am that it comes from me and not me having to ask somebody about it. Because yes, eventually I did go to Ayurvedic doctor and he was incredibly helpful and like did a lot of things to. To re. Regulate my body. But by that time I already had a little bit of a background so that I had a little bit to also bring to the table. I wasn't just blindly understanding. Right. Where this is all coming from.
Charlie: You were invested in the information as well. Yeah, yeah.
Valerie: But the thing that they teach you in Ayurveda, one of the first things that you learn in Ayurveda school is what is the definition of health? And the definition, the word for health in Ayurveda is svastha, which means being established in yourself. It's not the, it's not the absence of disease. Right. And so why is it that they define health in this way? Ayurveda is just one branch of a wider network of philosophies. So it's, it's, is a medical system, but it's also deeply entrenched in philosophy. And so in philosophy we ask, like, why is it that we're here? Right? Why do we even have this life? And it is because we're on a soul journey. We're on a. That, you know, spans multiple lifetimes. It spans dimensions even. And so it's looking at like your soul's journey. You're. You're created in this body, in this lifetime for a specific journey, for specific purpose. And we all have Dharma and karma, right? We all have things that we need to overcome in terms of obstacles in order for us to realize our greatest potential. And so when it comes to the body in this lifetime and what Ayurveda is really saying about health is like, when you're established in yourself, when you're, when you're aware of who you are, you then can tap into your greatest potential because then you don't have anything in your way for you to do that. Right. When you have your health and you're not in pain, you're not distracted as much. When you're, when you have your health, you have clarity. And so like you're not in the, in constantly trying to get to the surface of survival. You can thrive. And from that thriving, you can give back and you can, you can carry forth your journey in the way that you are really meant to.
Charlie: Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So currently you are supporting clients through their kind of healing or like getting back their own health and kind of making their own decisions for health.
Valerie: Yeah. And so I've had to really look at how do I approach this. Right. Because when it comes to. I did, I. For a while I had my own ayurvedic clinic. And so I was kind of following that allopathic model and offering the herbal medicine and also offering the body therapies. And I realized that for me, it will always come back to the mind and the self empowerment. And so those pieces I had to take away in order for me to be very staunchly standing in. I am here to empower you. I'm not here to give you medicine. And for you to be like, you're going to depend on me. And that comes with a very, very specific set of challenges as well as I have to just be very firm in what I do. So I've converted how I help people to a coaching model, kind of like a mentorship model, where they are with me, you know, for a long period of time. I'm giving them guidance, but they're also, at the same time, they're learning from me. Right. They're also learning from each other. And part of the whole healing process for me is learning how do we, how do we learn to lean on each other again? How do we learn to create harmony again? And symbiosis again, that is very much missing, especially in the western world. And so that's ingrained in how I, how I practice the medicine and how I, how I pass that on to other people.
Charlie: Yeah. Now would you say there is? Because, I mean, for you, not everybody's ready to hear that they're in charge of their health. Right. And so do you have to also recognize when there is someone who needs a little bit more, you know, holding hands in this experience versus some who don't? And do you find that maybe people show up and they're not the right person because they think you're going to do like, basically, I find sometimes so many people go, can you just do it for me? Like, no, I'm sorry, I cannot take the pill for you at this point, like, you really do have to take the pill. Right. Because sometimes I feel like there's, I call it Stockholm syndrome that we have been led to believe for so long that these people in white coats have the answers to your health problems. And so too easily they like, just, just, just tell me what I need to do. Like, and you're like, well, what is it that you want to do? Like, what do you enjoy more? And like, I don't know, I'll do whatever you tell me. And that can be very frustrating because they, they want you to tell them something and if you don't know much about them and they don't share what, anything about them, then it ends up to me like a very hollow prescription. Yeah, right. Because I like, well, I think you should go and walk out in nature. And they're like, I hate nature, I get allergies, I'm never going to do it. But they don't tell me that. And I end up not being able to give them an actual lifestyle coaching. Right. And so sometimes like, why would you say you have to kind of go, okay, I think you may need the very hands on program versus someone who might be able to handle understanding. Like it's their choice.
