Mindfulness And Renewal With Dr. Dan Winkle Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Mindfulness And Renewal With Dr. Dan Winkle Your Awesome Podcast

Dr. Daniel Winkle or Dr. Dan as he is known to many joined me on the Blossom Your Awesome podcast where we touched on so much. He is an M.D. and is certified by the center for Mind Body Science.

He's the author of the Eagles Eye Healing  Health and Wellness website where he offers short stories, poetry and guided meditation on self healing and recovery.

Dr. Dan actively practices mind body medicine at Alameda Health System where he is Medical Director of Acute Rehab Services. 

To see more of Dr. Dan's work you can find him here.

On This Episode

Dr. Daniel Winkle shares his journey of integrating mindfulness and energy healing into his medical practice. He emphasizes the importance of understanding our body's energy systems and the role of the subconscious in shaping our beliefs.  Dr. Dan discusses the limitations of traditional medicine and the need for a holistic approach. He explores the connection between mindfulness, creativity, and uniqueness, and how mindfulness can enhance gratitude and help us embrace discomfort.

Dr. Dan provides practical tips for starting a mindfulness practice and encourages self-experimentation for personal growth. He concludes with a message of embracing our cycles and staying connected to our inner being.

To learn more about Dr. Dan and check out his work you can find him here. 

Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Background

03:03
Discovering the Importance of Energy Systems

06:51
Understanding the Subconscious and Reprogramming Beliefs

09:18
Challenging Medical Diagnoses and Beliefs

12:51
Mindfulness and its Connection to Healing

16:24
Mindfulness, Creativity, and Uniqueness

19:01
Mindfulness and Gratitude

23:04
Embracing Discomfort and Slowness

26:28
Practical Tips for Mindfulness Practice

29:25
Awareness, Expression, and Relaxation Cycle

33:28
The Evolution of Mindfulness in Modern Life

36:17
Dr. Dan's Personal Spiritual Evolution

42:24
Practical Experiments for Self-Discovery

45:24
Dr. Dan's Future Plans and Message

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Transcript

Sue (00:00.822)
Hi there, today on the show, Dr. Daniel Winkle is back here with us. I'm so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome back, Dr. Dan.

Daniel Winkle (00:09.958)
Thanks Sue, it's good to be with you again.

Sue (00:13.306)
I am so excited to have you back here and get into more of the work you do, get some more insights and wisdom from you. So something I kind of want to backtrack a little for a moment, Dr. Dan, and have you, you know, give us a little bit of your backstory, the MD part of it, and then how like the whole mindfulness and then energy healing and things came about for you. And you've been incorporating that with the patients.

So I would love to have you kind of share some of that with us.

Daniel Winkle (00:45.382)
Yeah, for sure. That's an interesting story as well. I was always interested in integrative medicine or a holistic approach. And I think part of that holistic approach is one that understands our body's energy systems. I may not, with an MD background, I might not claim to be an absolute expert at that. But I think any practitioner really wants to see our whole being needs to understand that.

early in my career. I think I was the president of the complimentary and alternative medical medicine club for the year that we did that back in medical school. And so I began investigating, but I didn't really put it into practice in training. I got lost in the busyness of it all. And maybe it was just part of learning the craft, but none of it, none of the formal training.

We're very, very little included talking about energy or also a word I use for that is spirit or understanding our spiritual nature. There's indefinite connections with the language there. A couple people hinted at it, but we never really went into anything formal. I practiced in a very, I'll call it, traditional allopathic way for about

five years or so after graduating from residency programs of finishing training and I'm out practicing on my own. And particularly one of the things I want to talk about is not wanting to discount medicine and what it does. It's a very, very useful modality that many people need. And we're...

medicine or allopathic medicine or being an MD shines is in acute situations where people are really in an extreme situation, a broken bone or really things are really out of balance. Very powerful medications can help bring them back into balance and to do that quickly. And so it has its place, but I was discovering about that five years into practice that

Daniel Winkle (03:03.062)
using that for everything and every problem wasn't really working. And I had to have a moment at that point of practice of what am I doing? How am I applying myself? Is this really what I want to be doing? And I went into medicine to be helpful and to be of service and to help people be their best selves from a health perspective. And I felt like I really wasn't doing that. Just...

prescribing medications, there's a very small other things we were doing. And so I had a crisis point really, where I was so fed up with what I was doing, I had to, I began to physically get ill, and I've now understood it as my body and soul, spirit, inner self, giving me a signal, like, hey, you can go in a new direction. And for me, it came in the form of some challenges and struggles.

