What Happened When I Stopped Following the Rules | Amy Bernhard

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of youf're the Cure. I'm super excited about today's show. I don't tear up much, which, I mean, I think it's good to tear up. I don't try not to tear up, but I just don't naturally let the tears flow that much. But I read a book the other day by Amy Bernhard, Unmasked. I highly recommend it. Actually, Amy asked me to write the forward to it. I was honored to do that. But I was so excited to actually get a copy of this book and read it. And guys, it's just such a story of a journey of a young lady into a woman, a wife, a mom, a. More. More I would say standard American to not standard American and just her eyes being opened and her heart being opened to the truth and just laying that truth right out there for the public on her Instagram page and in the book. And it's just powerful, such an amazing story. And we, we're not going to be able to get to all of it probably today, but I mean I'd literally teared up and we'll talk about this, but 7 of 11 of the little boys on her brother's little league baseball team dead at a young age from overdose. And then another story, she talks about when she was struggling with some things, but on, on the day she was trying to pick out her wedding dress and just numb and couldn't smile. And just really the chapter on SSRIs and emotional traumas and the real symptoms that come from these unresolved things in our heart. But the standard American way of dealing with that with SSRIs. And then another part. Three generations of women sitting on the floor crying. Amy, her mom and her little daughter. Her little daughter, 18 month old, had eight ear infections by then, or 15 months old, eight ear infections, eczema, allergies, speech delay. And then another daughter later growing up in a totally different system after Amy started questioning the vaccine schedule. Just so much jam packed into this book. Just an amazing journey. Amy, thank you so much for coming on the show and thank you for writing the book and, and thank you for asking me to write the forward to that. But your, your book was really powerful, impacted me in many different ways. And just thank you for writing. It took some courage to, to just lay your life out like that. So thank you for that and thank you for coming on the show today to share some of that journey with my audience today. So welcome. [00:02:41] Speaker B: It is an honor to be here. Dr. Ben I have been listening to your podcast. It's like a full circle moment, truly. I started listening to your podcast almost exactly four years ago to this month. And you gave me courage. You empowered me. You educated me. You have delivered your message in such love, where people can actually hear what you're saying and not just listen, but they can hear it. They can take it in. And so to be religiously listening to your podcast for four years, to give me the courage to ask my own questions and then use my voice on my own platform, and now you wrote the forward to my book. It's just such a full circle moment. I'm truly honored to be here. Thank you. [00:03:24] Speaker A: Well, thank you. That's an honor for me that you'd listen every. Every week like that. I wanted to ask you start with the title Unmasked. I mean, the mask. Whoever even thought of mask until Covid? But how'd you come to the title? What's behind that? [00:03:43] Speaker B: Oh, man, there's. There's so much symbolism just to the COVID of the book. Like, God gave me this book cover. This was all God in his vision. You know, May of 2025, I've always, for the past eight years, God planted a seed for me to write a book, But I didn't know what the book was going to be about. I thought it was going to be blended family life, personal growth, finding my identity into God. And then 2020 happens, and, you know, the world drastically. And my husband planted this seed. He said, amy, you love to research, you love to dig. I love to learn. I have a passion for learning. It's not like the outcome, it's just I love to learn. And he said, why don't you take your story and you put it in a book? You've been putting it out on Instagram. And so we're sitting over dinner at a restaurant, and I said, what would the book title be? And who starts with a book title? I don't even know what the book was going to be about. And I felt the Lord say unmasked. And, you know, I didn't wear a mask during COVID I didn't feel like the mask worked. But it was so much more than just Covid. That's where it started. And as I started developing the thought of this book and the stories that I want to tell, and this book has been being written for 15 years. Some of this book started as young as 12 years old for me with my brother's addiction that started to OxyContin. And I know we're going to get into that. But this book has been years in the making. And so I asked God, okay, if. If the. If the title is unmasked, what do you want the book cover to look like? And I just started praying about it. And through this book writing process, I really started to discern God's voice even more. And I learned that he gives me visions. He speaks to me through pictures in my head and through visions. And as I'm stepping into the shower one day, and I'm just. That's where I have the clearest thoughts, by the way, because there's no distractions. And he shows me a picture of a sunrise, [00:05:42] Speaker A: and [00:05:42] Speaker B: I'm like, a sunrise and unmasked. How does that go together? That doesn't make sense. But I just sat on it, and he said, new mercies, new mercies, second chances. A sunrise is a new day, a second chance, new mercies. Lamentations 3. 22 says, his mercies never cease. They are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. [00:06:05] Speaker A: It [00:06:06] Speaker B: is a second chance. It is awakening from a dark sleep. And so I was like, wow, okay, the sunrise. This is a second chance. This is his new mercies. This is for people to do something differently. And that's all he gave me. And then a few days go by, and I'm like, lord, I need more. Like, how am I going to develop this book cover? And he shows me a woman looking at the sunrise. Not running towards it. She's not frantic. She's standing firm in her faith, and she's looking at the truth. And then a few days later, where does the mask come in, Lord? And I started looking on Amazon for other book titles called Unmask. And it was dark, it was black. The book covers were red. They had a masquerade mask. And I'm like, that is just not this. This is hope. This is light. This is second chances. And he said, I want the woman to be releasing her mask. And the mask represents the people, ple. The societal programming of who the world tells us to be. You know, not what God tells us to be. It is the performing. It is what success looks like. Like the mask of success, the overachieving. And through this process, I have truly released my mask. And I know a lot of women have also released their mask. A lot of