Valerie: Yeah. And this is where I think we need to develop a network of practitioners. We need to also understand the role of Ayurvedic counselor vs Ayurvedic doctor vs Chinese medicine practitioner and have that be a network. Because it's not like different people need different things. Some people definitely need to go to a doctor or just not ready to take that responsibility. But at the same time, if somebody goes to a Chinese doctor or goes to an Ayurvedic doctor and you can see that you can only help them to a certain point. The next step would be to go to an Ayurvedic counselor, would be go to an Ayurvedic coach because they need to be able to sustain whatever it is that they got from you as a doctor. Right. And I don't have that system yet. I think maybe we need to make one. But yes, right, right. It always has to. Conversation, dialogue needs to continue about this kind of stuff. In terms of what I've been able to do individually because I have had people email and be like, I just want the Ayurvedic medicine. I'm like, did you even see a night, like, have you even seen a professional? Like, I'm not going to just give you herbal medicine, not, not have a consultation that's Crazy now it, for me, if I'm going to talk to people and stuff like that, I, I have to refer out if I see that they're just not willing to. But I think at this point it's become very clear about what I stand for. And so, you know.
When I, when I talk to people about what I do, it is like I tell them, we're, we're going in this together for a while, but you will come back much stronger on the other side. Yeah, yeah. So that. I think that's where it is right now.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah. I love what you're saying about, actually it is the collaboration of healers working together. Just because I feel like in being this an alternative space and we say this in alternative healing spaces, we do notice that just like in the hospitals, there's so many niche groups of healers and that they are all referring each other in a giant hospital and that's why they're able to do what they do. And, and I feel like what we're talking about is really what is the redefinition of a healthcare network that is going to be much more available for people to both bring in their sovereignty into the healthcare choices they make, but also having true advice and options from different doctors. Because I think oftentimes people say, oh, yeah, get a second advice. But if you second get advice from the same Western groups of doctors, they're going to tell you the same thing. And you're not getting a second advice, you're just getting a second person confirming the first advice that you got. But actually if you had an Ayurvedic, a Chinese doctor, a European and all these modalities coming and they keep saying the same thing, then, you know, like, clearly I have a water issue in my body and that includes kidneys and whatever, because these modalities kind of match the same problem. And that I feel like is much more. It's much more diverse of a way to give people options. Because like I say all the time, like, this is not Chinese medicine. Like, meridian is not a. Because, you know, Chinese, you now have access to meridians. Like everyone walking around has meridians. And so for us to think like, oh, only Chinese medicine. And I usually try to say Eastern medicine because I am from Vietnamese culture, then there's this Tibetan culture. So it is kind of like this heavy, like the Asian philosophy of medicine, right. And bringing that to the table. But also when like the Chinese people only did Chinese people medicine and had only Chinese people. So today I've run into, actually when you have bigger Americans or Africans or, you know, different people who look different than us. Sometimes we have to adjust our medicine for their genetics and their culture. I've run into, you know, we love saying.
Asian women, right? Especially I find this in the doctor medicine. They're like, oh, you have to be yin. So you have to, like, calm down and not be, like, very, like, active in sending your energy, like a masculine. Yet actually, if you see European women, they're very hot, energetic because their race is already hot. So they're young relative to our culture, Asians. So when you have like an Asian woman telling, you know, what I call an Amazon, and that has happened in one of our actual clients, she was like an Amazonian woman. And I looked at her and go, we cannot tell you to be yin. You're actually very young. And to tell you to like, hey, woman, calm down. You need to be like us Asian women. No, actually, you're disregarding that her constitution is a fiery type. And we should not tell all women to be quiet, but recognize that her constitution is a fiery type. So she was built to speak up, to use her energy and to move her energy and so to tell her that, like, you know, because I find that, you know, there's a stereotype, men and women and all Asian men and all Asian women, but with the constitution of their culture. Now we're experiencing European culture, African cultures, you know, different cultures. We have to recognize that there's the adaptability that you see what they can handle and who they are as well. So that's why for me, like, I, I try to study more of the theory behind the traditional Chinese medicine rather than what's happened with modern medicine is it's becoming. You have this. I have ABC to help with your. 1, 2, 3. And so you're like, so what you're turning this to a robot is going to do this Next and AI Chat GPT. No, like, once we say ChatGPT is going to give you your, your prescription because you tell them you have cough and this and that, and we turn it into that, I feel like the art of medicine will be lost because we're not experiencing the human and what they're going through and then working with them to create a prescription that's going to help them rather than show off our ability to know knowledge. Like, you know, and that's kind of where I feel like there needs to be the next evolution of, like, be human with your patients. Don't treat them like they're a. Oh, you're. You have a cough. And you have this and you have that. I know the right three points to put on you and see you later.