But through that, it caused me to stop what I was doing and begin to investigate the holistic approach, which includes the body's energy system. And that's at that point is when I became connected with the Center for Mind-Body Medicine. So that's an institution for population-wide trauma healing that was started by Dr. Jim Gordon, who was also an acupuncturist and has studied all kinds of different.

indigenous medicine and herbal medicines and just this huge wealth of knowledge and developed it to help people begin to understand the mind-body connection. And so we think of mind perhaps as closer to what we would think of as energy. And so you start noticing, you begin to train yourself to notice the connections between those energy systems, our mind and our body and how they're all interacting. But then once I began to do that,

I was doing something very similar at work, but at the same time, that new approach reinvigorated me and we started to help people get through problems that they couldn't get through otherwise. I'll tell you a story. I was working with somebody that had a stroke and had bladder problems and bladder spasms and they'd been to a urologist, which is a bladder specialist.

Daniel Winkle (05:19.63)
So they've been seeing me for other reasons. And I was talking with her and her caregiver and said, why don't we try some meditation for this? You've tried everything else, it's not working. I don't really have any other more medications to offer you. And explain how it works, our body stress system and how being chronically stressed. So I taught her autogenic training. And that's where you use phrases like my arms are heavy and warm.

I am at peace. My legs are heavy and warm. I am at peace. And I gave them a recording that I have on my website. And I said, practice this every night before bedtime for 20 minutes. And within a few, it took weeks, if not a month, but she came back and eventually was able to, stopped having, she went from like going to the restroom seven or eight times at nighttime.

down to just one or two, which would have been pretty normal for her age, and was able to come off the medication, which she couldn't tolerate anyhow because of side effects. That being able to do that and assist people in that way then reinvigorated myself. So it ended up being a win-win. And as I began to investigate more, I just have countless stories like that where people were stuck and reached the limits of what.

Western medicine can reach and then beginning to understand some of the deeper systems help push beyond those barriers.

Sue (06:51.858)
And when you say understand the deeper system, so we're tapping into the subconscious essentially when we kind of reach elsewhere for healing through like affirmations and things. Is that what that is?

Daniel Winkle (07:08.906)
Yeah, I mean, the subconscious, we're also altering, one of the things that we're doing is we're altering our subconscious too, because it contains a lot of programming, typically things that we pick up as children, you know, either through well-meaning parents or family systems, societal systems, that get stuck in there. Or sometimes it's...

the subconscious, a program is useful at one point, and a program we could also substitute the word beliefs. And then as we, you know, there's beliefs that we have as a child that are no longer useful for us as adults. And in a natural, in a healthy environment, those beliefs are coming and going, as we get to be adolescents, we start to shed those, and that's a normal development.

But when we don't and you're holding on to those that may be end up being very limited you know when you get to be 20 30 years old if it's something you needed while you were five and So with the cycle of that we can you can be get begin to change those So, you know for somebody with the example of that I was giving they may have had a belief or something in their subconscious that

they weren't at peace or that the world was not a safe place for them. And so beginning to use the autogenic phrases, I am at peace, my arms are heavy and warm. And that's getting in tapping with some of the energy systems of the body or the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, which is the automatic responses. But it's that phrase and that, you could call it an affirmation as well, is simply,

beginning to reprogram the subconscious. And then after we've put our conscious attention there, we could move it away from that and it'll just do its thing and begin to run that script in our body in its own way. Yeah.

Sue (09:18.058)
So let me ask you, help us understand this Dr. Dan. Like here's a hypothetical scenario that I'm sure you've seen so many times where you have a patient who's had some kind of injury and then maybe the mobility is limited or something from the injury. And from like a medical standpoint, a doctor may say, hey, okay, you might not be able to walk again or it's gonna be limited.

But I so often I read about this, I hear about this, where the patients like, oh, I was given this diagnosis, but I like rejected it and they're walking again, or they didn't accept that belief. So is that essentially what it is? They're giving themselves their own belief and healing through that.

