Do I need Jesus or Xanax? Nurse anesthetist Nick Angelis discusses difficult topics as a Christian and a clinician with Hank the Sonic Shaman. The medical system can’t answer spiritual questions. Unmet expectations can harm our mental health, substituting truth and sincerity for shallow self-righteousness. The first step is to know ourselves. Are Psychedelic and indigenous medicines reconcilable with faith and science? What about ketamine? With so much potential to heal, can it make people worse the way marijuana hasn’t lived up to the medical hype?
Nick:
Hello and welcome to the Ascend Health Show. I’m your host, Nick Angelis, and I’m here with Hank Setala today. And I thought I had a cold, but I think I’m over it. Maybe I should have discussed this before we started. It’s too late.
Hank:
We’re all in now.
Nick:
Yeah. I mean, we’re at least four feet apart.
Hank:
Yeah, that’s enough social distancing.
Nick:
Yeah, absolutely. So I first met you at the Holistic Health Expo, and it was fascinating to me because and I’m sure this is more eloquent and delicate way to say this, but I could almost sense like, desperation of a lot of people there that they really wanted either spiritual fulfillment or the medical system had let them down. I’m a nurse anesthetist and I think I mentioned I own Ascend Health Center. That’s why I’m in scrubs today. So, you know, I was trained to believe that the medical system could cure you. It could whatever problem you had, there’d be an answer. But then once I started my own practice here and once I got in tune with some of the more holistic practices around, I realized, nope, there’s plenty of people that went to eight, nine, ten specialists and they’re still suffering and they’re either told it’s all in your head or the opposite. This is just a physical manifestation. There’s no depression. There’s no depression or apparently chronic cough. So it was just so fascinating that I was like, what is it driving people to find these alternative methods of healing?
Hank:
And I really think it’s both things. Our tagline when we did the Expo was psychics to physicians and most everything in between. And we literally had a functional medicine doctor like Dr. K, who is a colleague of ours right next to Marianne Minkowski, the Ghost Whisperer. And it was really people could get both things and educate themselves as to what was going to be right for them and their whatever was going on in their world. Absolutely.
Nick:
And we have a different show. I think it’s called Toasters in the Bathtub is a disclaimer basically saying don’t listen to either of us for your medical advice. Actually schedule an appointment. You can go to ascend health center.com And that has all the information for my practice And what’s your website again.
Hank:
My website is my name HankSetala.com.
Nick:
That does make it easier so as you.
Hank:
You know over the years I keep learning new things and every time I learn something new I build a whole new website, rebranded myself. And then I realized like, you know, the one thing that never changes is me.
Nick:
That’s great. Well, actually, at one point I was told that I should name my practice Angela’s Health Center. But I was like, That’s kind of conceited to say. Like I am everything. And if you don’t go with my last name, like this isn’t going to work. But in your case, it actually makes a lot of sense because as you learn and and to be honest, when I got into holistic medicine myself, that was always a challenge for me because unfortunately I’m the sort of person who’s like, Well, I put this effort in like, I must take it to completion as opposed to wait, I’ve learned something new. I have to pause and I have to move on with this new information.
Hank:
So I’m always hungry for more information. Everybody said, Hank:, you got to pick one thing and stick to it. And here I am learning dozens of healing modalities and then just starting to blend them together. And then I love collaborating with people like you and Dr. K when there is something that I don’t know how to help somebody, I have people that I can refer people to and I think it’s really this energy in this day and age of collaboration. It’s really the energy and humanity we’re moving from the kingdom of me to the kingdom of we and really starting to work together, not in the spirit of competition, but how we can benefit one another.
Nick:
That’s true. So when I first started, I was the only Ketamine clinic in the area and now there’s a few more. And in fact this morning, which is one of the reasons I was late to my previous show, I took care of another Ketamine clinic’s patient. They needed a dose that only I as a nurse anesthetist could do. So we worked together. We have this plan so the patient can go back to the other clinic. And for me it was like, Well, this makes sense. Like, of course we’re in this very niche business, so it would make business sense to be competitors. But we’re also all dealing with people who are very complex. And when you are in a real life situation where it’s not someone who, Oh, just take this pill and you’ll be fine, then there’s no room for ego, there’s no room for anything other than whatever we have. We have to combine it into this almost amalgam of what will actually work for you.
