In Episode 053 of A Medicinal Mind: Wisdom and Wellbeing, I welcome the incredibly talented and voraciously curious physician and expert in the field of environmental toxicity and chronic infections Dr. Neil Nathan MD.   Dr. Nathan is a board certified family physician and as you will hear in the podcast has an extensive background additionally in the world of pain management. He has spent over 40 years helping individuals recover from complex chronic illnesses. The depth of his expertise incorporating multiple healing modalities is beyond extraordinary and his determination to continually learn and explore the ways in which his patient’s can heal is matched by very few.   Recently Dr. Nathan released a groundbreaking NY Times bestselling book. Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and Chronic Environmental Illness and while he is certainly known for his expertise in these domains, his passions and skills as a healer extend far beyond than that of just chronic environmental illness.   In this discussion, we start off with a exploration of Dr. Nathan’s early childhood, hearing about his spiritual upbringing with Orthodox Judaism and his eventual journey into numerous other spiritual traditions and practices. Distilling down his spiritual core into three fundamental mantras:  Be Mindful, Be Grateful and Be of Service, Dr. Nathan provides some tremendous insight into perhaps the ultimate purpose of any religious or spiritual pursuit.   Moving from here, Dr. Nathan offers a very personal look into the diverse explosion of his medical education, most of which occurred AFTER his time in medical school As a self proclaimed seeker, Dr. Nathan shares the real reason behind his exploration of osteopathy, pain management and other healing modalities, as a seeker trying to discover the tools that would better support the spiritual wellbeing of his patients.   Expanding into the art of medicine, Dr. Nathan articulates the essence of medicine as truly listening and holding space so that patient can engage positively in the act of story telling.   Dr. Nathan provides incredibly practical insights for any current practitioner or student of the healing arts as  to the most supportive ways to listen, to collect a history, to hold space, to remain curious, to engage in the day after day, month after month journey of helping to remove the roadblocks preventing patients from healing.   We close the podcast with a critical analysis of functional medicine as Dr. Nathan helps us to understand how to really discover the root causes of illness and not just treat effects with supplements and drugs.   Offering wisdom from 40 years of practice, Dr. Nathan shares his observation that as a healer, you will come into contact with fundamentally very different types of patients. Using the terms difficult vs complex or complicated, Dr. Nathan shares a compassionate view towards physicians who feel they are not successful in the practice of medicine, telling us that the most challenging art of medicine is discerning the complex patients who are dedicated to healing no matter how long it takes, vs. the difficult or demanding patients who may still have unconscious or other blocks preventing them from progressing in the healing journey.   There is a wealth of wisdom in this podcast, and I strongly encourage you to take time to listen to the many insights of Dr. Nathan as well as check out and buy his book Toxic.   And with that let’s dig into the show!   Notes   Dr. Neil Nathan’s Main Page http://www.neilnathanmd.com/   Podcast with Better Health Guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=ia-xy2zjixc   Buy the Book: Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness   https: