Christopher Wark (00:00.046)
because it's not just your food, because your food is also what you're thinking, right? If every day I'm thinking many times a day, I'm not smart, I'm not smart enough, I'm not enough. This is food and this we're digesting is going to cause acidity, it's going to cause blockages, it's gonna cause stress, and the immune system is not going to work as well as if I think I am enough, I am smart, I am capable. These are the things we have to start really looking at, that and the food for sure.

Christopher Wark (00:31.982)
Hey everybody, it's Chris. Today I am interviewing Carolyn Marin. Carolyn runs the Anne Wigmore Natural Health Institute in Puerto Rico. Some of you may have heard of Anne Wigmore. She is sort of a legend in the natural health and healing world, in the raw food world, in the juicing world. And the Anne Wigmore Institute is a nonprofit healing retreat center.

And their mission is to inspire the innate power to heal by using the living foods lifestyle, which was originally created by Anne Wigmore. She might've been the first person to coin the phrase living foods. And Carolyn runs this retreat center now and has been there for 20 years, over 20 years. And she's also a speaker and has a lot of experience working with

sick people and helping them restore their health. So I think this is going to be a really informative interview and Carolyn, I'm really glad to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to do this. Oh, I'm honored. Thank you. So why don't we start with the Ann Wigmore story because Ann's not around anymore to tell her story, but it's a pretty fantastic and powerful story. Yes. And I know it because I'm, um, my mentor was one of her.

major students that ended up staying here and running the institute up until two years ago. Her name is Lalita Salas and Leila Brooks. They were here when she passed. So that and all the people that have come through and told me stories as I used to be the colon therapist here and people release and tell stories. And so it's been great. But you know, this story is amazing and it can be quite a long one. So I don't know, I don't want to go too long, but.

Ann Wigmore grew up in nature with her grandmother in Lithuania, very young. Her parents immigrated to Boston and she stayed because she was known as kind of a sickly child. They left her there. They didn't know if she'd make it. And so grandma stayed with her. But grandma was kind of the town healer and or I would say like a medicine woman of natural, a natural medicine woman in Lithuania. So we must be talking about the 20s and 30s very, very long time ago. And

Christopher Wark (02:54.862)
She actually helped soldiers after the war who were coming back with all sorts of ailments, holes in them and everything and would use poultices. And Wigmore learned then the power of chlorophyll and the power of nature and the power of resting and sun and wind and nature. And so that was very deep in her and her future then made her have to go back to it. And so she ended up going to the States. Eventually her grandma said, go be with your family.

And I think she was somewhere between 12 and 16. And she embraced the American diet in those years, which was becoming quite crazy. And fast food was starting and lots of flour products. Her parents owned a bakery, Lithuanian. And so she ate probably the most improper way she ever ate and was living in Boston in the city. So there was no more barefoot young girl with nature all around her and animals. So.

She felt quite out of balance, let's say, and her life continued that way and she had ailments throughout her life. If you read a book called Why Suffer, it's an amazing book about her life. But fast forward, she did get married, had a child, and she did develop more than just arthritis and other ailments, like conditions that she had. And when she finally went to a doctor, they said that she was very sick and somebody finally diagnosed her with stage four colon cancer and pretty much told her you're gonna die.

go home and write your will, we can do nothing for you, which, whew, you know, I feel that that should be illegal, excuse me, but like, just to say that. It's what we call a medical hex, right? It's, you know, it's essentially witchcraft, is telling someone when they're gonna die, right? It's fortune telling. Thank you, yes, so, and. And let me ask you this, how old was Anne at that time? So she was around my age in her young 50s. Got it. So she got that diagnosis, as I said, she was married with a young kid.

And my dream or my, not my dream of vision is her walking out of there going, no, I'm not gonna die. And I have connection to spirit and I know how to heal and I know what to do and I'm gonna do it. And she got very, it pumped her to then start to kind of experiment with her food and learn and read. And she read books all about the Essenes. She read about ancient healing practices like enema. She learned about skin brushing, lymphatic system.

Christopher Wark (05:18.446)
She learned so much and I'd say she got more and more centered every day and got more and more focused and had to totally focus everything on herself. Her food, as I saw some great quick thing you put out, like she bought her food, she got her seed, she planted her seed, she really believed that she was the healer. She wasn't looking around for someone to heal herself. She knew it was her and the divine, if you want to call it, the great spirit, whatever you want to call it, was going to do this. And I think that that is...

the key, one of the keys, right? So she did that. Her husband didn't like her doing that. He actually gave her an ultimatum and said, what kind of mom and wife are you being? And she said, this is my purpose. I need to heal myself. And then as she was healing herself, she realized it was her purpose in life to inspire, educate, empower people the same way she got done. It was her dream, her mission. Everything in her just said, I have to open a place and I have to help people clear their temples.

clear their minds and heal themselves. So he ended up leaving her. And so she, you know, she went on and opened the Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston, getting funding for a mansion, a brownstone, and taught many, many people, had small groups and taught people the basics and what she called the living food lifestyle, which is very mind, body, spirit, and it's not all about diet. We do focus a lot on living foods and all that, but we teach about colon and breathing and yoga and on and on. So.

She taught many, many people. There was Brian Clement who came through and I think in the seventies and he learned everything and he ended up taking the name and the Institute to West Palm Beach was not what she wanted, but it happened. She did not have her paperwork together. She was not that kind of woman. She was really a naturalist, really a giver and not into the business. He went and did that and opened it his version.