Valerie: Totally. And I think it is really important to keep that human aspect of medicine because in Ayurveda, it's like, yes, there are doshas and all of this stuff, but it is so complex and people do not realize that, like, when we say, even when we say, like, oh, you have vata and all of that, like, it goes deeper than that. Like, there are five different types of vata. There are different channels in the body, can affect vata, can push kapha and it could push pitta. And like, if you don't have a very deep understanding of Ayurvedic medicine, it can get very easy to get lost and confused because seemingly there are contradictory things that will come up. Yeah. If you don't know, like, you can mislead yourself into treatments and things that aren't for you. Even a dosha quiz, very, very surface level. If you're dealing with some kind of, like, advanced disease, you have to go way more into the nuances of what's happening in your body. So, yeah, cultivating that, I think is going to be really important going forward because, yeah, AI can tell us a lot, but it won't tell us everything for sure.
Charlie: Exactly. And, and that is where, again, for me, my big push has been also, like, and I was saying this in the conference, like, we may think AI is cute right now, right. But, like, just like every other, like, you know, terrible genocidal maniac in our history, they were cute babies, but they ended up in the wrong path to, like, hurt people. And so this is something too, that we have to recognize that, like, who created AI? Clearly it wasn't doctors creating AI, it was just someone who wanted to create AI because maybe they were lonely. And so the whole concept of creating A.I. so what, to, like, make us less lonely, like, and that's if we were talking about psychology, what is the psychology of artificial intelligence? And, you know, what is our own mental instability where we need to now create a synthetic robot to help us with our therapy because we can have a human person to help us through the therapeutizing our thoughts. Right. And so this goes deeper, to me, into the more we, like, break culture. And I felt like culture is actually lifestyle choices that we've made to embed our medicine in our everyday life. Right. Rather than when we. Again, like, so, like, for Asians, like, all the parents always say, wear your shoes in the house because you're gonna get sick if you wear barefoot on the house because your energy, your cheese being pulled from your feet, right? And so that was like a home thing that we do. That's why we always wear slippers at home. But yet, like, it sounds like a at home remedy, but if you saw the science, you saw how deep that culture of wearing sandals at home is, right? And so I feel like if we're not able to get to a place where we're flipping our lifestyle back into cultural, no, cultural, natural flow, then this is where we kind of miss the deeper wisdom that is kind of cultivated in why, you know, even I think our clothing too. And we talked about this even like in Tai chi, Qigong, they know like silk and linen is where energy is actually developed further versus when you're wearing nylon and plastic, you actually see that your vibration lowers, right? And I think they were sensitive to that. That's why they used to wear the clothes that they do. And so today when we're like, oh, modern technology says we can make clothes for cheaper, you're like, but is that okay? Because you're just degrading our health and maybe we should start innovating on things that might hurt us, but rather recognize that can we create things that are supporting our health, right? And so I find that we're in a tricky situation where like, you know, some of us are trying to go back to original traditional roots, yet this technology, even like red light therapy, right? Red light therapy is plagiarizing the sun's rays and the sunrise and the sunset so that today people can't be bothered to wake up at sunrise. But if you're like a farmer working with the circadian rhythm of light and sun, you're waking up getting your red light therapy when the sun rises because you're working on the farm, right? In that traditional value of working in your yard. And so I find that, you know, we're battling the, the, the western lifestyle compared to a lifestyle where we're trying to bring back in traditional values and sometimes those. Because like in our traditional values, everybody be asleep by 6 or 7 because we shouldn't be using lights, right? Yet today some of us are up to 1, 2 o' clock on that phone because there's still light that is being shown in our face, you know, and that's kind of the interesting dichotomy that there's technology and then there's modern technology that's trying to resurface. So what do you feel about that? Because I think technology is, you can't throw away technology because we were having a great conversation. But why will be that, like middle ground where tech and traditional tech.
Valerie: Yeah. Ah, I have thought about this a lot because a lot of the things that are invented or like put out are put out more because they're put out for profit. Right. And you see this a lot in like health food, like all organic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, extracted this and that and, and it's in a plastic package and it's like, why don't you just put, pick some fruits off the trees and like eat, eat some real food. You know, it's. Yeah. It's just kind of obscene.
