Reese Brown (02:05.038)

Awesome. Okay. Yeah. But I think we're brilliant. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time, energy, effort, all of the things to be here today to have a conversation with me. I'm so grateful to be here chatting with you.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (02:27.043)

Thanks, I'm excited to be here as well. I'm glad we got to make it happen. After a few years of seeing clients like this, where I'm doing the questions, I will admit, this is the first time that I'm putting content out publicly that's not just for my clients, et cetera. So this is exciting for me, this is a first.

Reese Brown (02:45.518)

I am so excited for you, happy to hear that. But it's also, I think, really fun as, I mean, you working with clients one-on-one, you know what it's like to be asking the questions and doing things about other people. I'm excited to flip the script because it's really, everyone likes talking about themselves, right? So it's really, I think it'll be fun for you to get to be on the other side of the questions.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (03:11.999)

Yeah, no doubt. You'll probably ask me the questions that I'm like secretly hoping my clients are asking me, but sometimes it just doesn't come up because of course they're paying for the call, so they want you to get their stuff answered. So I love that. Yes, ask away.

Reese Brown (03:15.758)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (03:19.918)

Right? Yeah. Brilliant. OK, well, first question that I always like to start with, just to kind of set the tone for the podcast, is what is one thing that you're grateful for right now?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (03:34.403)

Just in general, just life, just you saying it could be anything.

Reese Brown (03:36.686)

Whatever comes to mind, yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (03:41.991)

I give you a couple quick ones that come to mind. One, I'm grateful that I'm able to have this conversation in a place where other people can hear it. It's been a rough road for me, you know, going back six, seven years, which we'll obviously get to, but I'm really excited that I'm still here and I flipped. I changed the game.

I'm in charge now of my life instead of trying to survive. So it's exciting to show people, someone who's on the other side, and then get that conversation out because we need more of that optimism and end of one results where people are able to do it. So yeah, we'll get into that. Probably that's a bit of a teaser. And then second of all, sunshine. I'm down here in Houston, born and raised in Ohio, went to college in Indiana. I have had my fair share of cold, cloudy days.

Reese Brown (04:22.574)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (04:36.845)

and I've already been outside into the park and on a jog today in full sunshine and yeah Texas Sun is gonna be hard to leave if I ever do.

Reese Brown (04:46.254)

I 100% agree. I'm not a huge fan of the Texas heat, but there's something about the Texas sun that is special.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (04:55.228)

There's no free lunch, so you're gonna get that sun all the time. It's gonna come with a little heat, so I take the good with the bad. I'm okay with it.

Reese Brown (04:56.814)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (05:00.27)

Truly.

Yeah, okay, well, to return back to our teaser a little bit, second question that I think will just be a really great opening point to discuss all sorts of things is what is your story? It's very broad, very open-ended, but wherever you would like to start, whatever you would like to share, I would love to hear your story.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (05:27.764)

Okay, I will share as many high points or milestones in my story that I can think of, and then obviously we can delve into any of those points farther. And this is as far back as childhood. I know that that's as broad as you're going.

Reese Brown (05:43.342)

No, it's perfect.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (05:44.647)

not a terribly easy, not a terribly hard childhood, was raised essentially by a mother who was an RN, a registered nurse. So that I'll circle back to when it comes to my view of healthcare and conventional medicine, but.

I had lots of opportunities growing up through high school. Was very good at math, very good at science. Was also taking college art classes. So to say opportunity was an option for me was very true and I chose success. I chose the Western model of success and I immediately went into the past 12 years of my life.

was in aerospace engineering. So I went directly into college for engineering. I was looking for paychecks, I was looking for a nice car, I was looking for a nice house, the white picket fence, the whole American dream. And yeah, six months out of college, I've got a...

Secret level clearance, I'm on special access programs, I've got an office attached to the hangar, I'm on and off of acknowledged and unacknowledged assets, which would be airplanes to most people, and you're living the James Bond life. It's cool, it's exciting, but that's when some of the isolation started with what we'll build up as chronic, chronic stress. So when you're in the defense contracting world with all these government clearances, you can't talk to anyone,

and come home and tell your wife exactly what happened. My wife never knew what I did really. My mom never knew what I did. My friends didn't know what I did. My coworkers knew what I did and that was about it. So it really, really isolates you. So through about, after about eight years of that world, which financially is very lucrative, you get worn down. I'm very type A, very perfectionist, and I wore myself down quicker than I thought. I most definitely have.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (07:42.201)

a sleep when all dead, sleep when I'm dead attitude, work hard, play hard, that had kind of built up from college as well and at age 27 I'll say, that's when the wheels started falling off of what I thought was actually just going to be an autopilot successful life and I wrote down.

Reese Brown (07:56.718)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (08:03.987)

a few, I'll say a few, but it's probably 15, 20, things that happened all within about a year or two that kinda shook me to my core while I'm working a successful job and externally, it looks like I'm on top of the world and things are going well, but here we go. Here's the list.

Reese Brown (08:11.47)

Mmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (08:23.187)

migraine headaches, constant anxiety, aggressive melanoma, a pituitary adenoma, so that's a tumor, that's a brain tumor, lung tumors, known as lung nodules.

Reese Brown (08:26.734)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (08:37.451)

Low testosterone, explained to me by a doctor that was on par with an 85 year old man. Infertility, so I had no, my FSH, some of these markers that people will measure fertility on are almost zeroed out for me. My body is no longer fertile. I'm 27. 27, 28, 29 when this is happening. We go on to find out that there's mold in our HVAC system of the nice new remodeled house we had bought. And so that is...

Reese Brown (08:42.702)

Oh my goodness.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (09:07.051)

That's piling on top of all these other diagnoses because you ask anyone, they say mold's everywhere. It's, what are you talking about? It's just an environmental allergy. Not certain types of mold, and most certainly not when they're in your HVAC system in your home and you're stuck inside with them with no ventilation. We continue to find out that everything we test for, my body has raging. Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, Lyme disease, I'm getting eczema, I have extreme IBS, panic attacks,

Reese Brown (09:28.622)

Mmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (09:36.965)

chronic fatigue and I am chasing my labs. Every time I go to get blood labs, which is every two weeks, I become those numbers. I am now stressed on those numbers. So let's just, like I said, the wheels are falling off. One thing goes wrong, it leads to an avalanche of other problems. I am officially chronically ill. I have so many diagnoses that I don't even know which one to identify with other than my body's failing me. So certainly there's depression.

Reese Brown (09:45.582)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (10:04.91)

Right?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (10:07.485)

there's a bit of loss of hope. When you get in that arena, and after seeing well over 10 specialist doctors, we're talking Mayo Clinic, UT Southwest, and we're talking the big ones too. I'm just getting the guinea pig treatment on different prescription medications. The whole deal, the whole bag of orange bottles. And something snapped.

