Ep.67: Essential Oils for Abundant Living Interview with Dr. Eric Zielinski

Robyn: Hey, everyone. It’s Robyn Openshaw, and welcome back to Vibe. Guess what? We’re changing the name of the podcast. “Your High Vibration Life” was actually a working title of what actually came to be called “Vibe,” and I like it better.

 

I like the name Vibe better, so we are changing the podcast to be called Vibe. I hope you’re going to like the new look and the new intro. Today is a great day to start that, because you know, if you read the book Vibe, that I have a whole section in there about high vibration medicine and how we have, in the last few generations, started to look to chemicals as our medicine, and they always lower vibration. They always have negative health consequences. Whereas in the last few decades scientists have found the most powerful healing part of plants in the flowers, in the stems and the stalks, in different parts of the plant – where the essential oil is.

 

This is the most magical medicinal part of the plant, and that’s part of why I’m excited; we haven’t talked about essential oils. How did I go a year and a half without talking about essential oils? But, secondly, I’m excited because I’m really introducing you today to one of my best friends.

 

Dr. Eric Zielinski is absolutely amazing ,and he is about to come out with a book that is going to take the world by storm. He has millions of people following him. He has five million people on his website every year. He came out a few years ago, brand Neutral. He isn’t out there selling one of the big essential oil network marketing companies. He’s out there completely neutral, educating people.

 

I also absolutely love the guy. He and Chris Wark are my little brothers. We text practically every day. I run stuff that matters past him. He brings me stuff that matters; he’s amazing.

 

You can’t have a conversation with Dr Z without references to his deep, abiding faith. He is a biblical health educator. This matters to him. I have a feeling he’s going to tell me, when I finally let him talk here in a second, that he wishes his second career would be to be on the stage, but his site has really become the number one source out there in the internet for biblical health and, again, non-branded essential oils education.

 

I think you can trust what he says because he’s a researcher. He started his career as a researcher while he was in chiropractic school. He is a doctor of chiropractic, and he sits as a peer reviewer for multiple medical journals.

 

I absolutely love Dr. Eric Z. He lives in Atlanta with his beautiful pageant-winning wife, Sabrina, and his four adorable children with biblical names. Welcome, Dr. Z.

 

Eric: Robyn, I love you. I’m so excited. The inaugural podcast about essential oils. What a perfect time. What a perfect time today to talk about this. I love you and everyone listening loves you, and anyone who has ever had the privilege of meeting you, they just know how magnetic and how high vibe, energetic you are, and just thank you. It’s my pleasure.

 

Robyn: Well, I have been waiting for this interview for a very long time. I’ve been very excited about your book coming out. I have a review copy in my hands, and I think that nobody’s been out there doing anything non-branded. I really trust whatever you say, because I know how much time and effort you’ve put into educating yourself. You’ve gotten some certifications and you’ve gone beyond just self-education, haven’t you, in becoming a true aroma therapist, yes?

 

Eric: It dawned on me, Robyn, and for everyone listening, who is a podcaster or a writer or a blogger, I want to encourage you all to be the expert that you’re portraying yourself to be. Essentially, you and I talked about this, I had to become expert on the fly. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t want it. I had this crazy idea of hosting a non-branded essential oil summit, 165,000 people. It was almost three years now, and people looked at me [oddly].

 

I was just the investigative journalist. I was just the interviewer; but people came to me, thousands, Robyn, thousands. I literally read 4,500 comments and emails, and people kept on saying, “Dr Z, help. I need advice. What do I do?”

 

People were really like sheep without a shepherd; because you go out to doctor so-and-so dot com, and you go to your favorite food blogger, and all these folks, and, bless their heart, they’re trying to make a living, but all the information is conflicting.

 

“Can you ingest? Can you not ingest? What to do with oils? What about babies? What about pets?” It’s craziness out there. I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to get my act together. I’m going to figure this stuff out.”

 

And I actually went to aroma therapy school, traditional aroma therapy school, and I’m really glad I did, because I’ve changed almost all of my articles on my website. I’ve had to update a lot of stuff and I didn’t realize, being a researcher and a clinical aroma therapist, there’s two different worlds, and there’s actually a huge chasm between the two. I’m just very blessed and very fortunate to have kind of one foot in the multi-level marketing world, one foot in the aroma therapy world, one foot in the research world, one foot with you in the influencer world and health world. I’m kind of without a home, just educating and helping everyone, and it’s a really interesting place to be.

 

Robyn: Back up for people who don’t know much about essential oils. It’s funny because Facebook tells us who follows us and we have a big following on Facebook and Facebook has all these crazy metrics. They know more about us than our spouse knows about us or,

 

Eric: I know.

