Category: Psychology

May 26, 2024

The Most Effective Way to Destroy a Married Man

Life and relationships, it seems to be a topic on everyone’s mind . . .

Yes, I am a man, so this topic may appear may seem one sided.

But, open your mind and consider . . .

Men are strong and resilient, yet, they are NOT unbreakable.

Many a man shows up in my office . . . broken.

How are they broken?

You and I generally understand that love in relationships should be shown and expressed unconditionally, both in familial relationships and between spouses in marriage.

Yet, what I’ve come to realize is that there is something more important to a man than unconditional love.

Most women and many men fail to comprehend this.

What is more important to a man that true love, unconditionally given?

Respect.

In comparison to women when looking at fMRI scans of the brain, the left amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, left caudate nucleus and medial prefrontal cortex are notably more activated in men when the emotion of respect is experienced [1].

All men need, crave and respond to respect more than any other emotion, including love.

When men experience respect, they have a powerful physiological response affecting heart rate, attention and bravery [2].

In fact, we are told by Moses in scripture that God’s power actually comes from His honor, and His honor comes from respect [3]. And, without this honor or respect of those he oversees, “God would cease to be God” [4].

With this understanding in mind, we learn, sadly, that thousands of men are being cheated on by their spouses.

How you ask?

This cheating is not in the form of adultery . . .

Yet, it is just as damaging as an actual affair with another person.

Our culture tells women that “men are owed nothing.”

Men are raised up their entire lives under the guise that they are not actually men until they’ve earned the respect of others – especially their wives.

Women are not required to meet any qualifications to be women.

Men are required to “become men.” They must earn the status of man.

I know very few men that would say, “I am not going to love my wife until she earns it.”

However, I regularly hear thousands of women say, “I can’t respect my husband until he earns it.” Or, “he will not get my affection until he earns it.”

Men need and ache for respect just as profoundly as women need love and attention.

What would you say about a man who chooses to withhold love from his wife if she doesn’t have the dinner ready, or isn’t properly satisfying him in other ways, or isn’t doing all the things he demands on his timetable?

Even if that wife was actually slacking in her responsibility, we would consider that man an absolute monster for using her “slack” as an excuse to degrade, demean or withhold love from her as if she only earns it.

So, why do men accept this approach from women?

Why is it acceptable for a woman to order her husband around and withhold respect, but not in reverse?

I cannot tell you how many women have told me in the exam room over the years, “I love my husband, but I no longer respect him.”

Why is it normal for a woman to assign “Honey Do Lists,” either written or implied, and withhold respect if not completed on her timetable and yet think a man tyrannical, abusive and toxic if he gave his wife a list of mandatory assignments for the day?

I know many women who withhold respect because their husband does not meet her time timetable when taking out the trash, putting the toilet seat down, mowing the law or other lists Honey Do Lists.

Yet, does he withhold love when she does not give him respect on the timetable he needs?

Any woman who belittles her husband, cuts him down, nitpicks him, withholds her affection – physical or emotional – as a ransom . . .

Nags him, criticizes him constantly, humiliates him in public or to her friends, family or in front of her children, and will not allow him to take a leadership role in the home, cannot be terribly surprised when he begins to withdraw in to work or other activities.

If he were to cheat – which itself is a great and indefensible evil, no matter how cold or domineering his spouse may be – it cannot be said that he was actually the first.

She cheated him out of the respect he most dearly needed, craved and thrived upon.

She lied to him, breaking her marital vows, when promising to respect him and treat him like a man, only to turn around and treat him like a child.

If I have not emphasized it enough, men have a profoundly deep desire to feel respected.

It is a travesty that we are not raising our girls to understand and appreciate this one fact.

Instead, they learn, often at the feet their own mothers, from media, from television, from advertisements, and academia that men are worthless oafs who should be handled as such UNTIL THEY PROVE themselves worthy of that respect over-and-over every day of their lives.

If they slip up, they should be nagged, berated, belittled and criticized until they straighten up and act like the hairy muscle bound women they should be.

Men are not hairy women. Stop treating them that way.

Give that man some respect and you’ll be amazed at the change and response to his character.

If you withhold respect, he will never say it, because he may not be able to articulate it, but that man will feel as if you are withholding your love.

Men respond profoundly to respect.

They will always withdraw when respect is withheld or ransomed. And, prolonged withdrawal of respect will have a secondary suppression on serotonin, dopamine and testosterone leading to further withdrawal from engagement [5].

“My husband will be respected if he earns it,” I’ve heard numerous wives declare.

“Let him do the chores the way I assign them, let him accomplish everything I require, let him dance to my tune, and then maybe I’ll reward him like a circus monkey with little pellets of respect.”

This approach will destroy him . . . slowly . . . but, mark my words, it will destroy him.

Paul taught the people of Colossae that a husband should not need to earn his wife’s respect any more than a wife needs to earn her husband’s love [6].

A wife ought to respect her husband because he is her husband, just as he ought to love and honor her because she is his wife [6].

Your husband may very well “deserve” it when you mock him, berate him, belittle him, criticize him and nag him . . .