Reese Brown (10:09.134)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (10:23.054)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (10:31.751)

And I finally realized that I wanted to get something different. Something different than what my health insurance was going to pay for. I found functional medicine. And honestly it was through luck. I just knew they were out of pocket and they claimed to do things differently. And through functional medicine I slowly learned how to undo these things for myself. The doctor was no longer telling me exactly what to do. They were giving me information and letting me pick and choose which ones I implemented.

Reese Brown (10:54.158)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (11:01.605)

and the more small things I implemented on an everyday basis, the better and better and better and better and better I got. I haven't been on prescription medication five years after being on, you know, you just pick and choose. I mean, some of the doctors are vending machines for that stuff. You just say a symptom and it's coming out the bottom door. So after I find functional medicine, I get well enough to apply myself back at work and realize...

Reese Brown (11:10.638)

Mm.

Reese Brown (11:14.318)

Right.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (11:32.095)

I'm about to run the whole cycle once again. Have I learned? Nothing. And so, so I left my...

Reese Brown (11:35.246)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (11:42.699)

handed in my badge, you could say, just handed it in and walked away from a 12 year career that was becoming quite cushy, quite prestigious and started again and maybe not again starting from scratch but started as a functional medicine certified health coach. I chose to become the

the one person, the guidance, the accountability, the support that I could have used myself that whole time that I did not have.

And so it's been an absolute pleasure. It's been a blessing to just be involved in other people's journeys. Because I can't do it for them, but I can certainly walk right beside them. And I can certainly say, I know how that feels and that is terrible. So that has led to the past two years of working with clients and in tandem with practitioners at times. And here we are.

Reese Brown (12:26.446)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (12:43.502)

Wow.

Reese Brown (12:47.054)

So many things that I want to follow up on. And if you see me looking down, it's just because I'm making notes about things that I want to follow up on. Yeah. Firstly, of course, our connection, us meeting through this kind of functional medicine and wellness and health space, I knew that you had walked this journey yourself. I didn't realize quite how severe your journey was from at least your starting point.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (12:54.315)

I do the same, that's what I do, I do the same.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (13:13.675)

which is great for me to hear because I don't identify as any of that stuff anymore nor do I feel the need, and I certainly was an A plus student at victim mentality for a good while, but I've let that go. So there's no need for me to constantly bring it up. So it actually is music to my ears that you said, oh, I had no idea. That's great to me. That's awesome.

Reese Brown (13:20.142)

Right.

Reese Brown (13:28.014)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (13:34.702)

Oh, good. I love that. I love that. And I think, I mean, just in terms of victim mentality, it's hard not to be when, this is actually kind of part of the first question I wanna ask going back to the very first thing you mentioned, which was buying the Western model of success, like buying in and chasing it, right? That I think when we're sold this promise of a life,

and you get there and you realize I'm slowly killing myself through doing this. I'm not happy, I'm not fulfilled, I'm what am I doing? I think it is extremely easy and understandable to fall into I've been played. I am a victim here. I'm a victim of the system, the lies, the willing

willful ignorance of society, culture, all of these things, whatever you wanna call it. To a certain extent, I think we are victims a little bit. And so it's easy to fall into that, but I think there is such power in overcoming that and saying, no, it's a part of my story, but it's not me. It's not who I am. It's not the end of the story. I'm not a victim. I'm a human who experienced something and kept going.

Um, so I think that, yeah, please.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (15:04.043)

I was quickly gonna add to what you just said reminded me that I think I'm not here to bash nine to fives at all. Things were great for a long time. I was paying my bills, I was successful in my own mind for a long time and I was actually very happy early on until the stress management and lack of stress management caught up with me. But I will say that the visual of like that rat race mentality is once you get that wheel going fast enough, it's really hard to get off as if you're a hamster on a horse.

Reese Brown (15:33.134)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (15:34.077)

wheel and that it's almost too true for me as I was going so fast on the wheel the thought of jumping off and you know ungracefully landing in a new career it just seems so unappetizing that it didn't cross my mind until I was truly rock bottom and then starting to come up for air again so sadly yeah I do tend to say that you don't want to deprive someone of hitting rock bottom because that's where that's where the greatest

Reese Brown (15:45.23)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (16:02.543)

clarity comes from as to what's really important.

Reese Brown (16:03.79)

Yeah, one of my greatest mentors, Catherine Hart, actually I'm like, I wasn't gonna say her name, but I can. Her name is Catherine Hart. She's a brilliant acting coach here in Dallas, but she always said that rock bottom is the solid foundation on which you built your life, which I just love because it feels like rock bottom, but it's like.

that is yours. If nothing that you have built so far is yours that you have, that gives you the foundation from which to climb. So, and I completely agree with you about what you said on not bashing nine to fives. I think there is a gamut of ways to live our life on purpose because we're all different mentally, physically, we need different things and that's a good thing. And if that life works for someone, thank goodness that.

they can live their life in that way. But I do wanna explore, you said that you chose the Western model of success. Why do you think so many of us choose the Western model of success? Of course, both of us growing up in the United States, like that is the model that's presented to us. What do you think the root of that is and...

why so many of us can't seem to jump off that hamster wheel or maybe even choose not to get on the hamster wheel to begin with. Why is the, to I guess belabor the metaphor, the hamster wheel there and what do we do with it?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (17:48.147)

I don't know why exactly everyone chooses to take that first path. I think it's because we need to know. I think we need to climb that first mountain and see if the view is good enough for us. And I think some people are okay with being okay, whether that be mentally, spiritually, emotionally, I mean physically.

Reese Brown (17:55.054)

Mm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (18:07.103)

I think some people are okay with being okay, because they're happy enough with the view. You ask them how they're doing, another day in paradise, another day, another dollar. You just get these like...

Reese Brown (18:15.406)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (18:18.798)

Livin' the dream.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (18:19.299)

It's living the dream, you just get these memorized responses and you're like, oh, that person's in quiet desperation. And it's not my job to pull them out, but I have compassion is what I'm saying. But as far as needing to chase that model of success, I think we just have to know. I was born in the 80s, I think you just surrounded culturally by it. You just, the consumerism is, it's in your face. Diamond jewelry is cool. Lamborghinis are cool. A big house is exciting.

Reese Brown (18:28.43)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (18:36.654)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (18:49.253)

Exciting it really does speak to that almost that child that me that greediness that we have I'm not saying give away All your possessions. I'm not saying don't buy anything ever again I'm saying if you're in a job you hate that's making you sick in order to buy that stuff Just reflect on where you're at

Reese Brown (18:50.542)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (18:56.43)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (19:09.095)

and extrapolate that forward 30 years and tell me if you like what you see. And that's it. And if you do, keep going. It's your life. So, I don't know. That's a great question for a social psychologist to handle, but I don't know.

