Deborah Maragopoulos
Don
Hello world welcome to “Discover Your Talent, Do What You Love” number 381. I am creator and host Don Hutcheson. Every day I interview someone from around the world whose discovered her talents to do work she loves to create a life of success satisfaction and freedom.
As a toddler, her grandmother saw her intuitive powers and gift for healing. For years, Deborah felt she had to suppress her gift. “I knew I had to justify my healing abilities by getting a university degree.” Reaching the perfect balance between the science of medicine and the art of healing has been her life-long challenge.
Today I’m delighted to bring you our featured guest, Deborah Maragopoulos. Deborah Welcome.
Deborah
Thank you very much, Don,
Don
It’s our pleasure. Are you using your talents doing work that you love?
Deborah
Absolutely.
Don
Okie-dokie we want to go into the whole story.
The Hormone Queen, Deborah Maragapoulos, blends the science of medicine with the art of healing. Upon graduating from UCLA with a Masters in Nursing, Deborah studied nutritional science, functional medicine, quantum physics, genetics, neuro-immune-endocrinology, and metaphysical healing. Through clinical research and two decades of collecting empirical data, Deborah developed a unique holistic healthcare model blending naturopathic and allopathic therapies, as well as a promising nutraceutical product–Genesis Gold®.
Deborah lives with her husband in the beautiful Ojai Valley.
Deborah, that is a summary of your career, tell our listeners around the world what you are engaged in now, that has you excited.
Deborah
Well what I’m really excited about now is, besides my family practice (I have an intuitive-integrative medical practice), I launched my second book. And it’s “Hormones in Harmony- Heal your Hypothalamus.” It’s been amazing and I’m getting all kinds of great interviews like this with you, that’s allowing me to get my message out into the world.
I also developed a charity, in 2007, Divine Daughters Unite. And because “Hormones in Harmony” is bringing me so much more traffic and business, and I’m selling more of my Genesis Gold®, I’m donating more and more proceeds to Divine Daughters Unite. And I’m super anxious to go back to Nicaragua this year to bring change to women’s health care.
Don
Good heavens, just- that’s really, really quite remarkable. First of all congratulations on the writing, that’s wonderful, and so needed as we talked before the show. How long have you had the charity?
Deborah
2007. I developed It. After I had launched my first book which was a novel called “Lovedance – awakening of the divine daughter”. I wanted to use the proceeds of that as well as my Genesis Gold® sales proceeds, a percentage of that, to actually support charities but I couldn’t find one that I really loved, so I decided to just start my own. And I have on the board of this charity, young women – there is a few of us older women – but mostly young women who have great ideas. but I’m literally teaching them the background of altruistic work and how these charitable organizations need to run, and they are just doing an amazing job. It’s what I would have wanted when I was in my early twenties and all they wanted was my blood sweat and tears – and maybe some, a little bit of money I had.
Don
(chuckling) Of course.
Deborah
So this way these girls are super involved. They are very creative, and the older women – I have a few of us on the board, there’s two older women in the board – the rest are all young, very young women in their early twenties. We just guide them and they have the ideas. And one of the ideas was to adopt a villager from a small Nicaraguan town, Quilaili, last year. And I went with her, to her town, on a medical relief trip. And it was amazing, and they invited me to go back and teach them how to improve women’s health care.
Don
Beautiful, beautiful. Congratulations. Tell us just for a minute – we want to get into your story – but this Genesis Gold® sounds fascinating, tells us about that for a minute.
Deborah
Well, that’s a “little long story”, it’s not a minute story. So basically Genesis Gold® is a nutraceutical that I developed, because I could not find the one thing to treat what I intuitively knew was the root issue of most people’s hormonal issues. And when I’m speaking hormones I’m speaking the neurotransmitters, the immune factors, and all of your hormones, not just your sex hormones.
Don
Exactly.
Deborah
And the key to that, the maestro of that symphony is the hypothalamus. I couldn’t find the one thing. And Genesis Gold® basically came to me in dreams – the whole formula. It came in 1999. I started doing research from 2000 to 2003, manufactured it in 2003. I’s been out for thirteen years. I sort of kept it in my back pocket, treating my patients, a little bit of online sales, and then finally decided this year it was time to launch the book, tell my story, talk about Genesis Gold®, and it’s just boomed.