Hank:
Right? And actually the the shamanic tradition that I practiced, the Paco Kuna tradition of Peru, they have this idea that if you have the best chocolate chip cookies, it’s your job to make others have the best chocolate chip cookies. It’s not a matter of competition. Like if you’re like the best at something like why not share that with the world and let everybody else become better? And they look at that as really like kind of a duty of if you’re if you’re the best at what you do, right?
Nick:
There was a Netflix documentary I watched once. And of course, the disclaimer here is that it’s a Netflix documentary. Like it could say that shoes are bad and at the end of it, you’re just going to think, you know what? I’m never going to wear shoes again. They’re right. So that’s the the whole way these documentaries work. But it mentioned how the Native Americans had that concept of the owning was communal, that no one really owned the land. They couldn’t even understand the concept of how could you say that this land is yours, right? There is something to.
Hank:
And there’s even like a step beyond that. They believe or in my tradition, we believe we are the earth. We’re made from the earth. And in a sense we are one, even though we’re separate. And so like, who are you fighting against? Who are you competing with? And that’s where I love that phrase, like the kingdom of me to the kingdom where we’re really coming together and collaborating and with what’s going on in the world today. Right? We are choosing as a species, like where do we stand and who do we choose to be? And we have to work together in order to kind of shift where the world has been going.
Nick:
Yeah, and I think it’s interesting too. So in Christianity there’s often these two dueling opinions. In case you haven’t noticed, Hank: comes from a Germanic background and just a born again Christian. And you know, we hang out and talk about things and sometimes we don’t agree with each other. But what these sort of conversations do is they really force people to think like, well, what do I believe and why? Which is very awkward for a lot of people.
Hank:
Right? But that’s where we have this idea that the gold is in the differences. And when the Spanish came in and conquered Peru, they were looking at like these little stones that that they have. And they were like, oh, these are these are like our apu’s or these are like our chakras. And they’re like, No, your chakras are chakra aren’t always. Inouye They had a different system, but it’s like you don’t want to relate away what you think, you know because it’s a parallel you want to look at really what’s the difference here and what could I take away and learn for myself, right?
Nick:
Because before I went off on my tangent, which I’ll continue to do for the next 20 minutes.
Hank:
Oh, it’s one non it’s one continuous tangent. So it’s all good, right?
Nick:
Right. Otherwise we would have had to like come up with a script or something, something ridiculous. But so there’s the idea in Christianity of like almost a conquest type of thing that let the that we need to capture the world for Jesus. I mean, honestly, probably what they use in Peru when they did Conquistador, they.
Hank:
Actually handed the Inca a Bible and said, Here’s our God. And he held it up to his ear and said and threw it on the floor and said, What good is a God that doesn’t talk? And that’s when they use that as blasphemy. And they came in and took over. Wow.
Nick:
So yeah, so that’s one of the ways of like, how can we take over? But then there’s another concept of where in the Lord’s Prayer it says, you know, that kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, where it’s more heaven coming to earth. And that’s more of the instead of hoping to be raptured or rescued or viewing every interaction as hostile it is, how do we make this life look and approach more of like what we expect in heaven? Because the one approach is, look, the earth is cursed and we must prevail and we must work hard. It’s something that you said in our last interview because I was listening to again this morning of the idea of ease that you can work hard, but the feeling of it, the the hard work, it is still a life of ease where things are coming easily, where you’re not striving or pushing against a brick wall. And that’s how it is that instead of this trying to go automatically to conflict, it is the idea of instead, no, we are trying to live an abundant life, one that not necessarily mimics heaven, but one where we’re bringing those values closer to earth.
Hank:
Well, there’s a Bible quote I love the kingdom of heaven lies within. And if that is true, then what if it’s just our allowance of allowing that to show up in our life? And that’s where the real ease comes, is from getting away from how we were taught to be in the world because our parents taught us, you have to work hard, you have to study hard. But what if you could work joyfully and study joyfully and then everything happens with ease? But we’re kind of conditioned by society and things for life to be a certain way. But what if when we start waking up and realizing we do have this still small voice within, things can go a lot differently for us?