Reese Brown (19:09.23)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (19:16.91)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (19:24.846)

Right? Yeah. I think, yeah, I think also with that, it kind of comes down to priorities, right? In the sense that it's like you are absolutely allowed to pick what is important to you, what your life priorities are, but it's, I think, a real sticking point that a lot of us have is that we have this mental idea of what we say our priorities are, what we would like our priorities to be, and what our lived life and the actions and

that we take in our behaviors, the priorities that that actually reflects. And finding a way to have those match up is like the challenge that so many of us face. Because we spend a lot of time, I mean, humans are inherently self-centered beings, reflecting on ourselves and what we like, what brings us joy and happiness. And so many of us stay in a routine that...

isn't doing that. And so I do think finding a way to meet those two together is a piece of it. I also kind of continuing here, want to ask you about the mental health aspect of overall health and wellness, because it really sounds like that's where a big part of your journey began was stress, chronic stress, anxiety. I mean, you mentioned panic attacks, really severe mental.

Um...

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (20:55.84)

imbalances.

Reese Brown (20:56.782)

imbalances, yes, thank you, that then cause, contribute, certainly at least don't help all of these other physical side effects. What's the relationship between mental and physical that you have come to find in your own life, but also now on the other side, as a health coach, as a practitioner, why is it so important to incorporate this mental?

resilience and fortitude into our overall wellness.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (21:32.075)

because you can't dissect them, you can't take them apart. They're intertwined, they're married, that mental, physical connection. Sometimes if you wanna throw an emotional, great, if you wanna throw in spiritual, that's great too. But the mind-body connection, to put it even simpler, they're inextricable, so what I will say is... So, I'm gonna go ahead and say,

I believe it's still true, and I'm paraphrasing this, but exercise, gentle exercise three or four times a week, is the undefeated champion of depression. It's beaten every depression pharmaceutical that's come out. They always have to test their drugs against exercise. But if someone's unwilling to exercise, you've got to do something. Someone needs some support or needs a boost, and then that's perfectly fine. You've got to get your, you've got to find your catalysts for change, and that's fine if that's what it needs to be. But um.

Reese Brown (22:02.958)

Mm.

Reese Brown (22:19.182)

Mm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (22:24.049)

If you're not moving your body, if your body is not responding to hormetic stresses, to good stresses, to challenge, that primitive, you know, I hate to say primitive because it's brilliant, but that primitive reward system that makes you feel good after doing something difficult, I mean that can change a bad day in 30 minutes. At 30 minutes maximum.

Reese Brown (22:44.59)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (22:52.767)

Yeah, I can't understate the importance of.

the connection of moving your body, or at least using your body as best you can in conjunction with whatever stress management techniques you're doing otherwise. So yeah, as far as depression and anxiety, gosh, if you're not doing some of the physical, foundational stuff, even just walking, we're meant to walk, we're good at walking, we're bipedal, we've been doing it for a long, long time. Our bodies like it once you get used to it. If you're not combining them.

Reese Brown (23:01.486)

Mm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (23:25.375)

You're playing a piano without all the keys.

Reese Brown (23:27.726)

Hmm. Absolutely. I think this may seem like an odd follow-up question, but one thing from a philosophy perspective that I am extremely fascinated with is this mind-body connection. There's a whole sub-genre of philosophy that is about the philosophy of the mind, and is the mind

Reese Brown (23:57.166)

spiritual, ethereal, non-physical, non-tangible. But either way, how does this feeling of spirit, soul, mind, energy interact with our body? And philosophers have spent decades trying to figure out how a non-physical thing can interact with this physical thing, because there's really no way to prove that it happens, except that we're living it actively all the time.

and hearing you say, well, they're inextricable, which is so like, sacredly simple in, they are one in the same. Like mind is almost imbued already in our body, which I think is really, really powerful. So I guess I'll ask, what do you think about just that brief overview I gave you about the...

philosophical aspect of the mind-body connection. You of course bring the health aspect, but where do you think that relationship begins and how does our mind really interact with our body in us being humans that live behind our eyes, but also live with our feet on the ground? Where do those two different aspects meet us together?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (25:18.347)

Now that's a difficult question. That's a fantastic, yet difficult question. And I simply think that my response, as simplistic as it may be, is that...

However complex this internal, I call it an internal pharmacy or an internal apothecary, like what this organ can do up here in your skull is absolutely incredible. But if you don't take care of the housing that it's in, it's gonna spend all its time trying to fix problems down here and you're not gonna be able to think, I mean, consciously, intellectually, you're not gonna be able to project yourself into any creative aspect or focus on

Reese Brown (26:01.678)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (26:04.609)

tasks. If the housing structure is constantly screaming I need help, I'm in pain.

Reese Brown (26:09.55)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (26:11.139)

You got to fix this, you know, I'm ashamed of myself, I feel guilty, I have so many regrets. If you're constant, if that brain is constantly looking inward to fix these not surface level problems, but I'll just call them structural housing problems, if you're not taking care of this manifold that's holding this in the right place, I just, I don't think that mind is going to be able to divert its energy and attention to, like you said, some of the more philosophical concepts and tasks.

Reese Brown (26:24.974)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (26:30.446)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (26:39.726)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (26:41.193)

with brain fog, they're not thinking philosophically. They're surviving an hour at a time to get through their job, their day, taking care of their kid, you name it. So until you clean up the housing structure that's causing the headaches, the brain fog, et cetera, you're not freeing up the hard drive essentially to think philosophically. So I know I kind of diverted from your original philosophical question, but that's how I come at it from, again, from an engineering standpoint. I mean, and I will say if I didn't mention this in my story.

Reese Brown (26:44.398)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (27:00.622)

No, that's beautiful. Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (27:11.013)

taking my engineering analytical brain and transplanting it into the medical world, albeit simply health coaching at this point, has been amazing. It's been such an interesting outside the box perspective that I didn't even see many practitioners coming at it from. So it's been very enlightening and a little scary in a lot of areas because I'm questioning things that probably should have been questioned a long time and I'm just one person who's

Reese Brown (27:22.606)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (27:35.246)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (27:40.933)

had an experience in a journey and switched over, but perspective is, it's important to not just have an echo chamber of the same thoughts and ideas in that field. It needs to be updated constantly.

Reese Brown (27:53.198)

100%. And I think questioning and curiosity is just so fundamental to what it means to be a human being. And I think that, I mean, going back to what you said, if someone has brain fog, if someone's chronically stressed, they're not thinking philosophically, they're not thinking curiously, questioning, they can't, they're stuck in survival mode. And really, it's like if you're putting out fires, it

Again, to continue your metaphor of like this structure of the house. If you're putting out fires and trying to clear out termites and like all of these baseline things, you're not going to be able to renovate. You're not going to be able to add a second story, um, when you're still trying to fix those other things. So. Thank you. Yes.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (28:37.82)

Exactly. I think one more metaphor that you're helping me develop in real time right now is

If this brain is, if it's the crystal ball for where we want to go and what we want to plan and our goals and where we want to be, that's fine, but it can't do that when it's constantly being the security system for your body. And it's constantly getting triggered by all these, call it an infection. Maybe there's an invader. It's constantly stressed about this infection because it's playing security guard and security system when at the end of the day it would have been a little more fruitful if it had

Reese Brown (28:56.398)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (29:05.07)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (29:12.609)

than being the crystal ball, the projector, the creative drive, the excitement, that aspect.

