Fasting Space

Happy Martin Luther King Jr day to you.

I hope you're well. Welcome to fasting space.

So nice to have you here.

I thought, honestly, you know, our whole process,
what we're moving toward

trying to move toward health and wholeness in,

the most powerful way possible.

I thought on this day we'd lean into some words
from, Doctor King.

Try to hear his perspective a little bit on health.

Turns out health was pretty central to a lot of his, message.

And not just health care,
but in the bigger picture about the whole person, wellness.

And so we dive back in here a little bit into,

some of the context that he was operating in.

Do some reflecting on where we have,

come in the intervening time and think about what,

do these things mean for our current situation,
both in the big picture of being a human

being here in this moment
and then being as healthy as possible, both in ourselves

and then on a day like this, our society,
our relationships with, everyone.

I thought the first thing to try to do.

I spent yesterday a good chair of yesterday.

I was just reading, you know, essays, speeches,

listening to Doctor King thinking about, health.

Thinking about, health and wholeness.

And I had honestly,
this is an aspect I had never really, come across before.

Is that at the time, in the mid 60s, okay, mid 60s,

one of the first speeches
I read was, Doctor King's, Nobel Peace

Prize acceptance speech, 64 US hospitals.

So think of our health care system.

We're thinking of health.

Health care.

Hospitals were primarily segregated.

And I didn't even realize this.

I mean, I went through an entire medical education.

I didn't realize, that even as late as the mid 60s, segregated

wings, racially segregated sections of hospitals.

I can't I just
I was having a really hard time honestly reading it.

The facts that I brought up the Hill Burton Act 1946 allowed

federal funding for segregated facilities.

Have you heard of this clause before? Separate but equal.

A separate but equal cause of this act allowed federal funding

to even fund construction of,
like dedicated segregated hospitals.

Led to the construction of H shaped hospitals, distinct wings

for white and black patients.

Despite, this construction intention quality not equal.

So, Wow.

You know, as someone I spend a lot of my life in a hospital,
you know, I say,

I guess I can imagine
I can't try to imagine it, but it's just terrible.

It really is terrible.

And so that is the atmosphere that Doctor King is coming
to, you know, and we're going to read some health quotes

and, and think about promoting health
and flourishing of all people.

This is the type of, environment that he is operating in.

Is really something to see.

So I was curious just to look at the timeline.

All right.

Our health experience here in America, health care in America.

Like, it's not so long ago that we had something like that.

How is the timeline that we got,

you know, out of that part of it?

And, Doctor King, extensively responsible,
helping the movement.

You know, leading the movement to end that practice.

Civil Rights Act of 1964
legally outlawed racially segregated hospitals.

But apparently there is no real enforcement of it until 1966.

Medicare passed 1965,
and it was through the implementation of Medicare

that that actually the federal government actually

enforced, the elimination of segregated hospitals.

So any hospital is receiving Medicare funding

required to comply with civil rights Act.

And the federal government hired thousands of people

to go into hospitals and audit and observe
and ensure that this stopped.

And so within one year, by 1967, almost all,

segregation was ended in hospitals.

So I just
I think this is kind of, An amazing, I don't know, framing,

you know, of our discussion just of health
and think about health of society.

You know, a big thing that I've tried to communicate
on this channel that we're moving toward is like.

Taking the pressure off of ourselves in many ways.

And one way to realize, you know,
obviously we have so much dis health in society today,

so many, people struggling, metabolic health, chronic disease.

This is especially what I'm trying to, move toward.

And think of our body mirroring society.

This is a big thing that is happening.

And when we look at the deep history of this, the trauma

that, has been experienced, the incredible division,

You think about, you know, then the health system,

how the health system has been part of that.

Do you see how the health system itself, then has been

a reflection of the pathology of society?

And then we can see that our body, in fact,
we are just part of this larger collective.

And and I really do believe that that, that the dis health

in the body, in large measure
also is a mirror of the culture in the society that we're in.

And this is why I think a day like this
is really good to think about.

