Participants: Ron Giannoni (Host), Cheryl McGinnis
Series Code: NSN
Program Code: NSN000149A
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00:12 Hi friends and welcome to another edition of NEWSTART 00:16 Now. I'm your host Ron Giannoni. In our studio we have 00:20 Cheryl McGinnis from Fairoaks, California. I'd like you to take 00:26 take a look when Cheryl first arrived. The reason I came to 00:31 the NEWSTART program, several reasons: My father passed away 00:37 in August after a lengthy battle and my family divided and it 00:42 became depressing for me. My weight is a bit up. My doctor 00:47 liked to see my weight come down, just get healthier. I'm a 00:52 food addict so I eat when I'm stressed and depression brings 00:56 that on even more. Before I leave here some more peace 01:05 in myself, learn more about eating more properly, feeling 01:12 as if my whole spirit, body, everything has just been 01:19 cleansed, just a new start like the name. And to help my 01:26 husband as well, both of us, to be able to feel healthier. He's 01:31 doing actually quite well for what he's been through but 01:34 I want to keep that momentum going for both of us. 01:43 Welcome back friends and in our studio, Cheryl. Good to see you. 01:49 Nice to see you, thanks. 01:51 You've got that beautiful smile. You had a good smile when you 01:56 got here. Yeah, not quite as joyful. 02:00 Yeah, that's a big difference though. Yes. I notice a change 02:06 in you and I'd like for you to share with our viewers what that 02:11 looks like. You came here and you were all stressed. You know 02:17 there's a lot of things that can create stress and you've had a 02:22 couple weeks now to analyze. Tell us about your stay here. 02:27 Umm, whirlwind. It seems like months instead of 2-1/2 weeks 02:32 but just all the things that we've done from food, eating 02:36 differently. I started out by fasting and then for three days 02:41 changed to the plant-based diet. Feeling just so much energy. 02:45 Walking, I'm up to 5 miles a day now and when I started half a 02:52 mile was a little bit hard. Just lots of prayer, lots of worship, 02:58 reading Bible verses. But I think the key was memorization. 03:06 That just opened it up, the healing. Really concentrating on 03:13 certain verses and... A funny thing, when I started memorizing 03:18 a verse that was assigned to me I started thinking about one 03:22 that I'd worked on 25, 30 years ago and it just kept coming back 03:27 to me. Okay God, I think I'm supposed to be thinking about 03:30 this one right. So I did and I memorized that again; there were 03:34 a few gaps in my memory. But it all came back and the healing 03:38 just happened. 03:40 So what I hear you saying is, since you've been 03:45 here you've been walking with the Lord, literally, and he's 03:52 put into your mind verses from the Bible from 25, 30 years ago. 03:59 Before the interview, may I say what we talked about. We talked 04:05 about how you told me, cause I asked you, what's happening. 04:11 You said that all of a sudden the stress was melting away. 04:16 Those were my words but you agreed that that was perfect. 04:22 They were melting away through the word. That's so inspiring. 04:29 Just thinking about really concentrating on memorization 04:33 that's all I wanted to think about because I was determined 04:38 to memorize what I was assigned even though I had some feedback 04:43 on another verse, but all of a sudden everything just clicked. 04:48 It was like everything just melted away and joy just came 04:52 in. Amen. Now what did you like 04:55 about the program here? 04:57 Gosh, everything. Learning to cook vegan dishes. We had such a 05:02 good time. There were some fantastic dishes, making it seem 05:07 easier to be able to do. The people, the group I was with, we 05:12 are family. Somebody said we're like family. I said, no, no, we 05:16 are family now. We're all planning to keep in touch, 05:19 encouraging each other, laughing with each other, just enjoying 05:27 each other. One of the gals earlier I was talking to she was 05:32 talking to her son. She said we pray before we get on the bus, 05:38 we pray after we go on a trip, we pray before we start a 05:41 lecture, we pray before we eat, we pray after we eat. She says 05:45 I think I'm all prayed up and I said yeah, that works. 