Don
Oh my gosh, that’s wonderful, so it’s a completely online product, right?
Deborah
Oh yeah, It’s online. It’s a powdered supplement. It has everything in it that I was giving my patients in multiple bags of natural stuff that I looked at and said “Holy molly, I can’t take all that”. I need to make it a little more simple. And at the time I was actually working with quite a few learning disabled children – it was back in the 90’s. They would have been called autism spectrum disorder back then. But at that point it was learning disabilities of undetermined diagnosis. And these parents were bringing them to me in busloads from all around the central valley and California where there is a lot of toxicity – a lot of chromosomal abnormalities. And we were creating what the parents called brews because we were mixing green powders and squeezing capsules and tablets because the children were anywhere from infants to preteens and it was by their body weight and these parents were begging me, please make this, please create this. And so I dreamt the formula, and I will give you more background on that. It has to do with why I do what I do.
Don
Okay wonderful, wonderful. In a society and a medical system that is trillions of dollars services treating symptoms it’s so beautiful to talk to someone getting to the sources because that’s the way to do it, right?
Deborah
Absolutely. I mean literally changing genetic expression. It’s amazing.
Don
You know I just can’t even imagine. I mean I can imagine, Just bravo for you. That’s Just incredible.
Deborah
Thank You.
Don
Well as you know, as we’ve discussed, everyone’s life journey is composed of turning points or passages as some call them. And every handful of years, since the day we were born we face people and events and have choices and changes that determine the next handful year of our lives. Would you take us back into the back story, your back story of Deborah Maragopoulos, of the more meaningful events that made you who you are today?
Deborah
Absolutely. I would like to begin at the very beginning. And that is when I was a very young child. My grandmother was what would have been called the village witch back in the day, but she was in south Philly – and very Italian. And people would come to her to interpret their dreams.
Don
I’m jealous, I have to tell you I’m jealous. I have great grandmothers, but I was not as lucky enough to get the village witch. I think that’s fabulous.
Deborah
Well she… you know, they didn’t even call it that then, they just thought she was special and would bring all their troubles to her. And one of my earliest memories is sitting on the kitchen floor – it was pink linoleum with the metal legs, so this is back when I’m 19-20 months old, So this is back – I’m 55 now – so this is back in ’62, and there are three sets of legs around me. And it’s Mommy who’s really pregnant with the twins so her little legs are far apart with this big pregnant belly; Nana’s legs and then another women’s legs. And the other woman… I’m playing with some toys and there’s drops of blood dripping onto the linoleum. And I stand up, (I’m that little that I can stand up under the table) I place my hand on her belly and tell her, “not this one.” And I confirmed this memory with my mother who said the moment your grandmother knew you had the gift and started to mentor you.
Don
Oh my gosh.
Deborah
This woman had come to seek help because her hip was cramping and she was miscarrying.
Don
Wow.
Deborah
From my grandmother. But unfortunately my father was disturbed by the witchiness of all of this and was just too weird for him. So he took us to California when I was only two years old. And from there, as crazy as it sounds, I communicated with my grandmother telepathically, you know we were in constant communication. They would come visit maybe once a year but I was still able to have conversations with her and talk to her.
And I thought everybody did this. I heard the animals. I heard the plants. I knew when my parents were ill. Or anybody around me was ill. I just thought it was normal. And it wasn’t until I was in probably in late elementary school years when my mother and grandmother were all “this is all well and good but you don’t need to discuss it with everyone.”
So that’s when I sorta hid my powers per se. So much so that I realized my powers my gifts, my talents, would manifest when I became a young woman. Because I knew if I was a woman, I would become powerful. And when I started my menstrual cycles if frightened me because there was really no support at that point. My grandmother was still 3,000 miles away. And I knew I needed to use my skills as a medical provider way back then, I was 13 years old and I knew I was going into medicine.
Don
Forgive me, I missed the thread, You started your menstrual cycles and…?
Deborah
I got afraid. So what happened was I literally chose to stop them by becoming anorexic. And it worked. And this is before they had the word for anorexia, Karen Carpenter hadn’t died yet. And my parents brought me to the doctor and said “She’s so skinny.” And he said “feed her.” She said “She won’t eat.”