What is the pathology that is happening in society,

how are we mirroring that and how can we change it.

And and this is what I want the most a deep healing process

that is like heat bringing healing to ourselves.

And through that process,
healing to society is, The vision that I would,

see and I think we're going to read through some of Doctor
King here, too.

I think, I think that's is at least part of his vision.

Rapid transformation over that you're described

is described in the healthcare system as the quiet revolution.

It just went away. Man.

So I thought I would read a little bit of,

Doctor King's, Nobel Prize, speech.

So 1964, I think.

And he's like the first part of his speech.

He's kind of musing like from his perspective, like,
compared to what needs to be done.

We have accomplished so little on
how is it that I am standing here getting this award?

I mean, really what happened by
that point was already incredible.

But but he's like so much to do.

But then he goes on, after contemplation,
I conclude that this award,

which I receive on behalf of the movement,

is a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer

to the crucial political and moral question of our time,

which I would argue is still the question of our time.

Like everything he said, I think so relevant

to our present moment, a crucial political
and moral question of our time, the need for man to overcome

oppression and violence
without resorting to violence and oppression.

Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts.

Negro's of the United States,
following the people of India, have demonstrated

that nonviolence is not sterile passivity,

but a powerful moral force
which makes for social transformation.

Sooner or later, all the people of the world
will have to discover a way to live together in peace,

and therefore transform this pending

cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.

If this is to be achieved,
man must evolve for all human conflict, a method

with which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation.

The foundation of such a method is love.

So obviously me just reading through it has only,

1/1000 of the power of,

listening to this incredible orators, read it.

If you're inspired by those words, just go look it up.

His Nobel acceptance speech.

Just incredible to listen to him speak such passion
and and just as incredible.

But these words to me are beautiful. I've.

I've done a couple of our live sessions.

Focus. Like, is love the answer. Right.

And then as just an open question
as to say like to everything basically.

And I have I generally feel that it is even in health

when we get it really into these deepest levels of health,
which I think where is where he is

going, like, can we really be truly healthy as a society
if we don't have love for people?

And if we are as a society that we are part of,
if we are experiencing hatred and animosity, war, violence,

every horrific, thing like, can we be truly healthy?

Like actually.

And isn't health. We've talked about that so much.

The social determinants of health
that everything outside of the health care system

that affects health, actually,
as like over 80% of what determines

whether a person is healthy,
a lot of these ideas came from Doctor King.

He was one of the first people to really advance, these ideas

that health is so much bigger
that, yes, people shouldn't be denied

access to the health care system,
but but that health expands so much beyond that.

Well, there's the foundation of that here.

Elaborates later in that same speech, he says.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love

will have the final word in reality.

I hope so.

This is why, right?

Temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts

and waning bullets,
there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I believe that wounded justice, laying prostate on the blood

flowing streets of our nations
can be lifted from this dust of shame.

To reign supreme among the children of man.

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere
can have three meals a day for their bodies, education

and culture, for their minds and dignity and equality
and freedom for their spirits.

Such a beautiful speech.

So love is the foundation of health.

Love is the foundation of the way of being in the world.

I feel like that's what he was trying to teach us
and show us that this is the foundational, thing.

And just giving a mirror, giving a mirror to society

and saying,
we are definitely not living up to a great vision like that.

You say, especially in 1964.

And how about today?

You know, is it is it that much different?

You know, when we think of social determinants of health,
I bring it into our health space here.

Now, you know, I was thinking, you know, when I read that like

three meals a day for the body, you know,
we sit here on a health channel, weight loss channel.

I talk to people about, okay, you know,
we don't actually need to eat all the time.

We're trying to bring consumption
into a place that balances things out.

The thing that I was thinking about in this, space, though,

is, is just finding this line of like,

you know, where he is going with
it is like the idea that in such a,

a nation of what we see is wealth, financial resources,

that people don't have access to three meals, a day.

I mean, it's
just the idea that this basic human needs not being met.