Daniel Winkle (10:05.831)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Winkle (10:10.15)
Yes, and what I like to talk to people about, you know, if they've had some sort of injury, is, well, sometimes there are limitations. If somebody severs their spinal cord in half, there's certain things that, you know, we do have a kind of a hard stop or a physical limitation that we're just limited by it at this time that maybe can't be...

But at the same time, if there's even the tiniest bit of a nerve connection, there's studies now they're taking people to spinal cord injuries and if they have almost no movement, but the nerves are connected through putting somebody on like a treadmill when supporting their body weight and doing that every day for It's maybe I think about an hour but five days a week and they do this over long periods of time months if not years

These people can walk again. And I mean, these are like the tiniest twitch little movements. And so repetition and that's somebody that 50 years ago never would have had any chance of doing that. So they do play a role. Our ability of our body to regenerate when their structure is still attached is almost unbelievable. And beliefs begin to play a role in that. And what I like to tell people.

Because some people love to ask their doctors, am I going to get any better? Tell me what's going to happen. And what I tell people nowadays is, look, I don't really know what's going to happen to you. And I try to let them know in a way that's going to empower them of so much of your recovery is going to depend on you. If you go back home and you go back to maybe it's an addiction or heavy alcohol use and these abusive relationships and all

dysfunction, then that's going to impact your recovery. And, uh, but if you go home and you start looking for that, you begin to develop this healthy relationship with yourself and begin to move towards harmony and move towards peace in your body, that may be through connecting with meditation or your own energy, then your recovery is going to be very different. Uh, and, and the people that do that, they, they end up in a place and many people make full recoveries.

Daniel Winkle (12:30.474)
with when they're getting back into that. And so it's really about connecting to themselves, but at the same time, how somebody approaches that similar situation is gonna make a huge difference in their recovery.

Sue (12:51.079)
Mm-hmm. And now, you said something here about mindfulness, but then this other component is kind of its affirmations and based in belief. So how does mindfulness, how does that correlate to healing?

Daniel Winkle (13:10.646)
Yeah, mindfulness and self-awareness are huge parts of that. One of the things that's often keeping people from healing, and this has happened to myself in my own journey, is being outside of the present moment. If you get too far outside within our minds, usually it's worrying about something that has happened.

rehashing something traumatic that's happened in the past or if it gets too far in the future then oftentimes that's filled with worry and Healing has a lot to do with a personal sense of safety within our world when within our being and Some parts of that safety in our modern day are compromised by certain large-scale beliefs And one of those is in materialism

meaning that our consciousness comes from our physical being. And the idea of that being that when you're physical, we're all in bodies and we all know that these bodies are going to die. We don't stay in them forever. But when you think that your consciousness is tied to your body, it's a terrifying belief because that means that as your body dies, that that's the end of your being.

When we begin to understand the holistic perspective, part of restoring that safety is getting in touch with that larger part of ourself, you could call it our soul or energy, and really knowing. And it's also tied to intuition, intuitive self, or we can even think of the soul as being, if we're looking at gender roles or archetypes, it's a little bit more feminine as well.

we begin to get a sense of safety because that's the part of our being that's immortal and eternal. And in that realm, we are always completely self. There's nothing that can actually harm our being. And part of the journey to restoring that safety is getting in touch with that. And the way that mindfulness does that is that connection is happening in the present moment and it's always there.

Daniel Winkle (15:34.898)
And so as we're connecting with that present moment awareness and building that through the breath and Breath is also connected to that as well. So a lot of the mindfulness exercises Are getting in touch with breath and breath in many languages is spirit so inspiration and expiration are the

names for the cycles of the breath cycle or the names for the as we move breath in and out of our body, inspiration and expiration, they contain spirit, the word spirit. And so it's getting it's in that moment as we get in touch of breath, we're getting in touch with spirit and that spirit is the movement in and out of that energy in our bodies. So the mindfulness helps us connect to that.

Sue (16:24.386)
That is so fascinating. Now, wanting to go deeper with you, Dr. Dan, on the mindfulness component, we kind of touched on, talked about beforehand, mindfulness and gratitude you were mentioning, but also wanting to talk to you about mindfulness and creativity. So wherever you wanna start with us, talk to us about, I mean, maybe let's start with mindfulness and creativity, how that plays a role.