 

Robyn: … Our best friend knows about us, and you know what? Facebook told me recently is that the number one thing that my audience likes is essential oils. A lot of my audience is actually deep in that world. Plus, I live here where Young Living and doTerra are in my backyard. Tell us what essential oils are, and are they really powerful or are they overrated?

 

Eric: In a nutshell, before antibiotics were invented, people used essential oils in a variety of different forms. Actually, it was combat medicine – thyme, oregano, lavender – in World War I, World War II. This is how soldiers protected themselves from gangrene and from infection on the battlefield, but that was because we have steam distillation.

 

Go back a couple hundred years, maybe 900 AD, to when Arab alchemists invented steam distillation; that’s when people started to mess around with these beautiful aromatic plants. But there are little baby pockets of oil in all your plants, whether it’s bark, whether it’s roots, leaves, blossoms – whatever it might be, you extract that. Or you can even put them in olive oil and let those volatile organic compounds just seep through. And that’s what our ancient ancestors used to do, Robyn.

 

They used to put lavender in a vat – like a big, old vat of lavender with a big, old amount of olive oil – and they just let that steep. Then you just get this nice aromatic ointment. Other cultures would get the roots and the leaves and they would burn it. They would get frankincense resin, and they would create incense from that.

 

People have used aromatic plants for literally millennia, and they’ve used them for a variety of things: meditation, for healing, for a number of different ways. Then once science caught up to like, “Hey, we can actually extract this stuff,” we’re looking at really about a 150-year-old profession. I mean, really, at the end of the day, aroma therapy, as we know it today, is relatively new. I’m telling you, folks, Jesus didn’t have frankincense oil. It just didn’t exist back then because steam distillation wasn’t around.

 

Again, if you don’t know what it is, the best analogy I could ever give is get an orange. If you’re listening right now, press pause, go to your kitchen, get an orange, or a lemon, or a lime or a grapefruit, whatever you have, and get a knife and cut it. Keep it on the counter, and just smell for just a moment or two. I guarantee you, as long as you don’t have congestion or sinus problems, you will smell a citrus smell.

 

Why? Because volatile organic compounds, volatile meaning they evaporate, emit out of the citrus rind into the air. Then those particles touch your nose and say, “Hey, there’s something here.” It’s an orange, or it’s a grapefruit, or it’s a lime or a lemon. That’s what the essential oil is. When you’re walking through a lavender field, you brush up against the lavender blossoms. You’re brushing up against the volatile organic compounds and get them into the air.

 

Now, here’s the thing. They’re natural, but not really. Not to burst anyone’s bubble, but you’re not going to walk into an orange grove and see a pool of orange oil. It just doesn’t exist. You have to extract it, and they’re super concentrated. It literally takes 40 lemons to get a bottle of lemon. A little, itty-bitty 15 milliliter bottle takes 30 some pounds of lavender. Lavender, just think about that, just how light and airy lavender blossoms are, to get a little bottle of lavender.

 

At the end of the day, folks, we’re talking high concentrated, plant-based medicine as we know it today, and there’s a number of ways that you can use them.

 

Robyn: You mentioned before we had antibiotics, we had essential oils. I think this is a very hot topic right now. I personally – you can probably tell from my voice – just came out of a thing. I probably get sick once a year. Don’t fret for me.

 

We need to get sick once in a while, because the body produces mucus. The core temperature heats up. We burn out all these bacterial organisms. Cancer cells are killed when we have a fever. A fever is good. I usually get sick for about a day, a day and a half, once a year and I believe that that is actually cleansing and purifying for the body. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with us if we get sick. When people say, “Oh, I’m really healthy because I never get sick,” that doesn’t actually mean that you’re really healthy.

 

Eric: Yeah, exactly.

 

Robyn: I had a little bit of low back pain when I was sick with this. It started a week ago, and it’s clearing from my chest. My chest doesn’t hurt anymore. Only the second time in my life I’ve ever had anything respiratory.

 

As with everything else I’ve ever gotten in the last 25 years, I use my essential oils. Just to be brand neutral here, I’m going to mention three. I have here on my desk my Thieves from Young Living, my ProShield from Améo and my On Guard from doTERRA. Each of them do a similar thing and they are freaking powerful.

 

Tell us about antibiotics, staying well, being able to treat your family naturally and non-toxically, and not going straight to the antibiotic thanks to the power of these magical compounds.

 

Eric: Robyn, when I was a kid, when I used to have a respiratory thing, whatever, my mom would get boiling hot water and get a bowl and put Vicks VapoRub in the bowl, and then I’d tent myself with a towel. That menthol would just open up my airways. Well, that’s fake.