Reese Brown (29:19.95)

Yeah, I love that of the security system because that is what it is. It's like, when do we need to sound the alarms, right? And if you're constantly sounding the alarms. I mean, it even goes back to the sympathetic versus parasympathetic thing, where it's like if you're constantly in fight or flight, you're not locking back in to rest and digest, to recover, repair, all of those good things. And it's also interesting because I do feel like...

Of course, there's much more complex layers to this that you can enlighten both me and the listeners too. But I do think there's a small piece of this that it's kind of like, we all know, we all know that stress is bad for us. We all know that, like, we should start meditating or at least doing like breath work and mindfulness to get that mental health aspect down. And yet the actual actionable piece of that and integrating it into our lives feels so difficult sometimes.

even though we know it, we know it's good for us, we know we should do it. And in your story, you do end up jumping off the hamster wheel and you say, it was scary, it feels uncertain. You had this baseline level of comfort, of stability, of security, someone who is now a husband and a father, like wanting to be able to take care of the people you love and...

have comfort and stability for them is also really, I would have to imagine, don't let me project anything, but knowing you, I would have to imagine that's a really big part of that question as well. What, where did the kind of final push to jump off of the hamster wheel and take a risk? It feels like a big risk. What do you think that either final straw, final piece of motivation,

was that really gave you the last push to to do it to jump.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (31:22.49)

that

That's an amazing question because I love answering it because this does come up pretty often because people are always very curious like, hey, what was the final straw? And I'm gonna answer that in one second, but you said something earlier about the stress aspect and people know that they should be, you know, whatever, fill in the blank. It doesn't have to be meditation. We, it's getting pretty hyped up, that's great. I think it's wonderful, but people know they should be doing something for stress management, fill in that blank. And we can circle back to this,

Reese Brown (31:50.03)

Right.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (31:52.885)

this is a huge concept that I come at health coaching at is People know what they should be doing The question is why aren't they and that's what we kind of work through and it's difficult to have that objective conversation inside this really

Reese Brown (32:00.622)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (32:09.427)

really negative echo chamber called our head sometimes. So that's where having an objective, supportive, educated in the area and the subject friend to talk it out with, you know, at least through the coaching process is what I've learned. That's where, that's really the bread and butter of the whole process is people generally know what they should be doing. And the question is why aren't you? And can we make it simpler? Anyway, the last straw that actually made me

Reese Brown (32:12.878)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (32:31.662)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (32:39.921)

that hamster wheel that I claim to have been on that a lot of people are still on and are happy with, and I'm really happy for them if they are, is what I didn't mention in my story earlier is that once the melanoma had popped up, once the brain tumor had popped up, once the lab markers started coming back as being infertile, I went to a fertility clinic and put some sperm away to put in a sperm bank so that there would be some piece

if my wife wanted to have my children one day. Because I didn't think that I was ever gonna procreate. My body was failing. So fast forward through a little bit of functional medicine, coming up for some air, as I would call it metaphorically, with some symptoms, my body starts clicking back in, the gears start turning again, and we have a very successful pregnancy, a very healthy birth with a baby girl, my daughter Edith.

And after my maternity leave, after my paternity leave, my wife's still on maternity leave, I go back to work for two days and I see my stress building back up. And now I'm responsible for this, for being a role model for this child. It's not just about me anymore. It's not just my own awards and paychecks. This little girl is going to have to deal with a dad coming home every day who's hit his limit after being in meetings and, you know, getting yelled at for deadlines. And I lasted.

two days before I handed my badge in because my daughter was two months old and I went back for two days and I said

now that I don't have as much brain fog, I can extrapolate this forward 30 years. She's not going to have the dad that I want her to have if I stay in this career. So I'm out. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm out. And so that was it. It was my daughter inspired me. It was, it was being, it was the only option for me to be the dad and the husband that I knew I wanted to be. I mean, you make all these, these deals with God or the deals with the devil as you're going, if I ever get through this, I promise I will. That was the moment where I

Reese Brown (34:25.678)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (34:37.742)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (34:48.849)

I had to pay up. If I ever get through this, I'm going to leave all this chronic stress that I'm simply not adapted to handle. I have to leave it behind. I can't jump back in the fire.

Reese Brown (34:50.254)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (35:00.526)

Yeah, wow. That is one, extremely beautiful and getting to see Edith, she's gorgeous and such a beautiful soul for the few brief moments that I've seen her walk past our Zoom meetings occasionally. And I can absolutely see exactly how that would be that final thing that pushes you there.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (35:06.702)

Hahaha

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (35:19.135)

Yes, yes.

Reese Brown (35:28.462)

One thing that I am fascinated about is that I think that that happens for a lot of people. Of course, kids put things into perspective because, like you said, you're responsible for someone else, not just me, not just a partner, but this little human that is 50 percent me. And what do you do with that? That responsibility, I think, is so activating for so many people.

The thing that I find so curious, and I think that's a beautiful, beautiful thing and reason in that so many people want to be the parent that they didn't have, that they did have, for all of these reasons. But that final step is still something external to you, which I think is so interesting. And I kind of wanna go back and tie this into what you even said right before, which is a lot of us know what we need to do, but why aren't we? Why don't we do it?

And in this scenario, the thing that helped you do it was selflessness, was wanting to be a good dad for your little girl. And

How do we get that level of activation for ourselves internally, intrinsically? Is it... I think of course a child is going to be almost the most motivating thing of anything. But is there a way to reach that same level of enough's enough, I'm gonna jump, it's the final straw, that is just that intrinsic motivation piece?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (37:16.183)

Yeah, that's a great response from you on reading between the lines there. Yeah, even though I'm espousing some of these ideals and some of these concepts, I'm still human myself and sometimes it takes a last straw to break the camel's back to get me to give in to what I knew I should have done anyway because it's scary, because it's all I knew was the nine to five, I was successful.

Reese Brown (37:32.622)

Oh yeah.

Reese Brown (37:37.966)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (37:42.731)

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think my response to that is, it comes back to that negative self-talk echo chamber. We don't, some of these big decisions are very, very difficult to make by yourself. And so to say there weren't very honest, raw, nervous conversations with my wife, and those two days that I had been back to work would be a lie. We were talking from the instant I got home till the time we went to bed those two days

Reese Brown (37:51.63)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (38:10.798)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (38:12.865)

needed to happen and now I had this additional variable you know looking at me with her eyes you know think wondering you know when you coming home from work tomorrow dad it's just it was just the conglomerate it was just it was just

Reese Brown (38:30.158)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (38:31.147)

It was a summation of factors that led up to it. I'm not sure what the magic formula is to get someone to start taking that much agency on their own without bouncing ideas or suggestions off of someone who they trust, respect, who's been there before, maybe not someone who's perfect at it, but it's a few steps ahead of them. They can help guide them. It just, it saves a lot of time, energy, and lessons learned.