Yet, you do not marry someone in order to give them what they deserve.

In marriage, you give the person what you promised.

What did you promise your spouse?

Are you unconditionally providing and fulfilling the promises to which you covenanted?

If not, you’re cheating on them.

Now, this does not mean that a man has any license to be lazy, abusive, or uncaring.

It means precisely the opposite.

The man has been challenged and commanded by God to live up to the respect his wife provides for him.

Yet, if you parcel out respect on a reward system, your husband will feel demoralized and empty.

He will fill a tremendous thirst as if he were living in a dry barren desert. He will not feel at home in his home. He will not have the sense of masculine purpose and fulfillment that his family life ought to afford him.

After a while, he will dread coming home at night, preferring to remain at work where his contributions are appreciated and his talents are admired and respected.

It is at this point the marriage becomes a very dangerous place.

If a man feels more like a man when he’s away from his wife than when he’s with her, a gory train wreck is lurking right around the corner.

The marriage is already half-dead, and it won’t take much to finish it off.

I was blessed to marry “The Beautiful One.”

She operates differently. She strives to gives respect without condition, even during those many times I never deserved it nor earned it.

Her building me up with respect helps me to be more deserving of the respect she has already bestowed upon me.

GK Chesterton reminded me of the great lesson found within the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” The lesson is that “a thing must be loved BEFORE it is lovable.”

This applies to our wives and children.

In that same light, I firmly believe that a man must be respected before he is respectable.

The only reason I have grown as a man, a husband, and a father, is because my wife treated me with respect long before I had any idea what it meant to lead or how to be a man.

Sadly, the average man in America, and the average man I see in my medical practice, is not always given this advantage.

They enter a marriage and find themselves immediately in a dark hole.

They must prove their worth every morning as they wake, and prove their value before as they return home before they ever get treated like they have any themselves.

Thousands of wives’ paint lines across the floors in the kitchens and bedrooms . . . expecting the men to walk them perfectly.

If he stumbles or if he wanders, I think it essential to note that he is likely not the only traitor in the marriage.

She also betrayed him. She promised him a wife, and provided instead, an angry step mother.

This is how you destroy a married man. This is why many men show up in my office broken.

The two, then, have now betrayed each other . . . in their own way.

There are always two sides to a story.

As men, we will inevitably stumble, as all men do. We are not perfect.

And, many a wife will chastise you and use your mistake as blackmail against you.

Despite this, a man is called upon to endure, to fight for his family, and to never be unfaithful to his wife, and never to leave her.

It is my hope that he has courage and honor enough to never wander.

It is my hope that you give your man the respect he needs and deserves as a man.

To Your Health & Longevity,

Adam Nally, DO

References:

Jäncke L. Sex/gender differences in cognition, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy. F1000Res. 2018 Jun 20;7:F1000 Faculty Rev-805. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.13917.1. PMID: 29983911; PMCID: PMC6013760.
Deng Y, Chang L, Yang M, Huo M, Zhou R. Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity. PLoS One. 2016 Jun 30;11(6):e0158666. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158666. PMID: 27362361; PMCID: PMC4928818.
Moses 4:1, 3
Alma 42:25
Perfalk E, Cunha-Bang SD, Holst KK, Keller S, Svarer C, Knudsen GM, Frokjaer VG. Testosterone levels in healthy men correlate negatively with serotonin 4 receptor binding. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2017 Jul;81:22-28. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.03.018. Epub 2017 Mar 22. PMID: 28426945.
Colossians 3:18-19

March 18, 2023

Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

This poem was first published in the Sunday Pictorial of London on 26 October 1919; then later published in Harper’s Magazine January 1920.

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbor and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

————–

It was true in 1920 and it is true today.

June 29, 2020

Coronavirus, the Cancel Culture and Tiny Betrayals of Purpose

In the last two decades, it has become more and more clear that the average American has trouble facing reality. The average American has trouble facing truth. It affects each of us, and it is affecting physicians, nurses and health professionals individually.

At least once a week, one of my patient’s refuses to get on the scale. Why would you visit the doctor to improve your health, and yet refuse to look at a measure of health? Yet, that is the accepted culture of today.

Language of Euphemism

Another evidence of this can be seen in the changes to our language. Our language has become flowered with euphemism and politically correct phrases. It is why we have a whole generation hyper-focused on “cancel culture.” People have set aside their faith to live by their feelings. People no longer accept another’s right to share their perspective or express themselves, especially if it hurts another’s feelings. We’ve created soft language that has taken the life out of life and medicine.

Shell Shock to PTSD

An example of this change is the softening of language describing what happens to a persons nervous system when in combat. During World War I from 1914 to 1918, if a soldier’s nervous system became overwhelmed due to the fatigue, stress and horror of battle it was called “shell shock.” The term describes the power and struggle that occurs with this overwhelming stress. The word almost echos the rattle of a cannon on one’s soul. Men would return home with hysteria, muscle contractions, heart palpitations, dizziness, depression, blindness, paralysis, insomnia, loss of appetite, flashbacks, nightmares or unable to speak without any physical damage to explain the symptoms. Because little was understood about the cause, it was seen as a sign of emotional weakness. Many were even branded as deserters or cowards because of the condition shell shock would cause. At the end of the war, 80,000 men were diagnosed with shell shock in the British Army medical facilities.

