Beyond Chronic Pain: The Power of Purpose with Dr Alan Weisser & Manon on The Healers Café

In this episode of The Healers Cafe, Manon speaks with Dr. Alan Weisser, a JD, attorney, clinical psychologist, and program developer, discussed his unique journey integrating legal, psychological, and organizational expertise to address complex mental health conditions and chronic pain.

Highlights from today’s episode include:

Existential Immune System & Human Power – We’re not designed to be powerless or just suffer; we have an “existential immune system” that’s always trying to heal us if we use our thoughts and feelings correctly.

Living in Inspiration – Healing doesn’t mean no pain, but having purpose and inspiration (like his patient rediscovering a love of robotics) gives people a real “fighting chance” to live meaningfully despite pain.

The Body Is Built to Heal – The body (and person) is inherently designed to heal; the key is to stop fighting that capacity and instead support it—physically, emotionally, and energetically

ABOUT DR ALAN WEISSER:

Dr. Alan Stephen Weisser, JD, PhD, is a psychologist, attorney, and program developer whose career spans more than five decades across law, behavioral health, and system-level clinical leadership. His work reflects a rare integration of legal, psychological, and organizational expertise, with a sustained focus on complex mental health conditions, chronic pain, and the development of effective, patient-centered systems of care.

Dr. Weisser began his professional career in law, practicing as a trial attorney and later in private practice, specializing in real estate, business development and creation, and organizational structuring in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. His early legal work included service with the Legal Aid Society in New York, where he handled civil, consumer, and poverty law cases, as well as legal defense for underserved populations. This foundation shaped his lifelong understanding of systemic barriers, advocacy, and the structural dimensions of human suffering.

Transitioning into psychology, Dr. Weisser trained and practiced in some of New York’s most demanding clinical environments, including Bellevue Hospital, Maimonides Medical Center, and the Einstein/Bronx Psychiatric Center. There, he developed extensive expertise in psychological assessment, inpatient and outpatient treatment, and psychiatric rehabilitation. He played a key role in the transformation of long-term inpatient psychiatric care into community-oriented rehabilitation systems, designing programs that integrated inpatient, transitional, and outpatient services with a focus on autonomy, functional recovery, and reduced recidivism.

Over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, Dr. Weisser held multiple senior leadership roles, including Program Director, Clinical Team Leader, and ultimately Clinical Director positions within community mental health systems in Washington State. In these roles, he was responsible for large-scale clinical operations, program development, quality assurance, contract compliance, and supervision of multidisciplinary staff. His work involved the design and implementation of integrated service delivery systems, coordination across agencies and stakeholders, and the advancement of innovative approaches to behavioral health care.

Since 2002, Dr. Weisser has been the Founder and Director of New Options, Inc., in Seattle, Washington, where he provides individual, group, family, and couples therapy, as well as specialized chronic pain evaluations and treatment coordination. His work emphasizes integrating psychological, behavioral, and physical health perspectives, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain and medically complex conditions. He has developed psychoeducational programs, clinical interventions, and training materials designed to empower patients and improve treatment outcomes.

Dr. Weisser is also the author of New Possibilities: Unraveling the Mystery and Mastering Chronic Pain and the developer of the Mastery of Chronic Pain program, a structured, curriculum-based approach to helping individuals regain control over their lives. His work combines clinical rigor with practical application, translating complex psychological and medical concepts into accessible tools for both patients and practitioners.

In addition to his clinical and programmatic work, Dr. Weisser has served as an instructor at the university level, teaching in psychology and public administration. His career reflects a consistent commitment to education, system improvement, and the integration of theory and practice.

Across all phases of his work—from law to psychology to organizational leadership—Dr. Alan Stephen Weisser has focused on one central aim: developing meaningful, effective pathways for individuals and systems to move beyond limitation toward recovery, functionality, and sustained well-being.

Core purpose/passion: My mission in life has been to pursue curiosity, understanding, and deep engagement with what it means to be alive and human. At the center of that journey is a desire to help others.

Website  

 

ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, FCAH, RBHT

As a recently De-Registered board-certified naturopathic physician & in practice since 1992, I’ve seen an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.

My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books:  ‘What Patients Don’t Say if Doctors Don’t Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship’ and ‘A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress’.  I also teach BowenFirst™ Therapy through Bowen College and hold transformational workshops to achieve these goals.

So, when I share with you that LISTENING to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience”.

Mission: A Healer in Every Household!

For more great information to go to her weekly blog:  http://bowencollege.com/blog

For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips

 

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About The Healers Café:

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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!