Charlie: Yes, yes.
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: I use the vitamin C and citrus and oranges as that, that, that funniness that in this America says you cannot say an orange or citrus fruit can cure scurvy. You can only say vitamin C cures scurvy. And so it's not the fruit that cures that disease, but scurvy is really just a vitamin C deficiency from citrus. Right?
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: And that is kind of where finally what you're talking about is like we extract it, but you can just eat the food instead of extracting everything to tinctures.
Valerie: Yeah. And it just makes our world busier. It just keeps people busier because we're, for some reason we're obsessed about the system and like creating more jobs and all of it. So, like, what, what, what, what are these jobs doing? Like what, you know, why do we need them? Why is it that we need to create more and more and more and more? That's unsustainable. We, we don't have unlimited resources. And if we don't cultivate the ones that we have in the right way, they're not going to be regenerative. Right. And so it's like, yes, technology can help us make it more convenient. It can certainly help us understand something in a greater way. But then if we're not also being mindful about nature, if we're not being mindful about what, what being, doing more and more and more does to our overall ecosystem, we're going to destroy ourselves.
Charlie: Yeah.
Valerie: And so I don't know, I look at how they do it in Japan because it's really interesting. Right. It's super industrialized. There's a lot of plastic use. You know, they're, they're doing a lot of this innovation too. At the same time, there's still a preservation of, of extreme mindfulness. So somehow they're making it work. I don't know, in the long run, like at least the way that they're doing here is more sustainable. So here, for example, I have my, like a cat food pack, right? Even this gets recycled. I have to, when I take it out, I wash this and it goes into a specific bin for plastics. And every Thursday or something like that, that's the day where you throw out your plastics all in one. All has to be clean, right? And then like, if I want to throw out something else, it goes on a different day. Everything's separated and reused. If you want to throw out something bigger than like, let's say like a comp, like a computer or something like that, you actually have to pay the city to throw it out. Right? So there's, there's just so much.
Charlie: So it makes you more reluctant to just throw things away.
Valerie: You can't just curb something here, that's for sure. And, and also there are, there are, there are old aunties on the days where you put out your trash, they're there to check if you put it out correctly, you know, so people are constantly like very, very just watching what other people are doing. You have to be mindful of other, of what you're doing. And so it creates this consciousness that like you, we can't just throw something. We can't just like be wasteful of resources. Like, everything comes from somewhere and so everything must go somewhere, right? I don't know if, if, if that can somehow be adopted and because we need something like that in the States and in places where we're doing it' such high output of industrial waste with no like, consciousness of where it's going.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I feel like, you know, that that problem is easy when you can go. We don't know where the trash goes. And usually countries are bigger and have guns. They end up saying, hey, you have to take our trash and they like send it somewhere else. And this is why we have these like crazy trash heaps in the ocean. Because again, like, it's become that like, well, who, who's in charge of the trash? You know, and, and so going back to. I think you were saying this too just today. When we talk about climate issues, I find that it's such the wrong conversation because really, if you were talking about climate issue, you would recognize that the environment that we live in is the, is the cause of what happens to our climate. And so when we're having these climate issues, but no one talks about what are we doing with our trash, what are we doing the soil, what are we doing in our home, what are we doing to keep our cities clean? That's not even a conversation yet. They want to talk about climate as if climate is separate from the literal. Like if you put trash out there, that's. That air will smell. That is timing in that spot has caused nasty climate. Right. And. And that's the stuff that, like, it's really silly that I find in many of these discussion that people wanting to change the world, it's like it starts with us, like, right in your city, what are you doing to the trash? And you can't say, oh, we send it somewhere else. No, that's a problem. Because too often we've seen this where people are really sending landfills. You know, like, for me, I make a very big, big, big deal in everything that is compostable gets composted. So that, you know, because I have a lot of space in the yard to just find a hole and dig it in. Right. Instead of putting everything out. Because really a lot of food waste does not need to be mixed with plastics or metals because that causes all these bacteria, all these crazy funguses and diseases that probably gets put up into the environment that causes acidic rain. I mean, the concept of what people don't realize is happening in our weather is really a lot of times because we're not managing our waste. Right. Yeah. And ironically, we shouldn't even be calling waste, we are wasting it because we don't know we don't have the right technology to have zero waste, you know, and so I find that, you know, yes, organizing our waste is a good place, but maybe starting the manufacturing place where everything can be compostable, then it's up to also the individual, because, like, what Japan can do has been developing that for thousands of years. I mean, their culture and their way of working together is unmatched by any other culture. And they're small group of, you know, a small island. So they could internationally ask for that. You ask America to do that. I mean, oh my God. Like, right. And so I think there's a different probably solution that we'd have to address. Or maybe like we reduce waste in general and rethink our manufacturing process. Right. And vice versa. I think this is a deeper conversation we're really bringing up is that we need systemic change, but it really is comes from us who start taking ownership of like, what waste am I putting out? Because in my health, you know, that waste that I'm putting out is going to show up in my environment that I live in. And so if I am not paying attention to my health because of my environment, then everybody could Say that and eventually, like, our children will have to find a solution that we cause them. Right.