Nick:
And I do want to talk a lot about expectations. A lot of the patients that I see with debilitating mental health problems, some of it is from this expectation that I must be all these things and the sheer weight of like, I can’t compete, I can’t become everything that I was supposed to be, but at the same time, how do we embrace that idea but not get into mimicry, meaning and this is where there’s Christianity or Eastern religions. This is kind of everywhere, but the idea of like not fake it till you make it because we’ve talked before about how that works out in many cases, but almost a Oprah type spirituality that really isn’t anything like we just take Jesse enough of the smorgasbord of spirituality where you almost have something, but it only works until something bad happens to you.
Hank:
I think the real key is don’t take anything at face value. Everything that you come across start to question like, what do I really know about this? What do I really need? What do I really feel about this? Who do I choose to be regarding this? Instead of reacting, we’re starting to choose responses and that’s where we’re just showing up more consciously in everything that we do and not taking anything at face value because that’s how we have so many religions nowadays because somebody heard something and then instead of going into question, they went into, well, I got it differently, so therefore you must be wrong. And then here we are with everybody fighting against each other, right?
Nick:
No, absolutely. And especially I come from a Pentecostal tradition. So once you. The idea of a personal prophecy to something which by its nature is esoteric and open to interpretation. I mean, it almost becomes like a science fiction novel of like, well, if I heard it and then it becomes it. Is it like time travel where you change the time, but does that change the future so you can get really spun into this world of like, let me make this happen instead of finding that good balance between the one example I used to use was so in the in a lot of Christian circles, especially when I was younger, there was the idea that God will find a mate for you. So I had this mental image of somebody in their basement or more specifically their mom’s basement, just eating Cheetos, waiting for Prince Charming or Princess Charming to materialize. And and again, it’s a balance because you also don’t want to be the opposite where you’re trying so hard to find the best person and you’ll just have no interest in anyone who isn’t up to your high standards that you yourself become this judgmental person who is not someone compatible with a long lasting, intimate relationship. Right?
Hank:
I always think it’s more about a declaration of what you’re choosing to the universe. And I give the analogy of a robot. Like once you say universe, I would like to have my perfect mate or whatever. The universe starts rowing. It only knows. Yes, but you have to do your part too. And if you don’t grow then you end up just going in a circle. So it’s about that good orderly direction by acronym for God. Because if you remember, I’m an acronym nerd. You are? Yes. Yeah. But it’s like the good order direction to start declaring your will to the universe and then taking a vested role in the co-creation of that with, you know, with the universe itself.
Nick:
Sure. So what do we do when we don’t get our will? Because in American culture that’s that’s almost an obscene thing to say. Like, are you allowed to say that on this show? This is community TV. Get out of here, Nick. And hey, but it’s so against everything. Americans believe that like, sometimes like you’re not good enough. You can’t do this thing. You’re going to have to do something else.
Hank:
I would say that if you’re really pure in your conviction and it’s a true declaration of will, the universe only knows. Yes. If there’s a Neale Donald Walsch is one of my favorite authors. He wrote this book Conversations with God and one of his workshops he gave this example of this guy reading the Bible and reading that part about if you had faith so much as a mustard seed, you can move mountains and this guy goes out and because he was like the head deacon at his church and he’s like, I can move this mountain. He’s like And he tries for days just staring at this mountain, just mountain move, you know? And then at the end he goes, Just as I thought. So we have like one level of belief where we we think something is possible, but then we also have this place where we know. And if you’re coming from a place of knowing, I believe the universe only knows. Yes, but we are filled, filled with self doubt, and we have to go on our own journey to kind of heal that first.