TRANSCRIPT

Introduction  00:00

Welcome to the Healers Café. The number one show for medical practitioners and holistic healers, to have heart to heart conversations about their day to day lives, while sharing their expertise for improving your health and wellness.

Manon Bolliger  00:19

 So welcome to the Healers Cafe today. I have with me Dr. Alan Weiser, and he is a JD jury defense, no

 

Dr Alan Weisser  00:34

juris doctor, just

 

Manon Bolliger  00:35

doctor, okay,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  00:36

attorney and clinical psychologist.

 

Manon Bolliger  00:40

Okay. Thank you for that. A PhD, and you’re a psychologist, an attorney, and a program developer whose career spans more than five decades across law, behavioral health, and system level clinical leadership. His work reflects a rare integration of legal, psychological, and organizational expertise with a sustained focus on complex mental health conditions, chronic pain, and the development of effective patient-centered systems of care. All right, I’m not going to go more into your, your bio will be available for everyone to read all the details, but I wanted to get to the, to our discussion a little bit. Well, I first of all, welcome, and it’s so exciting to to meet somebody that has that breadth of knowledge, and like it’s like a high position to look at everything you know and make sense of things, because we tend to compartmentize everything, and we’re not really seeing the bigger picture. So I’m really thrilled to have this opportunity. So, thank you.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  01:59

Yeah, and as I said, thank you as well.

 

Manon Bolliger  02:02

Yeah, so, well, I’m thinking, why don’t we start with how, how you got to there? Basically, how did you, you know, not just leave one one thing behind and move on? Like, how did, how did you organize your life to decide that all of it was going to stay, and, and you’re just going to work bigger. How did all that work?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  02:29

You might find my answer a little bit different than what you’d expect, but I would say it started with comic books.

 

Manon Bolliger  02:34

Okay, go ahead, please.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  02:39

Growing up, I loved science fiction. I love fantasy, and I was one of those people that read superhero comic books, and I go, I want to be that, not necessarily somebody with powers, but a person who could help other people, especially people that could not be helped, right? And that was kind of my orientation as a child, and I think that sort of set the foundation for what I did, and so, as you know, there’s lots of ways you can help people, and certainly for me personally, I wanted to help people that normally don’t get the help. I had enough personal experiences with that, that also really affirmed that that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s part of how it started my journey, which went through being a lawyer, and then eventually it’s becoming a clinical psychologist and working with the populations I’ve worked with. So, it started with comic books, that’s my origin story.

 

Manon Bolliger  03:32

Okay, and who, who are this population that you feel are, yeah, that are not being looked after, that you’re, you’re able to help

 

Dr Alan Weisser  03:46

the human race.

 

Manon Bolliger  03:47

Okay, but more specifically, is there a group?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  03:51

I mean, I mean that with all due respect, I mean, certainly don’t necessarily need it, but I think that, especially now, too many people do not understand their own power that they don’t understand how to deal with a world that has changed so radically in the last 60 or 70 years, that they don’t understand that we don’t just suffer from those changes, but right now we are, and I, through my work and all of it, actually, it all informs you, right, in the way you summarize it, all the legal skills that I learned, and you know, this made such a difference when I became a psychologist. In a way, it’s perfect combination. One supported the other. I think ..

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people in general have always needed to know their own power. You understand this in your work. I kept looking in psychology, as you know, evolves, right? There’s been many approaches over the years, and current psychology is integrating it, always based on the model in physics. So current model is based on quantum mechanics, right, and string theory.

 

Manon Bolliger  04:56

So that’s

 

Dr Alan Weisser  04:56

why creating mindfulness into therapy now, so. I was encouraged in my training, and I had a lot of really good training supervision to just think beyond what I knew, and that has led to the development of something that is beyond what I knew. But the legal training, the background about wanting to help people was reinforced. You work with the chronically mentally ill in the state mental hospital, which was what I did in my internship, and then stayed for 10 years. It’s a very simple choice. You either figure out how you’re going to help people whose whole lives are trashed, or you just don’t do

 

Manon Bolliger  05:30

it.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  05:30

It’s too hard, right? I wish that every therapist went through that kind of training, because I learned a lot of things about myself and being there for people, but it was really understanding how do you empower people that are psychotic and institutionalized, and then beyond that work, where I developed a lot of ways to do that, beyond what I was taught, and I was encouraged to do that. Then I started working with the chronic pain population almost by accident. There’s a reason why I had to stop working with a chronically mentally ill. The system was just too broken,

 

Manon Bolliger  06:00

right? Okay,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  06:01

I knew, I knew ways well beyond what was being done, you know, about institutions and how they get in the way.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:07

Yep, I

 

Dr Alan Weisser  06:08

get involved with a chronicling mentally, and I go, “This is very familiar. These people aren’t psychotic, but their whole lives are trashed.