But it worked. I reversed everything. But when I did that it sort of blunted my gifts. I was no longer quite so perceptive. Although for school I always had that kind of perception. I remember looking for a test, not studying because I never really need to. And would ask the test “what do you want from me?” And the answers would just stand up relief and I would just circle them. And write in the right answers and wait for everyone else to finish their test. All the way up through my board exams at the state level at the age of 22 I would do the same thing.
Don
Good heavens. We think we know something right? About life in this universe. About life in this cosmos. We just know a tiny fraction of what there is to know and this conversation is…
Deborah
It’s a little odd. And I knew I had to justify my healing abilities by getting a degree. That I needed to play the game, get really good grades, graduate as valedictorian of my class, and get through the system. But it was meeting my spouse, at the age of 17, I dreamt him before I met him, he showed up five months later, and we have been together ever since. So once I met him is when I opened back up to “it’s okay to be a young woman.” It’s alright. And I allowed my body to blossom. And my menstrual cycles came back. And all the dreams came back. And everything started happening again.
So then I decided. I’m going to college. And at that point I volunteer at the local emergency room, a little candy-striper, And I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a doctor at that point. And I’m watching what’s happening in the emergency room, and I realize the nurses are running the show there. And I didn’t see one female doctor under the age of forty who that had really started her life, had kids. And I thought, “you know what, I want everything.”
I knew I was going to have children. I knew would have two children. I knew I was going to be a young mother. I wasn’t going to be an old mother. So I decided to become a nurse practitioner. Because that way I could do what the doctors are doing but still get through school quickly, and still have that more wellness oriented education – rather than disease oriented education.
Don
Oh Beautiful, you noticed that the nurses were engaging with each other and with the patients where the doctors just swooped in and did there thing and left right?
Deborah
Oh yeah. And the education of nursing, I mean at UCLA it was bio, psych, social, spiritual, environmental, and health. You looked at everything.
Don
Okay
Deborah
Is wasn’t just pathophysiology. It wasn’t just about the disease orientation.
Don
Okay. Did you love it?
Deborah
Oh my gosh, I just loved everything about it. I loved anatomy and physiology. I loved the cadavers. I loved everything about the body. I just thought it was fascinating. And it just fell in place for me.
I mean people just have so much trouble getting into nursing school now and medical school. And I really believe if you’re doing what your calling is, and you are not fighting it, and you’re really going with the flow, it just all opens up. I mean nothing was an issue. I just knew where I was going. Boom, boom, boom. I’m in. You know? Everything just laid itself out. Everything was ease and joy. And there was no stress with it. It was just this amazing experience. UCLA is a big school and I was from a small town. But I just really enjoyed it.
I ended up back at UCLA at the age of 23-
Don
What did you do after UCLA?
Deborah
Well, you see, first off, back then you couldn’t become a nurse practitioner right away. You had to become an RN. And you had to be an RN for at least two years before they would let you back to get your masters degree and become a nurse practitioner. Now today you can get a doctorate as a nurse practitioner. But back in the 80’s? Bachelors of nursing, two years experience, before you could apply to graduate school.
Don
Okay.
Deborah
So right after nursing school, my husband I get married and within five months I have a dream I’m going to have a blond baby boy. Now I’m Italian and my husband’s Greek. And as you saw I’m a brunette. We don’t have blonds in our family. But I dreamt that. It was so clear to me. I knew what his name would be. And I tell me husband that we’re going to get pregnant this month. Now at that point I had a little runners amenorrhea, it means I was exercising so much I’m not having menstrual cycles again.
Don
What did you call that?
Deborah
It’s called runners amenorrhea, or exercised inducted amenorrhea. Menorrhea is periods and “a” means none.
So I’m not having periods but I had dreamt I was going to have this child. My body immediately puts on five pounds. I was very thin. Five pounds and I get pregnant. I know the moment I got pregnant and go to the doctors a few weeks later to confirm everything and they are shocked because I hadn’t had periods for a year or so – from the stress of college and getting married and all that.
And so I’m pregnant with this baby. And I’m not showing very well. I mean I’m very, very small. And the doctor keeps saying to me, “Well you’re just very athletic”.
And my Italian mother and my Greek mother-in-law are saying, “Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, you should be showing by now.”
I end up delivering this baby prematurely, at UCLA. I had severe toxemia – that’s when your blood pressure is really high I actually went into health syndrome. Very high blood pressure, liver failure, kidney failure, seizures.