Reese Brown (38:50.67)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (39:01.181)

if you can have someone help you make smarter decisions. So I would say we don't heal alone. I still believe that. We never heal alone. It's not something we're meant to do in a vacuum chamber. So that's as close of an answer as I can give you on a fantastic question on my own story. Yeah.

Reese Brown (39:06.382)

True.

Reese Brown (39:16.206)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (39:23.886)

Yeah, no, I think that's perfect. And you know, even listening to your response, it's like, maybe there will never be anything that's as intrinsically motivating as that human factor of wanting to take care of a child or a partner like that. To be able to recreate that intrinsically is maybe not even possible in anything that gets someone to the point where they are able to.

live life on their terms, I think is beautiful and wonderful, whatever that ends up looking like. One thing that little phrase in my mind that has kept coming up, just thinking about you now raising a daughter who is going to be raised with your lovely health knowledge and perspective on wellness, including mental health and physical health and all of the dimensions of that.

and you choosing to kind of jump off the hamster wheel, exit the race, the grind, is cycle breaking. It's something that keeps occurring to me and like how do we continue to break harmful cycles and perpetuate these really good cycles that are helpful rituals or habits for us. But because the cycle breaking...

keeps popping into my mind. It makes me wanna go back to what you mentioned a little bit ago about your mom being an RN as well and the relationship there. And do you feel like you identify with cycle breaker? And if so, what were some of the concepts that you were raised with in terms of health that you've also carried with you through your whole personal health journey and perhaps reaffirmed or?

changed your mind about.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (41:21.859)

Oh.

100% cycle breaking. Yeah, yeah as far as whether it be trauma whether it be taking agency whether it be Finding out that there really are no rules that what you go to college for doesn't have to be the next 45 years of your life You don't have to just work for that pension even though you're in the cushy job. That's not a real Rule it's something that's great if it works out, but there's that's not a rule there. There are no rules there People may question you people may make comments people may judge you

Reese Brown (41:33.102)

Mm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (41:53.049)

That's the only rule that's really out there and whether you choose to receive those comments or let them go by and wish them good luck is that's what it really does come down to. Circling back to maybe how I was raised and how that played into it is yeah I think my mention of my mom being an RN it's simply I respected those doctors. I thought they were truly the people she had worked with,

the on call, the high salaries, like you just kind of, if you're not involved in it, you see it from a distance. So you grow up thinking, okay, this, what we called it before, this manifold, if there's a problem, I'll take it to the repair shop and use my awesome health insurance that I have this good job for, and they'll just swap the parts, or they'll just fix it real quick. So that mentality, and I think most people have that mentality, I think that's certainly what the medical system would probably want you to have the mentality for, is come to our repair shop first.

Reese Brown (42:47.438)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (42:53.129)

We've got the best, you know mechanics in all kind of ways and that's fine. If I'm in a car wreck, definitely take me That's no problem. I would like you to stitch me up as quick as possible But let's talk about the recovery aspect. I'll handle that part from my side but ultimately I do think a reliance or a just a reverence for conventional Medicine and thinking that they really actually do have the best solutions and it's the most up-to-date that did allow me to get

Reese Brown (43:02.318)

Right.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (43:22.649)

own whole. That did cause me to just keep looking for the right specialist. I'm just I'm attacking the problem with the same strategy over and over for three or four years and just getting deeper and deeper and deeper and more medications and more medications instead of saying instead of using that engineering brain that I was using nine to five and saying this isn't working. I trusted them. I went to verify it goes with the trust and verify attitude that a lot of engineers have and I'm starting to not trust this process.

Reese Brown (43:23.726)

Hmm

Reese Brown (43:28.718)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (43:52.549)

And so now, unfortunately, I have to erase the whole whiteboard and attack it again from a completely new angle to maybe get a solution. And there's always a solution out there, I believe that. But it's difficult to erase all your progress you've had with one medical model and try something new. But that was where I was at. So yeah, as far as cycle breaking, you heard me touch on it a little bit with cultural expectations and...

Reese Brown (43:52.878)

Mm.

Reese Brown (43:58.03)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (44:22.295)

financial success being equivalent to safety and love and praise, learning that that's really not the whole picture.

and wasn't because I was in absolute quiet desperation and just spiritual suicide going down that path just chasing money. You just got to be honest with yourself. It takes a lot of hard conversations both with yourself and other objective sounding boards that can.

Reese Brown (44:40.142)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (44:54.043)

tell you like it is and tell you exactly what they're seeing after you explain, well, I've got this, and this problem, and I'm going to fix it like this. And having someone tell you that doesn't make sense. I don't think that's going to work. You've been doing that. It's not working. That's helpful. So I'll leave it right there, and we can go deeper on anything I just said there or switch it. Yeah.

Reese Brown (44:55.502)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (45:09.134)

Right, yeah.

Reese Brown (45:16.59)

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's, it's just so powerful because I think one thing, the more I explore kind of the wellness field and it's, I would like to think that I'm a naturally curious and questioning person, but I do think when it comes to medicine, there's so many things that we're taught not to question and it's like, well.

just because it's a hard science that takes a lot of training to get into and that absolutely is deserving of respect and appreciation for modern medicine and innovation and discoveries. But we're taught not to question that either. And I do think the way that we continue getting better is to continue to question. The reason why we have the medical system we do is because people were questioning it 100 years ago.

And that process needs to keep going, not just, you're never done, right? It's like this idea that it's like, oh, well we've innovated, so like, let's stop. That is just wild to me that anyone would say, yeah, check, we got it figured out. It's like, there is always more. There's always another layer, another why you can ask. So I think it's...

truly you living your life and continuing to ask questions for your own health journey has now enabled you to help other people do the same. And I do wanna ask about, I keep returning to this metaphor, but it's such a good one, jumping off the hamster wheel. You could have gone into any other profession, any other kind of freelance contract work, working one-on-one with people, but you did choose to

Become a health coach, become a expert and practitioner of these things that you learned about for your own journey.

Reese Brown (47:20.814)

Why? I think it makes a lot of sense that when you find something that really works for you, you of course want to share that with people. But yeah, I think jumping off the hamster wheel, you had other options, but you clearly felt called to this one path. I would love to hear about that decision and that journey as well.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (47:40.415)

Yeah, gladly. I will say yes.

There were other opportunities, there were other directions I could have taken the nine to five to be more contract work and on my terms, it could still have been that whole world. But when it came to, as I said, coming up for air and starting to feel better and getting rid of some of the brain fog and starting to use more of my hard drive for looking forward instead of surviving the day, I knew 100% that I wanted to be involved in whatever functional medicine was, whatever it was that helped me. It's kind of like the convert.