05:51 You know that's what brought me to the church. When I was here 05:55 in '05 I asked my doctor, Dr. Michael Orlich, and if you're 06:00 walking watching doctor I remember asking you this 06:03 question. How come everywhere I go people want to pray with 06:08 me? And he said well we're Christians. And I go, well I'm a 06:11 Christian. And I was so far removed from being a Christian 06:16 I didn't know what a Christian was. And so I wanted to know 06:23 more and Doctor arranged for Stephanie Yeager to come to my 06:29 home and study with my wife and I and three months later we were 06:35 baptized. So that was a very, very integral part of the 06:42 program for me, was learning to pray, learning about God, who he 06:49 is and how he's watched over me for so many years. Anyway, I'm 06:57 so happy you shared that. I'd like to know about... People 07:03 often ask me, can I do this at home. I'd like to come there 07:09 but could I do it at home and I go well what about the 07:12 camaraderie of the guests because they're very much an important 07:17 part of this whole program. Speak to us about that. Could 07:22 you have done this at home? 07:23 No, no way. Not even one tiny part. Not even the cooking 07:28 having the instructions and someone speak to you and you 07:34 could substitute this for that if you wanted to or if you were 07:37 out of this you can use this, to praying, to encouraging each 07:41 other, to exercise more, to what's going on in our head, 07:47 you know, are we having a good day and if not, hey, let's talk 07:53 about it. I just can't imagine doing this by myself. No, no. 07:58 So what was your favorite part of the program, if you had a 08:03 favorite? They called it Fresh Start. The 08:09 pastor did a morning, I don't want to say lecture, but I guess 08:14 for lack of a better word, where we all came together and we just 08:20 spoke about biblical things; how it fit into our lives. That just 08:27 brought everything together. I guess that's the glue to the 08:30 whole program for me. 08:32 What a great way to start the day. 08:34 Oh gosh yeah. Right after breakfast we went right in 08:37 there and he just had a wonderful agenda. Quite often 08:41 I'd go in and... how did you know I needed to hear that today 08:45 and yeah it was perfect and many people said the same thing. 08:49 What are you going to do when you get home? 08:52 Keep praying, keep eating correctly, keep exercising, keep 09:01 joyful. Are you going to go to your 09:04 refrigerator like I did and throw out all these animal 09:07 foods. That was hard for me by the way. 09:11 Yeah. I want to. I have the desire to but I have a husband 09:17 that I think I better make sure that's okay. That's my goal. 09:22 Yeah. Well good. Anything else that you'd like to say? We're 09:28 just about out of time. 09:32 This is life changing. I started out with depression, not a 09:38 health issue but yeah I guess maybe it is now that I say that. 09:43 Folks with heart disease and folks with kidney disease, just 09:47 a plethora of things and I'm just checking with them today. 09:51 They just got their final tests back and they've all improved. 09:54 So that's extremely encouraging. 09:57 I want to thank you for coming and spending your time with us 10:02 and I'll be talking to you soon. Friends thank you but don't go 10:07 away. We'll be back after this. 10:11 ¤ ¤ 10:43 Welcome back friends and help me to welcome Dr. Lukens. 10:48 Very good to see you again. You got a little bit of a... 10:52 Well yeah I've got a little bit of that. It's the month of 10:56 November and people say you don't save in November. 10:58 Oh, okay. Well then it's fine yeah. 11:00 But I did shave a little bit up in here and underneath. Cheryl 11:05 has come here. And you know there's a lot of people who are 11:10 watching who are suffering from stress or depression or both but 11:16 stress seems to be a culprit out there in society, at least in 11:22 America. Speak to us about stress. 11:26 Well, in her situation, it's not job stress but it was her job to 11:32 take care of her father in his terminal illness. And probably 11:39 everybody in the audience realizes who is it that dies 11:43 first? It's the caretaker frequently that goes first 11:48 they're under stress and maybe the other person is not aware of 11:53 what's going on around them so that's not the most stressful 11:58 thing. But the thing is that when it's day after day and 12:02 after while it just kind of grinds on you, you know. You 12:07 don't get out like you used to. You don't have the social that 12:10 you used to have. You don't get away from it and if you've been 12:14 with somebody that's chronically ill you know what I mean. It's 12:17 tough, it's really tough. 