But instead of addressing the pain and addressing the trauma, we buried it under the jargon and euphemisms. After the second world war in 1945, we toned the term down because we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings describing them as “shell shocked.” So, we called it “Battle Fatigue.” It is the same problem, overwhelming a person’s emotional coping mechanisms and nervous system with stress to the point of failure, but “battle fatigue” just sounded better, and softer.

Enter the Korean War of 1950-1951. Actually, we softened that too. It wasn’t really a war, we were told, and our leaders turned it from war into a softer more acceptable “Korean Conflict.” Men and women who encountered the same overpowering effects on the nervous system from witnessing the horror of battle, death and destruction were told they had “operational exhaustion.” This was an even softer term that allowed for a further avoidance of the truth.

Five years later, the U.S. entered a 19 year “conflict” with Vietnam. The politicians of the time didn’t want to call it war either. The same trauma causing shell shock in World War I was experienced by men and women in Vietnam. Seeing the horrors of battle on a daily basis and only being allowed to police those attacking you with guerrilla warfare in a foreign country led to severe trauma in many of our soldiers. Fighting was intense and millions of people were killed including 60,000 U.S. soldiers. Yet, we further softened the term “operational exhaustion” with the same symptoms of shell shock to “Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD).” (Hey, at least they added a hyphen, right?)

Waking The Tiger – Working Through Trauma

Trauma is trauma, no matter how or where you experience it. Because of it’s complexities, the treatment of trauma can’t be addressed here, but according to Peter Levine in his book Waking the Tiger, trauma, no matter what the cause, must be worked through. Peter Levine does a wonderful job in explaining this in his second follow up book In An Unspoken Voice. There are additional treatments for burnout. The brain has a consistent pattern that it follows to resolve trauma and burnout. If that pattern is disrupted, shell shock, battle fatigue, operational exhaustion or PTSD ensues.

Elizabeth Metraux describes this in her 2018 article this way:
“I was on my honeymoon in Colombia when I first became aware of the true extent of my post-traumatic stress disorder. My husband and I were walking across a smooth, granite platform to take a closer look at a fountain in downtown Cartagena. As we neared the structure, mist from the fountain’s jets dampened the ground at my feet.

“I froze, paralyzed with fear by a flashback — my first — triggered by something as ordinary as wet pavement on a warm day.

“Two years earlier, I was working in civic engagement efforts in Baghdad. One morning, as I walked across a smooth, granite platform toward my apartment, gunfire erupted. I tried to run, but my flip-flops bested me on the pavement, still damp from an early mopping. I slipped and fell backward, hitting my head hard enough to knock me out. When I opened my eyes minutes later, the platform was covered with my blood.

“That happened 15 years ago this week, those Ides of March when American forces invaded Iraq.

“Back home in the U.S., it was clear to those around me that I had PTSD. It wasn’t until six months after my honeymoon, however, that I had the courage to acknowledge that I needed help. It’s not easy seeing your own weaknesses, much less conceding them. But when my habitual glass of wine with dinner became a bottle, and fireworks left me sore and sleepless for days, it was hard to fight the signs.

“Celexa for guilt. Ambien for sleep. Therapy for months. My psychologist and primary care physician spoke regularly to coordinate my care. Most importantly, family and friends became members of my care team. Isolation is a trauma victim’s ill-advised drug of choice, one my loved ones and clinicians wouldn’t let me take.”

Most Physicians Suffer from Moral Trauma combined with PTSD

What concerns me is that many of today’s heath-care workers, physicians and nurses, suffer from PTSD and moral trauma. Dr. Metraux goes on to describe a conversation she has that is reminiscent of many recent conversations I’ve had with my colleagues:

“A few weeks ago, I was talking with a physician who served our country in Iraq. We chatted nostalgically about the taste of sand and shawarma before he said something that gave me pause: ‘You know, I’d go back to the field any day. Beats practicing in my clinic.’
“‘Why’s that?’ I asked.
“’I didn’t become a doc to put up with billing codes and power struggles. I thought that PTSD would hit when I came home from Fallujah. It’s so much worse when I come home from the office. Truth is, I’ve lost my sense of purpose.’”

Physician burnout is easily chalked up to the 4-8 minute hurried visit with 30-40 patients per day, and the additional 6-8 hours spent each day entering patient information into an electronic medical record, combined with the life-and-death decisions this profession requires routinely every day. Add to it a time when a physicians and nurses are called upon to be the only people in the clinics and hospitals taking care of a viral infection still unknown in its full spectrum. But, that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Thousands of Tiny Betrayals of Purpose

The real cause of injury is the fear created by a society that doesn’t really want to hear or face the truth, and the hundreds and thousands of tiny betrayals of purpose that occur every day in the clinic or the hospital. Most physicians find themselves expressing horror and disgust at how far they’ve been steered away from their primary purpose of taking care of people. Clinicians and nurses, much like combat veterans, are forced to take actions every day that contradict their core purpose – sometimes compulsory, sometimes voluntary. It causes a slow imperceptible unwinding of character.