Don
Good Heavens.
Deborah
And this is all happening at Santa Barbara where I was actually working at the time. They don’t have an ICU opening when I’m in labor at that point. So I tell them to take me down to to UCLA. They Ambulance me down, they don’t have anyone in the ambulance with me but the driver, so I am monitoring my own IV as we are going down there trying to keep me from birthing this baby, this 30 week fetus. It was crazy.
So we get there. They keep me from delivering for about eleven days. And finally my amniotic sack ruptures. I develop illness because they are trying to keep me from delivering. And they have to let me deliver this baby. He has inter-uterine growth-retardation he is very tiny. He should have weighed four and a half pounds he was two and a half pounds. But when I deliver, they take one look at the baby, and rush the baby out. And I don’t even get to hold him. They rush him out.
I tell my husband. “Follow our baby don’t whatever you do leave that baby. We’re at UCLA where they have twenty two miles of corridors in here, and they’re going to lose him. So follow the baby, and don’t leave the baby and whatever you do don’t talk to an intern or a resident, only talk to the chief resident. That’s it. Don’t talk to anybody else.”
He comes back, I’m still in intensive care because they’re still trying to monitor my seizures, and he is balling, just balling.
And I said, “ What is wrong?”
He says, “Our baby is going to be deaf, blind,” and at that time we used the word mentally retarded. That’s what he was told. “And we don’t know what it is”
I’m like, “what are you taking about? We had a boy.”
He said “No. The baby has no penis. They don’t know what is is. It has no genitals. We can’t tell.”
Don
Oh my gosh
Deborah
Baby’s born with this rash, they thought it was rubella. It wasn’t rubella. I’m allergic to penicillin they had given me some penicillin and the baby had the same rash. But it was born what we would call intersex. Chromosomes come back, is male, XY. But they called the child an XY female.
So because I’m so sick, I’m not able to see the baby for at least two weeks. And it’s a couple weeks later we finally get the chromosomes studies back.
So we are sitting with the pediatric endocrinologist. This is the top endocrinologist in the united states. I’ve called Stanford, I’ve called back east. I’ve called all the top medical centers and this is the one we need to see. She’s dealt with this the most. And I have my Italian mother. My Greek mother-in-law, my husband and I. And we’re 22 and 23, he’s ten months younger than I am. And we’re sitting in front of this endocrinologist and she says, you need to raise this child as a girl because it’s easier to make a hole than a pole.
Don
Oh gosh
Deborah
And I said to her, “that doesn’t feel right to me. What happens to this baby if she, as an adolescent or young adult feels like she’s in the wrong body?”
And she says, “We don’t know because we don’t follow them once they become young adults.”
I said, “It’s the wrong decision.”
My mother was so cute, because the doctor kept arguing that the child would have no secondary sex characteristics. And she said “well what’s that?”
And I explained to her because the doctor’s jargon, she couldn’t understand, that it was body hair.
And she said, “Are you crazy the baby’s half Italian half Greek – the women have mustaches in the family, it’s not reason to cut off any body parts.
Don
Right. Right. Right.
Deborah
So we raised the child going with the chromosomes and that point you had to pick a team, there was no “they” it was either he or she. So we chose chromosomes. We chose “he” named the child Jarys, it was a very generic kind of ambiguous name. And allowed the baby to basically be whatever it wanted to be. But referred to it as male in the beginning.
And Jarys is why I do what I do. I had to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. I had to learn neuro-immune-endocrinology, cell receptor site activity, to prove to the doctors that they were wrong that DNA was not set in stone. It can be changed, through nurture.
Don
Good heavens, this is an utterly fascinating story. So how has it evolved? How has it played out?
Deborah
Well we raised the baby as a boy. Now today. If he was born today, we would have raised the child as intersex, not chosen a sex at all and allowed the child to choose its sexual identity, and determine any kind of medical intervention – like genital reassignment or anything like that later in its life. Back in 1984 that was not the choice. You had to choose a team, boy or girl.
So at that point he did have some medical issues that required some surgical revision. He had huge hernias and literally could not urinate or defecate properly, so those needed to be resolved.
When that happened, I had been at UCLA working on a surgical floor with a doctor who was just starting transgender reassignment surgeries. So I contacted him and I said, “I know you haven’t worked on children but is it possible to do any kind of work on a very small child because my baby literally cannot urinate properly because of the genital malformation.”