Daniel Winkle (16:52.678)
Yeah, yeah. The interesting parts is to think, we can go back to the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. He's pretty well known and he talked a lot about archetypes and metaphors. So understanding metaphor and even our bodies are metaphors. And so I touched a little bit about the male and

Daniel Winkle (17:22.866)
The feminine side, we think of more of the creative side from the, from the, under all creative in a way, but of creating new life and is perhaps more associated with the arts and that type of thing where the male mind or masculine mind could be more associated with logical, rational thinking, figuring out problems like how to launch a rocket so that it gets right to this precise point.

Daniel Winkle (18:04.304)
Oh, okay.

Daniel Winkle (18:09.582)
It shows it is recording on my end, but that's...

Weird.

Daniel Winkle (18:23.97)
Maybe we can just, if you want to reconnect and...

And we can just go back to the.

Sue (18:37.947)
Hi, okay, so now it's back on. Okay, so I'm just gonna wind back to what we were saying. So.

Daniel Winkle (18:43.338)
Let me just go back to the question I could start over. We can make it a cut point there, edit point.

Sue (18:53.231)
So Dr. Dan, talk to us about mindfulness and creativity, how those two come together.

Daniel Winkle (19:01.818)
Yeah, so yeah, they're definitely connected and the mindfulness piece and mindfulness is just defined as being mindful of what's happening in the moment. And so it's getting to in touch with the present moment. And one of the things that's coming to me is with creativity is that in the

Daniel Winkle (19:31.778)
uh, rebirthing itself anew from each moment. And so being mindful helps to connect to that renewal and that rebirth and that creativity that's present in every moment. Um, and the other thing is so oftentimes we, our society is really geared towards logical and rational thinking, almost our entire educational system is, is geared towards that.

And it's certainly, if we look at it, we talked a little bit about the medical system. It is a logical, rational, machine-like, that's a lot of people's complaints about it. They feel like a number, they're not feeling heard. And from a physician standpoint, most of the physicians are literally just following formulas of things. And it's very sort of robotic and out of touch with the creativity.

And what mindfulness does is it also helps to connect us to the uniqueness. So that's sort of the other side of the coin. And in the moment, we end up seeing our uniqueness and many of the other techniques also guide us inward. And so that's where we really realize our own uniqueness. For instance, if we're using this is this is a technique in

psychology that's very, very popular, guided imagery. Well, there's particular guided imagery is called a wise guide imagery. This is something that I use regularly, both for myself and for working with patients. And you use the images to get in touch with your own wise guide. And that guide can come in any form. It could be a being, it could be an animal, it could just be a presence, it could be a landscape or a tree or just a...

color, energy, and then you begin to ask it questions and listen for the answers within this relaxed state. And so then what happens is you begin to get in touch with yourself and this inner guide. And what that does is, in terms of creativity, is that gets you in touch with your own uniqueness. And the moments of life.

Daniel Winkle (21:53.626)
start looking different, even though there's a day and there's 24 hours and you might say, it's the same day. No, not really. When you're in the moment and you're getting connected with that inner creativity, it all begins to look unique, even though there's similarities in touch. So that really helps to get creative. And you also begin to get with your own inner guidance. And so you can start to see that.

Begin to stop worrying so much about what the other people are doing and perhaps even fitting in so much. And you just kind of own yourself as well. And that typically lists a better fulfillment and higher happiness too by combining all those elements.

Sue (22:37.691)
That is so powerful and something I've never heard or even thought of and put in the way you put it, but just on this deeper level, this idea of, like you say, being in the moment, it awakens renewal, right? Cause when we're not in the moment, like you say, we're in the past, we're worried about this, we're worried about the future, but being, it's really like a deeper form of flow state almost.

Daniel Winkle (23:04.398)
Mm hmm. Yeah, an interesting word and one that I've explored is one called ambito. I did a whole workshop on it with one of the other guests you've had on your show, Serge Granbois and Chris. But it's associated with melancholy, but also deep mindfulness and melancholy. We have phases in our lives. So I'm working on a writing piece right now. And

It was called the winter of the soul. And our lives have different cycles, and those cycles follow nature cycles. And nature is a huge symbol for renewal. If somebody is struggling to perhaps connect with that creativity or that sense of safety, going out into nature is incredibly healing. And just watching and observing.