And I totally, resonate 100%,
with that look, back in the channel,

you know, I talked about, a lot about,
you know, using fasting as a tool

to bring our attention to people who don't have the,
the just the basic necessities of life.

Can we, from a position, of great privilege to that

all the food that I want to eat,
can we use that space to channel some of that resources

if we're cutting back on that to help support people in
need in our area

here in my community, Dane County in Wisconsin,

over 20% of families food insecure right here now, 2026.

And send it to me to get into our health space is like
really touching right into that basic, part of health.

Very hard to be healthy
if you know someone is malnourished, for example.

And so we're trying to find the middle space on one end.

We have the difficulty of malnourishment.

And and that tragedy and an injustice in a society

is so wealthy, wealthy and financial resources,
but not in spirit.

Right. We have a poverty of spirit.

I think he gets into that.

And then on the other side, at the same time,
we're struggling with poverty and malnutrition.

We have over nutrition,
and we're struggling with an obesity epidemic.

So big thing that I'm trying to talk about, maybe we
I might talk, you know, more about it.

How do we bring both of these extremes into balance in a place
we're trying to bring everything into balance, both

in our body and in society,
so that everyone has the nutrition that they need,

and everybody has the understanding of

how do we get out of this place of over nutrition
that is also bringing

disease is, it's also an injustice to teach people

who are struggling with weight
that they have to keep consuming in order to be healthy.

As to me, that's injustice and it drives people into diabetes.

It is actually killing people. Really, really awful.

Listen to what, you know,
I wish, of course, that Doctor King were with us.

Now, I wish we could hear him weigh in on all these things
right now, but we can go back to his, words.

In 1966, he gave a speech,

before the medical community for Human rights,

which I think was is part of the AMA at the time.

This is what he says of all the forms of inequality,

injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman.

And I just come in here,
I was reading through different quotes.

Lots of people, misquote, him on this.

My understanding is
this is the correct quote, injustice in health.

Most people will say health care because people

trying to twist it into a political process
about our health care system.

And, and he was such a bigger thinker
that health is so much bigger than health care.

I believe that.

And people change his word inhuman into inhumane and inhumane.

If you think about it, is like an action that people can take
that may be as bad, okay,

but inhumane is such a bigger word or is like,
you're not even a human acting in this way.

It's just like so his statement,
that real statement is so powerful.

Of all the forms of inequality,
injustice in health is the most shocking

in the most inhuman,
because it often results in physical death.

I see no alternative to a direct action
and creative nonviolence

to raise the consciousness of the nation.

Conscience, raise the conscience of the nation.

We don't have, segregated

hospitals today, thank God, but we have a lot of injustice,

and we have a lot of inequality,
and we have a lot of suffering that is inflicted on people.

In many ways that are actually leading to people dying
and having great morbidity.

You know, and say as an aspiration in 2026 and Martin

Luther King Jr Day, I say it shouldn't be the case.

Something it should not be the case.

You know, we've heard already in some of these,
passages at the big

the the way that King operated in the world was through
nonviolent action.

And, you know, he referenced in his Nobel speech

the, experience in India,
the movement that Gandhi led, the I read,

this is a few years ago, but I read an anthology of Gandhi's
writings and Gandhi's thinking.

You know, people don't know this,
but Gandhi was in the military.

Gandhi, considered my understanding.

I'm not a Gandhi scholar. I read one book. Okay.

You know, he considered whether he would take his military
understanding to lead, you know,

like an actual conflict, like of an uprising.

Revolution.

My understanding is that Gandhi rejected the idea of pacifism.

That that just that a, someone who rejected outright
the use of violence.

His view, I think, of himself,
was that he passed through that understanding

and realizing
that you have to come to a place that you're willing to fight

for things of value that you care about,
but that it's actually the higher level,

not that we're retreating in weakness,
but that the actually the ultimate power,

the most powerful resistance,
is actually nonviolence to pass through.

Like the righteous understanding
of fighting for what you believe in.