Nick:
Okay, that makes more sense. I get it. And I think too. So there’s a book about how a lot of those cliches like one is God closes a door, but he always opens a window is an example. And it’s very comforting at first until you have like an actual devastating loss that you can’t use Bible verses like all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. Because like, if you’re going to be looking at the truth, as you’ve mentioned, if you see things as they are, you’re like, Nope, this is still a terrible thing that happened and that’s all there is to it. So but a lot of times it is more of an understanding that there’s not this malevolent force of God trying to teach us things through terrible heartache, that sometimes bad things happen and then we do what we can with them. And maybe I’m a little bit jaded from my work in health care where, you know, two two families are praying fervently for their children to get better and one does and one doesn’t. And I think when we’re younger, going back to what we were supposed to talk about expectations like there’s this understanding like, well, if I do this, if I don’t steal cookies, if I listen to my mom and dad, then I think it’s going to go great. But and we have such a big cause and effect idea when we’re younger, too, that, well, this happened just because I didn’t do this. Right.
Hank:
Right. I’ve been sober 16 years and in the programs of AA, they say that expectations are resentments waiting to happen. And in shamanism, when we do healing work, we say we do the work with zero expectation that anything will happen, yet we do it anyway. If we can remove the expectation that a particular result is required, anything that life throws at us is typically we can receive it a lot more easily and with more grace, right?
Nick:
Yeah. And for my own spiritual journey, that was a very hard but very important lesson that we are responsible for the starting work. But there isn’t a situation where we’re responsible for the outcome.
Hank:
Right? Just how responsible for how we respond or choose to be in relationship or actually I like the word creation to the outcome, right?
Nick:
Absolutely. Before I go off on another tangent, will you? So you already showed me the singing bowl earlier, but I don’t want to forget because I know we’re.
Hank:
Going to keep going and talking about what you know, we’re just following the energy. But for. Those of you who are seeing me for the first time, I call myself the Sonic Shaman. And part of that is because I blend the Peruvian tradition of shamanism along with sound healing. So I just brought a crystal ball just to kind of give people a taste of what a crystal ball can sound like and what it can do. And the nice thing about sound is it also is a bridging modality because some people, when it comes down to the shamanic stuff, they just don’t have space in their belief system to think about it. But with sound, there’s science behind it. It causes a puffing response in the cells that releases nitric oxide, that helps with inflammation and pain. And then it even goes into balancing energy centers, which is kind of bridging into more of the metaphysical thing. But I love it because some of the husbands that come to me that are like this because their wife dragged them. I can speak to the science behind the sound and people can kind of grasp it and if they can see some science behind that, then maybe the shamanism is an easier step. No, that makes sense.
Nick:
There’s certain hurts where if I play music at my clinic during a Ketamine infusion, a lot of times the patients seem to be deeper into either the psychedelic experience or they get more results from it.
Hank:
So and one of the shows that I was watching while you were the filming that occurred before mine, they were talking about the organs and how the liver could become fatty. There was this lady named Barbara Hero who did all this research with frequencies of a healthy organ, and by using tuning forks or frequencies of healthy organs, you can help the organs come into sympathetic resonance. Of course, I’m not a medical doctor. I’m not claiming to treat, diagnose, cure any disease or anything. But like that just is another testament of how sound and frequency can have a huge benefit to the body. Right.
Nick:
Well, and I haven’t thought of this term before, but there is a nervous system dissonance that I see with a lot of my patients. And I think in the next 5 to 10 years we’ll find that more and more. An example is POTS, which is a disorder where your blood pressure isn’t stable and there’s so much more of it now that long COVID has become a thing. So I think in our world, the way that we don’t take care of ourselves more and more, the body’s reacting by the nervous system being completely out of whack.
Hank:
Yeah, There’s a guy named Dr. John Boyle. He wrote the book Human Tuning, who had a theory that you could tune the human body. And he started doing experiments in anechoic chambers and they could actually tell the difference between the pitch of the nervous system before and after the use of certain tuning forks. So just to go along, when you talk about that nervous system dissonance, the perfect fit, see 256 and G 384 specifically he found was really beneficial for the immune system or not immune system for the nervous system.
Nick:
Right? Well, there are connections too. So at my clinic I often do anesthesia blocks that target certain nerve ganglions And it’s a way to kind of get your nervous system, your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system to align. And it just there’s new research showing that you can actually get a neurogenic pneumonia where your mind gives you pneumonia because your nervous system and your immune system are interconnected in ways that scientists never before knew. Because I think it was only a few years ago that they found out you have lymph nodes in your brain. You’d think after hundreds of years of medical students cutting up cadavers that they would have noticed, hey, look, there’s lymph in the brain as well.