people have released their mask. And when you release the mask, that is who God has designed you to be. To rest into him, to stand firm in your fai, to be the most authentic version of yourself. And there's just. I look at this book cover and I just see What God has done in my life, I see myself, but I also see so many women in this season of life that are walking through the same thing. So that's how the book cover and the title really came to be. [00:08:00] Speaker A: It's beautiful. Well, describe a little bit of your upbringing and then I think that'll go right into your brother's story. Powerful story. But would you say you grew up in Louisiana, Right? [00:08:13] Speaker B: Cajun country. When you think of crawfish, that's where I'm from. Lafayette, Louisiana. [00:08:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So small town, southern upbringing, Louisiana Cajun upbringing. Just kind of walk us through that. As far as where I'm going with this, you know, you might someone try, you know, trying to label people anti vax or tree hugging granola, crunchy mama, whatever, holistic, all natural. But I mean, you were pretty standard American, small town, Southern living growing up, but just kind of set the stage there. And then, and then what happened to your brother and how that impacted you? [00:08:52] Speaker B: We were absolutely, in following the system, the medical system. You know, you have a sinus infection, you go to the doctor, you get antibiotics. I had the tonsillectomy. I actually hemorrhaged during my tonsillectomy. You know, they didn't know that I was hemorrhaging. That's a whole nother story. But they said that that's, you know, what was going to stop my sickness and my chronic strep throat. And so we were very much into trusting the system. And whenever I was 12 years old, my brother went off to college in Monroe, Louisiana. And that's when he got oxycontin for the first time for an injury. He was 18 years old. That's when his addiction started, and it started fast. His story always really gets me emotional because there was so much trauma from the age for me, from age of 12 till really 30, 30 years old, there was a lot of trauma. It was to the point where my brother, his addiction started with Oxycontin. But then oxycontin became hard to get and it then turned to heroin. And we really. I say I'm from Lafayette, Louisiana. I live in Lafayette now, but really 10 miles south is Erath, Louisiana, which is where I'm from. And that was a very small town, maybe 7,000, 8,000 people. And, you know, you talked about seven of the 11 of my brother's baseball players are no longer alive because of overdose. It was rampant in our small town in the early 2000s, you know, 1999, 2000, 2001. There was a moment I was upstairs at my Parents house. And my brother's addiction was at the height I believe I was probably in eighth grade. And I watched my brother punch himself in the face, give himself black eyes in the middle of our backyard. And he came up to my parents and he said, he's yelling, look what you did to me. And he tried to get my dad arrested and claimed that it was my dad that beat him up. And there was just. There was just so much trauma. And it started with a pill. And there was this moment in time. I was so young. I didn't really. I understood, but I didn't really understand. And in the year of 2020, you know, it was between people making sourdough breads on the Internet and watching Tiger King. I was watching the documentary the Pharmacist. That's when that came out, the Pharmacist. And they were talking about OxyContin and how it came to market and the greed and the corruption. And it was just this moment where I was like, this was in South Louisiana. This was my family. I was watching almost like our family on this documentary. This is what we lived out. And it was in 2020 where I just started diving deeper into the fraud, into the corruption, into the greed, into the marketing of this drug and how they said that it was not going to cause any addiction and it was safe and it was effective. And then when you hear safe and effective and you see, see the safe and effective of the COVID 19 vaccine and everything else, that's when I really started to shift my mindset to start looking deeper into everything else. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Well, could you go into that a little bit to educate the audience? We've never talked about the Sackler family, the whole OxyContin scandal and addiction. Really. Could you go into some of those details, like you do in the book, and just enlighten my audience on how exactly that came to be? And the whole fraud behind the OxyContin is going to be less addictive. Told all the family practice doctors everywhere specifically marketed to all these PCPs. And so many people, you know, got hooked on it, but kind of go through that story. [00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah. You know what's funny? As we're talking about this, I'm thinking it had, like, a flashback into high school, how I wanted to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. Like, that was my job, you know, that's what I really wanted to be. And as I started reaching the marketing behind this and the pharmaceutical sales reps and what they were doing, they were basically just buying out these doctors. They were whining and Dining them. They were taking them on trips. They were giving them fine dinners. They were handing them pamphlets, basically just saying that this is the. This is the latest drug. It's going to help people with pain. The marketing behind it was so strong. MIMICs, honestly, our 20 and 20, 20 and 2021 years. The marketing behind the COVID 19 vaccine. [00:13:53] Speaker A: And [00:13:53] Speaker B: these doctors really just took this and said that this is. This is the gospel. And they didn't look into it at all. And as soon as this person was handed a pill, the addiction started. And it looked so normal. It was the mother at the PTA conferences. It was the dad that was coaching the soccer teams. It was my brother who was in college, you know, wanting to be a physical therapist. My brother's roommate. So sad. My brother's roommate actually died of overdose. He wanted to be a pharmacist, and he died of overdose. And he started on OxyContin. And so what was interesting about this was that they had. I'm searching for the word. The word is on the tip of my tongue. The FDA knew. The FDA knew that this was not safe and effective, and they gave it the stamp of approval. And then the man who stamped it ends up going work for the big pharmaceutical companies. And that was very. An interesting part of the student. The conflict of interest. That's the word I'm looking for, the conflict of interest between the FDA and the big pharmaceutical companies. And lives were lost. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. And not just lost, but now look at the state of where we are with addiction to everything else, the fentanyl crisis. People are still suffering today from what happened in the. In the late 90s and early 2000 thousands. And I just feel like it's. It's really not talked about enough. And it's a silent epidemic where people are struggling in their homes with addiction. You know, people who have read my book already, the. The topic that they talk about the most is chapter two, which is my brother's addiction. Because they tell me that they lost their sibling or their loved one or their parent to heroin. And there's so much shame about it. People can't talk about it because you have to protect your loved ones. I was so detached from my brother that if somebody asked me if I had a sibling, I would say no, because in my mind, he was. He was already gone. He was either going to kill himself or he was going to kill somebody else. And I hadn't spoken to him in years because it just caused me pain. You would build trust with this person, you would forgive them and then they would hurt you all over again. And so I just had to put up a wall. But my brother got deep into selling drugs across state lines and he was going to be going to jail for 15 years. And I was asked to write a character letter for my brother. And I had never done that before. I didn't even know that judges really take that into consideration. And I really didn't want to because I had nothing, no good things to say about my brother. But I was asked to do it and I was very honest and I put that letter in my book and it was very emotional to read it again because that was in 2017 and so almost 10 years later to be able to read that. But my heart aches for the families who have walked through this. My brother's on the other side of it. He's been sober now for nine years in recovery. I mean, he doesn't even take Advil or Tylenol. Like that's the level he has. He owns eight sober living homes here in Acadiana in the south Louisiana area. He is a walking, talking miracle. His sober livings have an 80, 80% success rate where our federal government has actually flew in to interview him to say, what are you doing? How are you able to help people see success like we have, because we're not seeing the success in rehab facilities. And he said one thing. He said, I don't kick people out when they can't pay. I kick people out and I ask them to leave if they're not doing the steps, if they're not showing up to AA meetings. And he tried. Truly, truly cares about the people that are living in his home because he walked through that. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I. That's one of the notes I wrote from page 54. You said, Ordinary people talking about your brother. Ordinary people will rebuild what is broken, not corporations. And that rang true, you know, just this past election. We're recording this the week, just the few days after the election. But that's what I was thinking the whole, whole time. We need to quit looking at politicians who are bought and paid for by corporations. But it's not going to fix it. Federal government's not going to fix it. Any government's not going to fix it. But I was going to read a minute real quick from the book because it, what was so shocking. And guys, if you haven't seen the documentary that Amy's talking about or obviously just get the book too, but this, what was so gut wrenching was the corruption. I'm Just going to read. Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, developed the OxyContin, aggressively marketed it as safe and effective for chronic pain, claiming it was less addictive than other opioids. When they knew it wasn't true. That was the big thing they knew. And yet they turned their blind eye or just ignored it or. I mean they had to make a conscious decision to ignore and lie, just flat out lie to these doctors. And I'm not letting the doctors off the hook. We need to go deeper. But doctors don't have time. I never went deeper. I listened to the drug reps, looked at the shiny pamphlet. I mean we're seeing 50 patients a day. I, I trust someone's not going to lie to my face. And I don't even know what, how much the drug reps knew of the truth at the data because this came out in lawsuits. But then the FDA corruption. Amy mentioned the head of that Purdue Pharma ghost or the head of FDA ends up going to Purdue Pharma just with a huge salary. And it was. Dr. Curtis Wright left the agency shortly after and was hired by Purdue Pharma. He was paid a handsome salary. And this wasn't just coincidence. And we see this all the time. We've heard of this revolving door thing, but the biggest thing was that suppressed data. And then I don't have it underlined here, but the way the Sackler family tried to move their resource, their money, I'm just remembering this now so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but basically moving money out of the corporation to some other corporation to try to protect that money because they knew this lawsuit was coming, they knew they were going down. And we're talking millions and millions, maybe it's billions of dollars, but just a shady corruption of the data was there. They knew is addicted. They, they lied and said it wasn't. All these people get addicted. So many have died, lives ruined. Like you said, just regular folks just went to their doctor to get some pain meds for an injury or whatever, car wreck, end up addicted and then the heroin and just ah, gut wrenching story. But to see the way your brother came through and, and I wrote down here that the lawyer told your brother 99 odds you're going to jail. And then you write this letter after basically writing him off for however many years, you said 12 or 15 years, I will have a brother. And for you to come around and pour your heart out in that. And like Amy said, guys, the letters in the book, I'm just Man, it was incredible for you as a sister to stand up and in love and do what you did. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah. We sat around the table before the hearing, before my brother's sentencing and we were kind of all, I say we, my parents were crying. We just kind of knew the writing on the wall, you know, because usually you get, you get what you're sentencing, you never get off completely. And the judge in the hearing said it was, it was such a surreal moment. He said, the one letter that really impacted my decision and I put this in my book, was the letter that your sister wrote because you can tell that she was honest about it. [00:22:18] Speaker A: And [00:22:18] Speaker B: I was very brutally honest. I really, at that point, I didn't care if he went to jail or if he stayed out. I was just honest. And his hearing, he did not have to go to jail at all. He got probation. And it was, it was truly a miracle. And he said, I don't, I don't usually give second chances, but there's something in this man that I see and I want to give him a second chance. And my brother has really done a lot with that second chance. I'm one of his biggest fans. He's one of my biggest fans. Our relationship has truly been redeemed. And it has all been, it has all been God. Any, anytime that I have any doubt about anything that God won't over deliver, I think, well, my brother was addicted to Heroin for almost 17 years and he's a walking, talking miracle. And if God can do that, he can do anything. And I just, I don't want people to, to lose hope. [00:23:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:12] Speaker B: And that's what I'm really passionate about. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah. We'll talk about coming full circle because at the beginning of this story, you didn't mention it right now in our interview, but as a 12 year old little girl, and he's your big brother and he's quite a few, I think six years older. [00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:23:28] Speaker A: And I've got, I've got six kids, so we have some real. My youngest right now is 10, 9. Sorry, Poppy. But she has older siblings, older brothers that are, you know, significantly older. But, but how you looked up to him. I mean, he was kind of your hero big brother. Just, I mean, I can just envision you as a little girl and then you talk about the day that you realized he was using drugs and just to see that relationship really disintegrate to no relationship for a long time and near death. And, and that's part of the story too. We didn't get into. But the moment. Your brother just almost died, and the paramedics rushed in and, I mean, in a moment, literally brought him back from the brink of death. It's just a powerful story, guys. And I just. I really encourage y' all to get the book and read more about it. It's just a. A heartwarming story, like Amy said, really pointing back to God's redemptive love for us even. But, Amy, that just. What a great display of Christ. And you, the way you laid out that story and you and your brother's relationship has come full circle. It's amazing. Let's maybe move to you a little more. I do want to get to your daughters, for sure, in the whole vaccine schedule. And how did you wake up to that? And a lot of moms are waking up to that, but struggling to. Feeling guilty or condemned or fearful or whatever. And that's a powerful story I want to get to, hopefully. But a lot of women struggle with various things. Various. And men, too. I mean, all of us. Different emotional conflicts and struggles. But you really spent a good amount of time in the book talking about that. These unresolved emotional conflicts. You know, I talked about you feeling numb, couldn't even smile on your wedding dress shopping day, and this chemical imbalance versus emotional imbalance. And we have talked about these SSRIs on the show before, but you did a great job of kind of explaining how the body holds the tension that your mind avoids. And trauma doesn't live in the mind, it lives in the body. And how you had so many different symptoms. I think you even said your body was screaming that something is unsafe. And. But how that came out was in physical symptoms. So maybe go through that for the audience of. Of that season of your life, your body screaming with these symptoms. But it was a deeper thing. And how the SSRIs weren't doing the job and. But you got freedom. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah, in my early 20s, so I'm 38 right now. In my early 20s, I was married. But before, whenever I first got engaged, my body was speaking to me. You know, it was just telling me that this is. This is not my person. This is not right. And so people said, why don't you just go talk to a therapist? And so I go to a therapist. And she recommended that it's just. It's nerves. And I think that I have something to be able to take the edge off. She recommended this drug called Celexa. And I hate it at that point. I hated taking any type of medicine. It just wasn't for me. And so I didn't. She prescribed it. I had it. I go to my next appointment. Did you start taking it? No, I didn't. I go to my third appointment. Amy, you need to start taking it. And at that point, you know, I was starting to have a little bit of panic attacks. I was struggling to show up to my job on time. It was affecting my work. And so I said, you know what? I can't lose my job. I'm a single woman at this point. Let me just take it. And it did. It did take the edge off. And I went from a roller coaster to almost feeling numb. I didn't feel the panic attacks, but I didn't feel joy. I didn't have any highs, but I didn't have any lows. And it was almost as if I had a filter between me and another person, a filter between empathy. I would look back now, and I lost all of my empathy. I look back at the person that I used to be whenever I was on SSRIs for six years, and it started to wear off. And so what happened is I increased my dose. She said, let's increase the dose. And then it would wear off, and I didn't get the same effects. And we increased the dose, and we continue to do that over six years. And. But before that, whenever I was trying on my wedding dress for my wedding, I just remember looking at myself, and I was a shell of a human. And my mom says, why aren't you smiling? This should be one of the happiest days of your life. And it was as if my body was screaming at me, but I was also numbing it at the same time. You know, when I felt anxiety, I would just continue take the medicine and hope that it works. I started taking Xanax every day, you know, to help me sleep. And that just was not who I was. And so, you know, our marriage ended shortly after. It didn't last a very long time, but I stayed on the medication. I stayed on the medication for my divorce. And then in 2015, I was saved. I found God, and God was chasing after me, and I was pushing him away because I just thought, I'm not a good enough Christian. I can't be this type of Christian that people want to be the pressure, the perfect person. And I just pushed God away. And then In September of 2015, God radically saved me. And that's when I really began my spiritual healing journey. I met my husband, who is my soul mate. You know, we got married after six months of dating, and then we got Pregnant. And I decided to get off the medication. And my. My OB GYN recommended me to get off. And so I got off very quickly. And it was one of the darkest times of my life, because when I look back at the woman who prescribed the medication for me, there was no plan about getting off. It almost seemed like I was supposed to be on this for the rest of my life because my brother was diagnosed with bipolar, so I must have a chemical imbalance. And that anxiety just runs in my family. It almost felt as though this was a genetic part of who I am. And that anxiety, I took. Oh, I took over anxiety as my identity, and I became labeling myself. I'm just an anxious person. My whole family is anxious. This is just who I am. And at this point in time, my brother was at the peak of his addiction, and so we still thought he was bipolar, when really it was unresolved trauma. So I get off my medication. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. Nobody, I realized nobody talks about what it felt like to get off of SSRIs. I had suicidal thoughts. I remember driving my car one time, and there was a curve in a road, a curve that I always go to. And I remember just thinking, I just should just keep driving. What if I just keep driving and this pain will go away? And that's when I realized this is not normal. But how many people try to get off and the symptoms get worse? But this is actually part of the process. But none of this was talked about when I started the medication. There was no plan. Plan to get off. And I realized, too, through researching and through writing this book, the importance of tapering slowly, slowly. I tapered off in six weeks through my OG obgyn. That was way too fast, which is why I had all of these symptoms. And then in 2020, I find a somatic healing practitioner, and she pops up on my Instagram, somebody that I know through another season of life, and I'm like, what is this somatic healing? Because I've always just known talk therapy, you go to. You go to a therapist, you talk about your problems. But I would leave therapy feeling like I just kicked up dirt at a construction site. [00:31:57] Speaker A: All [00:31:57] Speaker B: the dirt is kicked up, but nothing's really resolved. I'm [00:32:01] Speaker A: still [00:32:01] Speaker B: triggered. I'm still getting activated day to day. I'm still feeling like I have the panic attacks, and I don't have tools to take with me when I leave this therapy office. And so I jumped head first into the somatic healing I invested a pretty penny, and I committed to 12 weeks of her course. And when I tell you this has radically changed my life, I tell people all the time who are struggling with maybe turmoil in their marriage and, you know, within their family. Old Amy in the past used to point fingers and say, you need to change, you need to change. You need to do this. But I finally took accountability and I started looking at myself. I needed to be the one to change. I needed to put the oxygen mask over myself first, because when you heal yourself, you're going to heal your entire land. And I started doing the somatic healing in 2020. And when I look at how it has healed my entire land, my. My husband just did somatic therapy. He now tells everybody about it because he has felt a physical release. And what I mean by that is when trauma happens, trauma is simply when we don't have a choice, when we feel like we don't have agency. You know, you can lose your favorite person or you can lose your favorite pin, no matter how that if that pin is very important to you and that person is very important to you, that trauma lives within our body, and it's an energy that lives within our body. And so you might have a life situation that popped up. And I tell multiple stories about the life situation that's popped up, you know, and you feeling very activated, and your heart is beating fast and your stomach is in knots, and you have a lump in your throat, and you're like, where is this coming from? That is your body speaking to you about a past experience that happened maybe in your early childhood. And that trauma has lived within your body, and it is trying to come out, and it is showing up in the present day. And so people, I feel like a popular trending word lately is triggers and activations. And we walk through day to day and we're unleashing on our spouse, and our spouse is like, this was. My dad says this was just a little alligator. This was just a. This was just a little thing. You know, this wasn't a big thing. This was just a little alligator. So why are you having this 210 reaction? Your reaction should be a 2. If your reaction is a 10, that's when you need to get curious. Where is this coming from? When was this birthed? And once I started working with a somatic experiencing practitioner who. Who helped me go back to the wounds of my childhood when I didn't feel seen. And me and my parents have this open conversation, and they'll listen to this podcast and they say that you know, we were there for you, but we weren't emotionally there for you. We weren't because we were giving all of our attention to your brother. We were just in fight or flight. And so I discovered I had a wound of not feeling seen, not feeling good enough. And so how did that show up in my life in my 20s and early 30s? It showed up as people pleasing, it showed up as performing, it showed up as overachieving and trying to grow my Instagram and getting validation from my likes and my followers. It showed up as fitness competitions. I wanted people to see me because my childhood, I did not feel seen. [00:35:51] Speaker A: And [00:35:51] Speaker B: when I started working with that Somatic Experiencing practitioner, and when Jesus met me in those memories of not feeling seen and giving that little girl what I needed in that moment, I was able to sit with those parts of me. And now I'm about to do a 75 day social media fast. And old Amy would have never been able to disconnect from social media because I needed it as my self worth. It was my identity. It was an idol, social media was an idol. It made me feel good, it filled my pride and my ego. And now I truly feel, seen by God, that I can step away from it all. And now it's just something fun that I do. And so I really encourage anybody listening to this that if you're not getting results or if you're not seeing success or freedom with your therapist, I cannot, I put the resources at the end of chapter three of Somatic Experiencing and Practitioners that you can go and follow and there's free guides and memberships of where you can get started. That is where I would start. [00:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah, true freedom. And Jesus is such a key component of that. For him to come into that story and bring the truth. He is the truth. And he brings that truth to your heart. And then there's a heart transformation. And guys, it's so connected and we won't go down this trail right now, but even all the way to cancer, the body's always trying to resolve conflict, always trying to heal, always trying to come back into balance. That's the design. But when there is conflict, where it can't do that, and that's easy to think, you know, like with a broken bone, you've got to just line those bones up and it'll, it'll heal, it'll mend. But if there's a conflict, if you don't line that thing up or you kept, you know, breaking it over and over and over, it's not going to heal. It's going to try, but it's not. It'll put a big old callus of calcium. It'll be a deformed healing or heavy metals in your body that are blocking the function of the mitochondria, whatever physical conflict. But then these heart beliefs that just aren't the truth, these lies we believe, like Amy just said. You know, for me, it was, I'm rejected. Amy was unseen. People feel unworthy. They feel whatever. There's so many. So I echo what Amy just said. True healing, I don't think can truly happen at the deepest levels until you go down there and let Jesus heal you in these, from these