And she came down here to Puerto Rico and this was in 1989, 90. By 91, she opened this place. And by word of mouth, we've been open ever since, small groups. And I came in 2000 and got a lot of stories about it, but her essence is here, her vibe is here. And she didn't believe health should be about money. It should be about education and empowerment and love. And so that's our mission here.

Christopher Wark (07:44.59)
between her and Lalita and Leola, who were the two ladies who were here when she died, who were her best students ever, that she trusted and knew. She even told them the week before she passed, she said, I know I can die because I know that the Institute's mission will continue with the two of you. I get goosebumps when I say it. And I just feel so grateful that I came and I, I just feel the same. I just, you know, want to give that mission and that help and that cheerlead out to people.

to take it in their own hands and believe in themselves and believe in food and lifestyle being their medicine. You know? Yeah, that's really amazing. And she died in 1994. So she was, I was diagnosed in December 2003. So basically 10 years after she had died. But I can remember reading about Anne Wigmore because in the early days of my cancer healing journey, I was reading books about healing and raw food was a big part of my.

healing process. And there were, you know, people were constantly referencing Ann Wigmore, right? And so it was like Norman Walker, Ann Wigmore, George Malcomis, who is sort of like next generation Dr. Richard Jultz, Dr. John Christopher. Yeah. Bernard Jensen. Yeah. Bernard Jensen, Pablo Arrolla.

Just there were these, there are these names that just kept, they were, they were sort of like in heavy rotation and in the, in the alternative health and wellness community and in the handful of books that I was reading. And so that's when I first became aware of her. Uh, and so I'd love you to talk about the, the principles of health and healing that Ann discovered that she taught. Uh, and I know raw food and living food is definitely a part of that.

And it was for my journey as well.

Christopher Wark (09:42.862)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we focus on living food, even though some of them, like you said, are raw and living creates, you know, more enzymes and more digestibility, assimilation and, and more for more water in the body and alkalizing and cleansing. So, I mean, really, I mean, I you can already tell I can go on and on about this, but her main two principles that I love is that she said all people are out of balance, I'm going to call it out of balance, instead of saying sick.

They're out of balance in different degrees of out of balance, but being out of balance means you're having symptoms and you're not feeling good. You're out of balance. So out of balance, she said, no matter what they have, two things are really out of balance. And one is toxicity and one is deficiency. So when you start looking at, well, Chris, what could you be intoxicated with? What? Think about that. Chemicals, sugars, what else?

Well, let's see tobacco, alcohol, meat and dairy, bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungus, and then all of these food additives and industrial pollutants. Exactly. And then there's a lot of toxicants out there. Exactly. Exactly. And on top of it, stress, you know, stress, fear, worry, you know, emotional and mental like toxicity. Right. And so so you take that.

You have that ball, right? And then over here is deficiency. Well, what could you be deficient in? We know vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, fiber, water, water. Yep. Yep. All of these things, you know, all the things that you get from fruits and vegetables, from plant food, food from the earth, and that are largely absent. Many of these critical nutrients are largely absent in processed food, fast food, junk food.

And even meat and dairy only have, you know, sort of a limited spectrum of nutrients that the plant kingdom has vastly more. Exactly. And then on top of it, you could be deficient in breathing, right? And deficient in oxygen. Exactly. You could be deficient in love. You could be deficient in touch. You can be deficient in being in nature, being barefoot. You could be deficient in sun. You could be deficient in sleep.

Christopher Wark (12:09.166)
You know, like you and I, we could go on and on, but these two things is what throws people out of balance. And it can start in utero. I mean, it can start really young in life, you know? And, you know, when we grow up with disturbances, things like, I'm not smart enough, I'm stupid. And that just rolls into all of this and creates a messed up system, you know, of ourselves. And so we really work on nourishing.

and cleansing. So when there's toxicity, it has to do with cleansing, even the mind, cleansing your thoughts, cleansing your emotions, breathing it out, letting it go, forgiving yourself, forgiving others big into that. Then on the other, the other would be, so that's cleansing and the other is nourishing what nourishes, healing, green foods, love, hugs, barefoot on the beach, ocean water, lake water. I mean, I get really excited thinking about it all because it just makes life beautiful to actually think about.

cleaning and nourishing your body. It's fun. It's, it's makes a great life. So, yeah. And I love, um, I love how she simplified it into two broad umbrella categories. Right. I love that. It's because it's easy to understand toxicities. There's a long list of them. We obviously just touched on some and deficiencies like long list of those. And I think,

Even myself, when I was answering those questions, I was focused on the physical, right? Right. I was focused on the physical toxicities and the physical deficiencies. And you were bringing up the mental and emotional toxicities and deficiencies, right? Yes. Those are so often overlooked and it's, and they're so important. And I feel like in my experience of 20 years as a cancer survivor, almost 20 years this December,

And yeah, and, and, you know, counseling and coaching countless patients and survivors. Like we see that over and over and over that some of the most important things that a patient needs to do are the mental, emotional, and spiritual stuff. That's like, I feel like, and I'd love, I want you to chime in here too, please. To me, the diet and the lifestyle practices.

