Dads, We Need You!

Melissa Crenshaw  0:00  
Welcome, everybody. I'm so glad and excited to be here with Mike Dixon today. This precious family are really good friends of mine. Here is a quick introduction. Mike has been using homeopathy for about two years, and he's used a few things like Arnica years ago but really didn't know much about homeopathy. Most people come to homeopathy using Arnica. Actually, his wife was in either my first or second class that I taught, so that's really how we got to know each other. His wife, Lacie, and he have used homeopathy to treat themselves and their children. His personal favorite remedy has been Rhus tox as it has really helped his poison ivy. Camilia has also helped the children. Mike is known on YouTube and as The Fit Farmer, and they are local farmers here that have helped me so much in getting started with a little bit of homesteading here and there. Mike is a former professional, natural, drug free bodybuilder, personal fitness trainer, and nutritional coach turned farmer/homesteader. When he and his wife, Lacie, discovered the sad truth about our modern food system, they were inspired to begin growing food for themselves and their children right where they lived in the city. I love this. I love this story. You have to go watch the beginning on YouTube! 

Mike explained that prior to this, he said, Let me sorry. He said, I had never grown anything in my life. And when I grew something from from seed to harvest, it felt so empowering, and I just wanted to grow more and more." I agree. The first time you grow something and know you can feed your family is amazing. Ass Mike and his family's aspirations for growing more continued, they were faced with the city ordinances that hindered them from their urban homesteading goals. This is when they decided to leave the city. Next, they sold their house, furniture, and all their possessions, bought a yurt - which I had never heard of before I met Lacie - and moved to the country to start a homestead. Today, years later, their homestead produces food for their family and many of the farm customers that they serve. Follow along with Mike and his family adventures on YouTube! It's so fun to watch these YouTube videos! Y'all have to go and subscribe to his channel. They are fun, but also informative, and you get to know their family. They refer people to me for consults, and these people always tell me they feel like they are part of your family, Mike. On their YouTube channel, they inspire and educate others about living a healthy and more connected lifestyle. I am absolutely thrilled to have Mike here to help us understand why dads need to be involved in the health care of their families. Welcome, Mike.

Mike  3:37  
Greetings, Melissa, thanks for having me on! I'm definitely glad that I can have an opportunity to chat with you and share with others why this is an important part of families. Our health is important, and we all need to be on the same page about it as we go forward just living the family life together. So yes, super excited to be here.

Melissa Crenshaw  3:59  
Yeah. You know, it is a little bit sad, but I do often hear in most families it's the mom - which is not the sad part - but for the dads to be involved in the healthcare choices and the health care of their family as well is huge. I love that you're involved in your family's health care. Not just food, even though the right foods are health, but also in using homeopathy and other natural modalities. Mike isn't the dad that just sits back and allows Lacie to do everything and make all the decisions. They work together as a team, which is amazing. What I would love to do is for you to tell us about your family and what your healthcare journey has looked like.