Reese Brown (47:52.814)

Huh.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (48:14.133)

Like I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. Functional means it works, I'm in. Like, and it worked for me, and I thought I was hopeless, and I was, I thought I was out of options, and it still worked. So there's something to this. My wife was fully on board with me going towards chiropractic school or trying to become a DO. I can handle school, I can handle the textbooks, that's fine, but it was gonna be too long. It was gonna take too long, and I was, I needed, it was almost,

Reese Brown (48:16.078)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (48:44.373)

cathartic to me to immediately be helping people as fast as I could and have my foot in the door tomorrow. And so getting and I actually asked a few of the functional medicine doctors some of which you were MDs themselves and kind of had both hats I said what is my fastest way into this world for an engineer coming to your side coming to your team how where can I help where do I start you know when can I start

Reese Brown (48:49.102)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (49:03.598)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (49:12.479)

And two of them specifically pointed me towards health coaching and they said

Look, there's lots of good information. People aren't being compliant. We're giving them the right information. We see their labs, we're listening to their story, we're putting together the patterns on their symptoms, and they're not complying with it at home because we can only meet with them once a month. It's expensive to meet with an MD slash functional medicine practitioner. I was paying six or $700 an hour to meet with some of these people. It's expensive. Is it worth it? Yes, and it doesn't last forever, and there's fears of that going in.

Reese Brown (49:41.838)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (49:46.981)

into it is this is gonna be every month for the rest of my life I can't afford it. No not if it's working. Once it works now you're heading towards maintenance now you're in control and hopefully you've learned from it and so you can take care of yourself. But all to say some very some practitioners that I respect you very much explained to me that meeting people where they were at walking with them and getting them to be compliant on the items that they wanted to incorporate helping them learn from their from their challenges navigating

Reese Brown (49:52.174)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (50:17.341)

chunking out big obstacles or diet protocols, et cetera, into smaller pieces that actually feel achievable and realistic, that's where the rubber meets the road and that's where people start seeing the change. And so being involved in that process is, oh, it's nothing short of unbelievably rewarding. It's, so that's, and like I said before, I didn't have a health coach through my seven and a half years of, you know.

Reese Brown (50:37.646)

Mmm.

Reese Brown (50:44.014)

Right.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (50:46.399)

darkened out of the soul. And I, and if I had, I know for a fact that if I had someone fill in that role, that not only would it have...

been a shorter time period, there would have been less frustration, I would have felt heard, I would have felt seen by someone, I would have felt supported, I would have saved untold tens of thousands of dollars by shortening it even a year. So ultimately I became the person that I, in reflection, needed myself. So that's been, it's very powerful. I mean that's, to say that that's not internally rewarding to the highest degree would be an absolute farce. So yeah.

Reese Brown (51:15.982)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (51:25.07)

Yeah, no, I mean, that's the stuff, right? Is like, to become the person you needed is just, in any way, shape and form is just like that. There's something so deeply fulfilling and like empowering about that, that you can now give what you wanted. Like, I can't even put into words, like the feeling of being able to do that.

It's truly so beautiful and so deeply human. Like that we have the capacity to grow in that way is just remarkable. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (52:06.591)

Yeah, of course. And I think a lot of people try to capture this with some of the phrases like from pain to purpose or wounded healer and stuff like that. And they might be a little cliche, but it's 100% right. And it's, trust me, I mean, this is, it's not self-serving, but becoming a health coach was just as much a part of my journey and process that I needed as it is for other people seeking out this help and looking for this accountability themselves. So it's a total two-way street. It's not just me sitting there telling them

Reese Brown (52:18.766)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (52:26.19)

Yeah?

Reese Brown (52:35.022)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (52:36.965)

biohacking trends and you know that they thought they wanted to hear. No it's real conversations about real things and we're both learning from each other. I just might be a few steps ahead of you in the journey and so I've got a lot to share depending on what you want to hear and ultimately I think you have a lot of the answers too and again we're gonna find out why maybe you're not applying them or were you going at it from maybe the wrong angle. So yeah I think just to say that the wounded healer pain to purpose that's a it's a two-way street.

Reese Brown (52:44.206)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (52:49.838)

Right?

Reese Brown (52:58.51)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (53:05.55)

Totally. Well, and I think that even reflects like, you really don't have mastery of something until you teach it, right? That that is 100%, even though I absolutely agree with you that in terms of, you know, my own work being a life coach and like, I don't even really resonate with the term coach a lot because it's, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm...

walking this path with you and having someone walk it with you that speaks the same language as you or gives you words to describe what you're feeling is just helpful. It's not this.

Like there's no hierarchy in that relationship, which I think is so beautiful and important in the learning process to have that safety. But I absolutely hear how, once you're able to share that knowledge in your journey with other people to help them in their journey, it's like that's the ticket. That is you are actively learning and helping at the same time. So with all of this learning,

I want to be, I have so many more questions, but I do want to be mindful of time as well. And forgive me for this question, but you mentioned earlier, like exercise, gentle exercise a few times a week is the most proven combatant of depression. What are some of your go-to, like for anyone, for me, or for anyone listening, that is like just stepping their toe into functional medicine?

their toe into the pool of functional medicine, or just trying to explore and widen their sphere of wellness, up level their personal wellness. What are the first couple things that you recommend as a health coach and as someone who's walked this path as well?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (55:02.499)

So as a health coach, I'll answer this two ways, as a health coach, I would then ask you what you enjoy doing that is physically active. And that's what we would focus on if I were talking specifically to you because there's no need for me to say.

Reese Brown (55:10.478)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (55:16.011)

running's where it's at, go buy some running shoes, you've gotta hit the pavement, let's try to do two miles this week when the person is thinking, that is the last thing I wanna do right now, even if it's the one thing that you think is gonna fix everything I'm telling you. So the key is finding something that they enjoy, that they possibly have experience with, maybe something they've never done before and just expected themselves to be amazing at so they're nervous to even start. So all that being said, if someone is just starting, as far as the mind-body connection,

Reese Brown (55:25.198)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (55:29.742)

It's never gonna happen.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (55:47.145)

Again, as humans, regardless of your view on how long we've been around, we are good at walking and we are supposed to be walking. So if you are walking outside, that's great. If you walk, I was described to me once as, if you walk like you're late for a meeting, that's a pretty good workout. If you're actually walking with pace, because you've got to be, you know, your appointment starts in 10 minutes and you're three blocks away. Walk at that pace.

You'll be surprised at how much that actually feels like you're jogging or you're running or you're doing a resistance cycling workout. It's incredible and that will raise your heart rate. Hopefully you begin to sweat a little. It's not a bad thing. It's a detox pathway. It is fantastic. We won't go on a tangent there, but at the same time, it's all, it's inextricable. It's all connected. Your body is a detox machine. Your body wants to move just walking. The gentle taps of your heels is getting your lymphatic system going. It is turning so many

and levers that you're not turning by just sitting on the ground doing ab crunches or thinking that workouts are just stationary at the gym. Get outside and walk. I mean that's, like you're late for a meeting. I always love adding that aspect because it just turns the dial up a little bit and at the same time you don't feel like you're put, I mean you could do it in jeans. Like it's not a big ask but if you're asking me, Reese, where someone could start.