Christopher Wark (14:33.422)
and quitting the bad habits, the obvious stuff like smoking or drinking alcohol. Like to me, that's like, that just gets the ball rolling. That's right. Most people just they can do right away. That's right. And then the other stuff, it takes time, you really have to work on your attitude, your emotions, forgiveness, right? You got to work through some stuff and you can't do it. You can't do it on day one. It's well, you know, it's you know, what I see here, because I'm

So people come for two weeks here, right? So I see a big change because, and Ann Wigmore kind of, I think that's why she focused a lot on the food, like things like energy soup, like blended, sprouted, full of good bacteria soup, fermented, you know, greens going into the gut and churning. You get mushy and soft and people are crying. They don't know why. They don't know why. Why do I feel all wrangly? And I don't like that. And emotions come up and they need a space and I bring them in. I say, talk to me.

And next thing you know, they're crying and they're telling their life story and they're releasing. And it's, when you eat food that is toxic and food that blocks you up, even cooked delicious vegan food, even that kind of stuff, carbs and even tofu and all that stuff, it really, it gunk's up your gut and your gut is your emotional center. And so when this is happening, the people cannot, they can't really feel.

how they feel and when you're releasing that, we have people talking about enemas and colonics and releasing and forgiveness and I mean, I teach an enema class that is really not like any I've ever seen because I go into the emotional part and I say, you're gonna set intention on this enema. This is not just an enema. This is something that you're doing as a healing. You're gonna say, I let go of everything that doesn't serve me. I let go of my past, I let go of my anger, I let go and you really set intention in that water and that.

moment that you're working with yourself, again, I'm getting goosebumps because you're releasing everything and you're going into it. Yes, it might take more time like you're saying, yes, but you're opening up a door that has been blocked up by our society and our food and everything because we're not really supposed to be so expressive, right? I mean, some people say, yes, you are, but to actually cry as a man or a woman or in the business field or as a teacher or a nurse or you're holding it because of dad.

Christopher Wark (16:55.182)
you're holding it as a coach, holding it together. We need to surrender. We need a place that we can just, you know, and let release and not judge. And I feel like that's such a huge part of healing, Chris. Like the food is one thing, but when you go into this, you're talking about a whole new way of life. Like everything gets more magical and healthier and you can really manifest your purpose in your life and your dreams. And...

I just, you know, my background was in that, but never did I realize like I have a, you know, a psychology background and all that. And I wanted to help people with their mind, but I didn't realize I had to go up and around and through the stomach and in through the intestines and get become colon therapist and a raw food chef and then come around and be a mother and all that. And then whoop, I'm back. And now it's like, yeah, let's really have people release. Let's really help them release, you know? I love that.

I think it's really important that a person that's on the healing journey, at least start to entertain the idea that, you know what, I really need to clean house. That's right. Not just the physical house with raw and living foods, not just the physical detoxification of your liver and your kidneys and your gut. Right. That's important. Yeah. But also like I got to clean house between my ears. Like I've got to.

really and I did this like I have to really take a step back and look in the mirror metaphorically and say like who am I? What kind of person am I? What are my flaws? What are my faults? What are my fears? What are my failures? Like own it all. Yeah, accept it. Accept it. Right. And then just go through this process like understanding why

You do what you do, why you think the way you think, realizing that you can change your thoughts. Right. Right. You have control over your thoughts and your actions. That you're not your thoughts. Right. That you're not your thoughts. That's right. And again, this is not a, this was not a, you five minute epiphany. That's right. Yeah. You had to go up and around and get cancer. Yeah. I mean, cancer is with the catalyst, right? For sure. And then.

Christopher Wark (19:19.47)
the more I read and researched and learned from others, from other wellness practitioners, from, you know, I didn't, I should have mentioned Max Gerson obviously earlier when I was rattling off, you know, all the legends in health and healing. But yeah, as I was going through that process, you know, the diet and lifestyle changes, that was the easiest part for me. I mean, I changed, I converted to a raw food diet overnight. Yeah.

I don't think it takes long after you do that and you own it and you start feeling better and you might get tweaky like you feel better and then all of a sudden and you're going through kind of healing crisis and you keep going because I did that too. I came here and I went right into all raw and but I had to tweak the all raw because all raw isn't all good for you all raw right and you're learning these things. But then I don't know in doing that I feel like it opened my heart and I became more of a compassionate.

conscious person, which then opens up the idea of maybe, maybe everything, maybe things will change for the better. Many, many levels of my life. And then we start to see things that are hard for us as gifts. You know, I know people that say my cancer was a gift. I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be who you are and be so maybe happy and loving and find your mission in life to help others in this way. I mean, that's what happened to me too. It wasn't cancer, but it was.

feeling pretty bad, you know, feeling pretty bad that woke me up and whatever it takes for people is a good thing. Yep. I jokingly refer to the raw food diet as the gateway drug to radical life range. I love it. Gateway drugs. Yeah. Yeah. Like once a person, you know, makes that decision, they adopt a raw food diet. And again, it's not like they're adopting it forever, but they just get on it.

And they try it. That's right. Right. They're committed to it. Once they get organized and they get their fridge stocked with fruits and vegetables and they get the juicer going, right. And they just kind of get going. Yeah. Then you have this epiphany, which is what I did, which is like, okay, now what else can I change? Uh -huh. Exactly. It's like a stair. It's like, it's like a doorway. That's right. And, and, and I love how you said that and that it's just.

Christopher Wark (21:42.926)
Yes, one door leads to another because we're whole people and you can't separate the physical from the emotional and the mental and the spiritual is always there. And it really for me, I think the colon is the gateway to the spirit in a way. I mean, I think when you open the colon by eating this clean food and or cleaning your body, something in here just kind of opens up and you become a little more conscious, you know, and a lot of people zigzag and zigzag and that's OK, too, you know, whatever it takes. But.

