Ayurveda, Yoga, Crystals, Salt Lamps, and Chiropractic with Dr. Abbey

Today’s episode features Dr. Abbey Hernandez. Dr. Abbey approaches health from many different avenues. Today, she’s going to explain Ayurveda, what there is to know about spiritual healing such as crystals, sage, salt lamps, and Palo wood. She’s also a certified yoga instructor. She’ll be talking about the importance of stretching your muscles out and practicing yoga and being present in mind and body. She is also a doctor of chiropractic. She’s going to tie in how she incorporates all those things into one. At the end, we’ll talk about some chiropractic.

Listen To The Episode Here

Ayurveda, Yoga, Crystals, Salt Lamps, and Chiropractic with Dr. Abbey

Dr. Abbey, how are you?

I am awesome. It’s nice to be here today. Thank you for inviting me.

Abbey, where are you from?

I am from Huntington Beach, California.

You loved growing up there?

Yes, I was born in the Philippines, but I grew up in Huntington Beach.

How old were you when you moved over to good old America?

I was eleven.

How was it adapting to American culture?

American culture is very different. I came here at a pretty young age, so it wasn’t too quick of a change or anything. I was at that age where I was easy transitioning.

Did you speak English?

Barely. It was cool. I watched a lot of TV, and that’s how I learned a lot of English.

What was your favorite show?

I watched a lot of kids’ shows. In the beginning, when you’re barely learning a language or vocabulary, you have to progress through. I watched a lot of Bear in the Big Blue House and Clifford, all the kids’ shows. All those things are common for elementary school kids.

What got you into the healing profession? Was it one instant or was it your family wedged you there? How did you get into all these avenues of healing?

Before I entered chiropractic college, I actually wanted to be a medical doctor. Things happened in life that leads us through different paths. I ended up working for a chiropractor who became my mentor. I had gotten that job. I had a job at Starbucks when he found me. He told me, “Come in for an interview. I’m looking for an assistant.” That’s how that ended up happening.

You said you wanted to be a medical doctor, why did you intern with a chiropractor?

I just became his assistant because I needed the money to put myself through college. That’s how I was making the extra cash to put myself through college. I ended up loving chiropractic because I saw a lot of people coming in with a whole lot of different types of things going on. The chiropractor would adjust the patient or the practice member and they would get better. There was no external type of thing that was going on that led them to get better. It was just the adjustment, a little bit of nutritional consulting. It was awesome. I saw huge changes in people. People left there happy and smiling all the time. That’s what really brought me to want to be a chiropractor.

Did you have any stuff going on that you were working through that got you better through chiropractic or you just saw it happen in everybody else?

I actually did have some stuff going on. As a kid, I was very asthmatic. I was also asthmatic as an adult. I couldn’t really exercise for long, long periods of time and very strenuously. It was very weird. I started to get adjusted and also got coaching with my nutrition. Then, things started happening for me and things got better. The day that I realize that I actually was over the whole asthma thing was I was taking a spin class. Usually, spin classes are about 50 to 60 minutes. I never would last through a full hour. Until one day, I realized, “It’s over.” The class is over and I lasted the whole class and it was totally fine. About a year into getting chiropractic care, I actually rode my first century. I don’t know if ever heard of those. It’s where you ride a bike for a hundred miles.

Is this what you did in Italy?

No, that’s a different trip.

That alone is amazing. You had asthma, you’ve got chiropractic adjustments, and you do long distance cycling, which is impressive.

I figured out that my body could be pushed and pushed to its limits and could heal naturally without any intervention. I had several asthma inhalers; ADVAIR to whatever other types there were. I stopped using them. I don’t use them anymore.

Did it happen over time? Did you notice after a couple of adjustments, you’re like, “I’m no longer asthmatic.” I guess you answered already. You’re at a spin class, you’re like, “I can actually do this now.”

It was over a period of time. That’s one of the principles of chiropractic. One of the 33 principles is all healing takes time, along with the right diet.

You mentioned nutrition. What did you have to change about nutrition that worked for you?

I did a purification through Standard Process. That’s what I did.

What does that entail?

It entails you giving the digestive system a break and also clearing out the liver. You take some supplements along with a fruit and veggie diet, lifestyle modification for the first ten days. It starts off with ten days and then it goes through for 21 days. At the tenth day mark, you can start adding meat and things like that. You’re giving the digestive track a break. I did something like that. They also got some support from Standard Process with something called Allerplex, different things like that, so Standard Process, and something called Nutritional Response Testing. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that before.

No, I haven’t. What was it called?

Nutritional Response Testing.

What do they do with that?

The idea behind Nutritional Response Testing is there are different stressors on the body. The five most common types: the food. The most common food stressors right there is chemicals. There are different types of viruses and those kinds of things. There are these viles that are tested against the body with muscle testing. They are the same wavelength but on opposite sides of the wavelength. Once it’s present in your body and you’re allergic to it, it will resonate with that file. You’ll figure out the things that you need to stay away from.

Were there little things that you were eating on a regular basis that you had no idea that you were allergic to that you had to cut out?

Yeah, there were. I still stay away from them to this day. A lot of gluten and wheat and dairy were my biggest problems for my issue.

My friend just got one of those really intense nutritional assessments done on him with blood work and everything. One of the things that popped up was lettuce and just peanuts and stuff like that. People eat this stuff every day. They don’t think anything about it. It could definitely be a trigger why some people aren’t feeling good.

There are also different triggers for healing that don’t allow you to heal, scars and things. We’re all electric-type of beings. When we have scars, it disrupts the current on top of the skin. That disrupts healing.

Getting scars or any type of surgery, that’s very traumatic on the body that I’ve learned that the body holds on to. This woman, Galina, she did scar work on me one time. She’s doing very little, very non-invasive, just touching the scar and doing whatever she did. But I felt a huge release afterwards that I couldn’t really explain. They do carry some tension and energy. That sometimes does resonate with the body. That alone could be disrupting the healing process.

It’s a hindrance to the healing. That’s how I got started with that, along with all those things as I started to get to know different avenues of healing as well.

How did you get into Ayurveda? What is Ayurvedic medicine?

I actually got into Ayurveda through yoga. I’ve always loved yoga. I remember my very first class was through core power yoga. The very first time I ever tried yoga, I fell in love with it. It was, at that point, very mental for me. It’s hard to focus. It’s more mind and body connection. That was very different for me. I was always used to working out in a different way. That kind of workout was very different. Ayurveda is the sister science of yoga. Yoga is the movement part of that type of healing. Ayurveda is, I would say, a whole medicine on its own. It’s a full and complete system on its own. It focuses a lot on lifestyle and daily routines and connecting mind and body as well. Ayurveda is actually a very traditional healing modality that’s originated from India. It’s very, very old and it’s from the Vedic culture. There are these different books that belong in that series. The “Ayus” part means life, and “veda” means wisdom. Essentially, it’s wisdom of life and how to have longevity in life.

How does it go about treating the person?

In my opinion, it has a very, very beautiful meaning. It has a very beautiful way of the way it thinks or the way it perceives things. The way it goes is that there are five different elements in the universe. Those are fire, water, air, ether, which is space, and earth. There are five elements and each of those elements is present in each and every person. In Ayurveda, they have something called the Doshas. There are three different Doshas, which is what a person is made up of. All these elements exist in every person. It just depends on the ratios in which they exist in each person.

I remember you explaining this to me one time. Can you go over the three different Doshas?

The three different Doshas are what’s called Vata, Pitta and Kapha. They have different element composition. They also have different characteristics.

Every human falls into one of those categories is the belief behind that?

Every human is all of them, but it’s a different ratio of each of them. Every person is made up of all of these except one might manifest in a different person differently. In Ayurveda, a person is made up before they’re even conceived. It’s the thought before when they were conceived. It’s a very, very beautiful and spiritual practice. The characteristics are coming from mom and dad, just like how it is in genetics. Those characteristics come from mom and dad, the same thing with Ayurveda. Those are characteristics of mom and dad and also what the setting was when that person was conceived. Was it in the summertime? What kind of foods was the mom eating during her pregnancy? Those types of things affect the baby.

In Ayurveda, there are three main types: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Vata is more of an air principle. Pitta is more of a fire principle and Kapha is more of an earth principle. It goes along the lines on a lot of Chinese medicine, if you know too much about Chinese medicine.

Meaning like acupuncture?

Yeah, the kind of medicine that goes along with acupuncture. It’s a very, very beautiful kind of science. It’s a science or knowledge of life and potential and longevity. It also talks a lot about how the mind and the body are one or together. You cannot separate one from the other. In these days, a lot of people are very disconnected from themselves and don’t pay attention to their own bodies and their own selves and that’s when disease actually occurs. Along with that, in Ayurveda, one of the three things is your main thing, but you are made up of each one. However, if one deviates from your normal or what they call Prakriti, which is your normal constitution, it creates disease for you. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Someone that practices Ayurveda, is it one-on-one? How does it work?

Yes. When you go to an Ayurveda practitioner or somebody who practices Ayurveda, the process is very extensive because they really try to get to know the person. Much like in chiropractic, we really try to get to know the person as a whole being, very holistic type of practice. You’ll get a questionnaire to determine your constitution. There are different types of questionnaires in this constitution. It’s from the physical body, from your mental and from your skin, to your diet, things like that. All those things are in the Ayurveda consultation. They also use a lot of pulse diagnosis and tongue diagnosis. I don’t know if you’ve heard of those before.

I’ve gotten acupuncture before. They’ve checked my pulse on both arms because they say it’s connected with the liver and the spleen and all that stuff. All those pulses can be found in the wrists.

In Ayurveda, the left and the right actually represent a male body versus a female body type of thing. There’s supposed to be a balance between the two. They’re checking for that. I have interned with a lot of different Ayurvedic doctors that would use a tongue diagnosis and can pinpoint what the ailment is based on what your tongue looks like.

Just by sticking out your tongue, they can gather information of what might be wrong.

Exactly. Depending on when we have a coating on the tongue. I’m not sure if many people check out their tongue. I do every day at least. I check it out and see what’s going on in the body. It’s representative of the body, of the internal state of the body. There’s a coating on the tongue. In Ayurveda, that’s called Ama or toxin. When your body is metabolizing things, some of it comes out as a toxin. You can tell what’s going on based on the coating of the tongue. If the tongue is more whitish at the top, that’s what they call normal Ama or normal toxin. If it’s a little bit more yellow, the person might have more fire in the body, more internal heat. Things like that would be determined by an Ayurvedic practitioner. I’m not too good at that yet. They’ve taken a long, long, long, long time. The teachers from our school, they were in India. They went to school in India for this stuff. They were immersed.

They find out what’s going on through the consultation and everything, and then they give you herbs and stuff, right?

Yes.

Once they make the diagnosis and everything, what’s going on? What’s the next step for them now?

A lot of it at first is a lot of lifestyle modification. Ayurveda is very big on your daily routine. A lot of people don’t really have a daily routine or they just are scattered in a way, where everything is going on all the time. They don’t have a routine for themselves. In Ayurveda, it’s very emphasized on self-care as self-love. That goes along with the different types of Doshas or different types of people. A daily routine might be more for them or less for them. You can use a lot of the diet. They’re very emphasized on food as medicine, so they use foods. What’s really cool about Ayurveda is the way they look at food. They don’t look at food in the traditional way that we do. As Western doctors, we look at vitamin this, vitamin that, blah, blah, blah. They’re talking more about the different elements of the food and the different properties of the food. A lot of it has to do with color, the way it digests in the body. I’ll give you an example. Ginger is very spicy. It’s a spicy thing when you eat it. However, when its gets processed and digested through, it actually turns sweet. It has a power to it. Things like that are determined in Ayurveda. Ginger is great for the digestive system. Those are things that are determined by the Ayurvedic practitioner. They would give you suggestions on your daily routine. They will show you how to incorporate different types of spices and foods into your diet that will bring you back to your normal constitution or your normal balance, your balance state. Sometimes that require some herbs, but sometimes it doesn’t. It can go either way depending on what that practitioner wants you to do.

How often do you have to see a practitioner? When you go to a chiropractor, they say, “Come in once or twice a week for X amount of days.” How often do you recommend seeing an Ayurvedic person? You’re almost like your own coach at that point. They tell you what you need to fix, how you can adapt your lifestyle and changes like that. I guess, the follow-ups.

For me, I like to follow up with people every two weeks. They would have a consultation, and then I want to check back with them after the two-week point and see if they even implemented those things, which a lot of the time with patients and things like that. It’s not the easiest to get them to transition over. You also give them tools in order help them transition through with their care.

That’s pretty amazing how you can incorporate all that stuff into your practice. When someone does come in to see you, do they get a chiropractic? Do they get the nutrition counseling? Do they get the Ayurveda and all that stuff or you’re strictly just working on chiropractic right now and then developing into the Ayurvedics out of it?

Right now, I’m mainly focusing on chiropractic because I just opened my office three months ago or so. The big vision is to have a holistic health center where those things are available to a person. It’s free for them to choose.

It’s one thing to remove all the subluxations in a person, which is a bone out of place, or out of alignment, and restore the central nervous system. There’s so much more to the healing process. I feel like if most people change their diets and start eating healthier, 70% of people’s symptoms will just go away from changing what they put into their bodies.

Along with that are the three most common causes of subluxation: trauma, thoughts and toxins. They’re going to get adjusted, but if they’re continuing to input all these toxins in their body and subjecting themselves to all these things, they’re just going to keep getting subluxated. You want to totally help with that.

That’s why I feel like people that do yoga and meditation do so well, because I’ve adjusted people that I put them back into alignment, they do well and they come back a week later and everything is just real tight. I was like, “How’s work? Really stressful. How’s the home life? Really stressful.” Their mind isn’t right. It’s not letting them heal. Every time they come in, we loosen everything up. A week later, they come back and they’re either out of alignment again, not feeling well. They’re like, “What’s going on? How’s the home life? How’s everything? How’s your mind and everything?” A lot of people have too much stuff going on in that department. They’re not letting to give their body a chance to heal.

Right now, I’m encountering a lot of people who are, like I mentioned earlier, very, very disconnected. People, in general, view themselves as separate from their mind, or their body is separate from their mind and things like that. I don’t really believe that. I believe that your mind and your body are connected. We go through our daily lives walking through life in a very disconnected manner. We’re just doing things because we do them. That’s what it is. We’re not very focused on why we do things and connecting even inwardly. Not a lot of people give themselves time to reflect on things that happen or things that they want to happen even.

To no fault of their own either. A lot of people wake up at 6:00 AM and they’re not home again until seven. They eat dinner and they go to sleep. There’s just no time to reflect inward or work on yourself. Once the weekend comes, they’re too tired to even do anything that they want to do. They just chill and it starts up all again on Monday. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s tough.

Along with the Ayurveda also is you can tailor yoga poses specifically to each Dosha in what they need. They have different avenues of yoga that are just specific towards that. A Kapha person, a more earthy person should be more so inclined with having a very more rigorous movement because earth people or earth in general, it’s hard to move, very stable, very heavy, so you want to get the movement going.

What do you mean heavy? Emotionally?

No, just a heavy feeling to them. They’re more stable and grounded. Pitta people have a more fiery essence, more fire. They tend to just go, go, go kind of thing. They’re just always going. Vata people are more airy. Those are types of people that might find that get distracted a lot by things. They’ll see something, “Oh, that’s cool.” and then they’ll go, “Oh, that’s cool.” Then they’ll turn around and do that. Those are the different types of personalities. You can tailor yoga poses and meditation practices towards those people, towards those types.

Is the goal for that to be evenly spread out through all three?

That would be the best case, yes, bringing it back to your balance.

Obviously, yoga definitely helps with that. A lot of people come into the office too and ask, “What kind of stretches can I do for my neck? It’s always tight.” I always recommend yoga because you can stretch out your hips and every muscle in your neck will loosen up. Usually, where people think the pain is, it’s not usually there. That’s why I like yoga so much because it’s full body. You get to stretch every muscle. You know your body better than anybody else. You can spend a little more time. If that right hip is a little sore, you can spend more time with that and loosen that up. That’s why I recommend yoga to almost everybody. You are a certified yoga instructor. Are you still teaching yoga?

Yes, I am. I find that yoga benefits every person, just like how with chiropractic. All these different types of things, there are some use of it for every person. Every person can utilize it. With yoga, same thing. I teach a lot of different yoga poses for each person. For me, I really try to encourage the practice member to breathe while they’re stretching; the breath work and the connection again with yourself. When you’re stretching, a lot of people are like, “I’m going to stretch,” and they feel the pain. A lot of us, when we feel the pain, we just push through and we hold our breath. We don’t even pay attention because we’re disconnected from our bodies right now. The thing with that is when you’re holding your breath or you’re not breathing through the stretches, you’re actually not stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system. Your nervous system is viewing the stretch as a threat to you.

What does the parasympathetic nervous system do, for people that are not aware?

The nervous system is comprised of two parts: the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system is comprised of your brain and your spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system is the autonomic, which is comprised of parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous system. Parasympathetic is rest and digest, and the sympathetic is fight or flight. When we’re stretching, our brain perceives things as either good or not a threat or a threat. When we’re stretching and we’re hurting ourselves, because we’re not breathing, we’re stimulating our sympathetic nervous system. The stretch is a threat to us when we’re in pain. We’re never getting our flexibility. We’re never actually acquiring the flexibility because you were not breathing through that. However, when you’re stretching and you’re actually breathing through the stretch, you’re backing off a little bit from the stretch and then easing in using your mind and your body and your breath, like what yoga teaches you. Then you are acquiring the flexibility because your nervous system is perceiving this as, “I need to relax. I could relax into the stretch. My parasympathetics are now active.”

How often do you recommend people do yoga a week?

I think yoga can be done every day. Looking inwardly, just moving the body, reflecting, those are all types of yoga. Yoga literally just means union, yoking. Yoking is union. Union is the union of your mind and your body. When you’re taking the time to breathe, reflect, stretch, and doing some Asanas or yoga poses. Those are all yoga.

You can do yoga by yourself. There’s plenty YouTube videos if you’re just a beginner and want to get started. I did Yoga with Adrienne. She’s on YouTube. She’s really good. You can do it in the comfort of your own house, which is awesome.

Experimentation too, I think. Consistency is key with anything. If you really want to start a yoga practice, start small. Start by doing something for five minutes a day. Even just when you’re just stretching and just connecting for five minutes just to yourself, then you’re practicing yoga.

I remember the first time I went to an actual yoga studio. I was a little intimidated because I never have done it before. What a lot of people don’t realize is a lot of it is your eyes are closed too. There’s zero judgment in the room. You have people that are awesome at it, and then you have people that have never done it before. It’s beautiful because you have different skill levels in the whole room and nobody really cares where you’re at. It’s just for you.

Also, a lot of people think yoga is just for the cool poses. I know I do. I go on Instagram or Facebook and I just see people doing yoga, and it’s not. It’s really about the union, the connection with yourself and your body, that’s the most important. If there’s anything to take away from that, it’s to take the time for yourself and just do it.

I also wanted to talk to you about the salt lamps, the sage, the crystals. Can we start with crystals and what they’re used for and what they can attract into your life?

I use a lot of crystals for my own life. I love crystals. As we know, everything in the universe and everything on earth is energetic. The whole premise behind these crystals and why they had such a big impact is they have energy to them. Each one of them carries specific properties to them. For example, I use a lot of amethyst. It’s a purplish stone, a purplish crystal. It’s a protector. For me, I use it as a protection stone because we encounter a lot of different people each day. It protects us from whatever things that are going on with that person. A lot of us sometimes are sensitive to other people’s pains and things like that. I use that to protect myself from feeling whatever they feel.

Do you ever notice that after you treat a lot of people or you treat one particular person that you absorb their energy a little bit?

Absolutely, transference. Yeah.

I felt that the other day. That might be a good crystal to get.

I would suggest it, or at least put one in your pocket. If you don’t like wearing jewelry, put one in your pocket. Another example that I really use, especially for you and I since we’re just starting off in our careers right now, is it’s a yellowish crystal.

I just got a sapphire stone. I got it because it says it attracts abundance in your life.

That one does and so does citrine. That’s the one I was thinking of. Citrine has a nickname called the merchant stone. It’s supposed to attract abundance into your life. If you have a cash bag in your practice or you just started a new practice, a really nice citrine would be good to have with you. All these different things have different types of energies and properties to them. These crystals have been studied. There are many, many different books on crystals out there. One of my favorites is by Judy Hall. She studies crystals extensively. There’s a complete science to them.

Do they ever lose their charge or anything or you have to do anything to get their energy back up or it just stays?

Some of them don’t need to be cleansed. There’s a cleansing process with each of these crystals. They do carry or absorb the same things like we do. It’s good to run them under cold water. Sometimes I leave mine under the moonlight to give that moon energy to them. What’s good for crystals is a lot of natural elements; the moon, water. I would love to put them under the sun. However, sometimes they get bleached. Their color changes a little bit under the sun. They get lighter. If that’s something you want to avoid, then just put them under the moon and have them absorb that moon energy at that time or run them under cold water. Along with that is also connecting with your stone and your crystals and having your intention for them.

Do you have to be touching them? Mine is just on my desk in a little holder. I just leave it there. I don’t really mess with it at all. Should I toss it around?

For me, I have several, but some of them I do touch. Some of them, I just leave in the room. It just depends on your preference, in my opinion.

I was just amazed because I walked into one of those crystal shops a week ago and there’s literally a crystal for almost every situation in your life. It’s pretty mind-blowing.

A lot of it has to do with intention, your intention with that stone. I don’t know about you, but when I walk into a crystal shop and I am looking for something, before I walk into the store, I set my intention on what I want to find. I just let it draw to me what I need at that moment. If I’m trying to choose between one or the other, then I just really just try to feel. It will tell you with yourself, which one is the best one for me right now? I think all of us are intuitive.

How did you develop that intuition? You’re probably still working on it and it takes a little bit to develop. Was there anything you did?

A lot of it has to do with meditation, in my opinion.

And knowing yourself probably and following your gut instinct?

Yeah. A lot of it has to do with meditation because when you’re meditating, you’re trying to go inward and listen and quiet the mind. A lot of the things that you’re looking for are already inside you and you already know.

Meditation’s tough too. I remember when I first tried. I would sit down in my room and just try it when I first started. It’s tough just to sit down, you don’t know what music to play, you don’t really know what to do. I went to a bowl meditation and that was a lot more useful to me because I couldn’t really get into it than when I just sat in my room and just did it by myself, although sometimes I could. I had to go to a couple of meditations class to put me in that trance, let me know what it felt like. Then I was able to adapt that on my own. I recommend meditation to almost all my patients and myself. It’s tough to actually sit down and get into it. Do you recommend anything? If someone came in and was like, “I try to meditate but I couldn’t really get in the zone. How do you do it?”

In the very beginning when I recommend something like that to a patient, I usually call it mind-setting. When I do recommend that, I usually tell them to do it in the morning. I recommend it a lot to people who have very, very stressful jobs. I just tell them a lot about intention and mind-setting, not necessarily meditation in the very beginning. I try to ease them in to that thing because not a lot of people are used to that practice. Quieting your mind is very, very difficult. I just tell them, “If anything else, just mind-set during the morning which are five things you’re grateful for. Gratitude in the morning, you’re very grateful, you’re putting that mindset, and then you want to set the intention on how your day is going to go for that day.”

They say gratitude to things that you have in your life. It dissolves negativity. It just dissolves all the negativity around you. It makes you feel good. I’ve just watched a lot of YouTube videos on famous people. Majority of them that were highly successful, the first thing they do when they wake up is they set an intention for the day and they name a couple of things they’re grateful for and they will not start their day until that is done. It’s helped them out and put them in the situation that they’re currently in.

A lot of things in our lives have to do with the mind and training that monkey mind, as what they call it a lot in meditation, the monkey mind. The monkey mind is that ego, “I got to do this, and this, and this.” A lot of that is just letting go and being present at that moment and just connecting again. The word we be use so much is connecting with ourselves.

That one book you recommended to me too, The Seven Spiritual Laws to Success**, **that book is amazing. I recommend that to anybody. Even if you’re not that spiritual, all the seven spiritual laws, they just make sense. They’re not tough to follow. It’s just a very easy way. It’s an easy read and it tells you how to do every step.

Another one that’s really good is The Four Agreements__.

That’s mind-blowing, that book. It’s very simple.

We’ve done a lot of these things ourselves, so we know that that stuff work when we tell our patients and people we encounter. We tell them it’s because we’ve experienced it ourselves and we’ve done the work on ourselves.

It’s very important to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. My favorite thing now is Palo wood and sage. My mom just moved into a new house and I was not sleeping well at all in it for two weeks. One night, I came back and something just felt like off in the room. I wasn’t sleeping well. I put the Palo wood around, I spun it around the room and I slept like a baby that night. I don’t know if it’s mental or what, but whatever it is, it did help. I feel like it did make the energy in the room a little better. Can you talk about just clearing the energy out in your house with Palo wood and salt lamps and stuff like that?

Palo wood as well as sage, those are so awesome. There are actually scientific papers now that prove why sage actually works. It’s a very ancient practice of clearing energy and clearing the space. Now it’s been proven that it actually dissolves bacteria. There’s a study on that that I just read a few months ago on the sage. It’s a very ancient practice. When you sage the room, you’re burning the leaf and again, it goes with intention. For you, that’s probably also what worked. You want to clear the space. Your intention is to clear the space of whatever it is that’s here and it can be anything. You burn the sage and you walk around the room and you do that. I do that also on myself. You can do that for yourself every day. You and I, we encounter a lot of people every day and a lot of the stuff we can get absorbed or get on us. That’s just what it feels like. You can clear yourself with the sage.

You can sage everything. You can sage your wallet. You can sage your office. I’ll sprinkle it around myself a little bit. You can do it to anything, right?

Yeah. Like I said, it’s a very ancient practice of cleansing, spiritually speaking and also energetically speaking.

I’ve become really interested in the salt lamps because I’ve been doing some research on salt lamps. It’s pretty crazy. The one thing I read was that it neutralizes the electromagnetic radiation coming off all our electronic devices that can make us feel tired or can even cause some types of cancer and all that stuff. Having a salt lamp in your room can neutralize all of the negative ions coming at you, right?

Yeah. That’s the whole premise behind the salt lamp. They say that it neutralizes the negative ions. I even heard of it reducing allergies and things like that for people. These are just personal testimonies to me.

This is also scientifically proven. People use it as color and light therapy. Even just staring at that nice ambient glow of the salt lamp can just make a person feel better. It also does, what we said before like the sage, it clears the energy in the room.

It’s like taking an energetic shower when you use these things. You’re taking an energetic shower. You’re cleansing metaphysically, if that’s a word I can describe it. Like smudging with sage, it’s an ancient practice, like I said. It’s a ritual, trying to shift through intention the energy in the room.

At the same time, I feel like you do have to be fairly open-minded for this stuff to work. If a person’s like, “This doesn’t work,” it’s probably not going to work for you.

Just like with anything else.

Right. I think it’s very important to have just a positive outlook or just an open mind to almost everything. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you.

Again, I was reading another article about how healing is 30% intention and 30% mind. That’s based on science these days. The person won’t even get better for the first 30% unless they believe it’s going to work. Isn’t that crazy?

That is true. There are also people that don’t believe in chiropractic. There’s nothing to believe in. It’s not a religion. It works. If you take out interference in the central nervous system, your body will heal. You might not heal to the maximum potential that you can heal if you have a negative mindset in all that stuff, but it will have an effect on you whether you believe it or not.

The negative mindset is a lot of it. From our point view as chiropractors, we have to meet people where they’re at, because a lot of them have been failed by the medical system, the medical world. A lot of them are beaten up. Instead of being the first thing that they try, they were probably the 50th thing that they try, so they’re beaten up.

There’s definitely a time and place for medicine and medications and everything. The medical establishment, I would say, failed me pretty terribly because they put me on seizure medication, anti-depressants, painkillers, and that’s not what I needed. I needed the root cause of the problem, which was in my body, in my central nervous system, around my brain stem. I needed that to be unlocked and freed so I can heal up. Nobody was telling me anything. The health was coming from the outside in, not the inside out. True healing comes from the inside out. Our bodies all have the capacity to heal. Like you said, intention is important. There are so many elements that go into it.

A lot of the things these days that I’ve noticed at least is a lot of us have deviated from the way we use to do things. A lot of these ancient practices and ancient things like yoga and Ayurveda, Chinese medicine, even chiropractic, I would add to that, it’s all about the person and what they’re doing. It’s not an outside-in model. We’re going away from how we used to do things which is to traditionally use food as your medicine and use the natural methods as your medicine. Now, we’re using different things from the outside like drugs to supposedly cure.

Even with chiropractic, it’s not the chiropractor that’s getting you better. All the chiropractor is doing is removing the interference to allow your body to heal. That’s a self-healing practice right there. That’s why if I’m ever talking to a chiropractor, that’s like, “I did this. I got this person better. That was on me.” You’re not getting it. You were the vehicle to remove where the problem was and that person’s body healed itself.

I couldn’t agree more with that. A lot of doctors out there, they’re fixing the people. It’s an I model, “I am doing this for that.” It’s always about that person right in front of you. I think a lot of us have gone away from that. We just need to take it back.

Abbey, you got a really great thing going for you. Where is your practice located now?

Huntington Beach, California.

What’s it called?

It’s called Prana Health Chiropractic.

Do you guys have a website?

We do. It’s PranaHealthChiropractic.com.

Where do you teach yoga?

Right now, at Stella Luna Yoga.

The best way to find what you do is at that website you just listed?

Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming on, Abbey. I had a great, great time talking to you as always.

Thank you for having me.

You’re more than welcome to be back any time.

Awesome.

Important Links

• The Seven Spiritual Laws to Success
• The Four Agreements
• PranaHealthChiropractic.com
• Stella Luna Yoga

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