Tribute to Relationships

by Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath

Thank you mom!

I would like to dedicate today’s article to my mother who passed away on Tuesday 6/10/2014. She was a loving mother in ways most would not recognize.  I know that my parents played the most significant role in the person that I am today and I am so grateful for all they have been to me. My mother will always be in my heart and thank you for everything mom! She was and always will be my first relationship…

This leads into relationships and our health and happiness. When I was interviewing the experts in the Adrenal Summit, two of the experts made a point of bringing up the importance of quality relationships in your life to assist with your overall health and happiness. Dr Daniel Kalish discussed this in the kick off interview. I remember him mentioning that a healthy communicative relationship was one of the keys to healthy adrenal function. Dr Jonny Bowden also mentioned the importance of healthy relationships when we were discussing the cortisol/insulin connection. Both of these men are not only leaders in their fields but both have hearts of gold and passion for life.

So really, how important are your relationships across the board? They play such a significant role because they can make or break the foundation of your fundamentals of health which is tied into energy. Now this energy is not energy that one would use to pick up a weight or go for a run, this energy can be categorized as vibrational, spiritual or perhaps the movement of “light” through your body. I cannot begin to tell you how many names I have heard this called; chi, qi, prana, life force, vital force, God, Buddha, Allah, Jesus Christ, the universe and this list goes on. To me, what each of us categorize or call this energy is a personal choice for each and every one of us. But regardless of what you categorize or call this energy, this needs to flow through you in every moment to be in your best of health and heightened states of happiness.

For clients of mine or those that have heard me discuss this in the past, this is when I would typically bring up patterns of suppressed emotions but I may be looking at this differently in this moment, recognizing that much of what is going on inside of us emotionally is built on relationships. So how are your relationships? Are they troubled, dysfunctional, non-communicative and full of blame and judgment or are they alive, rewarding, highly communicative and full of acceptance and unconditional love? As any of us read this, myself included, it is essential that we look at our relationships as a predictor of our overall health and happiness. I have seen my own personal challenges in the past with relationships and recognize that even if I am focused on my functional health, my relationships can easily throw the best laid plan for health right out the window.

I would be willing to bet that as many read the previous paragraph, judgment of another’s inability to communicate and enhance your relationship has likely come up. Trust me, I have judged others in my life the same way (and still do at times), but somehow I see this in a different light right now. You see, it is not others in our life that create challenges with our relationships and our health, we truly have to look deep within ourselves. Not that other people do not play their own role because they do. But perhaps we have to ask who we are to recognize why we have picked the situations and relationships, so in essence, it still comes back to us.

I understand this clearer looking back at my own mother’s life. While I do not know my mother’s entire detailed history, it is easy to recognize that she was raised in a less than loving environment with little teachings of relationships herself. She did not hug with purpose and compassion, she often “lost herself” in of all things, soap operas for most of her life and honestly, I do not recall ever hearing “I love you” from my mother until I was 48 years old. While that may sound sad or appalling to some, I now truly see and understand that my mother was the best mother that she was capable of being and she showed love in every level that she understood. What I learned and continue to learn from this is that my relationships are up to me. There really could be no blame or judgment of my mother, only love and compassion. After all, isn’t that all we truly want from those in our lives, love and compassion?

In essence, when we are looking at our relationships and we are judging and blaming others, perhaps it would be best to provide some love and compassion and truly be the change that we want to see in our lives and in our relationships. And please do not mistaken my words as if I am the expert in this. I am still learning and growing on this level and have a long way to go and I accept this. Any of my clients reading this, you know that I always say that acceptance is the beginning of change in yourself. That is where your world and your relationships change, in yourself, beginning with self acceptance. What a concept, accepting of the relationship that you have for yourself.

So when you look at your relationships, whether this is a spouse, child, parent, friend, coworker, mailman or simply the person you stand behind in line at Starbucks, “be” the relationship that you want to receive and watch your health and your world change.

I actually witnessed this in my father over the last couple of years as he was the primary caretaker for my mother as she laid in a hospital bed in the living room of my childhood home. He fed her, changed her diapers, share with her lovingly, caressed her cheek and even rubbed noses with her saying that they were kissing like Eskimos. I have never witnessed my father treat my mother this way in the past, but he was taking it upon himself to be the change that he wanted to see in his life. Witnessing this and recognizing how I can learn from this personally is potentially life altering for me and for anyone. Again, “be” the change you want to see in your life.

So if you really want to create change in yourself, your health, your life and your happiness, look at your relationships. And if you do not like what you see, be that change within yourself and watch the world change around you. If you see a troubled, dysfunctional, non-communicative relationship that is full of blame and judgment, look at how you can do this differently within yourself first and make the choice to treat yourself and others in your life to create relationships that are they alive, rewarding, highly communicative and full of acceptance and unconditional love.