I do believe what you said is like you commit yourself to having an adventure, to doing an experiment. When they come here and say, look, you're doing an experiment. I'm not here to prove to you that this works. I'm not here to force you to make it work. I'm gonna tell you what Anne Wigmore would tell you to do. We have classes around it. If you embrace this full program, I can tell you, I can almost promise you just because I've worked here so long that you will feel better. You will have less pain. You will actually feel motivated and you will look better.

So if you want some of that, hang out and do what we're asking you to do, you know? And it's not easy. So I call them warriors and I mean it. I'm not just saying it. You're warriors. You are going through a process where, yeah, you might not feel good for some, a few days, but you come out through like a tunnel. The light is there at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes I think it's the colon. You're going and then it's clear and you feel this like, ah, when you're done.

that does give you epiphanies and does make you feel so loved because you've loved yourself finally more than you've ever loved yourself before in your life. You've finally taken time for you. You finally follow your gut and your feelings and you can be proud of you because it's you that does it. And that is the key to healing too. That's what I'm saying. When I heard that video you did, I didn't get a chance to watch too much of you. I think I'll watch more of you now but I don't spend a lot of time watching. I'm working a lot.

But when I do and I saw that you said that, I was like, oh, I love this guy. This guy gets it. It is self -healing has to do with really embracing yourself and loving yourself. And when you love, let's say you had a little, do you have a kid? Chris, do you have a kid? I two daughters who were teenagers. Okay, so, okay. Oh, wow. Okay. So you know what I'm talking about. You have that little girl. What are you gonna do with her? You're gonna bring her outside. You're gonna show her nature. You're gonna show her a horse. You're gonna bring her skiing. You're gonna bring her.

Christopher Wark (24:01.358)
you're gonna have so much fun with her, you're gonna give her the best water, you're gonna find the best food for her, and you're gonna give her the most love, and if you're not extra loving, you're gonna go, what's wrong with me, I gotta go. And the thing is to do that for ourselves, right? That we're the baby that you just had, and I'm the one that's gonna love me. It really is a healthy selfish, I call it. And this is where a lot of people who are out of balance, they're giving so much away, so much to everyone, to their job, to their family, to their wife, to their husbands, their kids.

They're not even in line to put into themselves. So here we teach them, you first, you first take life and do it for you. It's really important. Yeah, you've got to be filled up, you know, and then you can overflow to others. And if you're just drained out, there's just nothing left to give, right? And that's when your health breaks down and a lot of that's it. That's it. A lot of patients, cancer patients and have that. What you just described is they're just putting everyone.

ahead of themselves. That's what I see. To their own detriment. Yeah. And thank you that I think the video you're talking about is one where I'm kind of on a little bit of a rant. Yeah. And the rant is about, it was a part of a larger conversation about taking ownership of your health and your healing journey and not relying on other people to help you and heal you. Right, right. Which is what we've been conditioned to do, right? We've been conditioned to rely on doctors to save me, to heal me, to fix me. And so,

And so the rant is like, the short version is like, if you're trying to heal, you need to go to the grocery store. You need to buy the food, right? You need to go pick out the food, put it in the cart, take it to the register, pay for that food, right? And then take it home. But when you fully engage in the process of like, then what's going to happen is you're invested. You picked it, you paid for it, you brought it home, you put it away. Like you're going to eat it.

You become your own healer though too, right? You become your own healer. You don't like you said we were taught to go get a doctor or even a naturopath or something We're also taught to take a pill or take something outside of ourselves. We want to make our food our medicine So that's why she had called it Hippocrates originally is your food like your food be your medicine and she added your lifestyle because it's not just your food because your food is also what you're thinking Right if every day I'm thinking many times a day. I'm not smart. I'm not smart enough this I'm not enough

Christopher Wark (26:25.742)
This is food and this we're digesting is going to cause acidity. It's going to cause blockages. It's going to cause stress and the immune system is not going to work as well as if I think I am enough. I am smart. I am capable. These are the things we have to start really looking at that and the food for sure. Right. I can do this. You know, that's right. Big ones like I can do this. That's right. I need to get up, get off the couch, go, go to the grocery store, buy my produce, buy my carrots.

Yeah. I juiced her. I blend it, juice it and eat it. Go. It's that, that old expression. If it's going to be, it's up to me. I love that. I never heard that. don't know who said it, but, but it's, it's taking full responsibility for your health. And that's right. And I love that. That's what Ann taught, right. And that's what Ann taught. That's what so many natural healers, uh, have, have taught, whether they've taught it through their own experience, which usually that's the case or just through helping others. But.

But at the end of the day, like what that does is it really you get your power back. That's it. That's it. And sometimes you never had it. It's sometimes it's the first time you've ever had it. Yeah. Because we're trained very young to look outside ourselves for for everything. And so it's a spiritual awakening even, you know, to realize that you have the power, you have the power to heal yourself of anything. Nothing can stop you, you know.

Well, the opposite of power is, is victimhood. That's right. Right. And that's what many of us, uh, it's a trap that many of us fall into. Uh, and the, the medical industry as it exists today, uh, exploits victimhood, right? They want patients to believe that they are victims of bad luck. That's right. That their, their illness, their disease, their conditions have nothing to do with them.

and nothing to do with their choices. And they're just a victim of it. And if you're just a victim, then there's nothing you can do to help yourself, right? And you become fully dependent on a doctor or a pill or a procedure or a surgery or whatever. Like you're fully dependent on that to heal you. And what we know is that most, in most cases, many, many cases, people don't get healed that way. And so, um, and if they do, it might be temporary. If they do it, it might, it's not, I mean, what real healing.