 

That’s synthetic, and that’s a man-made version. It’s a knockoff version of what you would find in eucalyptus and peppermint, for example. At the end of the day, what I want to really impress upon people is, where do you think chemists got the chemical structure of aspirin from? The chemical compounds from the birch tree.

 

When you think about why would you want to get a knockoff, why would you want to get a synthetic version because we actually have found, within cellular mimicry, the body doesn’t respond well to these chemicals. The body will reject these chemicals; whereas essential oils, this is really interesting, the body will completely metabolize them.

 

A landmark study in 1991 evaluated a male patient, and the researchers massaged a one and a half percent dilution of lavender on his abdomen. One and a half percent, a couple drops per ounce, bottom line. They massaged it over this male patient’s abdomen. Within five minutes, they started to detect, because they did blood test, linalyl and linalyl acetate. Those chemicals that we know and love as the calming sedatives, that everyone loves lavender for. Within 20 minutes, full concentration of the compounds in the man’s blood. Hour and half, they’re gone. They couldn’t detect it. The guy metabolized it. You can’t do that with drugs.

 

My big sales pitch for plant-based medicine, whether it’s essential oils or whether it’s whatever it might be – because, Robyn, you sell great stuff, you sell great whole foods, plant-based supplements – is get the real deal. At the end of the day, whatever it is, just remember, folks, whatever it is, if it’s chemotherapy, if it’s a respiratory thing, there is a natural version of it.

 

Like you, you’re mentioning those three power immune-boosting oils. Well, I guarantee you that pretty much the recipe is cinnamon, clove, maybe eucalyptus, rosemary, probably orange or lemon in there. That’s the mixture that is so full of antimicrobial agents, antifungal agents. It is super high in antioxidants. There’s a reason why these companies all create their own little version of their “immunity” blend, because it does the body good.

 

Here’s the cool thing about oils, Robyn; I know you appreciate them, it’s not like we’re using oils like a drug. I want to be careful about that because sometimes … Don’t get me wrong. Palliative care is important. We need to treat symptoms. But what the body does is … I should word it this way. What essential oils do is essential oils help the body actually perform better. The essential oils actually create homeostasis in the body.

 

Using, for example, rosemary on one person might raise blood pressure. It might cause blood pressure to lower in someone else. Why? Because it can help cause homeostasis. For me, I’m all about, hey, not an outside in approach, more inside out approach. I want to find out, what’s the root cause of my issues? Why am I not feeling good right now? Then let’s use whatever I can use around me to get my place where I’m back in harmony.

 

Robyn: When I was ill, I got in the sauna every night. I boiled some water on the stove in a pot, then I carry it down and got in my sauna with it, and tented it with the towel I had in there. And I put, I’m wondering what you think of this, I put eucalyptus, lemongrass, On Guard in there.

 

What do you think about that? It sounds like you said use some citrus. This will be important to people, because I told you I posted on my personal page last week, Eric, just how I got sick and then here’s this drink that I make, that my grandmother makes. I call it mum’s antiviral tonic.

 

That post, this is on my personal page, Eric, not the GreenSmoothieGirl page, had 1,200 shares. 1,200 shares on my personal page. This is on people’s minds. What are the best oils for antiviral? Because I always send Thieves, ProShield, or On Guard with my children who live away from home, so they get right on it. I have a Lick-A-Drop off the back of their hand every hour or two. Like you say, it metabolizes all the way through.

 

What are those oils doing, and what are the best ones for antiviral and antibacterial?

 

Eric: I’m glad you mentioned lemongrass. We don’t talk enough about lemongrass and thyme specifically. They’ve been shown in clinical research, multiple research studies, to kill MRSA. Folks, that is an antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We’ve created super bugs. We’ve created bacteria, fungus. For women especially, with a horrible vaginal infections that won’t go away, there’s antifungal candida, or I should say, antifungal-resistant candida, and you know what helps? Lavender and tea tree. I’ve got all that stuff in my book. I was floored.

 

At the end of the day, here’s something to realize. There’s no research at all to suggest that bacteria, that viruses or fungi, can become resistant to essential oils which is really shocking. Here’s the other thing, too. I want to put things in perspective. We got the clove. We got the oreganos, the ones that you mentioned, the cinnamons, the eucalyptus. All these are powerful.

 

But here’s something that I think is really important, too. When you compare a drug to essential oils, most of the time the research shows, whether it’s in vitro, cells in the Petri dish or the few human trials we have … Unfortunately we don’t have too many human trials because we don’t have big pharma funding this, so unfortunately we don’t have a lot to base this off of beside in vitro and good old case studies.