And another technique for with that with energy is just to feel the feeling tones and try and connect with the emotions of nature. And also there's rejuvenating feelings. So one thing that somebody can do as well prior to bedtime or upon awakening is to just simply request from either using an affirmation to get in touch with those renewing energies.

and rejuvenating feelings and emotions. There may be ones that we don't really have a whole lot of names for right now, but they're super healing. And that ambito state, that relaxed state, that even maybe has a hint of melancholy or sadness, it's just slow and our bodies need to experience that slowness at times. I mean, the way we live our lives and the industrial societies, go, buy stuff.

It's not very fulfilling. And we need to have these times. If you watch, I'm in the Bay Area and so the winter is different here, but there's still, if you go to the more Northern climates where there's the snow and this really slow period, our minds and bodies need this as well. So sometimes what we may even refer to as depression can be our bodies, one mind's way of saying slow down, stop.

Daniel Winkle (25:26.13)
And if you just embrace that slowness and use it to really get deep into a state of peace, then you break up patterns. And winter is preparing the earth for spring, you know, for the new stuff. So the slowness is to get into that peace, to get into that hibernation within our minds. And then you're preparing yourself usually for big changes. So these periods will come.

right before times where there's going to be major change or major growth. Mindfulness is one way to see these cycles within yourself. You have to be mindful of them for a couple of reasons. One, there's not many people running around teaching each other about these things. For some of us, maybe, and I'll say it on the leading edge of things, it may be up to us to be mindful and recognize them and then to move forward and

Perhaps teach others about it as well.

Sue (26:28.447)
I love that. That is so insightful. Now talk to us about mindfulness and gratitude. Gratitude is one of those things everyone I feel like it gets kind of thrown around so loosely. Everyone's like, oh, start a gratitude journal, but give us the insights on mindfulness and gratitude.

Daniel Winkle (26:47.538)
Yeah, sure. And one of the things I want to dispel too is, because this is something I said, there's the idea of, I don't love the term, but toxic positivity. I think it's a, a mismatch, it's kind of a misnomer, but anyhow, the idea being if you're really mad, and genuinely that's how you're feeling at that moment, you have to express that.

And so the idea and what I recommend for people is if you're not getting the gratitude and you're not in the mindfulness is a piece that what are you feeling in that moment if that's anger and let it out punch pillows go you know play a video game or something briefly or yell or run as fast as you can and get your heart rate go and do something to get that out exhaust yourself and then you know maybe take a few moments to meditate.

and then notice the gratitude. So it's about acknowledging where you're at, expressing that, and then moving towards it. Because then you can get into that genuine, the feeling tone. If it's overcome by something else, it's very difficult to connect with. But then once you do, it connects too with what we talked about with nature and renewal. The gratitude,

is that nourishment, it's that renewal. And so as you'd see that within nature, that's giving us a reflection of what's happening within ourselves as we watch the cycles of nature and the sort of beauty of mother nature. And so you may, by being grateful for that, you can kind of see how those cycles are playing out in your own life. And then the gratitude is just gonna help you just be more mindful of that. And...

and the more you focus on it, the easier it is to then see. But I recommend if you're not seeing it, then clear it out. Don't necessarily hold on to that. Clear it out and then look for it, and then you'll be a lot more successful.

Sue (28:56.043)
Mm hmm. And can you give us some something else there, Dr. Dan, with that? Like, where does one begin to kind of start sitting? Because this is obviously a big struggle for people, right? Sitting with the discomfort. That's like the resistance piece that, you know, so many people just kind of avoid. But inevitably, things come up. So what are your insights? What is your guidance there for that?

Daniel Winkle (29:25.13)
So I like to, I don't, sitting with the discomfort is not the word I would use. I like the, it's a cycle. It's called awareness, expression and relaxation. Um, and so mindfulness, mindfulness is involved in all three, all three, uh, parts of the cycle, um, that it helps you get awareness, it helps you to express and it helps you to relax. Uh, so it's, it plays a role in all three of those, but the first is, is to become aware.

Become aware of what's happening in your body and your mind. And it's that you may need to just sit with. That may be where you get to sit with it for a moment, but that it's necessary. But it's to just gain awareness of how you're feeling. And if you want to feel in a different way, the way is to express it for an artist that may be to make a sculpture or to write a piece of music about it, or as writers to write a piece to sort of...