Christopher Wark (28:53.71)
It continues, it doesn't stop. It's real healing is a continual thing, I would say, till the day we die or beyond, because you've never landed and you've got it and that's it, right? I mean, we're a dad and I'm a mom too. It just keeps going, the emotional state. It's an unwinding, it's a really a true healing, life is truly a healing school. And if you embrace it that way, it doesn't end. And there's always gonna be things to...

learn and grow and learn and grow and evolve and yet enlightened. But to say I'm enlightened or I'm done, I've now, you know, I work here and I know it all is not true because life is always going to throw you a little curve ball and test and that's okay because that's a test and you can go through it, take the test and win. I want to move us from the philosophical back to practical. Yeah. And I would love for you to talk about some of the

foundational components of the living foods, you know, prescriptive diet and lifestyle, like sprouts are involved, juicing involved, wheatgrass, like what does it look like? What are some of the things that you are teaching there to patients that come? And I want to emphasize this too, is, you know, in my opinion, the best healing centers, the best retreat centers don't just care for you, right?

don't just care for you in a holistic way, but they teach you that's how to go home and care for yourself. That's right. And correct me if I'm wrong. Nobody's getting cured in two weeks. Right. But people who learn these principles and go home can heal and do heal. Do they all heal? No, but some do.

That's usually the ones that do are the ones that really embrace it and change their whole life. And jumping back to something I said earlier, before we get into practical is I became sort of obsessive about change, about changing my life. Right. And so it's like, diet was the catalyst, as I said, but then it's like, what, what else can I change? Oh, I can change this. I can change this. I can change that. Right. And it became, I became sort of excited and obsessed about like, uh, you know, when I started to uncover.

Christopher Wark (31:15.374)
or discover, let's say, all the aspects of my life that needed improvement that I could change for the better. And so, yeah, so I became sort of like a transformer, right? I'm just like, Oh, I can make this better. I can, you know, I can replace my shampoo with an all natural and I can replace my deodorant, I can replace my toothpaste, like, I can get an air purifier, you know, it's like, all those things are exciting to me because I realized like, oh, everything, every little change I make, right is is adding some

Small benefit, maybe big benefit depends, right? To my life. And so anyway, just going full circle on something I was thinking about earlier as you were talking about that is, is once you start changing and you become empowered, right? Then it just unlocks something in you that wants to keep changing for the better. And in the hardest part is just that first change. Cause we get locked in, right? Like you get locked into a routine into.

habits and routine, which just becomes a rut. That's right. It eventually just becomes a rut. And typically it's a rut where you're in a vicious cycle and your health is spiraling down. Yes. And once you just break out of that routine, yeah, just something comes alive. Like you just, it's like something in you wakes up and you realize like, I'm not, you know, I'm not just this pre -programmed robot. That's right. On a

destiny on it like a fateful destiny to death. You know, obviously, we all die. But you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, I don't have to live or die the same way everybody else does. That's right. So we call that the cycle of imbalance that cycle. Yes. And then a lot of people have used a place like this to actually break habits, right? So go away, get out of your environment.

you know, for two weeks, three, and Wigmore would say three is better, and Wigmore would say three months would be even better because 21 days, I mean, you're breaking habits, but then you gotta talk to people about, you know, you gotta go home and clear your space, and yeah, make changes in that. I tell people you gotta give your kitchen a colonic, you gotta like get rid of food that's harmful for you, don't even have it in the house. You might wanna change your clothes, because you're a different vibration, a feeling you might wanna get more cotton clothes and hemp instead of polyester, because of the breathability.

Christopher Wark (33:38.03)
You learn so much, you get excited. And what I would call what you had is you've unlocked the inner healer. You've unlocked your own doctor. And Wigmore wrote a great book called Be Your Own Doctor. And she said, everyone has an innate healer inside themselves. And they get blocked and covered and full of those, all those toxins we call them between the physical toxins and the emotional toxins that disempower us. And when you finally start to clean, it becomes like with you, what you said, me too, where it was like,

And we have to sometimes tell people like, be calm and make sure you focus it all on you. Cause some people want to go home and preach the word and you gotta be like, whoa, you know, be careful with that because, because yeah, don't do it. Cause first of all, keep it with you, do it for you. Like some lady said to me, now, Carolyn, I want to help my brother and my sister. How do you best way to explain, wow, what should I do? And I said, straight up, just focus on you. You do it. If they come to you and they're interested, what is that rejuval at? What are you eating?

Then the doors open for you to do it, but tell them, but don't start preaching and telling them you need to do this. You need to go to and wig where you that's not, that's not what this is about. Thank you for bringing that up. Thank you for bringing that up. It's so important. I a hundred percent agree. I fell into that trap myself. I was trying to evangelize wife, you know, when I in the beginning of my cancer journey. Oh yeah. No, we had, we had some rough. Yeah. We had some major conflict for sure because.

A, she didn't like what I was doing. She thought I was making a huge mistake because I said no to chemotherapy and after surgery, I was juicing and eating raw food. She was scared. She was scared. She even said to me at one point, she said, I don't like the person you're becoming. That was really hard to hear. Yeah, because you're like, I thought you loved me forever. Yeah. Right. It was like, you know, and I had to realize, okay.