 

Manon Bolliger  06:14

Yeah, yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  06:15

don’t get it. The problem is, we, by definition, in my opinion, you don’t make it through a day without suffering injuries. It’s the nature of being human. Being alive is dangerous, right? Whether you stub your toe or somebody slights you or something bad really happens, it’s the natural state of affairs, right? Life comes with side effects. I go, okay, and I’ve seen the worst of it, but then I’m going, like, okay, well, isn’t there some way to counter that? Are we designed to suffer, which a lot of people believe? I go, like, I don’t think so. Digging into all the models of healing and being trained in a lot of them, eventually I find out there’s something called the existential immune system that actually is constantly healing as you go through the challenges that you’re constantly being healed as you’re being injured, and if this system is working at an optimal level, you’ve got a shot, and I’ve been through this personally as well as professionally. So maybe a bigger answer to the question on what you were asking, but no,

 

Manon Bolliger  07:17

no, no, that’s that’s exactly, yeah, that’s what I’m getting to understand, what the scope of it is, and how does it make sense, and where the limitations are, which are clearly

 

Dr Alan Weisser  07:29

there’s none. You can be chronically mentally ill, you can be chronically pained, you can have boss. This system started with chronic pain and chronically, it’s a way of dealing with things that is simply understands the nature of your power and how to optimize it. The background and legal training, my martial arts, huge influence on this. I don’t think of what I do so much as therapy, or I think of as you come to the dojo and you learn how to defend your emotional, psychological, and existential life.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:03

Okay. Interesting. Well, why don’t we, or if you’re okay with it, either take yourself as an example or a client without a name, but I’ll ask you to speak a little closer to the mic, because I, I’m having some issues

 

Dr Alan Weisser  08:17

about this. Is that closer?

 

Manon Bolliger  08:19

Yeah, that’s better.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  08:21

Yes, sorry about that. Let me try a quick experiment. If I disconnect from my external mic, use the computer mic and like clean it up.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:30

Sure, that’s

 

Dr Alan Weisser  08:31

fine. Try unplugging this and see if it works. No,

 

Manon Bolliger  08:37

okay. No, can’t hear

 

Dr Alan Weisser  08:42

you. Yeah, I about technology is not one of my skills.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:45

Yeah, don’t worry, I had my computer not start this morning,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  08:51

so I’m sorry. Go back to your question.

 

Manon Bolliger  08:53

Yeah, no. So, why don’t we start with turning this into a person, whether it’s you as an example, or anyone that should make the point of sort of what is their journey through your, your methodology, through your eyes, what is it? How does it work?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  09:14

Great question. I’ll give you a quick rundown on the technology and connect it to an actual situation.

 

Manon Bolliger  09:18

Okay,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  09:20

so as far as I can tell, all human experience is translated by thoughts and feelings. That’s kind of where the rubber hits the road. We have things happen, we experience it through our thinking and feeling, right? That suggested thought and feeling is very important. And then the question was, if you think of them as systems, are they working in the way they were designed? For example, if you put regular gas in a $2 million car, what’s going to happen? It may run, but not well, and eventually it’s damaged, right. So I won’t get into this, the mechanics of the system, but there’s a technology for doing this to optimize the thinking process and. Feeling process, for example, if you suppress your emotions, you are not working them with them. They’re tools, all right. You engage in judgmental thinking, assumptions, generalizations, rationalizations, that is, not using thinking in a way that represents the truth. A goal in this technology is to bring people into using these systems the way they were designed, and optimizing them. Give you an example. I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of ways I could talk about it, but I think the number one tool in helping people heal and stay in healing is to live in inspiration,

 

Manon Bolliger  10:35

is to, is to,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  10:36

in inspiration,

 

Manon Bolliger  10:38

live in inspiration. Okay,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  10:39

you understand that you’re obviously a really inspired person. Case in point, I have a patient who suffered some of the worst neck injuries I’ve ever seen, multiple surgeries. He’s involved in the workers’ comp system, incredibly depressed, on the verge of killing himself, but kind of has fighting spirit, which I understand from the martial arts, and I’m trying to help him, so he’s in a position where he’s not going to return to the work he did before, physically can’t do it anymore. When I met him, he’s over, he’s done, he’s ready to die. His life has no purpose, it has no meaning. I go, okay, maybe he had an opportunity to do retraining. All right, you can go back to school, get it paid for. And I go, so let’s talk about your life. Before you took on responsibilities, did you want to do what you were doing? He says, no. I said, well, what was the fantasy? What really always appealed to you? It turned out it was robotics. Always fascinated since he was a little kid, right? So we tap into what really motivates him, what he loves, and I said, “Well, you have no choice, you have to change, you can get it paid for. When I tell you that he’s one of the worst cases of pain I’ve ever seen, that how this guy could sit at a computer or go to a classroom, impossible. He went through the program with an average, because we tapped into what really mattered to him.