And he examined the baby and said, “I don’t really have much to work with here.”
And I had a dream that if we gave the baby a little testosterone that things would start to start to grow a little bit. So I said, “Well can you give him some testosterone?”
And he said, “I don’t know., I guess we could try”
And it worked.
So we did that and that allowed them to be perform the surgery to reverse the hernias and bring the gonads (which are the testes, and ovaries in female), which were in the belly because there was nothing for it to descend into, down into the scrotal sacks.
So there was some surgical revision just because he couldn’t urinate or defecate properly.
Don
So Jarys, his whole, that remarkable story of Jarys’ birth and growth and evolving was really a huge catalyst, to say the very least ,to put you in the next phase of your career.
Deborah
Absolutely. I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had to do it. I literally had to save him from our Health Maintenance Organization, our HMO. Bbecause they wanted to do everything on the cheap end. And wanted to do everything related to what they understood of adult medicine and not in pediatric medicine. And I don’t know how parents who have no medical education get through this. Because it was really hard.
Don
Oh listen, I mean all you have to do is look at vaccines and all the other things going on today and it’s just a nightmare of confusion, based on lots of things that you know very, very well.
Let me transition, just for a minute, into the topic of people finding themselves. You are living a courageous career. You’ve known very, very early on, preternaturally, early who you are and what you’ve wanted. And you’ve chiseled your career. You’ve made your own path – the road less traveled to say the least. The statistics around the world are most people don’t, as you saw the data. What do you think that’s about. Just briefly. Why do you think it’s difficult?
It’s funny the metaphor of HMOs about people getting caught up in the system is one of the key reasons right? But you take the floor and tell us why you think that people from an early age, or whatever stage of their career, are not able to find their sweet spot.
Deborah
Well I think the way I found my sweet spot is I followed my intuition. I think I was mentored in that. It was okay to do that. Dreams and the way you felt were more important than the facts. And we’re socialized very early on – see little children when they are born, all the way up to about seven years of age are incredibly intuitive. They are incredibly connected to the world that is unseen by us adults. They know things. They feel things. And they interact with those things. It is their reality. It just may not be our reality anymore. But it is definitely their reality.
And by the age of seven, they’ve gone to school; they’ve started to get involved with the media. They start to get acculturated. They become domesticated. And they forget that connection. And now they are following the rules.
Don
Yes.
Deborah
Well one of the things I never did, was follow the rules. Because I had such a strong intuition, I had such strong feelings about things. And I was allowed in my family to follow my dreams. These were real. It was never not real that I heard my horse crying for me in the middle night and she’s hurt. And I would go running out and my parents were like, not, “where are you going?” But “how can we help?” Because they knew, I knew things. I wasn’t pushed down. I wasn’t suppressed.
And I think a lot of people are by society and by the fear that if I can’t see it, touch it, feel it, it doesn’t exist
Don
Yes. We Just had another guest on that was talking about the subconscious that said exactly what you said from 0-7 or 0-7.5 a young person just takes in the world around him and it’s not about anything rational. It’s all about instinctive and intuitive, right?
Deborah
Yeah. We’re in a theta brain-wave state from 2-6 and that’s basically the same state you are in when you are meditating or you’ve been hypnotized. So you get programmed with imprint-able messages that don’t really make much sense but direct everything you do.
Don
It’s amazing what happens to us when we get into the system. And I guess it’s just another brick in the wall as Pink Floyd said. I guess when you are in that logical rational system it’s just hard for your intuition and your instincts to thrive huh, for most people?
Deborah
Well look at the school system. I basically played the game of getting good grades but I cheated using my intuition. But there is a system to that. And it’s all about filling in the blanks.
Instead of, “just tell me how you feel”. Tell me what your creativity is. Explain. Describe. Dance it out. Sing it out. Write it out. We don’t have all those options. We all have to fill in those bubbles.
Don
Yeah, Exactly.
Deborah
That I think keeps us from our creativity. I mean Jarys ended up becoming a teacher. He’s an English and History teacher. He had some learning issues as well, as a little one, which is common with a child that is so premature. And he really felt like he needed to go into teaching, because he wanted to help children like him learn in different ways. Because he could not learn in the way it was being taught – it was difficult. And he’s brilliant. But he’s a kinesthetic learner. They don’t teach that way.