And then from that place of strength, right,
that you're not afraid to die,

even that you're not afraid to encounter
hardship and brutality coming on you.

Right?

To to do what Gandhi did, to do
what King did right is ultimately right.

But cost both of these people their lives right

and not trying to defend themselves.

And yet they were successful through that.

That's the spirit,
I think, of Doctor King giving us an incredible example

for like, this moment, that spirit,
can we pass through that place?

Can we use that as a mirror for the conflict in our society,
the dis health in this society?

How powerful.

Look at the inequality that we have just in health now.

Of course, health just one subset
then of the whole situation socioeconomic like everything.

Nonviolence. Leaning into love.

The king would always use the word brotherhood.

I think through this metaphor,
this kind of what I was thinking.

Okay, like passing through a stage
to get to something more powerful.

You know, I was thinking, I.

Of course, you can imagine, as I was reading the Nobel speech,

you know, as keyed in on that phrase,
like three meals a day for everybody.

I talked so much on channel meal frequency.

How do we help everybody?

You know, I definitely believe there's no one size fits
all dietary plan that is perfect for everybody.

That's why I like the use of a dial right?

When dialing in, the amount of food, the meal frequency,
you know, how much exercise, all these things.

We want to bring balance and health to people.

And of course, someone who is malnourished
might need to eat six, seven times a day.

Okay.

And somebody who is over
nourished want to dial that kind of back.

But like this idea,
like Gandhi passing through one phase to get to the other.

I think when we are talking about the the social inequality,

the things it's like we can't talk about like, okay,

dial back and, you know, eat twice a day
until you have the option of eating three times a day.

You know what I mean?

That's what I think.

Like it's the only thing that makes sense.

Everybody needs the opportunity.

We need to be stamping out like this.

The lack of basic human needs is

is probably like a higher priority.

I think it is.

Then, and solving even this other process,
how do we bring it down from the other side?

I hope we can find a way to strike that balance.

Here's a little section I want to bring to you.

1967, Doctor King delivered a speech

to the American Psychological Association.

He's basically challenging people.

He is like a lot of the what what you see yourself doing here,
you know,

psychologist is like helping people
adjust to to systems as a society.

Okay.

And he's like,
the problem is that you think this society is normal.

And he's like, we need a new idea of what normalcy is.

And to me, I love this.

I've I've talked about this concept a number of times, like,
and this is true today or it's true that true back then.

Like this is not a healthy culture.

Therefore it's not a normal culture.

Like what
we aren't experiencing that normal is not healthy is not good.

Just telling people to adjust to it.

That's not what we need to be doing, he said. Managing them.

For example, no one should be
well adjusted to racial discrimination, to religious bigotry,

to the madness of militarism like, don't adjust to that.

He coined this term I love this.

What he says in this is creative maladjustment.

This was his, process.

I love this this is his proposal.

Okay, he says thus, it may well be that

our world is in dire need of a new organization,

the International Association
for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment.

How do you like that?

I love that.

Men and women should be as maladjusted
as the prophet Amos, who,

in the midst of the injustices of his day,

could cry out in words that echo across the centuries,

let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream.

Or as now, adjusted as Abraham Lincoln,
who in the midst of his vacillations,

finally came to see that this nation could not survive
half slave and half free.

Or as maladjusted as Thomas Jefferson, who,
in the midst of an age

amazingly adjusted to slavery,
could scratch across the pages of history.

Words lifted to cosmic proportions.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.

That they are endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights,

and that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness.

That through such creative maladjustment,

we may be able to emerge from the bleak

and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man.

Into the bright
and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

I say a toast to that.

Let's move toward that.

Wanted to share, just a little.

Bringing us into our present moment here.

Share an image with you.

Some writing.

from Northwestern Medicine
about the current state of metabolic health in the US today.

Just something that I, of course think a great deal about.

Black adults in the US is 60% more likely than white adults
to be diagnosed with diabetes.

It's like the end game of our metabolic dysfunction.

