Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Embracing Wholeness: The Holistic Path to Health
At 59, after losing 50 pounds and battling aggressive cancer, I'm healthier now than I was a year ago. My journey began 40 years ago when I rejected the medicines that never made me feel better and started exploring natural alternatives. Today, I'm sharing what holistic health truly means—far beyond just "natural" approaches.
Holistic health integrates all dimensions of wellbeing: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. Your physical foundation starts with nutrition (food is either helping or hurting you), but there's no universal diet—each person must discover what works for their unique body. Regular movement, quality sleep, and preventative care complete this foundation. Meanwhile, mental health requires stress management through mindfulness, meditation, and breathwork, while cognitive wellbeing demands actively challenging your mind rather than mindless scrolling.
The emotional dimension involves recognizing unhealthy relationships and raising your standards—I've learned that my peace is non-negotiable. Socially, we thrive with strong community connections, as the longest-lived populations worldwide demonstrate. Spiritually, whether through religious practice or simply connecting to something larger than yourself, this dimension provides purpose and meaning.
True holistic health means creating an integrated lifestyle where these elements work together harmoniously. It means becoming your own health advocate, journaling to track what works for you, and designing a personalized program that addresses your unique needs. While some health issues arise from factors beyond our control, most stem from our choices and habits.
Ready to transform your approach to health? Subscribe to this podcast, where we dive deep into these topics with expert guests who share their wisdom and real-life experiences. Together, we're building a community dedicated to true wellness—join us on this journey to complete health.
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Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today we're going to talk about holistic and what it means and how we look at it as an approach to finding health and a healthy lifestyle. But first I've gotten a lot of questions that are kind of reasonable, as this is a podcast that a lot of new people listen to, and you know the first question is well, who the hell are you and why should I listen to you? And so I'm going to introduce myself. We're coming up on our 250th episode, so there's a lot of good content that covers a wide range of topics. But my name is Joe Grumbine.
Speaker 1:I'm a 59-year-old male and I grew up, raised by a surgeon and I had a chronic lung disease and went through a life of medicine Western allopathic medicine and treatments, and when I hit my 20s I was over it. I never liked the way the medicine made me feel and I began a journey studying natural medicine and I didn't go to school. You know, this is back in the 80s, so there wasn't any internet, there wasn't any computers, but I did go to a lot of bookstores and got a bunch of old books and started reading and growing plants and making concoctions and testing them out year after year, and that was, you know, 40 years ago. And, uh, and now I consider myself a bit of an herbalist. I have a company called Willow Creek Springs that for the last 26 years we've been making natural skin care products and herbal remedies, and I do custom work. I formulate all different kinds of compounds, including CBD, cannabinoids and all sorts of ingredients, and I have ultimately come up with a formula that healed my lung disease.
Speaker 1:And about eight years ago my father passed away and he was only 70 and he had heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, he was overweight, had sleep apnea, he had a lot of issues that contributed to his death and frankly, looking back, I'd say they were all avoidable. Um, I believe he'd probably still be here today if he had taken care of himself a little better. And I got that wake up call and I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, well, I'm going to be him if I don't do something different. So I went down a journey that started out with weight loss and diet changed and started studying Dr Gundry and his approach, removed lectins from my diet and started looking at what my food eats and picking better food and growing more food. So we have a two and a half acre botanical garden and a small farm and we grow a lot of vegetables and more and more. We have a nonprofit that offers therapeutic horticulture and education. So we're living this life and teaching people and growing the food and I believe it's making an impact. And I believe it's making an impact. We believe that any therapeutic practice, if done outdoors in nature, is going to work better and that's sort of our whole concept of therapeutic horticulture.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I lost 50 pounds. That's before I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, very aggressive head and neck cancer. That went down a horrible road with doctors. I was told by one doctor that I was so healthy it couldn't be cancer. So I just kept going and told myself it'll go away. And it kept going and I tell my story through this podcast. And I tell my story through this podcast. Today the two primary tumors are gone and I still have a little activity in my two lymph nodes, but we don't know what it is and I'm still in the process of solving this problem. But I've discovered a lot of good information and I share a lot of that here on the podcast. So that's kind of who I am and why somebody might want to listen to what I have to say. I've walked the walk, I've lived the life and I'm healthier today than I probably was a year ago, and you know that's after dealing with a very aggressive, very nasty cancer that wanted to kill me and came and took me right to the edge, anyways. So today we have a lot of great guests that come on the show and we have subscriber content. If you're interested in really listening to some of the juicy details about real life stories you details about real life stories we also appreciate, just, you know a couple of kind words. Share this with somebody, pass it along. I believe community is key in healthy life and we're building a great community right now. If you're interested in participating as a guest, in participating as a guest, get in touch with me, grumbinejoe at gmailcom or leave a message in the notes of the podcast.
Speaker 1:So we're going to talk about holistic and a holistic approach to healthy living today and a lot of people don't really know what that means and people think holistic is like natural or, you know, not allopathic or herbal or whatever. But the idea of holistic is that it is a whole approach to health mind, body, spirit and taking into consideration all of these elements, and so I just want to walk through kind of briefly some of the pillars and key points about the holistic approach to healthy living, and you will notice we have many episodes that go deep into any number of these topics and will continue to do that. I believe that's really where good information comes from People sharing their real-life stories. That's where I've gotten a good chunk of the good information that I've gotten about my cancer and solving it. It's come from groups of people that are sharing similar experiences.
Speaker 1:So let's start off with the elements of a holistic approach to healthy living. The first we're going to look at physical health. You got a physical body, you have physiology, you have the quote unquote real world right. You have arms and legs and a heart and lungs and all these things that in the real world need to work in order for you to be alive and be healthy, and so there are pillars that we look at that affect your physical health, and again, I'm not going to go deep into any of these, but I think one of the first and foremost is nutrition.
Speaker 1:Food is medicine. What we're eating is either helping us or hurting us. I think there's a principle that I follow that says it's either getting you to your goals or it's keeping you from it. There really isn't anything neutral, and food is very much that way. It's either helping you or it's getting in your way, and I don't believe there's one diet that everybody should follow. We are so different in our makeup, in our metabolism, in the way that we have sensitivities or not. There's just so many differences from one human to the next. It's important for each of us to find our way, and that's we talked about last week, about journaling, and that's one good way to find your way.
Speaker 1:I encourage elimination diets. So if you have a problem like inflammation is a very common problem many, many people have, and there's a lot of inflammatory foods and you can just start to remove foods that are inflammatory, one at a time, until all of a sudden you go, oh wow, I feel so much better. It must have been this one thing that I eliminated and I'm sensitive to it. There's also tests. You can do blood tests and genetic work and all kinds of stuff, and I don't know a whole lot about that. I'm beginning to explore those things, but paying attention and the elimination diet, I think, is a great way to do that. Generally, a rule of thumb is avoid processed foods and sugars. You know, eat more fruits and vegetables, and some people do great on nuts and seeds and proteins and others maybe shouldn't. If you have cancer, I would say you do not want to eat proteins and you want to be very, very careful. And if you have cancer and you're not sure about a diet, reach out to me. I'll consult with you and help you and teach you what I've learned, and I'm here to share a wealth of information that has truly saved my life, and I'm more than glad to share that with anybody.
Speaker 1:Movement, physical activity, exercise that's definitely another element. The human body, I believe, was made to be in motion and I think we rest way too much as a rule and I think that causes a lot of problems. So, again, it's not even so much of working out hard, pumping iron, doing the hit, whatever. It's more about moving, just moving, and so that's an important piece of the puzzle. Again, there is not one answer for everybody, and and I think if there's any lesson that this podcast teaches, is that you can use the tools that we offer here that share other people's experiences and weigh them out, maybe try them. But you know, don't assume that because something worked for somebody else that it's going to work for you. But certainly if something works for a lot of people, it's worth giving it a try and maybe it will work for you. But be your own advocate. Get out there and fight for your own health and then you'll start to get it. Fight for your own health and then you'll start to get it.
Speaker 1:The next one I would say would be sleep. Sleep is critical for health and it's been one of my primary pillars. When the cancer was at its worst, I wasn't able to sleep because this tumor had gotten so big, it was stretching my skin to the point of breaking and it was hurting so bad that I couldn't get more than an hour, hour and a half of sleep at a time, and so I was just ragged and it was very difficult and the sleep was a big part of it. So now as I'm recovering and gaining my strength back, I take naps. Whenever I feel it, I feel a little tired, I go lay down and I take a nap. I believe that that is instrumental in my body's restoring itself.
Speaker 1:Preventative care that's another element and that can have to do with you know, going and getting regular screenings. Some people it means vaccinations, other other people it means an herbal regimen, working with practitioners, having somebody else look at you. A lot of times you can't see your whole body very well. Number one and we get used to little things. Number two and we ignore little things a lot. And so when you have somebody who doesn't know you and all your little nuances, with your skin especially, they might spot something that you would overlook. And even checking things like range of motion and things like that, or a trainer or a practitioner, a chiropractor, acupuncturist or a physician, might recognize an issue that you might just brush under the rug. So preventative care, I think, is important. There's other minor elements, but I think those constitute some of the primary pillars.
Speaker 1:The next many of us kind of ignore that. I think we tell ourselves everything's okay. I think we tell ourselves that we can handle whatever comes our way more than anything, and we tolerate levels of stress and issues that might be problematic and might be better looked at, but we gloss them over and say, oh, I'm okay, I don't need any help. So working on reducing stress is critical. Stress comes from so many different places and there's so many simple tools to identify and remove stress. So things like mindful training, mindfulness exercises, meditation, breath work, journaling there's so many tools that can work on reducing stress. And that's not even getting into the use of ethnobotanicals, plant medicine and ceremonies and things like that retreats. That's all part of stress reduction.
Speaker 1:So I think that's one of the most important pieces of the puzzle and remember, that's where most people's addictions come from is, you know, you try to take the edge off the day. So you take a drink, smoke some weed, take a little ketamine whatever your poison is and instead of looking at the issue and reconciling it and walking through it, making good with it or solving it and walking through it, making good with it or solving it we just kind of cover it up and brush it over and keep walking. The problem with that is sometimes the crutch that we use becomes its own problem. Sometimes we bury so many things that they just find their way back. There's all kinds of reasons why dealing with your stress in real time, in real ways, is important Cognitive well-being. We get lazy, we get lost scrolling watching videos, having mindless conversations, gossiping, just brainless shit, and putting your mind to work is difficult and a lot of people don't want to deal with it. But playing difficult games like chess or you know some strategy type games, or reading not just listening to audio books uh, writing, uh working on puzzles, uh learning something new there's so many ways to activate and and keep your brain moving, but just remember, if you don't use it, you start to lose it. Um, mental resilience.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes we get beat down. We have relationships that are unhealthy and we allow them to take from us more than they give. We surround ourselves with people that are vampires or narcissists or you know whatever the latest term is, but just toxic people, predators there's, you know. Good people are generally not aggressive and not toxic, so they can become easy marks for people that are seeking that kind of prey, if you will. So, participating in a community I think that that's one of the things that we're doing here with this podcast, with Gardens of Hope. Even Willow Creek Springs is creating a community where people have a place where they feel safe, people that they can talk to, that they know they're not going to be judged, those sorts of things. I think that's important and I think that and surrounding yourself with a good group of people, a good family, a good community, you'll set a bar where you won't allow anything less after a while and it can be very, very helpful, all right.
Speaker 1:Next we've got emotional health, and that's a little different from mental health but it's similar in some ways. But we are emotional creatures and we're triggered by emotions. People make decisions based on emotions. We start and end relationships based on emotions and I think it's important to get in touch with this and realize you know what they are and the power that they might wield or not, and the power you give them and that brings to you know, having healthy relationships. I think that a lot of times people will prefer to have a relationship, even if it's a poor one, than no relationship, and sometimes we lower our standards and we pick up somebody riding the bus or at the bar or wherever, the person that reaches out to you quickest and easiest, and a lot of times those are the most messed up people. In fact, more often than not they're the most messed up people and sometimes it works out great. But once you get one good, healthy and supportive and just healthy, you will probably raise the bar and rather have a few good relationships than a ton of mediocre or poor ones. So I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:Self-care, you know, that was one of the things that I became aware of fairly recently is the importance of loving yourself, and you know I went my whole life going. Of course I love me. You know I'm a good guy, I know me and I am. You know I'm worth it, all that stuff. But doing some energy work with Florina Threehawk six or eight months ago, six or eight months ago she cut through some things that got me to realize that I wasn't giving myself the love that I deserved. And once I became aware of that, I've raised the bar. I've changed the way things I'm willing to accept. I've made my peace the most important thing in my life. I don't let anything compromise my peace anymore.
Speaker 1:Then we've got social health. Again, there's some overlap here Relationships, community. A lot of people will find themselves sort of isolating as we grow or as we are damaged, and we do it to protect ourself or we just would rather have nothing than something. That's lousy and there's some health to that. But at at the end of the day we're social creatures and the most healthy people, the most long lived people have a strong sense of community, and so, as we're looking at healthy living, we're not really designed to be loners and hermits. Having a network of people, people that you can count on, people that you can count on just to talk to, or people that you can count on to help you move a couch if you need to, or people that you can count on to join you if you're going to be, you know, doing a thing and you want there to be people there, all of those things are important.
Speaker 1:Next, we're going to get into spiritual health, and you know this is a big word, right? Spiritual it doesn't necessarily mean religious, and you know I have a lot of people in my life that are very strong opinioned about religion and spirit and God and names and ways things have to be, and frankly, I see a lot of it as pretty judgy because we can't understand our creator. You know creator, you know, and maybe when you get to yourself, to a place where you go, I don't know why anybody would tell me that I have to do a thing, a certain way in order to get a certain thing, when nothing in life is that way and when, if, if indeed, there is a creator which I certainly believe there is, and this Creator created everything, including dimensions we can't even see or understand or participate in. How on earth could we think that we can know how we have to be? I'm not that arrogant myself, and so I have a lot of understanding and I welcome a lot of different spiritual beliefs and I have my own personal experience with my creator and a very close relationship, in my opinion. So I won't judge you. Maybe you don't judge me. I think that would be great.
Speaker 1:But also part of spiritual health comes down to values, and I think that's where a lot of this really matters. You know, I've seen a lot of Christians and a lot of Muslims and a lot of people of primary faiths that are just shitty people and judgy people and just hypocrites and I think to myself wow, if that's what your religion represents, I'm not interested. And so I'm probably not going to ever fit anybody's mold of the perfect Christian or the perfect Buddhist or the perfect whatever, because I'm not perfect number one and I don't necessarily find myself in a place where I say, well, it's this and not that, and I know my experiences have been profound and deep and I'm just going to consider my walk with my creator as my own spirituality, going to consider my walk with my creator as my own spirituality. I think those spiritual health, if you really are dealing with a healthy spirit, you're going to be involved with mindfulness and presence. You know you walk around and a lot of people are just spaced, they're busy thinking about something else, they're not engaged, they're not present, and I think that that's indicative of all kinds of things and, first and foremost, priorities. And you know, if you can't be bothered to even look me in the eye when you're talking to me or not be doing something else when we're having a conversation, then why are we doing it? And I think that there's an element of spirituality to that. You know, honoring a relationship and being present in a relationship's presence. I think that's important. I think a connection to nature tends to be a spiritual gift, a spiritual tool. I think nature provides connection to spirit, to the creator. And you know people go oh, you can't worship the creation. Well, you don't have to worship anything, but you can find beauty and joy and healing in the wonders of the natural world and I believe that's important and good. And again, I really don't care what you think. It's not for you to judge me. You don't know me. There's nobody knows me the way I do, and especially not my relationship to my Creator.
Speaker 1:Lifestyle choices is another tool for holistic approach and I think a lot of that has to do with choices about substances that people ingest or put themselves in contact with and that could have to do with, you know, living in a smoggy place, alcohol and drugs, bad food choices, you know, I think lifestyle choices hanging out with people you know that are toxic. There's all of these lifestyle choices that we have a decision over and I think that that affects your overall well-being and health. Well-being and health, mindful consumption we are constantly giving and receiving and we're giving our thoughts and ideas and opinions and we're receiving others' thoughts and ideas and opinions, and I think that a lot of times we squander, um the content that we're receiving. I think, you know, again, social media and scrolling and endless videos and mindless shit. Um, gossip again, I'll keep coming up with it because I hate gossip um all of these things that a lot of people spend so much time just watching tv. For god's sake, you know, pay attention to what you're putting in your brain, what you're exposing yourself to maybe limit some of the negative news coverage that you listen to, maybe decide to read something difficult and positive, maybe engage in a conversation that is deep and meaningful. Those are things that you'll find to be very rewarding and very helpful in a holistic approach.
Speaker 1:A holistic approach and, finally, things like integrative practices. This has to do with all different sorts of healing modalities and it can be anything from you know massage, acupuncture, herbs, yoga all of these things we're talking about, but doing it with some kind of a plan and creating a program for you. You know people that get locked up. They get with their program and it's sort of a routine or politics of how things work and it allows them to function in a very toxic and difficult environment. But in real life, a program is also helpful. And creating your own program and being mindful about creating your own personalized health plan this is where journaling comes in and really like decide what you want to do, make choices that are going to affect you the way you want to be affected.
Speaker 1:I think so many of us. We find that we have a health issue and sometimes we figure out why. Sometimes we don't. But I think generally we are to blame for most of our health issues. Occasionally it's just a thing you can't do anything about, or a genetic problem, or you get bit by something or whatever. But I think most of the time, our actions and practices and choices affect the total outcome of our health, and I believe that is what a holistic approach is all about. So this is just kind of a quick overview, but I welcome anybody who wants to come in and dive deep into any of these topics and let's continue the conversation. Thank you for everybody who supported this and if you think it's a good show, share it with somebody and we will talk to you next time.