Let that out in physical ways. That may be the expression, maybe the exercise, the expression, maybe the screaming and hitting pillows. It may be something called shaking and dancing that I learned from the center for mind, body medicine. Um, and to, to express it and it, you may need to express it in innumerable different ways. Uh, that's another mindfulness piece. How do I need to express this?

in this moment and then check back in with yourself. How are you feeling? You might notice that your energy has shifted and that may come in the form of your feelings or your emotions or feeling tones. And so emotions, you know, energy and motion is our expression and understanding of, you know, our energy system in a way that we humanly

Humanly, is that a good word? Humanly translated. So then getting back into that, and then it's relaxation. And so when we were talking earlier about the gratitude piece, usually I know when I'm watching my own cycles or working with somebody else, we get into the relaxation phase after it's been expressed, and then boom, you may be hit with tears of gratitude or the lower burden or just a deep sense of peace where that feels natural.

Daniel Winkle (31:42.322)
You kind of watch for that cycle and see where you're at. But the gratitude piece usually comes from after we've expressed something. And then over time, as you practice this more, I'll say the amount of built-up, stuck energy, if you're just doing it regularly, the amount of negative or difficult stuff that you may have to express goes significantly down over time.

or even the expression of it might be not even be uncomfortable. It might be something that's fun or playful. You're still expressing it. You're still getting it out. But it's the buildup of it has gone down over time. And so it's sitting with the discomfort to if perhaps you haven't practiced this and you're just getting started, it may be like a floodgate getting open to that. That was involved as we go back to the beginning of the podcast.

That was what had happened to me. I had held things in for 30 some years, not really expressing them, trying to tough it out, be positive, all of these types of things. But I'd held on to all this negative stuff. And when I began to open it up, then there was just so much there, it was so intense. So that's something to just be aware of. And then what I'd recommend for folks is if they're starting that, have a guide, have somebody to guide them through the process that somewhere where perhaps I had failed,

Maybe I did at the same time, but hadn't built a strong enough system of people to really understand what was happening. So that you get that support system and begin to express those things and do it in a way that feels right for you.

Sue (33:28.363)
Now the mind body connection, can you give us some practical tips for those listening people at home? Because sitting in stillness, I think is so hard for so many people. But what is, is there something really practical, easy place for people to start with learning to kind of tap in and get more quiet?

Daniel Winkle (33:54.906)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so a couple things. This happens to a lot of people. It happens even if you've been meditating for 10, 20 years every day. There's going to be times. And typically, these are times when those big changes are coming. There might be a lot of energy. There might be a lot of agitation. And sometimes I think that's happening.

because we're pointing our energy and ideas in the old system that's being broken down And it causes this kind of restlessness a very practical thing to do is to do something very physical That could be running and I could be lift some weights that could be you know intensive yoga What whatever that means there's a great

program from the Center for Mind Body Medicine, it's called Shaking and Dancing. So those are ancient techniques that are modern adaptations of some really ancient techniques based on yoga that anybody can do. But what you might notice though, as you do that, then afterwards you kind of move your body to exhaustion. Do it as hard and as fast as you can.

then try to sit down and do maybe the more silent meditation, the concentrated meditation, focusing on your breath. I know for me, that it works 90% of the time. So it's to do that and do the physical activity with mindfulness, be completely present with it. You know, notice what's happening in your body. Try not to get lost in your thoughts and really push and then come back to it.

Daniel Winkle (35:49.414)
A lot of times our fight or flight response, our stress responses build up and it builds up adrenaline. And what happens when you do that vigorous physical activity, it burns off the adrenaline and that lets us begin to get back into that mode of being peaceful and sit with that. So there's all kinds of different ways, but to do something very vigorous and to burn that off.

Sue (36:17.256)
And now, Dr. Dan, what are we, is there more stuff we're learning about mindfulness, mindfulness practice? What are you hearing or how is that evolving?

Daniel Winkle (36:31.082)
Hmm. Well, I think the evolution of it is learning how do we integrate it into modern lives. It's been around for a long time. And the interesting thing is, we're not going to go back to necessarily living like we did 2000 years ago or something like that.

We have all of this technology and all of these different things that have come from logical, rational, industrial type thinking, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but it needs to be balanced with the inner work and the inner awareness and getting in touch with other parts of our being and our experience.