12:19 You know my wife Cindy took care of her aunt for six months. She 12:25 was away from home that long and I noticed the stress was 12:29 building so I would go down whenever I could and take her 12:33 out, and you know maybe go to the park. We'd walk and such. 12:37 Yeah, you have to. 12:38 It's a tremendous amount of stress, but I didn't know that 12:43 caregivers often pass before the person they are caring for. 12:49 Well maybe it's in the medical community that that's an adage. 12:55 I didn't talk to Cheryl about this and I didn't want to get 13:00 into all of the personal stuff like that, but so often there 13:05 are a lot of dynamics in the background. See you're not just 13:10 it's not like this is your job, you're a caretaker for a sick 13:15 person, or you have a care home or whatever. It's when there's a 13:20 lot of history behind it and this is not her. I'm not talking 13:25 about her. Right. But that's a dynamic. And there's another 13:29 thing that's really, really difficult. I was talking to 13:35 Lorna my wife and she's seen this in the psychiatric 13:39 practice; if there's conflict especially if there's conflict 13:42 between the person that's dying and the person that's 13:46 caregiving. Then a lot of stuff comes back you see and there's 13:51 a lot of dynamic, there's more dynamic there. Then if the 13:58 person is partially demented, or demented this is another thing. 14:01 This is in general terms, I'm not speaking about any one 14:05 person. So if somebody sees that in any of the parties, I'm 14:10 talking in general. The other thing is that if that person is 14:15 demented sometimes, and this happened in members of our 14:18 family, not my immediate family but the mother might say to her 14:24 daughter you know as you were growing up and then they'd say 14:29 something and then they'd say well my mother thought that way 14:33 about me all her life and now she's telling me that she's 14:37 about ready to go. You know, you can build a lot of scenarios on 14:42 that. There's another thing. There's the finances and what's 14:47 going to happen next and who's going to get what? There's an 14:52 adage that people say where there's a will and we always 14:57 finish that there's a way. Well this one where there's a will 15:01 there's relatives. I was going to bring that up. 15:06 Because isn't that a factor, isn't that part of a stress 15:10 that we all deal with as family, to please one another, to do the 15:17 right thing. Uncle this and aunt mother and father. Anyway 15:21 how is Cheryl doing since she arrived here? I know when we 15:25 first interviewed her she was very stressed. How's she doing 15:30 now? Well she said it's gone. She's 15:33 not back home yet. But the other thing is that when the family is 15:40 going through this, and this is a recent thing, so when the 15:42 family's going with this they've got to reestablish family ties. 15:46 And it's horrible when family ties are broken up over 15:51 something. I know my folks passed and it can be very 15:56 stressful. Yeah. Well, I've spoken to her 16:00 on several occasions over the last few weeks and she seems 16:07 to be doing a lot better. You know I did ask her what did you 16:13 attribute to your feeling and looking so much more relaxed. 16:19 She said the love and the care here at the NEWSTART Program. 16:24 The doctors pray with you, the message therapists pray, the 16:30 cafeteria... Everybody's praying everybody's massaging and 16:35 bringing about a feeling that gives you hope. That's what 16:40 happened to me. I felt like this was the right place. 16:43 I mean, isn't that what Christ would want us to do? 16:46 I would certainly hope so and I know so. And I think that was 16:52 one of the things I felt. I felt the presence of the Lord here 16:57 when I came through the program and that's why I ended up 17:02 getting baptized, three months later by the way. 17:05 Yeah that was wonderful, yeah. This may be the only time 17:12 somebody sees somebody that is trying to reflect some of the 17:19 love of Jesus. The think is it's so wonderful about is that he's 17:25 asked to be here every day. We want the Holy Spirit here 17:29 because that's why we're here. The other thing is that we know 17:34 that when people exercise that that helps with stress, all 17:38 kinds of stress. Because you have all these stress hormones 17:43 that are going up and then exercise is what our adrenaline 17:46 is for, to make our muscles move. If we're just sitting 17:50 there stewing. My wife's psych magazines and newsletters about 17:56 10 years ago that was the biggest stress. They said every 18:00 time you treat with an anti depressant they have to have an 18:04 exercise program involved otherwise you're not going to be 18:07 very successful. Wow. I didn't know that. Thanks 18:11 for sharing. I know when I came I was depressed and all of a 18:16 sudden that just lifted. I thought it was the food but... 18:21 Well, it's everything. Yeah, I think it's those eight 18:25 basic principles that we teach here and I'm so glad to be a 18:30 part of supporting our guests after they leave. 