Mike  4:55  
Well, the healthcare journey kind of had started before we even were a family. You mentioned earlier that I didn't grow up homesteading and I didn't grow up involved in health and wellness at all or been oriented that way. When we grew up, we had the sad American die. When I was a kid, ate too much sugar, too much processed food, and it was just terrible. We definitely took a lot of pharmaceuticals and over the counter junk from Robitussin, Dimetapp, you name it. We had allergies a lot as kids, and we were sick way more than my kids are sick. As we're raising them, I'm seeing they're not sick nowhere near as often as I was as a kid. It's pretty, pretty interesting to see. They live a very different lifestyle, so it's not a total surprise, but just something. But as I was growing up, and then I started transitioning and getting more interested, for me, it started with just the fitness industry and bodybuilding. I was like, "wow, I want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I want to have that physique or a physique like that." And then I started getting into working out. As I started getting into working out, I realized there's this important part of nutrition that I'm not doing anything about. I started working on trying to improve my diet as I was learning, and then I started getting really involved and competing as a bodybuilder, and nutrition is a huge part of it. One of the things that I would tell people is there was no way that I could get up on stage as a bodybuilder and compete if I didn't have the diet right. The diet is like 90% of it, so as I was learning about nutrition and doing the bodybuilding thing, I became a personal trainer and the nutritional coach. The more that I learned about nutrition, just seeing how important it is for your health, I knew I needed to be on this journey of eating more organic foods and getting rid of the sugar and processed junk and started eating more nutrient dense foods. As I was doing that, I noticed allergies that I had growing up were going away. For the longest time, I couldn't breathe out of both nostrils at the same time - I would go through life just only able to breathe out one. As I cleaned up my diet, I was able to start breathing out two. I remember asking Lacie if it abnormal that I could only breathe out of one nostril pretty much my whole life, and she's like, "No, that's not normal." So, just cleaning up my food and what I was eating made a difference that I could start to see right away. Then, I noticed that when I used to eat the sad American diet, some foods like apples really didn't have flavor. As I cleaned up my diet, I was noticing that the all the strawberries and the apples were much more flavorful, and I was able to enjoy them because they didn't taste bland. I didn't need the high sugar foods to satisfy me. It got to the point where now if I go eat those foods, I'm like, "Whoa, that has way too much sugar in it, I can't eat that." 

As you begin to weed that stuff out of your system, you're able to really appreciate and consume the real foods that really provide you with nutrition and you really start to not want the junk. From there, Lacie and I met. She was on the sad American diet growing up as well, and she struggled with her weight for years, and then that led her to wanting to get into exercising more and to eating more nutritiously. She started cleaning up her diet and she lost weight as a result of that. We ended up meeting and had that in common - that we were both really interested in nutrition and health and fitness. As we gradually started to come together and eventually got married, we just had that in common. As we were going through our health journey together, one of the subjects that she brought up, which I'd never heard of before, was natural birth and home birth. She really didn't want to give birth at the hospital, and I was like, "Okay, I'm listening. That's something I've never really thought about before. That's a little weird. But I'm listening and interested to hear what you have to say about this. I'm definitely interested." That's something to keep in mind guys - be interested and listen. One of the biggest influences that really helped me out was watching the movie, The Business of Being Born. It's a documentary, and I like to watch documentaries. Once I watched that, it gave me a whole different perspective on the whole birth scene and things at the hospital. From there, I started reading different articles about home birth and natural birth. She even talked me into going, not that she had to really put the work in in talking to me to do this, but I actually went to what they call the "birth circle" meeting. It's just a meeting of ladies, they had midwives there, doulas there, and some moms who just talked about birth. There was supposed to be another guy there, but somehow I ended up being the only guy there. I was thinking, "Okay, I'm the only guy here, but this will still be fun. It's okay, I can do it."

As I was there and I'm listening to these ladies tell their horrific stories of giving birth at the hospital, I was definitely convinced after that point. I was like, I do not want my wife going through that at all. I am on board. That's just one example, and she's presented a number of other things as we've gone through our health journey together. I just learned to listen, to process the information, and to appreciate her feminine intuition that she's been given. She's done that with homeopathy and other things, and I really appreciate that. I'm a big believer in that I believe in God, and as our Creator that he has given men certain characteristics that help us, that aid us in our responsibilities as protector and providers. But he's also given when women certain characteristics that aid you all in your responsibilities as nurturers and caretakers, and we should appreciate that. I've noticed this in action. If a child or someone is hurt, their limb could basically be about to fall off and a guy would be like, "Oh, just walk it off, you'll be all right!" There was a basketball game going on at the gym that I worked at, and this guy got hit in the eye pretty bad. His eye immediately just started getting crazy colors, swelling up, and they're just ushering him off the court like, "Alright, man, who's gonna take care of this guy?" They weren't! Then the guy comes up to the front where there's some ladies and they're like, "Oh, let us help you out, let's call 911." The other guys just kept playing the basketball game and just totally forgot about that guy. So, I kept those things in mind. It's just an example that men are not as equipped as ladies to have that feminine intuition and to have that nurturing, caretaking characteristic that God has given you. It's something we should celebrate more and appreciate the differences because we complement each other. We come together to work together. It also reminds me, in farming, of chickens. You have hens, which are female chickens, and you have roosters, which are male chickens. I notice that the hens look around for a place to lay their eggs. She wants it to be a nice, comfortable place and properly protected. She gets all the items that she needs for her nest, helps nurture, and then eventually cares for the babies that will be produced. She's there just tending to them and caring for them the whole time. The rooster, is he laying on the egg sitting right there with it? No, he's doing his own job. He has another job, where he's walking around looking for how he can protect and do his job that he's equipped to do. Sorry if I rambled a little bit there, that just kind of illustrates a little bit the differences that can complement each other.