 

What we find is that essential oils perform about as good as a drug. I’m not going to lie. Some people say, “Well, just inflate it.” No, no, no. Truthfully, essential oils aren’t going to outperform the drug, but here’s the difference. There’s no side effects.

 

Let me repeat that. If you use them right, there’s no side effects. I dare you to introduce a drug to me without a side effect. It’s impossible. Every drug will have some sort of metabolic burden on your body. At the end of the day, if I have a choice between a natural therapy like essential oils or a drug knowing that they’ll perform about the same, I have side effects on one side, no side effects on the other, that’s a no-brainer to me.

 

That’s what I want to encourage people, is not to make oil seem … This is the problem with Pinterest and Facebook and all the craziness going out there. People make it sound like these essential oils will cure you of death. No, they don’t. But they’re very safe if you use them right.

 

They’re very potent and powerful. But, at the end of the day, people are going to drugs for a reason, Robyn. Really, if oregano did what it could do all the time, I don’t think antibiotics would have gotten so popular. There’s a reason. But, now, look at how people are [affected]. Their microbiota is just destroyed, and look at how many people are just suffering because of the abuse of these antibiotics. At the end of the day, people go to drugs because they work and they work quick, but they never come without a cost.

 

Robyn: The cost can be long-term. That toxicity stays in the body and it wrecks the microbiome. I don’t think people are understanding what you and I are seeing, because we have big followings online and people are constantly saying, “What do I do? I can’t eat. I can’t even eat the healthy foods that you promote because I have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. I have candida.”

 

There’s so many different diagnoses, plus all the chronic gut issues that are not normal. Just because they’re becoming common, they are not normal, and these are the long-term effects of taking antibiotics.

 

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever take an antibiotic. I’m so glad they’re there. I think they work miracles, and I think that once or twice in a lifetime they’re the right answer, but I have knocked down dozens and dozens, in myself and my children, of viral or bacterial infections coming on in a day, using essential oils. I can’t even count how many times and how many things that we have resolved quickly without being desperately ill for a week or whatever.

 

I mean, it’s possible what I got is a H1N1. It’s possible I had the actual flu. But here’s the thing, some people who get the flu don’t have any symptoms. Some people get the flu have very mild symptoms. The vast majority of people who get the flu don’t know they had the flu.

 

I want to go to a pretty controversial question, because the more you learn, the more committed you become to helping people learn how to use essential oils.

 

I was late to the party on essential oils. It took me years of hearing people talk about it. In the early years, I would roll my eyes a little bit and I would think, “Well, it sounds like network marketing,” and so I couldn’t get myself around that. Then I started listening a little bit more, and it sounded like there’s some scientific validity to it.

 

But I was hearing all these people who actually have a really terrible standard American diet, toxic lifestyle. They aren’t changing anything else, but they just went from this idea that’s been so popular the past hundred years of a pill for every ill. “Let’s eat a chemical for this. Let’s eat another chemical for that.”

 

Meanwhile, our liver and kidneys are getting backed up with all these chemical toxins that they’re not built to assimilate or eliminate well. Did we move from “a pill for every ill,” to “I’ve got an oil for that?” Is that a concern here? Is it enough? Is it enough to just have an oil for everything?

 

Eric: Robyn, let the data speak for itself. Look at the rate of cancer, autoimmunity, autism, chronic disease, heart disease, stroke, you name it. They’re going up. The use of essential oils and natural therapies in America and in all of industrial countries are skyrocketing. You’ve got to wonder why.

 

Essentially what’s happened is people are … You can’t fault them. You know what? I’d rather someone do a natural version than I guess a synthetic version. But, at the end of the day, I say this all the time, you can’t live the McDonald’s lifestyle and take a drop of oil and expect you’re doing your body good. You’re literally one step forward and three steps back.

 

At the end of the day, it breaks my heart. You know what it’s like, Robyn, because you know all the emails and the comments. It breaks my heart because people are desperate, and they’re crying out to me, asking me for the magic blend. I’m like, “What’s your diet? What’s your stress levels like? Do you hate your spouse? Do you go to work and loathe it? Where are you in your mental and emotional and detoxification?”

 

Once you really start getting deep, you find that, at the end of the day, research has proven this, research has been really shocking when it says how many patients demand antibiotics when they go to the primary care, and physician and doctors just write scripts just for the sake of just keeping patients around. People are just, “We want something,” and they don’t want to do what they need to do, what they know they need to do.

 

I say this not as a judgment, folks, because I’m guilty as anyone. I slip up on things, and I have my story of two years ago when I developed pneumonia because I literally worked myself to death. I was hosting these global telesummits and raising a family and doing the things that I was doing, and I got sick really, really bad.