The 4-8 minute visit means the physician can’t take time to build a real relationship with you or take care of the whole person whose real diagnosis can’t be logged into a computer. The 8 hours of daily charting requires the clinicians eyes to be taken off their patients, missing the humanity that brought us to the work in the first place. The government mandated “quality metrics” imposed on every patient encounter by Medicare, Medicaid and intrusive insurance plans that crowds out the deeper connection with patients to help them manage triggers, feel truly cared for and navigate treatments. Each of these are a “tiny betrayals of purpose,” 30-40 times a day over the course of weeks and months and years. When you subconsciously betray yourself with every interaction you have throughout the day, it adds up.

Medicine now requires clinicians to practice in a manner inconsistent with their values, because it saves costs, increases access and improves quality, . . . maybe. Then, add a new virus with an unknown morbidity, mortality and infectivity to the spectrum without a clear treatment protocol. Then add to that layers of bureaucratic regulation and mandates around treatment and insurance.

In 20 years of medical practice, including battlefield medicine, I’ve never seen physicians express public fear, angst and fatigue in the course of their duty. I’ve seen it every day in the last year.

We Lose a Physician Every Day

Since 2018, over 400 physicians committed suicide per year. Every day, at least one physician commits suicide (Tanwar D, Amer Psych Asso 2018 Annual Meeting). That is the highest rate of suicide in any profession. 40 suicides per 100,000 is twice that of the general population. This rate is higher than the military. The claim is that doctors are under-treated or untreated for their depression. It is more than that. Doctors and nurses alike are experiencing “shell shock,” or in today’s vernacular, “post-traumatic stress disorder” and being force to live, work and function all while suffering with subconscious moral injury. It goes untreated and unrecognized.

It’s why your doctor is curt with you. It’s why he or she can only spend five minutes with you in the exam room. It’s why you get the sense of fear from them when dealing with COVID-19. It’s why there is confusion about wearing masks and why so many physicians struggle to keep up with the ever changing science. It’s why 30% of them are divorced. It’s why 73% of the physicians and 50% of nurses you meet are effected by burnout, trauma and PTSD.

The challenge, is it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. Some will leave medicine, some will leave life. Others will suffer until it kills them. Unless, you and I change it. Until then, society will be offended.

June 6, 2020

Ten Reasons Why I Will Never Support Black Lives Matters

I have been very vocal this week about the new narrative for racism that permeates every air-wave and smartphone across the country, “The criminal justice system is to blame.” The logic states that Black men are being rounded up for little reason by a White-run criminal justice system dedicated to the eradication of a burgeoning minority middle class. If it weren’t for the dastardly system, all would be well. All is to blame on “white privilege” they claim. And, the narrative is being driving by the organization called Black Lives Matters.

Phoenix, Arizona May 31, 2020 – CNN

A significant number of the ketogenic and carnivore world “elites” have significant buy in to this narrative and have come down hard on my position during the last week. I’ve been called a white racial supremacist, a bigot, a fanatic, and I’ve even had a few death threats arise in my “in-box” because I disagree with the agenda of this organization. But those of you who know me, know that I don’t make statements lightly. Any time I take a position, it will be based in scientific fact.

All of this has occurred as protests, riots, looting and murder have flooded the news, social media feeds and airwaves of the world. Anger that justice has not been served was the initial outcry. True it is that any life unjustly taken deserves restitution. Yet, in the attempt to make things right, I refuse to join with a movement that stands for nearly everything wrong and evil in this world.

As of today, more innocent lives have been taken (20 as of today’s count) since these violent protests began over the horrible death of George Floyd. But what about the other black lives that have been lost in the chaos. What about the Black business owners that lost their businesses? What about the families of those that lost fathers and mothers to this violence in response to violence?

Minneapolis Minnesota, May 31, 2020 – FoxNews.com

“Dr. Nally, you don’t have to agree with everything. Just because it’s on their website, doesn’t make them bad. Just agree with the good things this movement is doing. Just drop to a knee with your sign and show your support for the good parts,” I’ve been told by quite a few people I used to admire.

Let’s apply that logic to other examples. Would you hold your church social on the lawn of the Playboy Mansion because Hugh Hefner was a Methodist who believed in God and had a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” on his nightstand table?

I am not a racist. Just because I disagree with your position on social justice does not make me a racist either. The definition of racism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities, and that racial differences produce an inherent prejudicial superiority of a particular race. I do not view, interact with or treat anyone of a different skin color any differently than I would treat my own family.

This may offend you, but according to scientific evidence, “white privilege” isn’t real. If it were a real issue, you would not see statistical success of the Asian populations in the United States. Just look at the graph of ethnic incomes below.

And, it’s not just income. Asian students score higher on educational testing like the SAT. How does the argument of “white privilege” explain this anomaly? It doesn’t. If race provided privilege, then these graphs would be notably different.