Reese Brown (56:56.558)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (57:00.974)

Yeah, no, that's great.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (57:14.239)

to up level their mental health as well. Walking outside like you're late for a meeting.

Reese Brown (57:21.55)

I love that. In the late for a meeting, I mean, clearly you can tell, I'm a fan of metaphors. My background being in philosophy and writing and English, it's, there's too many complex experiences that you can't talk about except talking kind of around them to try and point at it. But that is such a perfect image for this because we've all been late to a meeting and I've absolutely.

power walked to a meeting and been sweaty by the time I get there. Absolutely. I'm like, we've all had that experience. It's like, well, of course, you're moving your body. And I even I didn't even make the connection between like your feet being, you know, reflexology or if you if that's part of the practice, but also like the lymphatic channels in your heels that, like, as you're tapping, you're activating detox pathways, that's of course, you know, it's like I've never

that hasn't ever clicked for me, but it's like, it makes sense.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (58:22.668)

It's simpler than we've all made it. We're all trying to do these very complicated, sometimes expensive or trendy modalities for these different trendy aspects of our body that have always been there. It's kind of a, you know.

Reese Brown (58:32.91)

Hmm

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (58:42.151)

WWCD like what would a caveman do like what would his day be like because they were operating Pretty well. They were pretty good at how they were going about their day. So walking being outside You know eating real food like it just comes back to these very basic Needs that our body has and of course you can dig yourself in a deep hole where you need some of these more complicated complex or expensive modalities to make more progress quickly or to actually come up for air and Get your body, you know that catalyst I was talking about before but yeah

Reese Brown (58:58.766)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (59:12.768)

Just do what your body was already made to do.

Reese Brown (59:15.886)

I love that. So, last question before we dive into some of our closing questions. A little bit ago, you mentioned that continuing down the path of traditional medicine, asking the same questions, jumping specialist to specialist, you said that that was spiritual suicide, which is such a powerful phrase, but.

I do want to touch on the spiritual aspect of this because at least for me personally, not everyone is spiritual, but I believe that everyone has faith in some sort. Even atheists have faith in science, have faith in human beings and human progress. We all have something that we believe in. Even if it is a belief in nothingness, that is still a belief. How does...

faith, whether that meaning in the true sense of the word, not necessarily. I sometimes I say that and being in the Bible belt and the society that it's in, it of course goes to the Abrahamic route or more specifically Christian, but separate from any organized thing, unless that is what it is for you. What does faith have to do with wellness for you? And because wellness is such a big part of

just how we live our lives daily, how does faith impact that whole system of you wanting to be the best father, husband, person, Chris, that you can be?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:00:59.764)

come at it from this angle so

the relationship that the concept of faith has to the way I go about this career, my lifestyle, et cetera, is less the organized religion faith. Although if, just like New Year's Day resolutions, if treating your body like a temple is a good motivator, use that wind. If there's wind, put the sail up. Use that to motivate you. That's fantastic. I love that. But faith to me,

Reese Brown (01:01:22.734)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:01:30.683)

And I'll play this into spiritual suicide a little bit, but faith to me is a little bit more belief. I...

without planting that seed that you might get better. If someone doesn't think they can get better, if they don't think it's possible, your brain, your body, your soul, I mean, whatever's going on here that I can't explain, I don't know anyone who can explain it too well yet. If you don't even, if you don't think it's gonna happen, your body's gonna say, you got it, it won't. We'll make sure it doesn't come true. So faith is at least planting the seed.

Reese Brown (01:01:44.526)

they won't.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:02:07.953)

Small as that seed may be that you believe things can a) improve or b) that you can resolve this completely without that seed planted you have nothing to water. you know to take the metaphor one step farther is what are you doing this work for if you don't? Have any seed why are you watering the garden? Why are you pulling weeds? Why are you why are you cleaning up around this? You know this fertile area that you're trying to create unless you've had some seeds planted So faith when you say faith related to the way I go about

Reese Brown (01:02:08.078)

Mmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:02:39.071)

medicine, health, wellness, whatever you want to call it It's a little bit more the belief

that our bodies have the ability to be absolutely resilient and we have the ability to be happy and healthy. And I do think it's a birthright. And I think maybe a lot of us have lost the sense of what that can really feel like, like what that is at the top level of that spectrum. Like I said before, some of us are okay with being okay. And it's not my job to want it for you. That's where you're at. But if you wanna feel up here,

we've got some foundational aspects we need to click into gear. We gotta find the corner pieces of that puzzle so that we can fill in the rest. Now as far as the spiritual suicide of the hamster wheel that's going pretty quickly, or those jobs that are rewarding every two weeks when you open an envelope.

Reese Brown (01:03:19.374)

Yeah. Mm-hmm, yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:03:38.99)

I think it plays a little bit into the concept. I believe it was Maslov.

that proposed it, but what a man can be, he must be. Once you realize that you can serve other people, because again, we're not meant to be in isolation. We're not meant to just be studying and researching something in our cubicle all day and no one getting any benefit from it. But once you realize you can be of service and be this new, exciting connection for other people to help them in their own path, once you realize you can do that,

you're not gonna be happy until you do it. So ever since that small idea came into my head that, wow, these functional medicine people that I've been visiting that are helping me, they're excited when I'm making breakthroughs, they seem to be more rewarded about my progress than I am, I kind of want to catch some of that fire. I'm really excited about that as soon as I got a taste of that from their perspective and just imagining myself in their shoes and solving problems that

wings and a tail and two engines as soon as I saw myself solving problems for people that made a bigger difference in day-to-day lives and something that I can relate to as soon as I realized I could do that I had to do that so it was just kind of fulfilling an opportunity that I couldn't stop thinking about that was that played into the spiritual suicide comment is continuing

Reese Brown (01:04:59.598)

Hmm.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:05:16.617)

jump over to this other team. At least for now. I mean who knows what comes in the future and who knows how it evolves or how it develops but yeah for now this is what I knew I could be doing and so I am doing it.

Reese Brown (01:05:16.942)

Hmm. Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:05:30.094)

Yeah, I really, really appreciate that. And I think that, I mean, nine times out of 10, when I ask, I mean, the show's called Making Meaning, right? So when we're talking about things that are meaningful and that bring people purpose and fulfillment.

it almost always goes back to service. And when you realize how you are called to help other people, leaning into that is been the thing that like I've just heard across all of these conversations that brings people joy, peace.

Reese Brown (01:06:14.094)

And I'm like, that, that's what we all want, right? So that is, yeah, I just really appreciate that.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:06:20.558)

I mean, it was such a...

frustrating and fascinating door that it opened for me going into going towards that line I mean once I got sick I mean there were there was no bigger victim on the planet than me like why me was an every five minute question and Then once you get past that and realize oh, this is giving me experience that can be translated to this other world That the people that people are craving So the people don't feel alone. So yeah, it's uh, it's fascinating to look back and see how it all

Reese Brown (01:06:25.486)

Yeah.