 

Robyn, you know what it’s like doing these interviews. I had like 15 interviews lined up in the course of two weeks. I’m like, “Well, I can’t be hacking and coughing during these interviews. I’ve got to do something.” I tried my natural stuff. Folks, if you’re taking notes, take a note on this. This is really important. Remember, natural therapies won’t work as fast as drugs. This is really important. Natural therapies won’t work as fast as drugs but they work in the long run.

 

We mentioned vaginal infections. This is a key. Lavender and tea tree, according to Dr. Jane Buckle who’s a clinical aromatherapist, is clear, and I quote her in my book. She said, “Just give me three days with some lavender and tea tree. We use a special dilution with a tampon and you’ll knock that thing out.” But not many people want to wait three days. Not many people want to wait a week.

 

I couldn’t wait, Robyn. What I did was, I went to the doctor for the first time in like a decade. I had an antibiotic. I got through the first two weeks, but it came back and it came back worse. I was suffering. Again, my family and I have only taken antibiotics, as a household we have six people, like a half dozen times with all of us.

 

What I did was I came up with my version. I call it Dr. Z’s flu shot. I came up with something that just knocked that thing out. I had to get on good foods, I was consuming vegetable broth and I was having a lot of good fruits and vegetables. To me, I just needed to give it time.

 

Whatever it is, folks, it could be a flu, it could be cancer, it could be whatever, as extreme or as not extreme, you have to give it time and find what works for your body. We have ideas. I know what works for me. I know what works for my kids, but it may not work for you, too.

 

I have to say, biochemical individuality: we hear it, we speak it in the functional medicine world, but I don’t think people enough appreciate how just absolutely beautifully unique they are. Yes, I am a unique individual. Nothing is going to work the same for me as it will for someone else. To me, Robyn, I don’t get discouraged by that. I’m like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool. I got to find out what works for me.”

 

When I created my masterclass, the whole purpose was, “I’m going to give you the tools, but you have to get the work. I can’t give you your magic pill.” Folks, the antibiotic mindset doesn’t work with oils. The same thing. People are like, “Well, what do I do? Take five drops of frankincense just like I’m going to take my, whatever, three different pills of chemo.”

 

They have to get out of that mindset. You really have to find what works for you, and that takes time. It takes a little bit of energy. That takes a little bit of money. You know what? You want to know them. That’s empowerment, when you actually cure yourself.

 

Robyn: Yeah, we can’t be too prescriptive about it. We’ve all been trained by this medical model that there’s a prescription, and there’s an exact amount, and it works the same for everybody. I’m right there with you. I’m glad that you said that it’s very individual.

 

For instance, echinacea never worked for me. Never worked for me. It never worked for my kids. That’s probably the most studied herb in the world. I’ve never seen it knock anything down. Now, these essential oils that are specifically antiviral, antibacterial, they work amazingly – and I’m just touching on a couple of things that you’ve said that really provoked me to think. One of them is the natural solution isn’t going to work as fast but it will work.

 

The funny thing is, the way I put it to my kids all the time is, if you’re going to wait until the next day to tell me that you’re sick, then we didn’t get on top of it. You have got to start using your essential oils and the other things that I give you.

 

You’ve got to use them the first time your throat feels scratchy, and you feel shaky like you have the body aches coming on. As soon as you feel the first symptoms, if you jump on it, I haven’t seen anything yet that can’t knock down or knock days off of. That may seem like, “Well, how did you know how long it was going to take?” Well, usually because I got it from somebody, and I saw how sick they were.

 

Getting on it early is really, really helpful and that’s why having your own essential oils in your home from one of the folks around you who sells these really high quality [is important]. I love organic essential oils. 5, 10 years ago, we could not get them. More and more options are becoming available.

 

I love that you talked about Dr. Z’s flu shot. I want to mention something. If you think that the flu shot is going to save you and then antibiotics will save you if you get sick, consider that this year. This is the beginning of 2018 when Eric and I are recording this; it is now been established that the forms of the flu that we’re getting right now in 2018 have zero crossover with what they put in the flu shot last year.

 

Eric: They have no idea. It’s a crapshoot. They have no idea.

 

Robyn: 0% match. Some years, it’s a 50% match. Some, whatever. But it’s literally a 0% match.

 

Eric: But they’re incentivizing people with free gas points at the local grocery store. I don’t want to get on that route because that’s criminal in my opinion. You said something really profound, Robyn. I think it’s really important. Please take note of this, especially people with cancer, late stage, whatever it is disease. If you’re at stage four and if you’ve been battling cancer for five years and if you’ve gone through all the bouts of chemo and radiation, don’t walk in to this natural world thinking, “Well, it’s going to cure me.”

 

I’m telling you something. The best results we get from people are the people that detect it early, especially cancer. I’m telling there’s a lot of research suggesting that essential oils can help and I personally know people. But it breaks my heart. Again, I get people when we go speak at conferences, they’re coming to me. They’re literally on their deathbed and they’re like, “What can I do?” I’m just like, “What do you want me to say?” It’s hard.

 

If you’re in that position, not to say there’s no hope, there’s always hope; to me, that’s when natural therapy like essential oils help with palliative care, make you feel better, help with the symptoms. I know nothing else on the planet that can help with nausea and headaches and mood disturbances and low libido like essential oils. They’re great for symptoms, but to heal the body, you have to catch it early.

 

To me, here’s a rule of thumb. Any doctor worth her weight in salt should agree with this seriously. At the onset of any disease, go the natural route first unless it’s an emergency, which is rare, like esophageal cancer that the tumor is blocking the airways or something like that, trachea, right? It’s not happening. Most people, 99.9% of all people being diagnosed of any sort of disease, have a little bit of time. Why not try the natural route first? See how your body responds. Then, be open. Maybe take an integrative approach where you might need a little bit of low dose chemo or some sort of antibiotic just to help you. Never forsake it.

 

Never forsake the natural solution because – and this is another thing research suggest – essential oils actually help medicine do their job better. The problem that medicine has is most medicine don’t have fat or lipids in it, and your cells are protected by your phospholipid membrane. A lot of drugs can’t penetrate to the cells. Those chemotherapy drugs can’t penetrate to the brain because the blood-brain barrier is fat. Well, essential oils, actually can act as a carrier to help chemo be better.

 

A girl friend of my wife, a very, very close friend, stage two breast cancer, she’s on everything natural, everything natural she could possibly do. She’s been waiting, waiting, waiting for chemo, and it stopped, but she wasn’t getting any better. She just felt a little bit anxious and the doctor is like, “Look, why don’t we try some chemo?”

 

She stayed with the essential oils. She stayed with her organic diet. She stayed with her plant-based foods. Again, plant-base. She’s not eating meat. She’s not doing keto here, folks. She’s doing legit food. Guess what? A couple rounds of chemo, it’s gone, and the doctor is like, “This is a miracle. I’ve never seen this before.” Well, I’ve seen that several times, several times of people who truly take an integrative approach.

 

I say this to say because, again, my wife and I, we’re as granola as you get. Four natural home births. We don’t vaccinate our kids. We take drugs if we need to, which is rare. It’s not an all or nothing approach. I hate that dichotomy. It’s all natural medicine. No, that’s a lie. You need to find what works for you. Sometimes a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Who are we to judge?

 

You know what it’s like, Robyn, being in our circles. Heaven forbid you take an aspirin at one of our conferences. What are people going to think? “Oh look at Robyn taking an aspirin.” Now, we’re judged. Now we feel embarrassed. Oh, heaven forbid, I show a sign of weakness and I go to a pharmaceutical. I get that. People apologize, Robyn, in their comments, in their emails. They apologize to me like I’m some sort of authority or I’m going to judge them. “I’m sorry, Dr. Z. I just started taking drugs for this.” I’m like, “Why are you apologizing to me for? You’re doing what you got to do.”

 

Anyway, be empowered, folks. This is all about empowerment. It’s all about you realizing that you can truly take control of your health; but you have to do it circumspectly, wisely, and really, really just think twice before you just into anything.

 

Robyn: You have to have your toolkit. You have to have your essential oils on hand. One thing I’ve been working with people on [is preparedness]. Every time I post something about how I got my son through oral surgery, and that got thousands of shares. Like I said, on my personal page, saying, “Here’s my grandmother’s drink that has garlic and ginger and cayenne and raw honey and lemon juice in it,” and 1,200 people share it.

 

I have to caution people. You have to have stuff on hand. You have to have it there because if you get sick and then you go start looking for it and you have to order it from Amazon or whatever, that’s a bad idea for the reasons we just talked about.

 

Just to put Eric’s cancer comments into context, we would not say to someone, stage four, “It’s too late for you.” He’s seen miracles. I’ve seen miracles. And I know he’ll back me up on this, that when you’re stage four, we’ve seen people [heal]. We put our other brother Chris Wark’s work into play, where he address everything from spiritual to healing your childhood of trauma to being on the right supplements to being on an organic plant-based diet.

 

Nuke the body with nutrients to essential oils, all the good stuff. We get them on that so that we’re covering all the basis. I’ll take an oil and it’ll cure my cancer. That’s going to be one part of the solution. Stage four cancer patients and advanced stage disease, they do turn around all the time. You just can’t use magical thinking. You can’t just take the easiest step.

 

Essential oils are easy. Let’s face it. Essential oils are easy to use. Changing your diet to be foundationally organic and plant-based is much less easy, much less easy. Then we have to attack our addictions, and all those things. All of them play a part.

 

I think what Eric is saying is the same thing I was saying, which is get empowered now, early, have your tools. Know what any risks are. Let’s go to that, Eric, because I know you talked often about safety concerns. People always want to know, are the essential oils really? Are they really safe? What safety concerns do people need to be aware of?

 

Eric: Yeah, they are very concentrated and they’re caustic, meaning they could burn. I’m telling you I don’t believe my body was designed by God to interact with these in high intensities throughout the day.

 

People are just slapping them all over their bodies. They’re putting drops in their mouth. I get it. I know people. I hear it all the time. “I’ve been doing that for 20 years.” Well, that sounds like the 80-year-old smoker who’s been smoking without cancer. He’s like, “These Marlboros don’t hurt me.”

 

There have been so many cases of people burning themselves, causing sensitization, which is a contact dermatitis, and just breaking out in rashes and oozing sores because, again, these oils can interact with your skin. They need to be diluted.

 

Now, if someone were to show me naturally that you could find essential oils in nature, I could see that argument, but you can’t. They need to be distilled, and they’re highly concentrated. Be careful, folks. Do I ever put a drop of lemon in my mouth? Yeah, once in a while. Not everyday. I will say though, I consume essential oils almost everyday; but it’s in a mixture of a little bit of coconut oil. I like my matcha green tea and I like to add a little bit of coconut oil to it. Maybe a drop of peppermint, a drop of cinnamon. Some hot water, liquid Stevia. That’s my thing.

 

It’s diluted. It’s not straight oil that I’m putting in my mouth. Yes, there is safety concerns. Some oils are phototoxic like bergamot and some of the citrus, and even dill, cumin. If you put them on your skin and if you don’t dilute them, and go hang out and go play beach volleyball, you might burn your skin badly because they amplify the UV rays. Time and time again, just bottom line, just be careful.

 

Just as people are never going to go to the drugstore and get an over-the-counter whatever-it-is, and just start taking a handful of pills because they want to, you shouldn’t do that with your oils. You shouldn’t do that with your supplements and you shouldn’t do that with your probiotics.

 

Robyn: More is not better.

 

Eric: Yeah. I think, Robyn, I consider myself a natural health guy. In the natural health community, I think what we’ve done is we’ve gotten very familiar and we’ve gotten … Not lazy. It’s not the word I’m looking for, but it’s we don’t respect the potential harm. We’re like, “Well, if it’s natural, it’s got to be good.” Well, yeah. But, people can still die of drinking too much water. We have to put things into context.

 

I want to put a little healthy fear of God in people, just be like, look, these things are awesome. They could change your life. But let’s learn how to use them, quickly, first to get the principles down, get some dilutions. Learn how to apply them on your children, on your pets, some safety risks, and then let’s go from there.

 

Robyn: An example of more is not better is one of the network marketing companies around here that sells essential oils (again, neither Eric nor I sell essential oils) did an experiment with essential oil compounds that are known to be cytotoxic to cancer cells.

 

They took several different types of cancer and they put them in Petri dishes, which doesn’t prove that in the human body that the essential oil compound actually will do anything to anybody’s specific cancer. But in a Petri dish, it was showing what the different oils did against all the specific types of cancer.

 

I noticed that it was one to two drops that did the work. For instance, one study that I’m thinking of that one of these companies did was some oils against MRSA. Like you said, one of the exciting things that really shows the power of essential oils is that there are essential oils that will kill MRSA, 100% kill rate. MRSA kills people in hospitals because it’s one of the super bugs. It’s become antibiotic-resistant, and they fear it in hospitals, and that’s where people tend to get it.

 

Anyway, this MRSA kill study and the cancer kill study was one or two drops would kill it all, but four and five drops was not better, and sometimes was less effective. Getting it right, I know that you have a solution for us. We’re going to have this at GreenSmoothieGirl.com/drz so D-R-Z. GreenSmoothieGirl.com/drz and you have a really cool masterclass coming up.

 

Tell us about what people will learn because I feel like most people who are listening to my show probably have a collection of essential oils at home. But if they’re like most of us, they don’t know what to do with them. How are you helping with that?

 

Eric: Well, first, I have to give whatever credit is due. I want to thank you, Robyn, for really inspiring me to do a masterclass. I’ve done the summits. I’ve done the interview thing. I was like, “What do I do?” You just said, “Why don’t you do a masterclass?” I saw your masterclass and anyone who hasn’t, you have to watch Robyn.