Those of us that have been raised to abide the law, pay our taxes, set aside our instinctual urge to provide justice by allowing for due process in the civilization we’ve contributed to, act with civility toward leadership, give honor to the experience of our parents and our elders, follow basic civil instructions, provide for our families, protect them and serve our neighbor are horrified that someone would claim we are “subconsciously racist.” This is an attack on and an attempt to verbally disarm the good men and women of this country by creating guilt, claiming that because of your heritage, a part of you is unwilling to protect your neighbor.

Because of this, I cannot sit idly by and watch this country spiral down the drain without making my position loud and clear. Based upon additional thoughts I contemplated after reading Ryan Bomberger’s article in TownHall this morning, here are:

Ten Reasons I Will Never Support #BlackLivesMatters (BLM)

Their Premise Isn’t True. I despise racism. It is never appropriate. It is even worse when racism is used as a political weapon like is has been this week. According to the FBI’s latest homicide statistics, a black man is 11 times more likely to be killed by another black man than by a white man. The comprehensive 2019 study by PNAS, “White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” Even the Washington Post’s database on police-involved deaths put this into perspective. In 2020, among those killed by police officers (all male):

- - 2 Native Americans
  - 9 Asians
  - 46 Hispanics
  - 76 Blacks (Incidentally only 9 of those 76 Blacks were unarmed)
  - 149 unlabeled individuals
  - 149 Whites (whose deaths are never reported by national mainstream media.)

“White Privilege” – @AmyDC – (Satire Image)

2. Goals for Forgiveness or Reconciliation are not Present. On none of the Black Lives Matters websites are there any mention of healing wounds, forgiveness or moving forward. You cannot talk about the sins of distant past and expect to move forward if there is no intention of forgiveness. Ask any counselor, psychiatrist or physician, when your spouse brings up old wounds or grievances with every argument, does the marriage get better? Absolutely not. They’ve never forgiven you and neither will Black Lives Matters. Their paradigm is not centered in any gospel of forgiveness. It is a prejudicial oppressor/oppressed race theory paradigm that is completely flawed. This seems strange when the majority of Blacks in the U.S. are Christian (79%) and profess a belief in Jesus Christ.

Most Christians believe that we are individually responsible for our own actions and, not Adam’s transgression from the fall (that was the whole point of the atonement of Christ). Yet, belief that white people living today are responsible for the slavery their for-bearers participated in is diametrically opposed to Judaeo-Christian philosophy. I am not responsible for my father’s transgressions and neither are you. You can’t stand on both sides of the fence.

What is the solution? Whether you are a believer or not, Jesus Christ taught an inspired model that leads to peace and harmony — to love God first, and then to love our neighbors as ourselves. I don’t pretend that either of these pursuits is easy, but in the 50 years I have been upon this earth, it is the only action that yields the promised fruit.

3. The Focus is 100% Black Power. That’s all you’ll ever see on their websites at M4BL and BLM. Both of these organizations focus on “organizing and building Black power across the country.” This is not what Martin Luther King promoted. He promoted “God’s power and human power.” That’s dramatically different. I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s statement, that “hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” Only this kind of love and empathy can inspire us to do the rigorous work of rebuilding bridges of cooperation instead of walls of segregation and alienation. I will happily stand and march with the principles outlined by Dr. King.

4. Both Organizations Heavily Promote Homosexuality and Transgenderism. “We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.” Any group that claims normative thoughts and attractions as a heterosexual male or female are abnormal is embracing confusion, dubiety and promotes chaos. These are the last people I want my children associating with. Loving every human being is NOT the same as loving every human action. Teaching from this platform is teaching half-truths and is devious and vile.

5. Black Lives Matters Intentionally Ignores and Suppresses the Importance of Fatherhood. From their own website: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” Notice “fathers” is intentionally missing from that statement. We know from years of research that every “village” that has fatherless families is a village that suffers higher crime rates, higher drug usage, higher abortion rates, higher drop-out rates, higher poverty rates, and so much more.

Prejudice, hate and discrimination are learned behaviors. We are not born with them. This is why parents, family members, and teachers must be the first line of defense. Teaching children to love all, and find the good in others, is more crucial than ever. Oneness is not sameness in America. We must all learn to value the differences.

How does the absence of a father play a role in this? Isn’t it interesting that the ethnicity that is the most successful at income and education is also the group that has the lowest number of fatherless homes.

6. They Demand Reparations. On the same BLM website above, they demand, “Reparations for . . . full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education . . . retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.”

Ummmm, question? What about the mixed racial peoples? Will the white half of their bodies have to pay the Black half of themselves?

7. Complete Abolition of Police Forces. These people assert that complete abolition of prisons, police and any other institution related to civil safety is their goal. Across 30 cities this week you’ve heard the cry, “Defund the police!” This would leave total anarchy in any community. Yet, police chief’s and commissioners around the county have begun to stand with these groups at the behest of their officers. Reforming department codes to control use of force, continued training in use of aggressive force and monitoring systems that identify officers who abuse these policies have been show to be effective and are essential, but abolishing police forces is utter insanity.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, people who buy this mindset are guilty “Of not understanding the difference between the fire department and the fire.”