Hank:
Imagine what we’re going to know tomorrow that we never dreamed that was possible. No, but that’s a really great point. And it’s really like I think that’s where a lot of the healing work starts, too, is give the benefit of the doubt that maybe you don’t have to know something in order to treat something or in order to have a healing. Sometimes the magic is in the mystery, right? And but if we if we follow the traditional mind thought that it has to be proven, then we’re cutting ourselves off from all these possibilities.
Nick:
Right. And in my in our own practice, that’s what I tell patients to use. I’m even more blunt. I’m like, Look, I think you’ve got enough money for diagnosis or treatment. Which one would you feel like having like a name to what you have or actually getting better? And in my field there are some limits to that. Like we want a general idea, but there comes a certain point where it’s like, okay, this is going to be five more specialists and a lot of your insurance dollars to get exactly to this. Or we could start in treating, let’s say with a Ketamine infusion that will help break down. Is this a structural issue? Is this your nervous system? And as we treat, we get more and more ideas and it’s a little bit different from like Dr. K’s functional medicine where it is a lot of let’s test and find out exactly what’s going. It depends on the patient. Like in my practice, usually I see patients after they’ve tried 5 or 6 different things.
Hank:
See, that’s the thing I love about Dr. K though. She we have to probably do a show with her so people have like know who we’re talking about.
Nick:
But I did do a Zoom show with her because I think this place closed down during COVID. So it was a lot of like, Can you hear me? Am I on mute? Right.
Hank:
But she’s a functional medicine doctor and she has this amazing bio. I forget what it’s called now, but like this machine that hooks up and tells you all this information. But then at the same time, she has the the MD behind her where she’s also able to look at, you know, prescribe things if she needs or order blood tests. And it’s a really good balance. And her and I work great together in that. When I run into something, I send people to her and vice versa because we just have such different skill sets as Do you like one? It’s really, really a team type of feeling where, you know, you get get what you need here. And then there’s this other person that has this other piece to the puzzle and really start putting together like a program that is holistic, that’s going to treat the body, the being and beyond.
Nick:
Right? And a lot of it goes into the discarding of the ego, meaning that. An anesthesia. If I know my skill set, I can do wonderful work because I can say, Nope, I’m not capable of this or this is risky for the patient or this is the best option and then we can go from there. But once you’re like, Well, I think I can do this or I’m not like, Well, this isn’t really my specialty, but I don’t want to lose this patient. That’s when I feel you get into trouble, right?
Hank:
And ego, of course, I have an acronym for that too.
Nick:
I was hoping you would.
Hank:
Yeah. Edging God out, that’s when we’re, like, not allowing ourselves to tap into that kingdom of heaven within or to that that source consciousness that we have within us and are trying to be the individual instead of really acknowledging that we’re part of a whole right.
Nick:
And how because I originally planned to talk more about like how you came from addiction, but we’ve only got like a couple minutes left so we can do another show on that. But so instead what you’re saying about ego, how do we get that out of spiritual practice? Because often my own concern with spirituality is that if we make it completely about ourselves and how we can almost biohack our ways into becoming a more enlightened being, often we kind of leave other people in the dust or we become so self-focused that we miss out.
Hank:
Well, I think it’s more the energy being self first as opposed to selfish. So think of it like the airplane. When the mask comes down, you take care of yourself first and then you’re more able to help others. Right? And that’s the energy. And the ego, I think gets a bad rap. We blame a lot of things on the ego, but I feel that the ego is more like a prism. It is what allows us to have the contextual experience here, but it’s not necessarily like dictating, but we have to learn to use it for the purpose of which it was intended to have an experience as an individual when we’re really all one.
Nick:
Right. No, that doesn’t make sense because we also know that there’s a Bible verse about the heart being deceitfully wicked. And what it means is many times we look humble, but it’s our own manifestation of the ego. Like there’s plenty of people I know who really serve and it seems to be a very unselfish thing, but that’s how they gratify themselves. Like, Oh, look at me, I really have to do this. This whole place would fall apart if I wasn’t doing this. And it’s not. It’s a lot more subtle than the whole like, let me inflate myself so I wouldn’t see how special I am. Well, if.