Chill. We get a little high on it. We get a little high on it. I don't know about you, but I never felt better in my life after I did it for a few weeks, months. I never, and I don't mean only, I didn't always, but I had a lot of energy as a kid. I was athletic and all that and swimming and water skiing and tennis. But when I did this, it was like a different thing. It was like, I don't know, it was like this emotional, spiritual joy. I felt joyful and I wanted anyone I loved, but I had to realize like,

Christopher Wark (35:58.286)
you know, chill out because you surely don't want people, you know, beating someone over the head with a Bible. It was like doing that, you know, so you, I really, we even had a class on it. We really, we had to cut out some of our classes because we were so full of classes. People didn't have time to relax and come out of fighting flight, you know, and that's part of healing too. So we, what I realized is it's such a good class. And when we go to make a three months, a three week program, we have to put it in, it was called Communicating the Lifestyle. It was really about going home and really like,

You don't want to be aggressive. You don't want to be and really the assertiveness even you want to like really hone in and be with you and let people come to you and let them ask my God, you look different. What are you doing? You know, and realize again, put yourself first because we want it for everyone. We want to go help everyone else right away. Yep. And there's a season for that. And it's not season. It's definitely not your time when you're trying to heal. Exactly. Exactly. But that's what people do a lot of times. And it's a great distraction.

from yourself, right? I'm gonna go and I'm become a teacher of this. Whoa, you know, like, okay, as long as you're working on you first, you can, because I say that I'll teach a class and I'll be like, like me too, I have this thought, you know, and I tell them I, and it's very humbling and wonderful. And it's honest. It's authentic. You know, I did this and this and I'm realizing, wow, what about this? And they go, oh, yeah, you know, because we're all the same. We're all the same. We're human people.

Yeah. And we're all, we're all susceptible to the, what I call the just add water, uh, instant expert. Right. You learn a tiny thing and now you feel you want to tell everybody and you think you're an expert on it. Um, but yeah, that's, that's such an important, such an important lesson really, because, uh, when you're trying to get well, you just focus on you period. You don't need to tell anybody.

That's right. You don't need to tell anybody what you're doing. If they ask, you can tell them, but like, you just need to get well. And there will be a time because what happens is when you, the reality is when you start changing your life dramatically and you start telling people about it, you're going to get a lot of friction. That's right. You're going to, you're going to get a lot of resistance and doubt and criticism. It's yeah. You don't need that. You don't need that. It's just, your, your stress and anxiety just goes up. And when you realize, Oh, nobody,

Christopher Wark (38:23.854)
Nobody around me supports me. They all think I'm crazy. They think this is stupid. They think and then you start having those thoughts, which are very negative and are very detrimental to your health, right? Everyone thinks I'm crazy. They don't like me anymore. She doesn't love me anymore. That could put you into a tailspin and get you even drinking or doing something way beyond raw. You know, you, you know, it really is dropping it. Right? Just dropping off. Most people just drop it. I have so many clients that say,

But how am I gonna do this if my family doesn't? I said, again, it's coming back to putting yourself first. But my job, and I'm very busy, again, it's prioritizing busy job or your healing. It's really up to you. I mean, I'm really not here to change people. I'm not here, I'm realizing every day when I teach these classes, I'm here to put it out like a buffet. And please, if I were you, I would taste it all and try it. And then like you said, it's like an adventure, it's an experiment. And if it feels good, keep going and let every day.

That's what happened to me. I did it two weeks, I did it three weeks. All of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, it feels so good. Why would I ever stop? Eventually I did fall off, but I was going for three years straight. I was like, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. And then I fell off and I went, oh, this is how it feels. Then I got back on. And I would never beat myself up, especially anymore, or anyone for falling off, I call it the healthy horse. It just takes getting back on and you forgive yourself for, you know.

hurting yourself or being mad at yourself and get back on the horse and just enjoy the ride and don't judge, don't judge ourselves. It's destructive. It's destructive. Exactly. It's not just not productive. It's destructive to think that way. And something else that you mentioned too, and I promise we're going to get into the folks listening and watching. We're going to get into some practice. But the one other thing that we're talking about here that relates to what you do there.

And what I think the best clinics do is teaching people how to take care of themselves and how to change their lives. And what I say all the time, like a broken record, is healing happens at home. Yes, yes. Healing happens at home. That's why she was the mother of indoor gardening. She said she taught you sprouting and that's what we teach here, the sprouting in the bag or in the jar and the planting at home and the composting at home. Yeah.

Christopher Wark (40:45.262)
and the creation of yoga, the creation of your own probiotics in your home. And I think COVID would never have been a better time to stay at home and take care of yourself, but it was a very difficult time for some people. But some people turned it into a healing journey, turned their home into a sanctuary. And I think we need to do that anyway. The home has to be the healing place, the place your center, the place you can meditate, the place you can...

do an enema, the place you can lay down and be a mess, the place you can stretch, but making your kitchen, as Lalit used to call it, your pharmacy. The kitchen is your pharmacy. And to, you know, that is what we do there. If you want to go into that, is we teach people how to make probiotic drinks by using cabbage and fermenting it, it's called rejuvalac, and how to make your own sauerkraut with no salt.