 

Manon Bolliger  12:04

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  12:06

I have overcome things in my life personally, because I love being alive, and I do not like a threat to that, and I don’t take it lying down. And I hit the fan with that one when I was 12 and a half. If you may know from my bio, 12 and a half, I broken my neck, and I was told that I would be a cripple for the rest of my life,

 

Manon Bolliger  12:26

right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  12:27

You know, I’ve done martial arts over 50 years, didn’t turn out to be a problem, but that was because I go, like, maybe that’s my story, but I get to choose, right, and I made a choice, so the power in being human has to do with the intention you set and the choices you make and what your purpose is. If you know what matters to you, that is incredibly motivating. And then, if you develop that around the different skills and tools to use your system, you put those two together, inspiration and number two support emotional connectivity, not being alone in it. And then you build the tools around that power and show people that you may think you run out of choices, you may think that your life is over, you’re a one trick pony, and I go, there’s no such thing. How many lives have you already lived? I believed, I don’t know, 20 lives already. They’re all me, but they’re all different,

 

Manon Bolliger  13:25

right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  13:26

So, I don’t know if I’m saying more than you need to hear about, but I took on the challenge of my own disability. I’ve taken it with 1000s of patients, and I go, like, maybe, maybe it’s not possible to thrive, but you could,

 

Manon Bolliger  13:41

right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  13:42

It’s always about possible, and there may be things where you go like that’s it, maybe, but how about you? I’m not interested in that,

 

Manon Bolliger  13:51

right? So I don’t want to diminish what you’re saying, I’m picking on a small part of what you’re saying for you to expand on it when you say, or how I’m taking what you’re saying. Let’s put it this way, it’s like there has to be a little gap of possibility, just that that openness that you can then get in, like otherwise the person’s like a no, I’ve done my life, I have no purpose. So is part of it finding through your questioning, you know, like, like with this fellow you mentioned, you ask them what did they really do, what they wanted to do, and then boom, you’ve got that window, and then it’s a question of bringing that out and turning that into something feasible, even though he’s in chronic pain, he can’t sit somehow, all of that doesn’t matter now that he’s connected to his goal or action. Goes away, like, what? What’s the process that you’re seeing

 

Dr Alan Weisser  15:03

doesn’t go away. If you look at the book title, it talks about mastery, not managing. All right, in the martial arts, I’m very skilled. Does that mean I can never be hurt? Absolutely not. It means I’ve got a fighting chance,

 

Manon Bolliger  15:16

a fighting chance. Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  15:18

and you know this. If something really matters to you, it’s it’s the person who lifts the car up when their child’s injured, right? It’s things people do that are exceptional. Stephen Hawking, I can’t do. Stephen Hawking did, I would love to. Like, how did you do that?

 

Manon Bolliger  15:33

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  15:33

right. I don’t know that everybody will find their way. We are not designed to be done. We’re designed to evolve, and I say, look, maybe you can’t find your way into something that would balance. It’s about balance. I don’t tell people you’re not going to care about your pain anymore, but that you’re going to be cured. I do tell people that if you can find enough purpose and meaning and connectivity, it might make it worthwhile to stick around and to find way to be in the world. Part of the problem is, you know, this people don’t get it. It’s dangerous to be alive,

 

Manon Bolliger  16:12

right? Don’t

 

Dr Alan Weisser  16:13

mean out there vulnerable. Well, I never had a choice at 12 and a half, like it or not, right?

 

Manon Bolliger  16:18

Yeah, yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  16:19

shock to the system. It’s an existential crush, and I go once you get used to the idea that you can, but you’re designed to find a way through this. They don’t, they don’t. I just want to give people a fighting chance.

 

Manon Bolliger  16:32

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  16:33

and suddenly you have no pain, or you don’t have whatever challenges you have, but you have more power than you think you do.

 

Manon Bolliger  16:39

Yeah, you’d be the nemesis of the maid system here in Canada. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. In Canada, the maid system, medically assisted death.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  16:52

If a person wants to do that, there’s no judgment here.

 

Manon Bolliger  16:55

No, it’s not. It’s not about judgment at all. It’s the fact that it’s the biggest industry we have in Canada, and we have there’s more people killed in that methodology propagated by our government than any other way, so it’s, you know, it’s it’s the hopelessness they bring to people. Oh, you can’t pay your rent, it’s really a problem, you know. And sorry, but you know, you do have a way out. You can use this. I mean, I’m mocking it slightly, but not much, you know. And so I was gonna say that’s why you’d be not very popular in that organization, trying to find a little bit of hope for people

 

Dr Alan Weisser  17:43

situations where it’s really not worth

 

Manon Bolliger  17:48

  1. Sure,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  17:48

I both know that that would have to be something so extreme where there’s no other logic, right?

 

Manon Bolliger  17:55

That, but it’s not how it’s implemented. Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  17:58

it’s been abused, that’s that’s

 

Manon Bolliger  18:00

absolutely, yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  18:01

completely. So, look, I’m not, I’m not doing something that’s Pollyannaish, pie in the sky. I’ve been at this for a long time, and frankly, I, in the beginning, go like, really, I’m going to do something about this level of suffering, and then, but I’m not the kind of person to go, like, there’s nothing you can do, that’s just me, right. I’m creative. I got into doing a lot of program development, even in the law. All right, when I was in law school, I had a study group. You know how every person in the study group has a job. My job was to come up with an innovative way to do the case.

 

Commercial Break  18:37

What would your life be like if you were pain free? If you are one of the millions who suffer from chronic pain, the thought of just one day without it may seem impossible. This is often because conventional medicine tends to fall short in the treatment of pain, opting to prescribe pills or recommend surgery rather than getting to the root cause of the problem, but if you are suffering with emotional or physical pain, there is hope. Join the founder and CEO of Bowen College, Manon Bolliger, live online for your body mind reboot. Learn how to listen to your symptoms and get to the root cause of your pain, plus be trained in basic bone therapy moves, so that you can reboot your body for optimal health. You don’t have to live in pain, you can heal. Stop the pain pill cycle by visiting www.yourbodymindreboot.com to learn more and to register.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  19:47

Oh, yeah, let’s use insurance law in the criminal case, right? Just I feel very grateful, because when I look at any situation, they usually find some more effective and efficient ways, so I’m just. Saying, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in hope, right? It’s magical thinking. What I believe is, if you know how much power you have as a human, and I mean real power, maybe in power, you were not designed to be powerless. You can never be powerless as a human. Well, what does that mean,

 

Manon Bolliger  20:19

and

 

Dr Alan Weisser  20:19

how do you connect to that, the work you do. Actually, I think is probably based on helping to connect to an aspect of that power, and that’s used for the healing process. I’m just saying, find out what you really got going for you.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:33

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  20:33

or you decide that you have no power, and that you’re

 

Manon Bolliger  20:35

done. Right? Right.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  20:39

Well, I probably go like, oh, well, if I can learn to live with it, learn to deal with

 

Manon Bolliger  20:44

it,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  20:45

and still have a life,

 

Manon Bolliger  20:47

yeah. Then, if

 

Dr Alan Weisser  20:48

we go like, I’ve lost it all, there’s no point never getting back. Okay.

 

Manon Bolliger  20:54

So, how was it for you, like, as a 12 year old with, you know, such a serious injury, and how did you, how did you get to the next step? Like, what was the process for you to..

 

Dr Alan Weisser  21:12

it nearly destroyed my life.

 

Manon Bolliger  21:14

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  21:15

I’ll tell you why, because I just shut down nobody. If you talk to me during that whole healing period, I mean, I was on my back in the bed for a year in a brace, not allowed to move, and to learn how to walk again, even though I wasn’t paralyzed. But nobody knew I’d crack jokes, nobody knew. I didn’t let myself know how I was feeling. But here’s the interesting part: I’ve got advanced degrees, right, and picture that I’m flunking out of high school. Remember, this happened through junior high,

 

Manon Bolliger  21:47

right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  21:48

If you asked me at the time why I’m not doing well, I would have said I’m not very smart. And then I ran into a chemistry teacher in junior year, was a young, very enthusiastic, funny guy, like to blow things up. So, I liked him.

 

Manon Bolliger  22:05

Yeah.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  22:06

Halfway through the quarter, he’s going, ‘You’re failing my course. Why are you failing? I go, ‘What are you talking about? He says, ‘You’re smart. Like, no, I’m not. I literally debated with him.

 

Manon Bolliger  22:15

Well,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  22:16

he said, ‘You know what? I don’t care. He made me come after school. I got through the course with a C didn’t convince me that I was smart, but it made me wonder that maybe if I worked hard enough, right,

 

Manon Bolliger  22:27

there

 

Dr Alan Weisser  22:28

were people along the way, and that continued. I got through high school, then I got into college the hard way. There were people that come along and go like, you don’t really know who you really are, but here’s the part that is really important. I didn’t know until 30 years later why I always thought I was stupid in high school. I never asked myself, why did you think you weren’t smart? I was busy proving that I was smart most of life. Law school, that was a test. Graduate school, that was a bigger test that was part of in law school until 30 years ago. 30 years later, in a session with a patient, I’m reflecting back on that moment, and something surfaced that I completely buried was what I thought when the doctor came in the room and said what he did. I thought, stupid, stupid, stupid. Look what you did to yourself.

 

Manon Bolliger  23:28

Wow.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  23:29

30 years later, my whole life was plagued by this. I’m smart. I was able to be accomplished on the surface. I look fine. I was not there. Was nothing about my life that wasn’t questioned. There was no real confidence behind the bravado.

 

Manon Bolliger  23:44

Right,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  23:45

I soldiered my way through it, but I kept meeting people who reflected, who said, “You need to know who you really are through this life safely, unless we have people to help

 

Manon Bolliger  23:56

us,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  23:58

whether it was in law school or friendships, so when I traveled out in the world and ended up living with better for a while, there was people who go like you don’t seem to know who you really are,

 

Manon Bolliger  24:10

but

 

Dr Alan Weisser  24:10

I work with people, I’m trying to pass that along and go like you may think you know who you are, what you are, actually you don’t, so I’m very grateful for that, and I also understood why, if you don’t look at the whole life of a person, everything that’s been affected. Nobody was asking

 

Manon Bolliger  24:28

me,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  24:28

and I actually checked in with family after this, and I said, like, how did I seem during that time, which I’d never asked, by the way. My two brothers had family, they go, you seem to be fine, take the doctors asked me how I was feeling about what happened to me. You think the doctors even bothered to check up on me to see if maybe I could cover more. Never happened, so this is personal for me.

 

Manon Bolliger  24:56

Yeah, no, I mean, that’s that’s the most. Critical part of any care, right? Like any connection, it’s the connection that allows the healing in that sense to take place, and it’s, it’s, it’s so beautiful, the way, like, in your life, it’s.. it just.. it happens along the path, and I think that’s what it is, you know, in everybody’s life, in a sense, you know, and, but to take the moment to notice that is also important, right? Because I think sometimes these statements are at least, if I reflect in my life, I’ve heard such things like, oh, you haven’t figured out who you are yet, yeah, sure, you got three degrees, and blah blah blah, you know, and but, and it’s like, yeah, I know who I am, as ego goes forward, you know, but but it wasn’t fully all ego, I really wanted to help people, that was the driver, so I was doing what I loved, but it’s the, it’s really the power of understanding the inner power that everyone has, like, like when I tell my patients, your body can heal, like it, it’s made to heal, it’s almost like we have to appreciate that it can, it’s built this way, let’s not fight it, you know, how can we contribute to this? How can we notice it? How can we, you know, work with it, right? And, and I think that’s, and I’m only at the beginning of this journey, but it’s, it’s, and maybe when you say that the real power that we have, it’s, it goes beyond also the physical, it’s, you know, you could call it spiritual, that’s one way, but you know, I’m not trying to put any religion in there either.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  26:52

I think you can say that it’s string theory for the human being, because what is the equivalent of string theory for humans?

 

Manon Bolliger  26:58

String theory, okay,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  27:02

string theory is about everything is made up of energy, right?

 

Manon Bolliger  27:04

Right, yeah.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  27:05

We are energy,

 

Manon Bolliger  27:07

exactly. Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  27:10

and what you do and what I do says you are an energetic being.

 

Manon Bolliger  27:14

Yeah, exactly

 

Dr Alan Weisser  27:15

through your intention, through your choices, through your. you do that, I don’t know about you, but I believe that humans don’t need machines, and they don’t need doctors, but we are not raised to understand the power that we have innately to heal, and then people like yourself come

 

Manon Bolliger  27:33

along and go,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  27:34

no, actually you can, and here’s how you do it, all right, like I said, humans are wonderful creatures. They just don’t know it, and they could destroy themselves, not even standing. Right,

 

Manon Bolliger  27:46

right. Yeah, very interesting. What a profound morning conversation. Oh, wow, that’s quite, quite something. Yeah, and also, just like, how you know that just because nobody asked you how you were, and you didn’t think about asking how you were, because at that age you didn’t have that, like you have no context to understand how you could understand, right? It’s like you’re just the end, there you are, you know,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  28:23

just you know, even physically I found out years later why I was okay. Actually, got to see a chiropractor who took X-rays, and he goes, “You know, I’ve never seen this before. He said, “You seem to have experienced a natural fusion, which might have been the result of the treatment, but if I could have experienced that the doctors never said that could happen, or what I need to do, I suspect that part of it was just physical, but I think some of it was my intention. Remember, I was not going to be held back by this,

 

Manon Bolliger  28:54

right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  28:55

And you see this with people you work with, if you are, if your person’s intention is said on healing, they’re more likely to heal.

 

Manon Bolliger  29:03

Absolutely,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  29:04

the placebo effect, I mean, under the.. these are not magic. This is people tapping into that power. The problem is a lot of educated to not even understand that.

 

Manon Bolliger  29:14

Yeah, yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  29:15

a dependent on a system that’s more about profit than it is about cure.

 

Manon Bolliger  29:21

Yep, I and hopefully we’re changing that system as we speak,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  29:28

and is probably got a better shot at it compared to what’s going on here right now.

 

Manon Bolliger  29:32

I don’t know, you know, like honestly, we’re so bureaucratically, technocratically stuffed up that we don’t know who’s like there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of soul missing in in what’s happening here, so I’m not so sure about that, you know.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  29:54

Okay, this way I crave bureaucracy for what’s going on here, right?

 

Manon Bolliger  29:58

You see, the bureaucracy. To hear, yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:01

what’s going on in this country right now?

 

Manon Bolliger  30:04

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:05

I know about bureaucracy and the problems with it. And by the way, just go back to what you started with about being a

 

Manon Bolliger  30:10

lawyer, right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:11

Being a lawyer means advocating.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:14

Yes,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:14

I think that part of the journey that I went through was having to advocate for other people. You can do that if you’re not willing to know, you can do that.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:23

Correct.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:24

It was part of the healing journey for me to actually help other people. I started out at Legal Aid Society. I was

 

Manon Bolliger  30:30

working

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:30

people that had no resources, all right, and going up against systems, and

 

Manon Bolliger  30:35

yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:36

what’s going on right now in the world, we both know is something that was inevitable. Human races do for a reset, but the good news is there are people like yourself, me, other people I know, probably you know, there may be a soft landing down the road a piece, but there was things needed to reshuffle.

 

Manon Bolliger  30:58

Absolutely,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  30:59

just as you do in treatment, I’m doing, and what I do is better mousetraps. I know a lot of people, I bet you do that. Go give us the opportunity. FDR in the 30s, the New Deal.

 

Manon Bolliger  31:12

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  31:13

but he did. He took the smartest minds in the country, they came up with a brand new, totally innovative program, and saved the country. Right. Well, where’s the, where’s the kitchen cabinet now, right? So I think that that’s why I am not pessimistic about what happens next. No, I think I think, well, I think there’s going to be a tremendous amount of pain to go through, but I think the human race may be ready to hear a message, which is very simple, you come together when wonderful things happen, you pull apart and terrible things happen, you get to choose. Yeah,

 

Manon Bolliger  31:49

now

 

Dr Alan Weisser  31:50

does it have to get before you go? Like, enough, right? Violence has never ever helped the human race, right? Gandhi, take your pick, right? That’s a good speech, but that’s how I see the current state of things. If Canada is caught in that situation, but Canada is being confronted now with having to change, whether it wants to or not.

 

Manon Bolliger  32:12

Oh, absolutely, but I feel like it’s almost, you know, the new world order protocols, you know, and like it managed to exist visibly and tangibly here, whereas in some countries, not that aspects of it haven’t, but people have, you know, kind of well, or they’re more concentrated, like in Europe, or they fought against it, or they’re more separated, and therefore more politics comes into play, like you know, there’s all kinds of reasons, but I feel like, yeah, it’s inevitable in Canada, but it’s going to be a shocker this waking, you know, because I mean, that’s where, you know, advocacy I ended up not being able to keep my license because of you, have you had to choose between freedom of speech or or protocols that were believed wrongly believed, but I think it’s even more dirty than that, you know, necessary for human safety and health, you know, which freedom to choose and ethics, you know, you can’t come from law without going, no, no, no way. I need to know what’s in here before I get informed consent, you know, informed consent means informed, you know, so I mean, I couldn’t do this, so the, the advocacy part, you know, came out loudest, actually, in the health department, but it really, it comes back to wait a minute, here everyone has got to wake up, you know, individually, everyone’s got to not believe that these systems that are supposed to serve us, they’re not supposed to control us, you know, we’re paying for management of sorts, but we’re not, like, I think there was a 400% increase in people working for the government during Trudeau’s time, you know, and now there’s.. we’re just like it’s those who have a job are on one side and those who are self-employed or losing their jobs are on the other side, like that’s our.. it’s a fine, you know, fine line. I’m everything’s a little grain of salt, because once you make a generalization, there’s always untruths, but generally that’s kind of where the advocacy is necessary here, but I do, I do think that sometimes you have to show how extreme it could be for people to go wait a. That this is not, not okay, you know. So I think it’s going to be exciting.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  35:05

Yeah. Well, too many people have been asleep at the wheel, but

 

Manon Bolliger  35:09

yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  35:10

I think that’s the result of too much change, too fast. The world has not adjusted to automation, globalism, technology, AI is now jumping into the middle of all of that, which is profound. I trust in the human race. I trust in evolution.

 

Manon Bolliger  35:28

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  35:28

maybe we survived it, maybe we don’t, but I think we could, and I think that there were a lot of people who know that, and like I said, I think that people in general, at least in this country, are getting tired of being divided,

 

Manon Bolliger  35:42

yeah, yeah.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  35:43

I think you’re beginning to understand where’s that really taking you. This is the Pied Piper, right? Sounds good, but you’re going off a cliff.

 

Manon Bolliger  35:50

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  35:51

right now it could be, but I’ve lived through the 60s and 70s. I know a little bit about risking your license. I came really close more than once,

 

Manon Bolliger  36:01

because,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  36:01

as you said, you either stand up or you don’t.

 

Manon Bolliger  36:05

Yeah,

 

Dr Alan Weisser  36:06

as much as I’d like to resist doing that, every system I’ve ever been involved in, which is why I ended up doing what I do now,

 

Manon Bolliger  36:15

which

 

Dr Alan Weisser  36:16

is I will now be able to be setting a different tone in all systems. I’m not here to change systems, but I am here to help people who, in the moment when they’re dealing with the problem, they are empowered to deal with

 

Manon Bolliger  36:31

it, right?

 

Dr Alan Weisser  36:32

More people who realize you’ve got a responsibility, you know that in this country with a presidential election, less than half the population votes.

 

Manon Bolliger  36:41

Yeah, people

 

Speaker 1  36:42

do not

 

Dr Alan Weisser  36:42

understand, and people say, Why should I vote? It’s only one vote I get. How did that ever happen? Think about that, right? And I think people are going out because what’s going to happen, and you and I know this, in this next election, people are going to have to really ask themselves, How important it is that they have a right to vote. I don’t like the fact that there has to be pain before gain, but I’m not sure it could have happened any other way.

 

Manon Bolliger  37:05

From

 

Dr Alan Weisser  37:06

it’s not the problem, he’s a symptom, you know. Canada is its own life. I don’t know Canada well enough, although my best friend in life is from Canada. I, and I traveled with him for a long time. I actually had a bag that had a Canadian flag. I prefer to be Canadian at that point. I spent a lot of time in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. Listen, it’s changing, but this conversation, people knowing that there’s other options, that there’s ways through this that people need to know.

 

Manon Bolliger  37:39

Yeah, definitely. Well, our time is up, Ellen. And anyway, this is sort of the way I see the contribution is putting discussions like this things that matter really to people who are in healthcare, and so I’m really thrilled that we were able to, yeah, to have this conversation. So, thank you so much for taking

 

Dr Alan Weisser  38:01

me too, because we’re going to be launching an educational program, so you don’t just have to see me as a therapist. There’ll be a lot of things available that you’ll, you’ll hear more about, and most likely be doing my own podcast. I want to just extend an invite in advance.

 

Manon Bolliger  38:15

Oh, fantastic, I’d love to be part of that.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  38:18

I’ll get you posted, but probably by the end of the summer.

 

Manon Bolliger  38:22

Okay, that’ll be perfect timing.

 

Dr Alan Weisser  38:24

I really truly appreciate the conversation. Like I said, people need to know there’s possibilities.

 

Manon Bolliger  38:32

Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you.

 

ENDING: 

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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician, after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!