18:33 Yeah. And she said that too. She said we had some kind of flesh 18:37 food for every meal and she said I was just kind of yuck. 18:41 If anybody's seen supersize me they know what that's all about. 18:45 But the thing is that her husband would try to get her to 18:49 walk because he knew that she needed to get out and get 18:52 exercise. And she said, Aa I just didn't feel like it. So he 18:55 would fortunately get me out there and she said I'd just feel 18:59 like my spirits were lifted and I'd just feel better all the way 19:03 around. Well now she's going to go home 19:05 and we want to see how the husband is going to attempt to 19:09 keep up with her. Because she's going a long stride and she's 19:14 been walking a lot since she's been here. 19:16 She's going to try to get him here. 19:18 Oh, good. I look forward to that. 19:20 Yeah, he came and had a meal here yesterday. 19:23 I thought I saw her sitting with a gentleman I didn't recognize. 19:27 So that was her husband? Yeah. Well good. 19:29 Yeah he has some things we can help. 19:32 Well Doc you're going... Maybe we can help him help. 19:38 You're going to Africa in a couple of days. I want our 19:43 guests who are watching to know that you have a ministry in 19:48 Africa. And folks, please pray for Dr. Lukens. You've had this 19:53 ministry how many years? Twenty-five? 19:56 No, I've been here 25 but we were up in the highlands of 20:00 Lucidi for six, in Africa all together 15 years. 20:04 Well, please keep Dr. Lukens in prayer. 20:06 Please, that's the only way anything is done. 20:10 Yeah. I want to think you for joining us. It's always a 20:14 pleasure. You've got such a grip 20:18 Friends, thank you but don't go away. We have a message for you. 20:20 ¤ ¤ 20:29 The next deadly psychological sin is avoidance. I run into a 20:33 lot of avoidance in my practice. People that come to counseling 20:37 and say I just can't get myself to do the things that I know 20:41 I should be doing. They typically use this little 20:45 one-liner. I'm just not motivated. And I point out to 20:49 them that yes you are motivated. You're motivated to sit on the 20:53 couch instead of get up and exercise. You're motivated to 20:56 talk on the phone instead of clean that room that you know 20:59 you need to clean. So you are motivated. All behavior we say 21:02 operative. You're either trying to avoid something or trying to 21:06 obtain something. Now the things we avoid are classic. Pretty 21:11 typically things like healthy eating, exercise, cleaning and 21:16 organizing our lives, doing certain nonpreferred tasks. 21:23 And finally and this is probably the highest on the list, people 21:27 tend to avoid having difficult conversations. Having that 21:30 difficult conversation with someone with whom you have a 21:34 little bit of a conflict maybe that you need to iron out. 21:37 People just really don't want to do that. They tend to 21:41 catastrophize that conversation into something horrible and then 21:45 they avoid it. But the thing is that following through on those 21:49 things, getting that exercise making that healthy meal 21:51 cleaning that room and having 21:53 that conversation, these things pay huge dividends. You feel so 21:58 good when you actually follow through on them. So how to 22:02 get from point A to point B, that's the question. The 22:07 replacement behavior for avoidance is action. God has 22:11 given us this amazing thing called a free will. Now I 22:15 realize that there are some behavioral scientists that deny 22:19 that human being possess a free will. They think we're just 22:22 genetically programmed and biologically programmed or 22:25 influenced by our environment and we're just like little cells 22:28 in a Petri dish. We just respond to our environment in these 22:31 predictable and 22:33 precise ways. Yet we can see exceptions to what we call 22:37 typical human behavior. And those exceptions to me indicate 22:42 that we do have freedom. Now using our free will can be a 22:47 difficult thing particularly in a condition that we call learned 22:52 helplessness. There are certain people that have great 22:55 difficulty being proactive in their lives and taking control 22:59 so to speak. Those people are often victims of trauma or 23:03 victims of abuse. That trait of learned helplessness appears 23:07 often in a condition called borderline personality disorder 23:11 where people seem to have little to no impulse control and will 23:15 act out in very self-destructive ways. Borderline personality 23:19 clients were thought untreatable until a woman names Marsha 23:22 Linehan came upon the scene. Marsha Linehan developed a type 23:26 of treatment called dialectical behavioral therapy and 23:29 essentially dialectical behavioral therapy is just 23:32 training the will. She taught people how to go directly 23:36 against their inclinations in an exercise called opposite action. 