Practice this every day and build healthy relationships with yourself, whatever you consider your “source”, your spouse, parents, children, friends, coworkers, the other person in line and even the homeless person out on the street. As you accumulate healthy relationships in your life, you will accumulate health and happiness in your life.

Start this today, right now and do not judge yourself or others for the past.  Your past does not dictate your future, your choices today dictate your future, and you get to choose!

Thank you once again mom for everything you have been for me and playing such a significant role in who I am today. You’ve taught me things that I could not have learned anywhere else…

By the way, thank you for never telling dad I broke the window on the front door with my skateboard. LOL!

Are You Having Fun Yet?

by Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath

Are you having fun yet?

Image from Northern Sound

If you are like most of my new clients that answer would be no. Even when individuals share that they have a good focus on health and wellness, they are often forgetting to think of health and happiness.

Far too often I see those focusing on health and wellness creating life styles that are far too rigid. I am sure you have seen these people. They don't ever eat or drink anything considered bad for them. They spend more time at the gym than they do their family and friends. They spend much of their time going from one wellness consultation to another. And another huge point to make is their happiness is thought to be derived from something that can be measured rather than felt. 

Good luck with that...

It's funny that I have had people email, phone or simply mention to me in person that they cannot believe I make comments on my articles or social media about margaritas, putting up before and after photos with an inflamed belly before a program and a lean midsection after. Here's the deal. I am just like you. A human being, a person and someone that likes to have fun. I don't do everything perfect and I do not teach my clients to do this either. In fact, every person that I know that is doing everything "perfect" is so rigid and dysfunctional that they are anything but happy, thus anything but healthy.

Sure, I do not eat any of my cross reactive foods, and I've got a lot of them. I do go to a gym

Our Familly

a couple of times per week and I do seek assistance from other health professionals to maintain my health. Beyond this though, I focus on what is fun for me. I play tennis and golf once per week, ride my Harley, hang out with Dawn (my wife) and Ruben (our boxer), play cards with the guys, play board games with our friends, hang at the pool, hit the hot tub and so much more. Heck, I even make the best margarita ever with all fresh ingredients. I am over the top intolerant to corn so I cannot use any of those mixes. And even though I have multiple intolerances such as gluten, corn, rice, almost every grain, dairy, yeast, coffee and more but my wife has still figured out how to make an occasional chocolate cake and cheese cake that I can actually eat and I love them!

So to make it simple, I have fun!

When a client of mine is falling into regular mental/emotional or other health challenges, I often ask them what they do for fun. Do you know that about 90% of the time, they don't have an answer and you know why of course, they don't have any fun.

So let's make a pact here today. Let's make 2014 the year that you not only focus on health but health and happiness. And think about it, what good is health if you're not happy?!?!?

Here's an easy start. Make a list of at least 10 things that you like to do that are fun for you. Here's my sample list.

1. Golfing
2. Tennis
3. Snuggling with my wife watching a movie
4. Playing with Ruben
5. Board games with friends
6. Having my killer margarita with friends
7. Riding my Harley
8. Hanging at the pool
9. Most anything with my wife
10. Most anything with friends

So guess what was the hardest part of this list for me? If you guessed stopping at ten, you are right. I could have kept going and going...

So do I have fun because I am special? Are you kidding me, I am just like you, no better and no worse. I simply focus on having fun and you can too. So make your list and don't stop at 10. When you are feeling a little down and out, instead of feeling sorry for yourself and doing the whole "woe-is-me" thing, take out your list and do something fun.

How important is the list? Look at how much fun you are having right now in your life and this will tell you how bad you need a list. Remember, out of sight, out of mind. Make this list, have some fun and recognize that health without happiness is not health at all.

Yay!!!

Do You Sabotage Your Health?

by Glen Depke

Think about it, with the Internet, there is no shortage of information available. Most people understand on some level what they need to be healthy. We often know what to do, so why can't we achieve the health and happiness we desire. The answer more often than not is your saboteur.

You know the saboteur. This is the part of you that tells you to smoke a cigarette when you they can kill you. Tells you to over consume junk food when you know it is nutritionally void. Tells you to watch TV when you know you should be exercising. Tells you stay up late when you know you need a good night's sleep. Tells you to blow money on something you do not need, when bills are piling up. Tells you to lash out at your spouse when they have not done anything wrong. Tells you to eat gluten when you know it creates issues for you. By now, I think you get the picture.

Well here's my take on this as I see it with my clients over the years. 

I look at saboteur as a part of you but not you. We could compare this to a parasite. A parasite can be inside of your body but it really is not a part of you. It is simply living within you, feeding on you and using you as a host while damaging you at the same time. Think about it. Your own personal saboteur is doing he same thing. It is living within you, feeding on your mind, and using you while damaging you at the same time.