lies. And then the body just naturally starts to function as it has in Amy's life. So that's so cool, Amy. Thank you for sharing that part. You know, just reading through the book, it was interesting to me, and maybe I'm reading into this so you can correct me, but as you're getting healed, getting unmasked, walking in your true identity, getting your value and self worth from God, just more truth coming into your heart, your little girls, you know, to come out of the system, so to speak, the pediatric, the routine schedule, wellness visits, all that you get into that in the book, how much did that play into you having the courage to stand up to that? Or was it simply the recognition of, I have one really, really sick daughter and I'm following all the rules? What was it that opened your eyes, opened your heart, gave you the courage to. For your other daughter to grow up in a different system, so to speak, as you describe it in the book, but kind of walk through that season and your. Your thinking through that. [00:39:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So my first daughter, I followed the full CDC schedule until she was 15, 18 months old. 15 to 18 months old. And, you know, I have two mottos. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And when you know better, you do better. Well, the first one, it was very broken. It did not make sense to me why every time we went in for a wellness visit, the fever spiked, the ear infections came. We were in the emergency room three times before she was 15 months old, you know, because she would just kind of be lethargic and limp and just lay in there with a high fever and it was so scary. And I had a friend of mine, her name is Amber, and she was a NICU nurse and she had a baby a little bit before I had my second baby. But this was around the year of 2020, 2021, where, you know, my awakening really came when the CDC put the COVID 19 vaccine in the childhood schedule because we saw how that affected children. Covid really didn't affect children. So why are they. Why are they recommending this for all babies and children? And that's when I thought, well, let me look into the other vaccines. Let me look into how all of the other vaccines came about. And I know you've talked about this book. I think you've even interviewed them. And I listened to it, and I probably found the book through your podcast was Dissolving Illusions. That book, once I read that, I said, done. The bug stops here if we get pregnant. And I hope we do, because we were struggling with infertility. And I also talk about that in the book. If we get pregnant, we are not vaccinating our children because something is seriously broken. She is chronically sick. You know, before the age of four, she had her tonsils out, her adenoids removed, and two sets of tubes. You know, we. She had allergies, she had eczema, she had the speech delay. And. And so I just thought, let's just try a different way. I was no longer living in fear, and I was really starting to find my voice. And so my friend Amber, who was a NICU nurse, this was my. This was my awakening. She had a baby, and she didn't vaccinate her second baby. And I remember thinking, this baby's so healthy. This baby never gets sick. This baby goes out and about to birthday parties, and she's not keeping me in a bubble. And so it really took a real life experience, somebody close to me, to see firsthand that, man, the things that I was told that if I don't vaccinate my kids, I'm seeing this firsthand how advanced this child is. And then I started to have other friends to not vaccinate their kids. And I'm like, it is not going to happen. And my husband at the time was still very much into the system and into that line of thinking. And so when we had our second daughter, it's just not. I'm not vaccinating not. I'm not doing a delayed schedule. I read Dr. Paul Thomas's book, the Vaccine Friendly Plan, and I think he wrote that in 2018, and he talked about a delayed schedule, but around the same time, he released the second book, and I think it's called Vax Facts, and he pretty much talks about how he doesn't even really believe in the. The delayed schedule anymore. He has went down his own journey. I think you. I think you interviewed Him. And I probably listened to your podcast where that book is amazing Vax facts, by the way, where he did his own study of vaccinated children versus unvaccinated children. And then guess what? He got punished for it when it became peer peer reviewed. And I'm just thinking like, wow, I saw, I saw it all playing out. And so when I had my second daughter, she never got sick. She's had two ear infections and she's turning four years old next week. And we healed those ear infections with garlic ear oil in the ear, which my hundred year old aunt used to always tell me that that's how they resolved ear infections. You know, I listened to one of your podcasts again. I've gotten all my information from you. You would plant the seed and then you would say, go do your own research and you would give the resources. And then me being the researcher, Dr. Ben, you give it to me. I am going deep. And you talked about the Flexner report and it was you who planted that seed. And then there I go, down the rabbit hole I go. And that's chapter one, that turning point in our medical system. And when I really started to talk to my aunt, who was lived to 100 years old, and I started asking, how did they heal? What childhood diseases did you get? And she had the measles, she had the mump, she had rubella, she had the whooping cough, she had all of it. And I'm like, so you really never had any vaccines and you're 99 and they healed with the garlic ear oil. And I just became fascinated with how we used to heal our body, you know, before the Flexner report came out, before big Pharma got their, their tentacles into our industry and into the United States. And I really just began trusting God's design, trusting that he made us perfectly. And like you say all the time, you can heal yourself when you give it the right terrain. And when I tell you I used to have the worst health anxiety when my kids were sick. It was like I was playing whack a mole. Okay, you got this. Off to the walk in clinic we go. You got this. We got to go get tested now. We just don't. We just. I treat the symptoms, you know, I have all the tools, I treat the symptoms. I don't need a test to tell me what it is. And we just heal our body at home. And does it take a little bit longer? Yes. But every time their immune system comes back even stronger than before, you know, and so my daughter, like I said, who's almost 4, has never been vaccinated, not a single vaccine. She's never had any antibiotics. And my daughter has actually been my husband's awakening, just as like my friend Amber's son was my own awakening. My husband, it was in the first six months where he couldn't believe how healthy she was. He said, okay, let's just. Let's just continue to not vaccinate, because I tell parents this. Never make a decision out of fear. Never make a decision when you feel anxious. I always say, God is not a God of fear. He does not create anxiety. You want to make a decision when you feel peace. And if you don't feel peace about the decision to vaccinate your children, guess what? You can research, you can do your homework, and you can always vaccinate later. But once you do it, you can't undo it. That has been our motto this whole time. We can always choose to do it. But why not? Why not do something differently? Why not give this other path a shot? Because the first. The first way clearly was not working. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Yeah. And. And, guys, what Amy just laid out there, other physicians would call that anecdotal. I mean, her friend Amber, the ICU nurse. Well, that's just one anecdotal report. And now Amy's own story. Oh, that's just an anecdotal. That's a testimony is what the word of God says. But medical doctors are trained to not even listen to anecdotal. We're not supposed to listen. Just the one story. Oh, great grandma cured her earache with the garlic oil. Oh, that's just. I mean, we're literally told that's the lowest level of evidence. But when you have the sickest population of children, which the United States does, when you have more babies dying than any other industrialized country, which the United States does, and when you can look back historically, I just happen to be rereading a couple of books. Shut your mouth. Save your life by George Caitlin. It's from 1869, and George Caitlin was seeing 50% of the babies die in the city that he lived in on the East Coast. I think it was Boston, but every city, New York, all the big industrialized cities in Europe and the United States, 50 infant mortality rate. And he just couldn't believe that. That that was, you know, that that's how it was just going to be. So he goes west in. In the. Throughout North America, Canada, America, Mexico, Central and South America. Over a number of years, 150 different indigenous tribes, Native American tribes, and he went to the elders, to the chiefs, to the medicine men. And he interviewed them and he quotes, I mean the specific tribe, the name I'm not going to go through right now, but the different tribe names and where they live between the Missouri and the Mississippi river and this part of wherever. And many of these tribes get told them the same thing. Were just bewildered at his question of how many of your babies die every year. Your newborns don't make it to their first birthday. And these tribes are like that never happens literally some of these tribes. Zero. The chief couldn't remember any time, any deaths. One tribe said never. Except three in the past 10 years. And those three, one was a drowning, one was a rattlesnake bite and one was a horse kicked a kid in the head. So accidents, trauma, babies didn't die. Same thing in this book. Every second child. Dr. Archie, who I wish was alive and I could interview him, but Dr. Archie Calo Carinos volunteered in Australia to go to the outback to the Aborigines. This is in the 1950s because he heard of the high infant mortality rate that was happening Amongst the Aborigines. 10% infant mortality rate where all the European white folk in Australia it was only 2%. And he. And. And the word on the street that Dr. Archie was being told by the medical establishment, oh, it's just because they're Aborigines, they're uncivilized. They're just stupid basically and ignorant and. And he discovered the same thing talking to the elders. When the Aborigines were able to live off the land and, and move as they did, 500 different tribes historically throughout Australia, no infant mortality. And then as he moved out there and started taking care of these kids, the vaccine started because again this in the 50s, so into the late 50s, early 60s, the vaccine campaign starts rolling in and that infant mortality rate goes up to 50% from vaccine injury. And he figured out how to reverse all this with just vitamin C. It was an incredible story. But the point being what Amy's saying, even modern science now I think we're at 12 studies, not only Paul Thomas's study that she mentioned, but 11 others. And there may be more now that look at exactly what Amy saw in her own household. Look at a fully vaccinated CDC schedule, kiddos versus unvaccinated and let's follow them over time. Sids, sudden infant death. Which group has more ear infections? Which group has more autoimmune disease cancers. It's right now 12 to 0. All 12 studies show the Unvaccinated groups are the healthiest, the least amount of death, the least amount of sickness, and overall robust health. It's absolutely incredible. So if this is the first time you're hearing this or second time, mainly take the deep dive like Amy did. And on our website, veritaswellnessmember.com little plug here, but on the vaccine section of the podcast archive page, we have it archived in based off topics. Paul Thomas is on there, Sherry Tenpenny's on there, Neil Miller's on there. So many for one purpose, to educate y' all so you can make an informed decision. And that's throughout the book. Amy talks about this informed decision making, informed consent. And Amy's a researcher. Not everybody is. So get Amy's book, of course, our podcast and the archive page on the website. We've laid that out there for you for your benefit. So try to make it a little easier for you. But guys, we're in a massive crisis. And as Amy said in her book and already quoted, it's going to be the common people, us, just the regular folk who are going to turn this thing around, household by household, community by community. But we've got to move and pull. You know, this putting up on an idol. You mentioned it in your book, these white coat kind of priests. We put our trust, hope and faith in this system of the world that has been absolutely corrupted. Steal, kill and destroy. Sorry it's got on my little soapbox there, Amy, but your book just tells this whole story and wraps it up so beautifully in each chapter. Guys, there's a resource section. There's questions to. For you to consider. Amy points you to different books and podcasts to listen to. It's just a fantastic aid to help bring you along into your, I would say, truth journey. As Amy's been on and we've all been on, I'm still on mine too. But so many moms and dads out there are starting to wake up. And Amy, this book is just so would be such a tool to help help folks not have to have that first baby be so sick. They don't need to experience that. They can do the reading and do the research beforehand and make an informed decision. And I'm gonna do one last quote and then I'll shut up, let you have the last word. But it was a, a great quote towards the end of the book, page 246. And it just points to what you already said in a few minutes ago. Just getting back to where you can truly trust God's design. When we reconnect to truth, nourish our bodies with real food, release stored trauma, forgive ourselves and others, and surrender our fear back to God. That's when healing begins. That's when we stop being victims of disease and start becoming stewards of our design. So maybe it's time to stop fighting cancer and start listening to it. Every symptom, every diagnosis, every cell is trying to lead us home. Back to alignment, back to truth, back to the Creator who made us whole from the very beginning. So good. Thank you for the book. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah, Dr. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Show today. But, yeah, for you, you close us out. Take as much time as you want. [00:55:06] Speaker B: You know what I think makes this book really special is that it's not just about my story. As I was sharing my story publicly on social media and talking about my own awakening in real time, which was very vulnerable because I went on social media and I said, we are not going to vaccinate our baby, our newborn baby. And I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I'm going to share it in real time. And I don't know how wise that is, but it actually worked out in my favor. And so I have shared everything, all of this journey in real time. But as I was sharing it, the stories that I received from followers who are walking through the same thing. And there were probably maybe over 20 stories of people who allowed me to share their story, their walk with getting off of SSRIs, their vaccine story and the vaccine injury or their healthy child or. Or their infertility journey and going through IVF and then taking more of a natural approach, learning about the MTH or FAR gene, gene mutation to their cancer journey, doing the traditional treatment and what Alex learned. And I thought that was so beautiful because Alex is an actually as actual A patient of yours, and she quoted you in chapter seven of the book, which I thought was so beautiful. And Andrea coming off of SSRIs, and it was your podcast that she listened to, that you talked about SSRIs, and that helped her to come off of it. And so what makes this really special is other people's stories who have also walked through this, the lessons that they have learned through this process, what God has taught them, the things that they wish they would have done differently. And then another thing I love is that you don't have to read this book cover to cover. I really see it almost as a guide. You can skip to whatever chapter you're interested in learning about if you want to learn more about cancer or food and fasting go to chapter eight, Cancer. Chapter seven. SSRI is chapter three. You can skip around, pick it up, put it down, refer back to it when you need it. But my somatic healing practitioner, Courtney, after. In every session, if I was activated, if I was triggered and I couldn't even see straight, she would say, let's get curious. Let's get curious where this is coming from and why you feel activated. And that's what I end every chapter with, that. If this topic activates you, if it triggers you, every section ends with, let's get curious where this is coming from. Let's ask questions, let's dive deeper. And. And it ended with the resources. But, Dr. Ben, to wrap this up, you have been an incredible mentor in my life, and this is the first time that we've ever met, which is really weird to say, borderline creepy. Okay. You have been an incredible mentor, and you have brought so much peace. I love that you talk about the peace pillar and health, because that was a huge component to my healing. And that's where it started. I started with the somatic healing. When you look at mammals, you look at a dog. If a dog feels scared, the dog shakes. If the dog gets hurt, he shakes it off. And what do we do when we're scared, when we're hurt, when we're sad, we push it down. We go back to business as usual. We don't take the time to cry or to grieve or to. Or to express that anger, maybe through twisting a towel, or you'll see me pushing against the wall, because I can feel this energy that needs to get out of my body or exercise can get that energy out. I don't know if anybody here has had an experience where they've exercised so hard they began to cry. That is a somatic experience that your body just expressed. And it got that energy out of your body. Running, walking, dancing, rebounding. These are all things where you can express crying. You know, I'm a big believer in crying because that can just shift your nervous system to feel peace, to feel gratitude. And, Dr. Ben, you were one of the very few doctors who talked about the peace pillar. You have delivered every single message with love and calmness to where people can actually hear what you're saying and not just listen to it. And this has truly been your ministry. And I don't know whether you know it or not, but it has. And, you know, there is a quote, I think it's by Mother Teresa. I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone upon waters that can cause many ripples. And you, sir, have casted that stone, and it has caused so many ripples in other people's lives. So thank you. [01:00:05] Speaker A: Well, praise be to God. And thanks be to God, because I was in that system and I had no idea nor any desire to look outside that system. But. And for the listeners out there, seek the kingdom first. Talk to God every day. And just like Amy said, get curious. Quit ignoring these symptoms, these thoughts, these emotions. Get curious. Start talking. And if you need someone to help you in that journey, you don't know what to do. But I'm telling you, God will reveal himself. He's. He is so eager and willing and wanting to reveal himself and to set you free. So all praise be to God. Amy, thank you. I know your ripple effect is huge, too. So it takes all of us. Just like I've said. I think for the third time, it's going to be the people, guys. Quit looking to the politicians and the institutions. It's going to be us, the body of Christ in the earth, loving each other. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and that's it. Jesus said everything else will fall into place. So, Amy, thank you for loving God, loving your neighbor and loving yourself, and for coming on the show and for being who God made you to be and reaching so many and impacting so many. Sure appreciate you and would love to have you back someday. And if you're ever in Lubbock, Texas, me and Jamie will take you out to dinner. [01:01:26] Speaker B: I'll hunt you down. Don't [01:01:27] Speaker A: Worry. [01:01:28] Speaker B: Thank you, Dr. Ben. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Okay. And Amazon. I didn't even say, is Amazon the best place or where do people get this book? [01:01:35] Speaker B: Amazon. Amy Bernhard Unmasked. [01:01:38] Speaker A: All right. Okay, everybody, It's a great book. Go get it. Get two or three copies. Christmas is coming. Give it to your friends, your family. You won't be disappointed. And share this podcast, too. Amy and I are trying to partner together to heal the world with Jesus. We'll see you next time, guys. Bye. Bye.