Don
No we don’t. Yeah, exactly. We produce factory workers – only now we produce technicians.
Well what had been the most palpable benefit to on your life, on any level, for trusting your intuition, your instincts, your profound instincts, and living life on your terms?
Deborah
Well it’s allowed me to have this really deep connection with my beloved – my husband, my children. I mean I don’t worry about my children. I feel them all the time. And so, even when they are far away from me. I can feel if they need me. And call them when they need me.
Last year my mother passed away in my arms. And she ran my businesses since 1997. So it was a very critical transformational year for me to let go of her and also help us survive this turmoil of losing her. Plus she was old school. Everything was on sticky notes and such. She wasn’t doing a whole lot online so I had to break in, I couldn’t even break into my own bank account it was sort of crazy. But she told me before she died – remember this is my intuitive mother as well – all these things that were going to happen, and that her illness and her death was going to transform my business.
And right after she passed, about ten days later, I had this amazing meditation. I’ve always believed that those in the spirit realm are behind a veil. I would use that terminology. It’s just beyond the veil. And the veil is thinner for some of us who are able to perceive that spirit world. And for others’ it’s really thick like a wall. And in this meditation she came to me. She has passed already – it was about ten days before.
And she showed me it isn’t a veil, there is no there. It was amazing meditation. And since then, actually from that point at the end of July, the 21st is the year anniversary of her death, at that point from the end of July until I went to Nicaragua which was the work – she was the eldest in the divine daughters board and she believed, she taught me as little girl, that if you heal a woman, you heal her family, you heal her community, you heal the world. So my focus, although I do family practice, if I can focus on the Mom, they’ll all heal.
Don
Beautiful
Deborah
So I took her with me, literally took her ashes with me, to Nicaragua and did some ritual blessing ceremony there and felt like I was finally doing my mothers work. What she always wanted to do if she wasn’t so locked up herself, by society.
And it was just amazingly beautiful and I feel now that’s she’s actually within me. She no longer comes to me. She’s part of me.
Don
Yes. I hear that. Beautiful.
In one minute. What would you say to listeners 18-80 about how to break out of the system if you will, the logic system, the conform system, and get into their instincts. Just to get started, I know it’s a long process. But just a few tidbits to get started.
Deborah
Well, first of all, I would say to them, that they need to start listening to that inner voice. And that inner voice doesn’t always talk, it’s more of a feeling. And most people feel it in their gut. So when your gut is acting up. You usually need to take action. You need to do something different. You need to listen to that.
And I’m not talking about a stomach upset. That anticipation kind of feeling that you get in your tummy. That you just feel like something’s off. And most of us let our heads guide us instead of that body wisdom.
Your body is what’s going to talk to you in the beginning. My body still talks to me, but intuition comes through the body. You’re going to feel it first. Now if it’s gotten to the point you’ve gotten ill or injured, some kind of disease, that’s your body screaming at you.
So you need to listen to your body. It’s why I created Genesis Gold®. That’s – my whole creative energy into Genesis Gold® was I wanted others to be able to experience this ability to be so connected to their physicality. That they could bring their intuition to the forefront. And literally go with the flow. And be Joyous and be Peaceful. And that’s what’s happening.
People’s bodies start talking to them.
Don
Yes.
Deborah
They can’t ignore it.
Don
Exactly. It’s like 10% of our capacity our brain capacity is rational, I just read this the other day, I wasn’t sure but some neuroscientists think that it’s even 5%. We live in a world that acts like it’s 95%, and it’s just the opposite.
Deborah
Exactly. I can give you another analogy that may make a little more sense. I’m a horseback rider, and I never rode horses with any kind of equipment, no saddle, no bridles or anything, I grew ups bareback, holding onto the main and guiding the horse with my body, and telepathically.
Don
Good Heavens
Deborah
Okay. So what I tell my patients is, the horse is your body, and the rider is your soul. So when those two are in connection You don’t need to speak. You don’t even need to think. You just need to imagine where you want to be and that horse will take you there.
Don
(chuckles) I have never heard one better than that. Gosh.
Deborah
Isn’t that a beautiful picture.
Don
It’s magnificent.
Deborah
I’m telling you that’s exactly what it feels like when you are in tune with your horse.