8. BLM IS Anti-Capitalistic. They declare “We are anti-capitalist. We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system.” The video and recordings that identify incidences of police brutality and misuse of force are captured on phones and body-cameras that were made possible by capitalism. We have known for over 100 years that the best way to raise people out of poverty is capitalism. Capitalism is what makes the United States of America the most charitable nation on the earth and the nation with the most freedom.

9. Collin Kaepernick Supports It. I want nothing to do with a man who idolizes Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and worships Malcom X (check out his social media feeds and you see all the proof you need). Malcom X was an anti-integration, pro-violence member of the Nation of Islam (virulently racist). Interesting that this #SocialJusticeWarrior is absolutely silent about the fact that he makes millions from Nike whose entire Executive Leadership Team is White, and according to Kaepernick makes its shoes in the most “murderous regime in the world.”

Colin Kaepernick – NYTimes.com

10. Not All Black Lives “Really” Matter. The pro-abortion Black Lives Matter further declares: “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice [aka abortion] that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.” Aborted children don’t thrive.

Many even argue that Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger, a strong believer in eugenics, intentionally used abortion to lower the Black birth rate. Something is amiss when over one-third of all abortions occur in Black mothers.

BLM has claimed solidarity with “reproductive justice” groups since February 2015 and have been officially adopted into the Democratic National Convention platform since August 2015. Sorry folks, you cannot simultaneously fight violence while all the while celebrating it by destroying lives before they take their first breath.

Will I be ostracized from the keto/carnivore community for my position? Probably, but my conscience is clear, and I can sleep at night.

February 7, 2016

It's Not About The Nail . . . Or Is It?

“But I don’t understand why I still feel this way . . .”

I hear this every day.

Sometimes we have to dig deep for the answer, sometimes it’s just the act of listening that helps us find the answer and sometimes it’s the nail staring us right in the face. We often don’t want to recognized patterns in our lives that adversely affect us because we’ve become comfortable with those patterns.

Is that piece of toast, that piece of fruit, that creamer in your coffee, that bowl of cereal or is it really the nail?

Sometimes, you don’t need to be fixed . . . you just need to be heard.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg%26lt%3B

December 27, 2015

Does Jung & Myers-Briggs Typology Effect Obesity?

Sitting around the dinner table this evening we began discussing personality types. As a fun exercise, we each took the Jung Typology Test based on Jung and Myers-Briggs findings about personality. If you haven’t taken this personality test, you might find it quite interesting and the topic of hours of conversation around the dinner table . . . as we did this evening. The test is free on-line and takes about 10 minutes.

Carl Gustav Jung – Swiss Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist

The actual Myers-Briggs Type Indicator costs about $50.00 and includes an interpretation by someone trained in giving the test. It differs slightly in its questions and the way the testing is interpreted.

Both tests provide an interesting insight into your individual psychological preferences regarding four categories. According to Carl G. Jung’s theory of psychological types published in 1971, people can be characterized, first, by their preference or general attitude about the source of and how they express their energy:

Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I)

The second preference is one of the two functions of perception, or related to how they perceive information coming from either the external or internal world:

Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N)

and the third preference relates to how one processes the information that they have received, acting as one of the two functions of thought or judgement:

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)

Isabel Briggs Myers, a researcher and practitioner of Jung’s theory, proposed that the fourth preference related to how one applies or implements the information that he or she processed above. She proposed a judging-perceiving relationship as the fourth dichotomy influencing personality type in 1980:

Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P)

Each of these dichotomies represents an opposite pole of preference and each of us have a dominant pole toward which we gravitate.

Based upon your dominant traits, a personality type index is assigned.

Kim and Lee studied these personality preferences and how they relate to diet, health and propensity toward obesity. Their findings were interesting in that expression, perception and judgement did not seem to have any bearing on health or obesity. However, the application of judgement vs perception did play a role in health. Judging (J) means that a person organizes all of his or her life events and, as a rule, sticks to those plans. Perceiving (P) means that he or she is inclined to improvise and explore alternative options.

Significantly better dietary and health behaviors were identified in those preferring Judging (J) versus those preferring Perceiving (P) traits. Those preferring the Judging (J) behaviors included eating breakfast, regularly eating three meals a day, smoking less, exercising more and having a lower tendency to nocturnal eating.

The findings show that the use of Jung Type or Myers-Briggs Type Indicator may be helpful in identifying and index those with a Perceiving (P) trait that would benefit from dietary and exercise education, nutritional counseling and/or behavior modification programs.

It has been my experience that those with a “P” type dichotomy preference would benefit greatly from daily food planning and journaling.

So, what is your Jung/Myers-Briggs type?

Just for fun, and because my kids were very curious about what each personality type would appear as in character, I’ve included the Jung/Myers-Briggs Disney typing.

I’m an ENFJ, just in case you’re curious.

References:

November 18, 2015

Chewing the Phat with Dr. Nally (The Psychology of Fat & Many Other Questions)

Join me as we chew the phat of ketogenic lifestyles PeriScope style and answer many questions like, “Why do I get ‘hangry’?” What causes hypoglycemia? How many times a day should I eat? and many more . . .