You can even add turmeric and ginger and broccoli and ferment vegetables that are very hard to digest and you can't really eat them raw. You can eat them raw, but they aren't very digestible and create a lot of gas, which blocks the digestive tract. So we talk about fermenting these vegetables and eating like 15 % a day of fermented vegetables, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and it's delicious and it fires up the gut and it gets digestibility back and raises.

the digestibility and the nutrition of the vegetable. So cabbage is very nourishing and nutritious, but when you ferment it, the minerals, vitamins, everything, the enzymes go up. So we are teaching people that. We're teaching people to, again, sprout salad sprouts, oily seeds, planting, even grains like buckwheat, and making your own buckwheat granola. We have some fun things. Our first week is kind of.

intense and basics and more cleansing in the second week, which we're heading into this week. They're so happy. We're going to learn, you know, how to make a pate, how to make a bagel raw. And it's just a lot of fun stuff too. It's not about depriving yourself. Sorry. It's about giving to yourself. It's about nourishing. It's about having fun too. But we do believe in energy soup. We teach energy soup, which is like, you know, I really hope you come one day, Chris, I'm inviting you. You have energy soup.

Christopher Wark (43:03.438)
Well, you're going to come one day because I'm giving you an open invitation. Energy soup, the basics of energy soup is it's a sprout soup and the majority of what's in it, which is probably about 80 % of what's in it is microgreens and also some greens from our garden, leafy greens, baby greens. So sunflower is the main thing that's in it. Sunflower sprouts that are one week old have the most nutritious value because they're just about to shoot up and grow.

bigger and stronger and you get them right then you're getting a lot of protein and power in them. Kind of like quantum physics with your eating energy, you're eating energy. Now sometimes the soup you eat it and you're going, not you maybe, but people are like, I feel so tired, how is this energy soup? But it's cleaning the body and it's nourishing the body and it's working. And so people feel tired. So at that point, but when it's the second week or you've been on it like me forever, eat that soup and it's like.

you have the most energy ever because you're eating so much chlorophyll -rich, enzymatic, mineral -rich food and it's easy to digest. It means a salad, you gotta chew a lot and even if you chew a lot, people don't chew it well enough and a lot of pieces go down there and I've never thought I'd say this but salad is actually hard to digest because you have to be able to grind things up really well for your chemistry of digestion to take place. If you have a piece of lettuce,

The chemicals really can't break it down unless it's completely like a smoothie. That's why I entered and Wigmore was very big into blending and juicing to heal the gut. That doesn't mean that's all we eat. I don't wouldn't tell someone now never eat someone saw something solid, but the majority of the food when you're cleansing and the healing and really for me, I think for the rest of my life is juicing and blended food because it's so easy to digest, you know, that's right. Yeah. Blending and juicing releases the nutrients in food and you know,

You have to become a really good chewer when you eat. You do on top of it, right? And you'll see you'll eat less. Most don't chew well anyway. You know, they're just like, they don't. They did three bites and swallow it. The more tasty it is, the more fast they eat it. So we have this food that, yeah, we don't put spices and we're putting, we're eating very bland food. The tongue is like, what's going on? Tongue is getting a cleanse. We have a class in conscious eating, conscious eating. We do it two or three times in the two program, two weeks where people sit quietly.

Christopher Wark (45:25.294)
and they have to put their spoon down and they try to chew as many times as they can, even a blended food like energy soup. And when they come out, they can't believe how different foods taste, how they relax. When you relax your stomach, you can actually digest. You know, when your stomach's all clumped up and you're running around eating, even if it's healthy, Chris, you know you're not really digesting it well. The practical principle here is that you have to liquefy what you're eating because only liquid is passing through the wall.

of your small intestine into your bloodstream. It's got to be liquid. So anything that's solid, a chunk, and even the fibrous matter in produce, as you chew fibrous matter, the enzymes in your saliva, your teeth grind it up, the enzymes in your saliva help break it down, your stomach acid helps break it down further. But that process of liquefying food is how your body absorbs it. It has to be liquefied. So,

Again, you can liquefy it in your mouth if you chew really well. That's right. In the blender. That's right. You can run it through a juicer and extract the liquid. So, you know, just there's probably people watching listening and then the light bulbs going off like, Oh, yeah, it's got to be liquid. That's right. In order for the enzymes in your gut and even for your like you said to pass through the barrier, but also in your colon when you have pieces even like this of the carrot pieces of lettuce and stuff.

it causes a lot of gas in the gut and the gut really needs the healing because in the gut is the large intestines where the reflexes are to a whole body and we have a lot of nooks and cranny and folds and it's really big and wide and it has an amazing amount of surface area that needs to be cleared and not just cleared but the right bacteria have to be in there and when you have pieces the bad bacteria are like...

That's what they're supposed to do, but if you have a lot of pieces, they're gonna gain more family and more relatives and reproduce and create more acid in the body. So it's really important to chew well and breathe and relax when we eat. It's really important, even if the food is really healthy, if we're not eating it in the right way, it's not gonna be good for us. So, you know. Not as good. Not as good. It is still gonna You're right. You're right. You're right.

Christopher Wark (47:41.838)
It is, it is, but it's definitely better for you when you ferment it because it's easier to chew and easier to digest because it's predigested when we ferment. And we don't want people eating a lot of fermented foods. And some people, when they first come, they can't eat hardly any. So everyone's a little different, but eventually people really appreciate it and they start eating a little bit. And you should never eat more than probably 15, 20 at max percent of your diet daily should be that because that is...

acid food, but it's a good acid, it's a lactic acid. Yeah. My anti -cancer diet was a giant salad twice a day, massive giant salad. So, and it was kind of like the hard way. I was juicing, I was drinking about 64 ounces of vegetable juice every day on top of that, but I was eating giant bowl, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, onions, mushrooms, like all the sprouts, all the good stuff, all raw. And yes, there was, there was cabbage, right? That was...