Melissa Crenshaw  13:28  
Yes, absolutely. I love that. We are different, and I love what you said, that we should celebrate and acknowledge each other's differences. Also, dads do have this the ability to be involved in in the caretaking at least a little bit, so I would love to hear how you are involved in the health care of your family. What I'm wanting to do here is encourage dads that you can be, and you should be, supporting your wife and supporting your family. So how do you do that? What does that look like for your family?

Mike  14:16  
I know our situation is a little different because I am really interested in health and nutrition, and I know not every guy is. For most, the woman is the one who's more naturally inclined, with the characteristics that she has, to be focused and more thoughtful on the nutrition and the healthcare needs of her family. The man might have to put in a little bit more work an effort to do that. However, one of the things to keep in mind, and I'm talking to myself here, is to keep an open mind and be teachable. I know that can be hard for some men with egos, but you really need to learn to be teachable to have that open mind. I consider myself an open minded person, yet I'm also a skeptic. I'm willing to try pretty much anything for the first time, but then I also need to see results and I need to see evidence. Most men think like that from a logical standpoint. If you can get them to go that direction, then they need to see the logic behind things. That's just kind of how our minds work. Men need to be, like I said, teachable - willing to look at articles that your wife may bring to you or information that she may present to you to help you - as she presents a certain subject or topic to you, whether it be homeopathy, home birth, pharmaceuticals, natural medicine, whatever. Be open minded to it, be willing to watch documentaries or listen to podcasts like this one, to learn, and to pray about the information that that she shared with you. Then, pray about the decision that you guys will make together as you go forward. Also, keep in mind that before you reject or accept anything, you need to make sure that you are informed. You have to make an informed decision one way or the other. So many men have heard mainstream media and we don't really make a decision, we just blindly trust them. Really, it's not an informed decision. We're just going with what everybody else is doing. One of the things that I say to my wife, even if she's asking me about dinner, is that I need to know options. I need to know before I can make a proper choice. I need to know what I'm dealing with here. If you don't know your options, you're not making an informed decision. 

Next, I would say trust your wife as mother and wife. They care more about the health of your family than any corporation or any system. Her heart is with your family. In a corporation, they are more concerned with profits than they are the heart and love of your family. I'm sorry, but that's just the truth of the matter. I'm talking about mainstream anything - mainstream media, mainstream medical, all of it. They all have the same focus in mind, and it's profits. That's the bottom line. Next is, move together. Move forward together. As you're trying to get all the information that you need and working together, trust your wife, trust her intuition, trust the characteristics that God has given her, but then find a way to move forward together in unity. There'll be a lot more peace with that in mind. Try make it a peaceful situation because you are a team. You need to keep that together, and you realize that you need to move forward together as a team.