Daniel Winkle (37:27.782)
throwing away what we've done or what's happening with our civilization or society, but integrating into it. And how do we bring these into balance? And I think that's what we're going to see over the coming times, is how to do that. I don't know what that's going to look like yet. I know how I've been able to do it and what I'm working on and really enjoy talking with other people. I think it's fascinating.

uh... to see but i think that'll be the evolution of what we do with it or how do how do we understand that from this perspective

Sue (38:03.227)
And what, you know, for you personally, like your spiritual evolution and this journey, can you talk to us on a personal level about this, how that's going, how that's evolving and how that's going to continue to evolve for you?

Daniel Winkle (38:24.79)
Yeah, sure. I know we've even had some discussions about this on medium and I knew I'd been talking about it. But for me, it's owning our, it's something that's coming up for you too, owning my uniqueness. So for me, I've been working on developing writing. And for me, that's a way of, that's how I've been doing that expression. When there's something that needs to be let out, I've been using that as a medium to do that.

Uh, and also, I guess part of it is, is becoming in that uniqueness. If we do want to challenge a system or to change a system, the change happens within ourselves. And so for me, it's getting comfortable with, uh, change, making that change within ourselves. Like you can't actually change a system as one person. I think that's why some people are getting very frustrated.

You change yourself, change how you interact with the system. And I think there's a tendency, and I've had this tendency to, you know, if I want to change medicine or how it's being practiced, I got to go be a hermit and go have my own clinic and be off in some metaphorical mountain somewhere. But the real work's going to happen from within. And that comes from just being ourselves. But it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do that. There's the...

monkey effect, you know, once 100 people, once 100 of them have changed, that change starts happening for everybody. But I think it's hard to be the first or second monkey, you know, wanting to make that particular change. And so sometimes owning that uniqueness takes a lot of courage and confidence. So it comes back to though our conversations of knowing from within. So if you can connect to that.

inner guidance and this is something I spend my personal journey I spend an hour or two or more almost every day making sure I'm connected to that either through meditation doing a lot of journaling and making sure getting in touch with those particular messages and then do I like to do little experiments too Sue so we can do little experiments with our own self of

Daniel Winkle (40:49.178)
Well, hey, what if I go and do this for a week or two weeks or a month? How do I feel what's happening? Um, and be able to look at that, like you might do a little science experiment, but to be experiment, experimenting with our own inner experience. So I'm gaining the ability to, to do that and, and consider these observations valid. And then the more I've done that. Then.

I'd be like, okay, I can own that uniqueness because I know it's working. Because I can know how I feel and then say, well, I feel more fulfilled, I feel better. I'm feeling more joy when I go to work every day. And so as I get in more in touch with that, then it's not so hard to own that uniqueness because it's connected, you feel better.

And I feel better. So that's kind of been my process of doing that, but still feels a little weird from time to time. Like, what the heck are you doing? You know? So it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of, and those are old voices and old programs that what I'll also do is sometimes have a conversation with that. You know, I might notice that that's my nine-year-old self.

sending me that message. And so maybe in my mind, I might sit down with that self and imagine they're in a chair and what do they have to say? What do they come to tell me? And so it's a little bit of my process and making sure that I'm getting in touch with all those different parts of myself.

Sue (42:24.007)
That is so powerful, Dr. Dan. I absolutely love that. This idea of, so can you give us an example? I'm like putting you on the spot here, but like an experiment, something that we could start doing out there in the world that's going to give us some deeper awareness or insight or help us kind of hack away at that old programming or those old self-limiting beliefs.

Daniel Winkle (42:48.71)
Yeah. So the first step is mindful in a domain. Let's go back to mindfulness. So get into that where I'm accepting or say to yourself, I'm accepting this present moment and whatever it's going to bring. And and be curious. Curiosity is so key. We live in a time where there's so much judgment. And so, you know, I'm going to be curious about the results rather than judge the results

changing programming that probably is thousands of years old, that this doesn't just come from ourselves, or even childhood. These are ideas that have been around for a long time. So they've probably been repeated tens of thousands of times. So start with giving yourself some grace. It's gonna take some more repetition of another kind to begin to change that. And there's a concept within mindfulness of the beginner's mind. Take on the beginner's mind. I'm always a beginner.