Reese Brown (01:06:35.534)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:06:52.261)

played out even though you didn't plan it but I could have yeah like you said I could have taken a fork in the road and gone right back to the old life the old cycles maybe I knew a couple new things about health but yeah my journey was the best thing you have cancer included best thing that had ever happened to me so it opened my eyes to a world that I didn't know was there but I see things that I didn't know even existed in it has made my life so much more enriching

Reese Brown (01:07:14.414)

Mm.

Reese Brown (01:07:20.878)

Wow, so powerful. Just, I can't.

That speaks for itself, right? Okay, I do wanna do some of our speed round questions because when we were talking about doing this, you were quite interested in them and so I wanna make sure we get to them, but speed round tends to turn into a little bit more of a conversation. So if it does, that's fine, but speed round, yeah. Okay, do you believe in ghosts?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:07:48.079)

one sentence or less. I'll do my best at one sentence or less.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:07:56.511)

It's potential, I don't want to be the one to confirm it.

Reese Brown (01:08:00.27)

I love that, I love that.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:08:01.235)

I don't want to taunt, like I don't want to go, I don't want to ask the question and actually get the answer. So I don't do the haunted ghost tours, I don't go to the houses. I don't know yes or no, but I don't want to be the one to personally confirm it.

Reese Brown (01:08:14.958)

Hey, that's pretty fair. That is pretty fair. Okay, aliens.

And if so, what does that look like? Like, what does alien mean to you?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:08:30.271)

Um, yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah. It's fascinating to have security clearance and being that whole world. I never saw the bodies. I can tell that I wasn't on those programs. Um, but just from a critical thinking standpoint.

Yes, I think it's inevitable that we are not alone. And just to back that up, I just think there are too many whistleblowers coming out with some interesting things happening over nuclear facilities, you name it, that we've been taking pictures of for a long time. Some are credible, some are absolutely not credible, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We're still special, even if we're not alone. This is an awesome ride. Buckle up, I'm sure something will come out eventually.

Reese Brown (01:09:12.174)

100%. I completely agree. It's like, from a critical thinking perspective, it seems pretty insane to think that we are special enough to be the only thing, right? Pyramids.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:09:28.413)

I don't think we could build them now.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:09:33.671)

I don't think we have all the answers. I just, yeah, this is, so this is starting to tap into some really fascinating alternate history subjects that I love digging into. Cause it's just like I'm going about medicine. It's trust but verify. You start doing archeology and things start popping up that aren't supposed to be there. You gotta erase the whiteboard and start over. So I don't know who built them. I don't know how old they are. I don't know how they did it.

Reese Brown (01:09:48.238)

right?

Reese Brown (01:09:54.35)

Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:10:01.695)

I don't have a guess. I'd love to know, but I don't even know if we'll figure it out.

Reese Brown (01:10:03.342)

Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, sometimes maybe that's part of it. Maybe we're not meant to know and that's okay. Okay. No, not at all. Okay. Yes. Any other thing in that realm that you find fascinating or that you have like a take on that you're like, I kind of want to share cause I'm just curious knowing that you are a curious person and are interested in some of this stuff. I'm like, do you have any?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:10:11.991)

There's nothing wrong with a little mystery. It's frustrating, but there's nothing wrong with it.

Reese Brown (01:10:34.318)

take on stuff like that that I haven't asked you about.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:10:40.267)

I mean the alien subject gets really fascinating once you start getting into some of the whistleblower stuff that's been coming out recently, but I think the only other fun thing I will pepper in there, I'm really excited if any of my clients ever circle back to this because they're like, hey I heard you say this once, but I gave up on Bigfoot. I wanted Bigfoot to be a thing and I just, I've given up on it. I just, I've given up on it. So as far as the quick round questions that you were saying, I've lost hope on that one.

Reese Brown (01:10:58.51)

Uhhh...

Reese Brown (01:11:04.238)

Hmm.

Reese Brown (01:11:10.414)

That's fair. I, yeah. I would like it. Yeah.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:11:14.947)

Young childhood Chris really wants it to be true because the stories are fantastic and exciting and a little scary, but the more I just think about it and some of the stories and some of the sources, I will say, they're not checking all my boxes that I would need on a credible witness. But I'm open.

Reese Brown (01:11:19.438)

Yes!

Reese Brown (01:11:30.862)

Yeah. Yeah. Fully hear it. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. Right. Always. I love it. Um, well, thank you for indulging me in the little fun quick round. Um, and we'll go ahead and dive into our closing two questions. First one is in light of this conversation in everything we've talked about, chatted about, is there anything that I missed? Anything that you want to go back and clarify? Anything that we just haven't?

touched on at all that you're like, I need to say this. Yeah, this is space and time for anything else that you would like to share.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:12:12.191)

Yeah, I would just like to share that if...

anyone finds this conversation intriguing to the point of saying, I would love to sit down and talk more with him or see what health coaching is all about, just shoot me an email. Shoot me a direct email at chrishealthcoaching, no spaces, no punctuation, chri I can be reached there directly. That's the business email and we could talk about what you're looking for, what you heard that piqued your interest, what you're going through, how you think I can help.

or if you'd like some accountability on anything and we could see if we're a good fit. Again, a free discovery call to see if it's a good fit is always a good place to start. It's not just about saying yes to everyone just because I can. It's a process. But if you would like to get that conversation started, just shoot me an email and we can go from there. I'm the CEO of my company, so we'll find a time and I'll make it happen and the buck stops with me.

So if I say something, that'll be the case.

Reese Brown (01:13:18.126)

I love it. Yes, absolutely. And your email as well as any other links or information for contacting and getting in touch with Chris will be in the show notes and video description. Wherever you're accessing this podcast, just scroll down a little bit and you'll be able to see all of that lovely information to connect with Chris. Very last question. What is one word, Chris, to describe how you're feeling right now?

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:13:51.04)

optimistic.

the fact that these conversations are happening. I don't think these were happening. These types of conversations about these types of subjects were happening at least as frequently or as accessible even 10 years ago. So I mean, collectively, I know cohere collective, it's interesting that I thought of it collectively, but collectively as a species, we're in a tough spot. We've really hampered ourselves with a lot of things that we call progress and technology. And it's...

it's causing some serious mental, physical, health challenges. So I am optimistic that these conversations are happening and being recorded and that people like you, Reese and myself as well are putting ourselves out there and excited to talk to people and helping them on their own journey, whatever that may be, so optimistic.

Reese Brown (01:14:48.206)

I love that. Me too. And thank you for the time and energy in doing this and the work you do. Staying curious, asking questions, servant heart. That's the ticket, right? Yeah. 100%. So that is all I have. This has been wonderful. I am so excited to...

Put this out there, let people actually listen to it, let it hit some ears and see what people think. Thank you for being a part of this conversation. Thank you for having it with me and allowing me to be a part of the conversation as well. Thank you so much for your time.

Chris Buchanan FMCHC (01:15:39.115)

You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.

Reese Brown (01:15:41.486)

Thank you.