Melissa Crenshaw  18:08  
Yes, I agree. As women, we can make emotional decisions, which isn't the best way to make any decision. Sometimes if we base our decisions on emotions, it can be a not so good decision. We need our husbands to ground us sometimes if fear creeps in, which is so common in women. It doesn't matter what's going on in the world right now, today, or when you're listening to this. I don't care if you listen to this in 2028, when something else is happening in the world - right now, it's likely bringing some fear to your wife. She's going to start doing research and maybe make decisions based on fear, which is a huge thing that I'm always talking about. We never want to make decisions based on fear. When fear is involved, we have to step back. Husbands can often help us be grounded in that way, but also, we might not trust or listen to what you're saying if you haven't done at least a little bit of research. I'm not just gonna say, "Oh, you don't think this is a good idea? Okay, I'll go do something else," if you haven't even looked into it. At least look into it with us. Help us to make good decisions, but also trust that we've done a ton of research. Women can do a ton of research in a short amount of time, and we can multitask. We can do our research while we're doing 80 different other things all at the same time. So just trust that we have done our research and at least look into it with us. You know, being a team as a husband and wife is huge. What the Lord has meant for marriage is that we would move together in peace and as a team. I wonder, Mike, what if dads don't feel confident? What if they want to be a help and they want to help their wives make decisions and be involved, but they don't feel confident? Maybe they haven't done the research or they don't even know where to start. Do you have any suggestions for men if they want to be involved but just don't know what to do yet?

Mike  20:31  
I would encourage some of the things that I've just mentioned. Most of the time, men, especially if they're focusing on being providers, don't necessarily have the time to invest in doing a ton of research to get into the subject. This is where, if our wives do present us with the material, we need to really have that open mind to look at what she has, listen to it, and trust her. You also mentioned the emotional side of things. Not that men are never emotional, but women tend to be guided more emotionally, which helps with that nurturing and caretaking thing. Men are more logical for the most part. I'm not saying that women aren't logical at all, but men tend to think more about the system and efficiency, like Spock from Star Trek did. We tend to lack emotion sometimes. Sometimes, emotion is needed more than logic, and sometimes logic is needed more than emotion. This is just how we are. Once again, this is how we would come together to balance each other out. 

In relation to that, I do want to give some advice to the wives about how you can share the information with your husband. I think of the apostle Paul when he was talking about marriage, he talked to both the man and the women because I think that's needed. I don't mean to offend anybody in the things that I say, but wives, as you're presenting the information to your husband, don't disrespect him in how you are relaying the information. Like I mentioned, most of the time you're going to be the one who is more knowledgeable on the subject that you're presenting to him, but that doesn't mean he's an idiot. Keep that in mind and just try to be as respectful as you can. This goes both ways in whatever subject in general, but right now we're talking about in this particular case, be respectful in how you present. Pick a good time - don't just give him a curveball right out blue with this really deep subject that he has to make this really important decision on. "We're going to have a home birth RIGHT NOW." I encourage you to present the information with wisdom and patience. He may not have the best response right off the bat, but just do it in patience. One of the examples I looked at the Bible for a lot of different examples is that of Queen Esther. This is when her people are getting ready to be annihilated by a decision that her husband, the king, made. He had put a decree into place for the Jews. Her response was, first, praying and fasting about it before she even brought it to him. Then when she was coming to him, she didn't man bash. She didn't lead an uprising. She didn't say, "oh, that idiot." No, she didn't do that. She put on this fine apparel, something he probably really liked, and then she had a banquet. She had a banquet for him. Like, wow, what a way to present it! Then at the banquet, she treated him really nice. She didn't even bring up the subject at that first banquet. Then she had another banquet where she did the exact same thing. She got in her fine apparel and had a banquet for him. He was feeling nice and she buttered in him up really well. This is over exaggerated, but it's a good example of how to present things in wisdom and humility and patience. I think that Esther's a perfect example of that. 

Melissa Crenshaw  24:31  
And being led by Holy Spirit.