Hank:
We think if we all embrace the concept of Namaste, may the God in me greet the God in thee for the highest good, Then we can be self first, but not in a way that imposes on somebody else’s free will or their bubble or what they’re choosing for themselves. There is a balance point, but there are people who get caught up with being selfish instead of self first. And that’s where we get people doing things at the expense of others. And that’s there’s a fine line with that.
Nick:
Well, maybe a little bit of it is knowing a polite and true way to tell each other off because I feel that, you know, generations pass, someone’s kids are acting up and the adults like, hey, cut that out now. It’s a big deal to do that and it’s hard to find that line takes offense.
Hank:
To everything, right? One of my favorite quotes from Neale Donald Walsch is Speak your truth but sooth your words With peace. We are able to speak our truth, but we feel that the only way we can be heard is by acting out sometimes. And it’s just, you know, a reality check that no, you don’t have to act the way you were taught. You can be sovereign with who you are and be able to convey convey.
Nick:
So maybe the lesson there too is like speak your truth. And if people aren’t listening or you feel like, Oh, I really have to be outlandish to get the likes or to get noticed or for them to pay attention, it’s like, well, you’ve already said your thing like, just move on. You don’t need to bring fireworks with you. And every time you speak there’s a Roman candle launching or something to that effect, whatever the digital version of that, right?
Hank:
Yeah, because you’re really saying it for you. You said your truth. And the problem is when you don’t speak your truth, that’s when sometimes you internalize things and you start to have perhaps health consequences because you’re not allowing yourself to speak what you need to say right now.
Nick:
I see a lot of that at my clinic. A lot of times I’m like, Look, I know you came here for a treatment for chronic pain, but if we just release a little bit of this anxiety, whether it’s from counseling or Ketamine infusion, like the pain itself, which six pain management practices haven’t been able to do anything with will actually dissipate. So if you can just kind of let yourself speak or let whatever’s inside of you that is poisoning you, like, come on, it doesn’t have to be just cracked open and all in one fell swoop. But a lot of times, unless we go to those dark places in ourselves, we have no hope of getting better.
Hank:
You know, we could probably do a whole show just on shadow work and shadow integration because I find that’s probably the biggest thing where I find people really need to with the work we do, they have to go inward and really start looking at those things.
Nick:
There is a study of inmates where it asks like, Do you feel you’re more moral than average or less moral than average? And they found out, nope. Even people serving 20 years in jail think well compared to the rest of humanity. I’m probably a little bit above average. Like we all think. Like there’s something innate in us that makes us just slightly above the curve.
Hank:
Well, we’re all uniquely different for sure, so maybe that’s part of the reason we think that way. But really what matters is like who do I choose to be and is this me that I’m proud of and like maybe not compare to? Everybody. And really the question is whatever I’m choosing serving me or not and really getting in touch with who you really are and not who you were taught to be or not to be. Right.
Nick:
Yeah. And that does go back to expectations. And, you know, was I taught to be a good boy just so I can make life more tolerable for those around me. Or at the same time, am I instead saying to people that, well, you know, you’ve got to accept me at my worst to see me at my best, which really means I’m not going to be considerate. Right. In many cases. Well, this has been a great talk. So for me, Ascend health Center.com. You can also call us (330) 754-4844. We do a lot with anxiety, depression, chronic pain issues. We don’t use any opioids or and we do use psychiatric meds when necessary, but we do have a lot of options for you and then if people want to contact you.
Hank:
Yep, it’s my name. It’s Hank: sutler.com. And then on there I have links to all my YouTubes and things where I have all kinds of content and of course I see people locally out of the Cleveland area as well as online.
Nick:
And you’ve got your TikTok too.
Hank:
And I got my TikTok. Oh, I’ve been doing tiktoks like crazy. I’m the sonic shaman on TikTok and that is also my YouTube channel. But I’ve been having a ton of fun. That’s probably the most fun I’ve had just making these little one minute videos.
Nick:
That’s great. Well, tHank:s for joining us today, everyone. Yeah.
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