We talk briefly about why 60% of people with insulin resistance may need methylated folic acid to help with B vitamin absorption/use and where it can be found. (See me recent article about this called The Power of a Good Vitamin.)

You can see the whole PeriScope conversation on Katch.me/docmuscles with the comments scrolling or you can see the video stream below:

Thanks for visiting!!!

October 18, 2015

Psychology of the Ketogenic Lifestyle . . .

Ketogenic Lifestyle – the Balance of Endocrinology & Psychology

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of talking to a number of patients and friends about what it means to live a ketogenic lifestyle. A low-carbohydrate or ketogenic lifestyle is different from a low-carb diet. It is different because the definition of lifestyle implies the way a person lives their life that reflects specific attitudes and values, not just how they eat. My recent posts, The Principle Based Ketogenic Lifestyle – Part I and Ketogenic Principles – Part II, focus on fundamental principles making the ketogenic lifestyle one in which balance and grounding in all aspects of life can occur. When the mind, the body or the spirit are out of balance or un-grounded, symptoms of metabolic inefficiency, sickness or disease result.

I have been fascinated, as a family practitioner, that the body produces “warning flags,” when there is dysfunction in one of these areas: mind, body & spirit. These warning flags are byproducts of inefficient inter-related functionality between the body’s systems and it is one of the foundation principles of osteopathic medicine. Prior to the advent of many of our diagnostic techniques today like MRI, CT scan, advanced laboratory evaluations, and ultrasound, these were the only indicators of disease that a physician could identify, and upon which diagnosis was made. These flags often show up on the skin, in the hair or nails, in the complexion, or in general appearance or mannerisms.

Skin Tags (fibroepitheial polyps) under the arm

For example,”skin tags” are now recognized as pathognomonic, specifically indicative, of insulin resistance and will often occur up to 20 years before impaired fasting glucose or diabetes is ever recognized.

Exopthalmos (bulging or protruding of the eyes) from hyperthyroidism

Exopthalmos, or protrusion of the eyes, is pathognomonnic for overactive thyroid function (hyperthyroidism), and spider angiomas occur as a somatic flag that cirrhosis of the liver is present.

Alligator Skin (severe dry skin) found in hypothyroidism

Hair loss and dry skin, or “alligator skin,” represents the exact opposite with an under-active thyroid (hypothyroidism).

Spider angioma seen with cirrhosis

When metabolic pathways get “clogged” or flow of blood, lymphatic fluid or hormones do not reach the destinations they were meant to reach, symptoms of accumulation or poor function begin to arise.

Anterior Chapman’s Reflex Points (images adapted from Osteopathic Foundations of Medicine.)

The osteopath is also trained to recognize a corollary Chapman’s Reflex Points that act as flags for dysfunction in specific organs or regions of the body. These points relate directly to what causes the pathognomonic flag. I frequently identify abdominal, adrenal, pancreatic and liver Chapman’s points present in those with insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, pre-diabetes and diabetes. Understanding how to interpret and use these flags comprises four years of medical school and three to four years of residency and often years of clinical application.

Mental or spiritual pathways can often be bloc-aided by poor recognition of, or refusal to acknowledge, individual truths in our lives. Interestingly, the signs or warning flags of spiritual dysfunction are also expressed physically.

“Oh, no?! Dr. Nally are you going to get all religious on us?”

Maybe.

Over the last 15 years of my medical practice, I’ve witnessed the spiritual component of the “mind, body, spirit” unit, or lack thereof, have profound impact on the body’s ability to heal. Every one of us must defeat what Sigmund Freud called the pleasure principle – the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain, including recollections or memories that are painful. Hiding from these memories because of pain is very common and is part of human nature. We often believe that thinking about or re-living the truth may cause us individual overwhelming un-survivable grief. So, we naturally bury the thoughts and emotions and feelings deep down into our subconscious minds.

In fact, we take irrational risks, busy ourselves, use food or drink for short term comfort and move from one distracting or debilitating relationship to another. We lose and then regain gain weight, become workaholics, hide behind thousands of texts, social media posts and emails in order to protect ourselves from the part of ourselves that we don’t want to think about.

However, when we step away from the distractions and courageously look at our individual history, our personal life story, honestly and completely, feelings of sadness, anxiety, regret and anger may often arise. These painful emotions bring with them essential insights into how experiences will help you and I individually grow, become a better people, and help others along the path. It takes faith to trust that these experiences will not destroy us, but were allowed to occur by a loving Father or Creator, understanding that for you and I to grow, we must each be given individual agency to chose. It takes faith to recognize that that Father has your individual best interest in mind. Hiding from these emotions clogs the mental and spiritual systems and fuels disabling depression, anxiety, insomnia and fatigue. These feelings, real as they are, persist when there is no other physical sign of illness. That’s because this illness is not physical. It is spiritual. When we are out of line with the truths that bring peace and balance to our lives, negative, self-limiting patterns of activity and fear stifle growth and development mentally.

It is fascinating to me that on more than one occasion, as an osteopath, when a patient suffering from these symptoms gets a massage or has an osteopathic or chiropractic manipulative treatment, they may suddenly become tearful or have unexpected release of emotion. Physical treatment over the areas of congestion can, and do, cause a reflex triggering of mental, emotional or spiritual release of tensions.

How do I know that it is truth we are hiding from? Take the words of the Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche found in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying among many others throughout the ages:

“Saints and mystics throughout history have adorned their realizations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind. Christians and Jews call it “God”; Hindus call it “the Self,” “Shiva,” “Brahman,” and “Vishnu”; Sufi mystics name it “the Hidden Essence”; and the Buddhists call it “buddha nature.” At the heart of all religions is the certainty that there is a fundamental truth, and that this life is a sacred opportunity to evolve and realize that truth.”

“Wait a minute, what does all this have to do with a ketogenic lifestyle?”

The ketogenic lifestyle is one that is based on values. A patient following a ketogenic diet recognizes that food has just as powerful effect on the hormones of the body as does prescription drugs. Understanding the value of hormone balance and the principles that effect weight, inflammation, blood pressure and cholesterol, the ketogenic lifestyle is one in which carbohydrates are restricted in an individually tailored way to obtain the end goal. How does a ketogenic lifestyle balance mind and spirit?

Step One –

Put down your force-field. This takes courage and it takes faith. Your force-field is any distraction that keeps you from thinking and feeling and identifying truth. These include excessive alcohol, illicit drugs, binge eating, smoking, gambling, working excessively or getting lost in repetitive dramatic romantic relationships .

Believe me, the force-field gets heavier every day. After my father passed away at age 58 from the major complications of diabetes and my sister committed suicide a few years later, I threw myself into work and church service. I worked 16-18 hour days, completed a second board certification in Obesity Management and a fellowship in Health Policy, all while serving as a bishop and counselor in my church. I found that I could raise my force-field of justification to hide from the pain and emotions of family illness and depression.

But the force-field saps your energy and cheats you out of seeing your full potential. I found that as long as I held up my force-field (and some of us care more than one), I couldn’t see the experiences that made me who I am and connect me with those I was trying to serve and help. As long as I was holding up my force-field, I was living in the fear of re-experiencing the pain of loss and the worry of future disease, . . . and people sense that.

You don’t have to drop the force-field all at once. You don’t have to quit work and become a hobbit. You just have to lower the field a little bit, enough to peek over and let the Eternal Truth shine on you. Truth is a funny and powerful thing. The more we overcome our reluctance, face the pain and the fear, the more we realize just how often things begin to go well for us. Living in the presence of great truth and eternal law and being guided by permanent values is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

Step Two –

Identify emotional or behavioral patterns that you want to change. If you don’t know, ask a trusted friend, your spouse, or your relatives. As I think back over the years, I had a couple trusted friends pull me aside and identify a few of those patterns face to face. I appreciate that, and I’ve never forgotten it.

Make a list of the events in your life that you regret and wish you would have made a different decision.
Go over the list as many times as you need to to identify the pattern or theme that seems to tie the regrets together.
Then actually write down the theme or reason that you identified as the cause. This allows you to identify and remove the corrupted soft-ware of your soul.
This process can take time and is often camouflaged by denial.
Major insight often comes as a knock on the door of denial, so listen carefully to what is being said. Listen to yourself listening. Psychiatrists say that if something said while listening to a patient makes them suddenly feel sad or irritable, then that may be a meaningful theme in the patient’s life. Listen to your gut feelings as you go through the day. Don’t ignore a prompting from your soul.

Step Three –

Realize that today’s negative emotional and behavioral patterns are connected with painful memories and unsolved past conflicts.

Do you get a gut feeling that you want to change the subject when someone brings up a financial setback? Do you want to reply with one liners like, “I’m sure it will all work out?” Are there other topics that make you uncomfortable? Ask yourself why that topic makes you uncomfortable . . . seriously, ask yourself, and then answer yourself. Do you suspect your spouse of cheating when there is no objective evidence to support the suspicions? Recognize these uncomfortable feelings are our subconscious waving flags to make us each aware of unresolved conflicts within our mind and spirit.

Remember, we attract the type of energy we give off.

Step Four –

Pray to whatever higher power you believe in. Meditation, prayer and “ponderizing” brings a reservoir of faith and courage to find and to face the truth. If you have the faith, get on your knees and sincerely ask God for help facing your truth and the challenges, fears and sadness that reflecting upon it may initially bring. I promise you that you will gain the strength to accomplish the task. It will bring the strength to overcome the hidden trauma in your earlier life and will give you the strength to resist the call of ice cream at 3 am.

Following these four simple steps, keeps you vigilant to the physical and spiritual warning flags that may arise on your ketogenic journey and will bring great confidence while modifying your diet to balance your body’s hormonal milieu. Confidence inspires courage. Those with courage and confidence in themselves, and faith that they are on the right path, are unstoppable. Good luck . . . I look forward to seeing you on my journey down the same path.