Twice as likely to die from diabetes, a study

by Northwestern Medicine found that biological risk

factors for diabetes, such as BMI, glucose, blood

pressure, accounted for most of the health disparities
within black communities.

I'll tell you, I'm just bringing that up
because you'll hear so often, people say, oh, this is genetic.

There's some sort of genetic inferiority,
which I cannot stand that argument.

I do not believe it.

If it was ever proven to be true,
I would have great difficulty accepting it.

Maybe we could, but I'll just tell you, I.

I do not believe that people in racial and ethnic minority
communities are most affected by diabetes

because they're more likely to live in under-resourced
neighborhoods,

factors called social determinants of health,
which Doctor King

was one of the first to bring to our nation's attention

like poverty, lack of access to healthy food,

restrictions on safe physical activity, inadequate employment,
and limited

educational opportunities
resulting in negative health outcomes for communities.

This is summing up the whole situation.

The broader picture of health that we we want

our black and brown communities
more likely to have an abundance of fast food restaurants

and markets stocked with unhealthy processed foods,

as opposed to our white counterparts,
where there tend to be a greater number

of stores and markets with abundance of fresh fruits
and vegetables, says Doctor Bell.

At northwestern, a lack of access to healthy, nutritious foods

results in poor health outcomes. Yes.

Doctor Bell says there is a critical
need to acknowledge health inequalities,

seek a greater understanding to address them.

Deeply rooted social inequities

that have existed since times of slavery that you can see

flowed through that 60s as just in
the 60s were segregated hospitals.

Every individual deserves an equal opportunity to try

and live a healthy, full, productive life.

That's life.

Liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

That's like the foundational principle of this country, right?

When equal opportunity is not given to a class of persons
based on the color of their skin,

or I say for any other reason, this leads to social inequities
and health disparities.

And that that is the situation of America in 2020.

Six for sure.

So as we move toward it,
I say good health starts with ourselves.

We use all this here. We need to build.

You know, we have ultimate responsibility for ourself.

We can be overwhelmed sometimes. I know I can feel that way.

We have huge issues in society, can feel

overwhelming to approach them and

and so many of these issues like
like we have talked over the fall.

We see roots of the current metabolic,

crisis that we have in our country
stemming all the way back into the Industrial revolution.

We traced that thread all the way back and then,

you know, think as we dig deeper, okay, we dig down,

we see just back into the 60s, segregated hospitals,
and then it's not too far back

and all of a sudden
we're heading back into slavery in this country.

And then we can keep digging, you know, in the whole thread

of the human experience that has has led us to this moment.

And so the you know, the question is,
how do we move forward now

with eyes wide open and hearts open and trying to say, like,

we know we want a healthier, better world for everyone, right?

It starts with ourselves to make ourselves
as healthy as possible.

When our health is overflowing out,
we are spreading that out to our friends and family,

our communities, and we're just radiating out the health,

radiating out the love and positive energy.

I believe that that is at the root of what,
Doctor King was trying to do.

So I end my little reflection of, Doctor
King on health with two,

two quotes from him is both,
I think both coming from the same speech.

Yeah.

To the American Psychological Association, 1967.

He says expediency.

Ask the questions.

Is it politic?

Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

conscience must ask the question, is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a stand
that is neither safe

nor politic, nor popular,
but one must take it because it is right.

And it's where I find myself today.

Says at the same time, injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

So I say, let us move boldly in that direction,

standing up for, truth

justice, love between people.

That is my, MLK, message.

Do it from a place of love and nonviolence, using,

his beautiful, practice as, a method.

I say health should be the priority.

Not wealth, not politics, not status, not anything else.

Just try to have healthy communities, bringing

love and light, everywhere that we can.

And, to me, I say we can all dream together, right?

That's his, dream that we move beyond so many of,

these divisions, that have, separated us

in the past, realize ultimately Brotherhood. Right?

That's what he used.

I say one human family, and then we'll move.

Forward in it together. Beautiful vision.