And that connects back to what we said earlier with nature, looking at nature and renewal. It's always beginning at every moment. So get connected with that and then come up with the experiment. It could be going back to the cycles of awareness, expression and relaxation. Say, I'm going to move through this cycle. I'm going to be mindful of it and let's see what happens. These experiments don't need to be big. They can be going into

Just 15 minutes and let me move into the cycle and see what happens. And feeling tones and emotions are also important. So if you're going to do we'll use shaking and dancing for example. So you become aware that you're agitated. You can't sit in meditation. You're not feeling peaceful. You're feeling threatened. Then shake your body, dance a little bit. And there's a whole sequence with that.

And express it in that way and then get into the relaxation phase and then grab your journal You grab your journal or if you're not doing a process in that way Just take a moment and process it and say how did it go? What what happened were there any changes and if they're if there were and you like them then say that okay That's something I can do the next time. I feel that way or that I'm noticing. I'm getting into that

Daniel Winkle (45:09.85)
in a fearful state or things like that. So those are the little mini experiments. And they don't have to cost any money. You don't have to have any special tools just to be using your own mind and your own experience.

Sue (45:24.283)
That is really great. And now tell us, Dr. Dan, what is on the horizon for you? What's up? What are your plans for 2024? What can we expect? I know you're working on a book. When is that gonna be out? Can you fill us in on some of that?

Daniel Winkle (45:42.498)
Yeah, well, I don't know the honest answer is I don't know. And part of that is getting in touch with that renewal of when it's there, it's there and I work on it. And, and so it'll get there. But I think the primary focus for me, I've really had been enjoying writing on medium right now. And so I'm working on smaller articles and little pieces with that.

and also a new video series on the Eagles Eye Healing website where we're going to be talking about three, each of you has got three words, love, creativity, and collaboration. So myself and others are going to be talking about how their work or how their life has connected them to those three particular words. So it's going to be an interesting series. So it'll be on there and YouTube. And continuing my own experiments at work, I still work in a hospital.

started to do more teaching through UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco Joint Medical School. So teaching some of these things to younger physicians and people, you know, people getting in their training. And so you're getting people used to some of these new ideas. So I'm enjoying that. And it's still working with patients too. Those are all little experiments. Each time we work with one of those. Then

just begin to get more information about how all of these techniques work and how our own and my own energy system, body system and how that all comes together.

Sue (47:22.683)
So Dr. Dan, I have to commend you. Your response to the book question is so perfect and so amazing and it speaks volumes to your own spiritual evolution. Because so often, and it's never about putting people on the spot, but so often I ask people this and they're like, oh, I'm working on it and it's almost done and you can tell they're really kind of stressed out and they've put this kind of like firm timeline.

down for themselves where they feel like they got to have it done or that's the new year's resolution. But I love how you're just like at peace with, hey, it's going to happen when it happens. And I just, I love that. I love that response. I think that's so wonderful. So that just speaks volumes to your mindfulness around all of the creativity and everything you're doing.

A couple of things first and foremost, I just want to thank you again so much for your time today. You've been so awesome. I'm going to have links to your stuff for people. And yeah, I just thank you. And now in closing, if there were just one message, your hope for everybody, what is that closing message you want to leave us with?

Daniel Winkle (48:37.41)
Yeah, so I have so much to say all the time. And so this is a hard one for me to dig it into one thing. But that message would be to.

Daniel Winkle (48:53.374)
Notice your own cycles, that everything in life is cyclical. And just to begin to do that and in the way of understanding that you have an inner being and that's always supporting you. And one of the ways to get in touch with that is noticing these particular cycles.

That's the source of your own uniqueness. And so look for in your experience the ways that that's showing up for you. And if it feels right, share about it too, because there's lots of other people that could benefit from that. So look for those occurrences, keep your eyes open and stay connected because that inner being and that part of yourself really is weaved together with something we could call love, which I think we have a very

perhaps rudimentary understanding of what that really is, but I do think that's what it is. And so stay connected that, and if there are difficult things, then move through them and try the expression techniques and get reconnected with that inner set part and get flowing again.

Sue (50:12.143)
Another amazing conversation. You've offered us so much wisdom and so many practical takeaways. You've been so wonderful, Dr. Dan. Thank you so much.

Daniel Winkle (50:22.106)
Oh thanks Sue for having me, always a pleasure.

Sue (50:25.767)
Thank you.