So how do we become infected by this saboteur? I believe this infection starts with our domestication. For those that have not heard me talk about domestication in the past, look at it this way. We are all born wild human beings. From here we are domesticated on every level. We are taught what to say, how to say it, how to react, how to interact, what languages to speak, what religions to follow and the list goes on. 

So who do we learn this from? Well actually we learn this from every single person we come in contact with. Each teaching us their own interpretation of the rules of life, the domestication, and often the infection. The most significant influences on teaching us this saboteur is our primary care givers, which is most often our parents.

While I know that our parents have the best intentions, but they are only teaching us the very domestications that they were taught themselves. They are just passing along the patterns of sabotage they plague themselves. Understand also that what we learn from the time of conception until about 5-7 years old, becomes a part of what I consider the old brain. This aspect of self forms the patterns that we live our lives by. Do you ever wonder why we consistently make the same mistakes? You would think we learn from our past mistakes but we often keep making the same mistakes over and over again. 

Don't be too hard on yourself though. We are all trying to muddle through the same challenges. The biggest difference is that some of us are aware of this while most are simply ignorant to these domestications. It is often hard to see what is challenging you when you are living in the midst of it.

Well, if you at least have awareness of the saboteur, you are at least at the first step. If you were not aware in the past, I would hope that you are aware at this point in this article. So not that you are aware what can you do?

The first action to take is to stay present. Break down your life into the only moments that truly exist. This would be right now. The past is over and the future is not here yet. Be in this moment! When we are not in the moment we are typically agonizing over the past or portraying our past trauma into our future. Sounds like tons of fun right? So much fun, most of us live in these states most of the time. It is time to be in the moment!

Once you can be in the moment, the next action step is to chose what is empowering to you and those around you. Do this in your moments. As you are making choices throughout your day ask yourself this simple question all the time. Is this choice empowering me and those around me or is this disempowering? If it is disempowering your option is very simple. Chose something else! But of course be sure your next choice is empowering.

From here it is important to allow others around you to "be". To explain this let me give you an example. Let's say that your spouse is having a bad day and you feel that he/she is taking it out on you. From here you would typically take it personally and feel the need to attack back. It would be much easier to understand that your spouse is simply dealing with a tough time and allow him/her to be with their issue. Taking it personally can be so damaging to us. Stop taking everything so personally! Allowing others to "be" is so healing for us and for them.

To put this all together, let's look at an example. Let's say that an area that you typically sabotage is by eating junk food when you know it is damaging you. You find yourself at a party and it seems that all the have available is junk food and alcohol. Remember to first be in the moment. You do not have to make a choice based on what you have done in the past. Recognize that it is not your problem that the host decided to only offer poor quality food and alcohol to you. You can let this continue to be the problem of the host and not yours. Then ask yourself the question, is eating the junk food and having a cocktail empowering or disempowering? From here, I would simply recognize that whatever you chose is perfect. 

If you chose the junk food and alcohol, don't beat yourself up with guilt and negativity. This simply feeds the saboteur, feeds the infection. Know that you can chose differently next time.

On the other side of this equation, let's say that you chose to ask for a glass of ice water with lemon and you found some nuts and cheese to snack on. The host or others at the party might give you a hard time for not indulging but remember, you are not allowing their problems to be yours.

Follow these simple steps and watch your saboteur dissolve before your very eyes. Watch your "perfect" shift and change. Witness yourself living the life of health and happiness. The life of your dreams!

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this article, leave a post below and I will answer this personally.

Where do I Find Wellness?

by Glen Depke


It is of utmost importance to recognize that you always find health and wellness within yourself and never externally. With this in mind, I can share that I have recognized some key patterns that lead to overall imbalances and symptoms of disease. These patterns that I will address are the recognized core challenges for at least 90% of dis-ease and the pain and suffering of symptoms.


The first place to look is within your fundamentals, yet this is the simple starting point that is so often overlooked. I like to compare building your health to building a house. When you are building a house you have fundamentals such as bricks, lumber, nails, roofing, ect. When you are building your health you also have fundamentals. These fundamentals are listed below in matter of importance but note that while they have a matter of importance but are also of equal importance, if that makes sense to you. When addressing these we are looking at providing your body with proper amounts of oxygen, water, nutrition correct for your bio-chemical individuality, proper restful sleep habits, adequate bodily movement on every level and regular exposure to the sun per your skin tone. The foundation of this house is built through your overall energy flow, which is so often blocked by negative emotions that are suppressed or expressed in an unhealthy way. To get further information on your fundamentals of health visit this link.


If any of the fundamentals of health are imbalanced for any length of time, the next area to be challenged is your adrenal glands. Once the adrenals are challenged for a length of time this will more than likely lead to issues within your gastrointestinal health. From there the body finds it difficult to detoxify with the eventual result of the pain and suffering of symptoms. This cycle then continues and unfortunately the symptoms challenges generally get worse; not better.