Valerie: Yeah.
Charlie: And I think this is where America needs to pick up a lot of the wisdom that a lot of our cultures who've been around for thousands of years, because America is only 200 years old. Right. 250 or something, that it needs to recognize that there's wisdom of like, make what you're doing matter to the next generation and then three generations later, otherwise we're really just hurting ourselves as a culture.
Valerie: Yes. And we're gonna wrap it up soon. But there is one thing that I wanna say that I think is really important is that, like, mindset and, and the psychology is pervasive and like you said, thousands of years of development. Right. And so when the thing is, like, America is a very meritocratic place, capitalist asterisks hopefully meritocrate.
Charlie: Right.
Valerie: Yeah. And also. Right. Has a deep history of colonization. And so.
That is pervasive in what we do as everyday individuals in the United States. And we don't even realize it, but when we're saying that, like, you know, we are going to leave the trash to somebody else, somebody lower, somebody who hasn't earned their place as much as I have because I've earned the money and I've earned the status. I don't have to deal with garbage anymore. Right. That it creates a system where every single person is now being like, I don't deal because somebody else lower than me will deal with it. And so who's left to deal with it? People don't have ownership of the, the land that they're on. People have. And, and it's not like owning land. It's ownership of your environment and ownership of the, the society that you're creating. Everybody thinks it's somebody else's job and, and that we can somehow earn our way out of it so that we're not responsible and I don't know. Yeah, right. So going back to like, needing to cultivate some wisdom and some humility maybe, and just realizing, like, we're all in this world together. We're all in this together. Like, you don't get to like, outsource your life to somebody else. Yes.
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it was a great conversation just about, in general, health and, you know, sovereignty of health, but really, again, climate and environment and really culture and I really appreciate, you know, and being able to share and bounce off, you know, cultures with you especially. I love Japan. I'm a big fan of Japan. I'd love to eventually make my way out there just because I do love, you know, I love their, their like the Chinto Buddhism, just the whole nature and culture and really trying to have intention on everything they do, you know. So I'm a big fan of like, you know, doing stuff in Japan, but I can see it could be very difficult here. So I'm very hopeful that I think people like us are continuing to make an impact talking to everybody, sharing these words of wisdom so that we can all start finding our own self healing journey, self ownership, self responsibility for all the one planet we're all in together. So yeah, thank you, thank you for this great conversation. Do you have anything else?
Valerie: No. Thank you, Dr. Charlie, for bringing your thoughts, for. For sharing your personal journey as well. There was so much more that I want to know and I guess we could talk about it later. You know, we opened the can of worms for a lot of things and I think this merits more discussion down the road and I just, I would love to hear what other people have to think too. So if anyone has more to add to this discussion, please contact one of us. I'll leave links in my show notes to be able to do so.
Charlie: Yes.
Valerie: Yes. Yeah.
Charlie: As well. So thank you so much everybody. Thank you, Valerie. Bye.
Valerie: See you next time. Thanks for tuning in to from the Ashes. If this episode sparked something in you, remember your evolution matters and we're rooting for you every step of the way. For coaching, community and free resources to help you rise into your full potential, visit thevibrantvisionary.com and download the Vibrant Visionary Blueprint, your free guide to reclaim your energy, clarity and creative fire. If you love this episode, please share it with a friend or tag me Valerie on Instagram @vibrantvisionary. Val, I'd love to hear what resonated for you. Until next time, keep rising.