That was a little condiment on the salad that added so much flavor to it. I mean, just made it taste so good. Yeah. It was just, it was a tiny little percentage. I also did kimchi, which is the same as... Similar. It's cabbage. That's right. That's right. Spicy. Fermented. Fermented. So, you know, alternate between a sauerkraut and kimchi, but yeah, that fermented food and apple cider vinegar is also a fermented food. Those are my two fermented foods that were sort of a staple of what I ate.

Yeah. The bigger idea or not bigger, but an important idea, I guess that we should mention is that when you first start eating this way, whether it's, you know, raw food or sprouts or having fermented food or even just juicing or starting on smoothies, your body has is not efficiently adapted to digest that food when you start. And that's why, yeah.

gas is common, bloating, maybe a little bit of cramping, right? But see, Ann Wigmore learned that, and that's why she developed this, because that, if you do it, this food is so much blended energy soup, is a huge sprout salad with lentils and fermented and carrots and all the stuff you said, but when it's blended down in less surface area, it starts cleaning the body a lot quicker and it's, you assimilate it really quick, but it's...

Christopher Wark (50:03.022)
We also need to help get off the gas. So you're right. I did the same thing. I'd eat big salads and I would get bloated and all that at first, but it has a lot to do with making food. That's why she coined living food is you want to make it easier to digest. Yeah, everything is about that. And it's important to point out that your body, your body's adaptive. You're right. And so even quickly with just within a week or two.

You have a massive shift in your bacterial population in your gut. That's right. Massive, massive shift. Your body starts producing more plant digesting enzymes. Like amylase, for example, like where people are just eating tons of meat, they're producing a lot of protease. That's right. And eating a lot of fat. They're producing a lot of lipase. And then all of a sudden you switch from eating a ton of meat and fat and like refined carbs to eating a lot of fibrous food.

you're by say, well, how do we like, you know, it's already it's also cleaning out what was already in there. So like if you were eating a lot of meat or carbs, or gluten or cheese and all that there's so much mucus in the gut that it all that good bacteria and all food it's kind of like I call it like a coup d'état like a like a government like a takeover of this new stuff coming in and starting to clean the body. And so it's it is it's a time where you got to be calm and

I was just talking to a guy, he's like, but why do you not go to the bathroom? So I was going to the bathroom pretty good. And I said, how many times a day and all that. And he said, once, I said, you're gonna shoot for two or three times a day because you eat that much, okay? That much needs to come out in fiber. And so part of it is your body adapting, but really part of your body is cleaning on a cellular level and what's being dropped down there from your sinuses, from your lymph and all that is mucus.

And it's amazing. You don't always see it because you're not always looking through it in the toilet, but it's all in there. And that's what I saw as a colon therapist. I couldn't believe how much mucus comes out of people from a lifetime of eating cooked food and taking antibiotics and, you know, having another drugs and medicine and vaccines that their body just needs to just just throw off so much mucus. And I'm sure yeast and viruses and all this stuff coming out of the parasites is bacterial biofilm. That's right.

Christopher Wark (52:17.774)
That's right. So, you know, high chlorophyll, high alkaline, low glycemic lifestyle. Like, this is kind of hardcore. This is kind of boot camp. So I love eating a lot what you're saying, but I don't always appreciate the bloat. So that when I start to learn more about this and not that you eat that way all now, because now you're probably like, tweaked it a little and your body is different. Your body's cleaner. So it has that. And you know, at first we think we need so much food. And then we realize like,

less food many times a day and chewing better and blending a little and, you know, you start to realize and see a whole other way of doing it. That's more efficient for you. That's more, you know, that's right. And, you know, this, this is full circle, right? If food is medicine and it is, if you really think about it as medicine, then you also should be dosing throughout the day. Right. Because every time you eat, you know, I,

Every time you drink a juice or eat a salad or eat an apple or eat some broccoli, right? Every time you eat, there is a small window of benefit to your body. That's right. From those nutrients, right? So you're dosing, you're getting a benefit for a window of time, right? And some nutrients have a longer, you know, a half life in the body. Others are short. But the point is like, you want to keep putting the nutrients in, right? Keep dosing.

throughout the day, every day, and you create this healing momentum. Uh -oh. Well, I just lost Carolyn. I think she might've hung up on accident. But this is a great opportunity for me to wrap up this interview because we're actually out of time. So I'm going to put links so you can connect with Carolyn. You can learn more about Anne Wigmore Institute if you want to go down there and have...

two or three weeks or longer experience down there. I don't endorse any particular clinic, but I'm a huge advocate for clinics like this one, right? For retreat centers, healing centers like this one, because they teach you how to change your life, how to take care of yourself, how to eat, how to prepare incredible, healthy, nutritious, living foods. And you can get a huge jumpstart at a retreat center like this. That's what it's for. It's to give you a jumpstart.

Christopher Wark (54:38.446)
in your healing journey, or just to maybe rev you back up if you've kind of lost a little momentum and then go home and continue. So yeah, thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And sorry about the abrupt ending, but hey, that happens sometimes. And I'll see you on the next one.