Don
Wow that’s magnificent.
Deborah
It’s absolutely amazing.
Don
What’s your vision going forward? Just in a few sentences, where are you headed? Especially talking to you who has these true visions.
Deborah
Huge visions. Well actually I have envisioned this transformation of healthcare. And I know it’s going to take time. But I envision shifting the model from this disease oriented model to really patient orientation where the patient is totally responsible and understands that responsibility and uses it as their power.
So there’s no more God centered- The Doctor’s the god, and they [patients] are just doing what we are telling them to do. But we’ve gone into deep partnership with them as healthcare providers.
And I act as a coach and a cheerleader. But it’s your race to run.
Don
Beautiful.
Deborah
We have a lot of health coaches out there, but I want to see my colleagues, the doctors, the nurse practitioners, the physicians assistants, those of us who got the medical training, and have all the licenses, and the degrees, and the ability to prescribe. We are the ones that need to start partnering with out patients.
Don
Yeah. Well It’s almost impossible if you are raised in that system from what I’ve been paying attention to over the last 25 years.
Deborah
It’s very difficult. But I’m doing it.
Don
Oh no, you are! But when you think about how the system works, big pharmaceutical and big cancer industry, the doctors are just-
Deborah
Their hands are tied. You’re right, their hand’s are tied. But honestly that’s part of that perception. So if I believe I’m never going to climb the mountain I’m never going to climb the mountain.
Don
Exactly.
Deborah
So I don’t see it that way. I see this vision of this hope and this ability where we are partnering together where there’s no more “me” there’s “we”. And we are all working together for – not just out own person health, it does start with me. If I’m not healthy, how can I have a healthy family or healthy household, or healthy land? It all starts with me.
And if start understanding that all of the things that are happening to us is not really outside of us, it began inside, with out belief systems our visions. We’re holding ourselves back. So it’s not the system, we created the system
Don
Oh I know.
Deborah
Which means we can change it.
Don
Oh we are changing it, look what’s happening across the whole industry. Big money is still holding sway but that’s changing every day. Thanks to this wonderful thing called the internet, information is ubiquitous. Everybody can have access to it. And even though most people don’t want to pay attention to it. More and more people are paying attention to it.
Deborah
Well the thing is whenever there is change, and we are human, we don’t like change that much, whenever there is change it’s very black and white. So the worst of the worst comes up to the surface. But also the best of the best. You see both. And so it’s going to be a little bit of pendulum swinging. But it is going to be okay.
I had a dream, a few years ago, and it was an end of the world dream. I have these occasionally. And I’m in San Francisco where my son ended up going to college which was the perfect place for him to be because he ended up starting an intersex group up there. For kids like him.
Don
Good for him.
Deborah
Anyhow so he’s a whole ‘nother story, he an amazing story.
But anyhow I’m in San Francisco – it’s been completely destroyed, I’m hiding out underneath these mattresses. Somebody’s looking for us, I don’t know what. It is but my feeling is we need to hide. And I hear this giggling voices a little bit lower than me, and I tell these little girls to just hush and be quiet.
And we get out of there, whatever passes, and we wonder over to where my husband has set up some kind of little encampment, where he’s done some kind of solar, and I have, like, refrigeration and the ability to cook, and all these little girls. And they are all Latinas, all Latina little girls, they are all following me around like the pied piper. And my husband hands me over this little tiny – it looks like a pigeon to cook for all these children. And I’m like, “Okay.” So I cook up this pigeon and I start to serve it to the children.
And one of these little girls throws some pigeon leg, she didn’t eat all of or something, behind her and some cat picks it up. And I say to that child, “We really shouldn’t waste anything because there’s not much.”
And she said, “Oh no, if you make it, there will always be enough.” And she points behind me. And on the roaster is something the size of an ostrich.
Don
Oh my gosh
Deborah
And after our little meal I wonder off with these little girls through this devastated city, and in between the cracks of the broken world are flowers popping up. And they ask me what’s the name of these flowers. And I say, “It’s a new world, we can call them anything we want.”
And I wake up
Don
Oh my gosh
Deborah
That’s my vision for the future.
Don
Well Deborah Maragopoulos what a – how great to have you on the show today, we so much appreciate you sharing the highlights on your remarkable journey. And I know listeners around the world will have learned lessons that will help them on theirs.
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