23:39 If they feel like going into the kitchen and bingeing on sugar, 23:43 she taught them to take a walk instead. If they felt like going 23:46 to the shopping mall and running up their credit cards, she 23:50 taught them to go to the soup kitchen and volunteer instead. 23:53 Do the exact opposite of what you feel like doing. And Marsha 23:56 Linehan, through dialectical behavior therapy, was able to 24:00 make progress with borderline clients, progress that had not 24:03 been made by any other clinician. I recommend lists. 24:06 I love lists. Lists will help us to follow through on what we 24:11 call nonpreferred tasks and they do it in a very interesting way. 24:15 Every time you check an item off the list you get a little dopamine 24:19 boost in your brain. You accomplished something, it feels 24:21 good. And when you complete an entire list, boy, that feels 24:25 like, you know, something, dare I say it, cocaine, but much 24:29 better because it doesn't have the negative side effects. So I 24:33 recommend lists, because if you put your nonpreferred tasks on 24:36 that list you'll get sort of a secondary benefit from checking 24:39 that item off. Sort of trick your brain out of thinking you 24:42 brain out of thinking you don't want to do it. Let me tell you 24:46 about a woman named Edith Eger. Edith Eger lived through the 24:50 holocaust. She was a Jew in Nazi Germany. She watched her 24:54 parents sent to the gas chamber. A German guard broke her back. 25:01 She endured the death march in Europe and she wasted away to 25:06 40 pounds, 40 pounds. She was put on a pile of bodies, left 25:10 for dead and the war ended. An American soldier saw her hand 25:14 move, pulled her out of the pile of bodies. The medics came and 25:18 her life was saved. Edith Eger went on to speak about her 25:23 experience with the holocaust and what she emphasized was the 25:27 fact that we have a choice. She remembered that her colleagues 25:31 resorted to cannibalism. They would eat dead people to sustain 25:36 their lives. She chose not to do that. She also remembers lying 25:41 in the grass and thanking God that she still had a choice as 25:48 to which blade of grass to eat. You know our free will is like 25:54 a present. We were so excited as little kids to see those 25:57 presents under the tree. How strange would it have been if 26:00 Christmas morning came and we didn't even open them. Our free 26:03 will is like for many of us a present that we never open. 26:07 I recommend that you start to learn how to act on what you 26:11 know is right. Just do it. Just experiment with it. Just 26:14 experiment on making a list and making yourself follow through. 26:18 And you'll start to feel good about yourself. Open your 26:21 presents. 26:23 Hello, I'm Dr. David DeRose. You know helping a friend, 26:27 neighbor or relative have better health is one of the most 26:31 practical forms of health ministry available. However, if 26:35 you're not a health professional it can be extremely difficult to 26:39 know how to help someone access reliable, credible, up-to-date 26:43 health information. That's why I recommend the NEWSTART Lifestyle 26:46 Club. The Club is based on the world famous NEWSTART principles 26:50 that have helped millions be well naturally without the use 26:53 of drugs. The Club offers streaming video, expert health 26:57 advice, wellness tips, tools and more. When it comes to ministry 27:01 the NEWSTART Club provides a way for sponsor churches and health 27:05 organizations to connect with club members in their own 27:08 communities. If you'd like to learn more about how the 27:11 NEWSTART Lifestyle Club can make a difference in your health 27:16 outreach, call 1-800-525-9192 and ask for your free copy of 27:21 Health Evangelism Made Simple. 27:27 Well friends that's it for today but join us next week for 27:32 another episode. In the meantime pick up a phone and give us a 27:36 call at 1-800-525-9192. Mention the NEWSTART Now program and 27:45 receive the NEWSTART special. |
Revised 2016-04-06