 

It’s brilliant. I’m like, “You know what? Let’s just teach people in bite sized chunks what to do.” We try to make it really enjoyable. Got a lot of video. We got some interviews and we got some fun testimonials. But, at the end of the day, you’re going to sit with me and for 10 days straight (I’m not talking hours and hours and hours. We keep the videos pretty short, about 20 minutes a pop) we’re going to teach you everything you need to know, from start to finish.

 

I guarantee you this. You’re going to leave much more confident. I don’t care what level you’re at. You could be a 20-year aromatherapist. You’re going to learn something, whether you’re just brand new person, just bought your first starter kit. You’re going to leave more confident to use oils the right way for everything. We cover everything: topical, internal, how to inhale them properly, body care, cleaning products. My wife, Mama Z, that’s her thing. She’s a DIY guru. How to cook with them, how to prevent and even treat disease. We cover basic but very profound concepts that will help you a long ways away.

 

It’s everything. It’s like your super nuts guide. I did it because it needed to be done. Because I’ll tell you there are very few folks out there that are, A) non-branded. Actually, none. In fact, none are non-branded that are doing anything like this. I’m like, “You know what? I have to create something that everyone can go to and not have to worry about losing their downline. You don’t have to worry about getting sold a product on the back end. No. Look, let’s just talk oils. Let’s talk the research. Let’s bring Mama Z and our kids involved, make it cute.” I’m really excited about it and I’m proud of it. I want to thank you, Robyn, too, because you really inspired me to do it.

 

Robyn: Well, teaching people by video is how they want to be taught. That’s what we’ve learned. I’m a writer first, but I’ve learned to deliver a good message on video. You have a really magnetic personality and you can tell that Dr. Z and Mama Z are way into this.

 

I’ve been going through some of their videos and they are walking the talk. We don’t want to learn from people who are just academic about it. We want to learn from people who are actually using essential oils in their home for all these purposes. These are gurus and you can jump into the masterclass at GreenSmoothieGirl.com/drz. That’s D-R-Z.

 

Then tell us a little bit about your book, what’s coming up in your book? You’ve told me it’s your magnum opus. That you just have brought amazingness to the world.

 

Eric: I birthed my baby. I’m like you, Robyn. I’m a writer. That’s what I do. I’m behind my computer. It’s how I started out. I’ve never pushed myself so hard to produce something so accurate. Meaning, I actually submitted my book to my aromatherapy mentor and my colleagues to peer review it. I don’t know anyone getting peer reviewed books. I wanted to make sure this was legit. I push myself to a different level, and I’m excited about that because I really challenge myself.

 

And all you all who follow me and for those of you who want to, please do and ask me questions because I read them. I might not answer all of them. I’m sorry. I get so many sometimes. I take what you guys are coming to me with, your questions, your concerns, your comments. That challenge me more than anything. I get what the world tells me. I’m like, “How do we make sense of this stuff?”

 

I’m excited, Robyn, because it’s not your typical aromatherapy book. There’s nothing like it on the market because most books out there are A to Z reference guides. This is a legitimate health book. I have a whole chapter on menopause and post-menopause, a whole chapter on candida. We actually go into the diseases.

 

Quite frankly, women, the research on women, was so profound. We developed not a chapter, but a section, which was like five chapters on just women. We cover everything from pre-menses all the way through post-menopause in the middle, every stage of a woman’s life, because, A) most people that follow us are women and, B) there’s a lot of research out there about oils and women. I’m like, “We have to serve our public here.”

 

Anyway, if you’re a guy, you’re going to get a lot out of it. We talk about pets and athletes. But, at the end of the day, what I wanted to do was I want to empower you to look at life holistically, and how oils can play in that role. Like Robyn, she absolutely practices what she preaches with how she eats and what she does with her mind, her emotions, how she manages stress. This is part of it.

 

At the end of the day, if you don’t change your life, and if you expect essential oils to do X, Y, Z, that’s not the right mental attitude to have. I want to encourage people to walk into this life, follow you, Robyn, read your articles, buy your products and get healthy, and maybe try essential oils, and try this, try that. Find what works for you and I’m telling you the book, 150 recipes. You’ll get everything that you’ll need to keep you busy for quite a while.

 

Robyn: They can find you at GreenSmoothieGirl.com/drz, D-R-Z. But, where else can they find you on the internet, Eric?

 

Eric: Oh, drericz.com. You can go to my website and love to have you. Let’s start having to do these things together.

 

Robyn: Okay. Thank you so much, my brother.

 

Eric: I love you, Robyn. I really appreciate it.