I don’t typically recommend addressing everything at once. This is generally too much for most people and honestly does not set up the body for proper healing. Always address the fundamentals first, followed by the adrenals. Based on my years of experience this is the best way to find your health. Once you balance these two areas, often you will find yourself back in balance. If you have not found your balance at that point then you know you need to look at the gastrointestinal tract and detoxification. Steps though…working in steps is so important. What’s the old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day?”


The reason why the adrenals are so important to address is due to the impact the adrenals have on your body.


Your adrenals have a direct effect functionally on the areas listed below.

* Endocrine System
* Metabolism of Fat and Protein
* Detoxification
* Immune System Function
* Inflammation
* Blood Sugar Balance
* Muscular/Skeletal Health
* Neural Connectivity


Often my clients can look at this list and pick out many areas that they already recognize as challenged. Don’t let time add to the list for you. Get your adrenal kit now.


Another important aspect of addressing adrenal exhaustion is to assess your adrenal function and utilize a protocol to allow your body to assist the adrenals back into balance. This has been a big part of my protocol all the way back to my days working alongside Dr. Mercola back in the Chicago area.


If you are ready to truly find wellness and desire to move the body back into balance based on the patterns discussed within the article, feel free to visit this link. Here you can order your adrenal test kit or to save yourself some cash, you can purchase a package that includes the test kit and the results session. Do not be concerned if you do not live in Southern California. I regularly consult with phone sessions throughout the United States and Canada.


If you feel that this might be for you but would like to get further information, this is easy. Follow this link and you can set up a COMPLIMENTARY phone consult with me personally to get what you need to make an informed decision.


Thank you for taking your time to review this article and I look forward to assisting you in any way that I can.

Give the Gift of Health

Are you or someone you love faced with the pain and suffering of health challenges and you do not know where to start? If this the case, Depke Wellness has an answer for you.

From now throughout the rest of the year, Depke Wellness is offering the Gift of Health. If you have been following our newsletter for some time you understand the importance of your fundamentals of health, digestion and adrenal balance. This is the basis core of health for all of us.

As a holiday gift for yourself or a loved one, we are offering an exceptional package to address your health and wellness goals.

* Depke Wellness 7 Part Video Series on the Fundamentals of Health
* Understanding Gluten Intolerance DVD
* One 90 Count Bottle of the Probiotic that I use Personally
* One 90 Count Bottle of the Prime Digestive Support
* One Adrenal Saliva Kit
* One 30 Minute Phone Consult to Review Adrenal Results

Normally this would be a cost of $413.65 but for this Gift of Health, your cost will be ONLY $297.00 for this complete package. FREE shipping in the continental US and Canada.

To complete this purchase email me directly at Glen@DepkeWellness.com or call my office at 949.642.2094.

Recent Testimonial

My journey to health started 3 years ago. I first met Glen when I went to a clinic to find out why I was waking up in the middle of the night consistently. Regular exercise, cardio and resistance exercise had been a part of my routine as well as nutritionally eating the recommended 10 raw veggies and 2 fruits with a small amount of protein and fat daily.

I had multiple blood tests run by regular M.D.’s. The results came back perfect and they said I was the picture of health. Right then I knew that if I didn’t look elsewhere, they would say that it was all in my head.

After meeting Glen, he ran a special adrenal test. My results indicated that I had an adrenal insufficiency which resulted from a stressful, workaholic lifestyle, no time for relaxation and a lifetime of suppressed emotions. I also took a quiz based on my eating habits and we discovered that the “perfect diet” was not so perfect for me. The standard recommendation was pretty much for carb types and it turns out that I am a fast metabolizer and I needed much more protein and fat to balance my metabolism.

Along the way, Glen has worked with me to heal my adrenals as well as severe and chronic insomnia, hypertension, an H-pylori infection, malabsorption of my nutrients and minerals as a result of digestive issues, and candida. I learned that much of my body’s physical issues were a result of my emotional suppression. I learned to suppress my emotions as a child, and what may have worked for me as a child, was no longer benefiting me as an adult. Glen is compassionate and especially gifted in helping uncover my suppressed emotions. It took much dedication and persistence on his part as well as mine. The journey involved permanent, lifestyle changes.

I would say the most important work we have done has to do with healing my emotions. I literally lived in an emotional prison, where my emotions were in control of me. I have learned how to live in the present, no longer bothered by issues of the past. I have developed skills under Glen’s tutelage to enable me to live a life of ease and balance. My entire life has been transformed because of the emotional work I have done with Glen, and I am excited to be living a vibrant, healthy life. I will always be grateful for Glen’s patience, dedication, and passion for assisting me in reaching optimal health.

Diane W.

To learn more about Depke Wellness visit this link.