Mike  24:31  
Exactly right. God definitely in the whole process for sure. Then, at the second banquet, he was listening to whatever she had to say, and she shared the truth with him. If you read the words, it's in total kindness and respect. He's basically like, "what have I done?" Then he makes another decree where it rectifies the situation. Because of how she went about it, it saved the lives of her people. If she would have had the approach that Vashti had, who he did away with earlier, it would have been a tragic event. That's just something to keep in mind. Don't nag your husband, don't randomly throw it up to him in a bad moment. Think about your approach, especially on these more serious conversations. I think of "a soft answer turns away wrath" - come with a soft answer, come with pleasant kindness. This is a principal, in general, but most people are going to be much more responsive to someone who comes to them with that frame of mind. And then as you present him with it, maybe just start with setting articles on the table. Don't force him to read it. Put it up on the refrigerator or somewhere out and then maybe come to him and say, "Honey, I've been reading some of this, or I've watched this documentary or I would like to watch this documentary. Would you sit down with me and maybe we could have some wine or something and just watch this together?" What husband would say no to that? For me with homeopathy, Magic Pills was a neat documentary for me to see. There are other ones out there.

Melissa Crenshaw  25:15  
That's a great idea. Yeah.

Mike  26:24  
If there's other subjects that you want to go more into, whether it be vaccines or whatever, maybe watch HighWire together or something. You mentioned earlier that Lacie took your homeopathy class. Sometime later, I took your class and I really benefited! Men can take it too.

Melissa Crenshaw  26:44  
Yeah, that's right! It's so funny that you said earlier that you were in that birth circle meeting and there was supposed to be another man there, but you ended up being the only one. The same thing happened in my class. There was supposed to be another man there, but you ended up being the only one. Don't be intimidated by that. If you want to come take a homeopathy class with or separate from your wife, come and do it. If you can learn what it is that she's trying to do in your family, then you can support her better. I also loved when you said for wives bring it to your husband in a respectful way. I love the book by Dr. Eggerichs called Love and Respect. It really taught me as a woman how much my husband needs respect, but also how much I need love. He needs to love that emotional side that you were talking about, and I need to respect. When we both get what we need in that way, when I get the love that I need and he gets the respect that he needs, then we both can breathe and we can work together and thrive. I love that you brought up respect because that's something huge that I really believe in. And with anything in life, when you're bringing something to a person, the way that you do it and the timing needs to be right. If you are going to try to get him to agree to something or look into something when he's just come home from work when he's tired and he's been dealing with people all day or whatever, that may not be the best time. You've got to know in your family what that looks like. In my family, because I've been a homeopath for more than 20 years, I was already doing this before we got married, so I pretty much was set. When we talked about it before we got married, I was like, "Hey, this is what I do. This is what I believe about vaccines and health care and all the things," and he agreed. I was like, "Praise the Lord!" I mean, we were already on the same page in the beginning, so what we've done over the years is he takes care of the politics end of it because I don't have the mental capacity to pay too much attention to the politics. It's not that I'm completely blind or I don't know what's going on, but I trust him to take care of that piece. I take care of the health piece, but he also knows what I'm doing and what we're doing. He agrees with everything. We talk about decisions, but I just really love how you're encouraging men to be more involved. Is there anything else, Mike, that you want to share with us about this subject?

Mike  29:44  
Overall, and I mentioned it for the man, but for both the men and women - be mindful to move together in unity. Whatever decisions you guys are making, and there needs to be compromise here to there, but you ultimately still need to move forward together in your journey to find a way to get on the same page and be on the same plan. We just have to do that. This could be something where you spend time together, but if it's not something that the husband is necessarily super interested in, you also want to be mindful not to overwhelm him with constantly coming at him with it. It may not be a subject he wants to listen to and talk about every single conversation you have, or a majority of them. Don't do that either. Still nurture your relationship, and life should be balanced in general. That one subject shouldn't be the sole focus of your lives or existence, so keep that in mind. You need to nurture the relationship with each other in various ways. And, like you said, women need love, so men need to listen to them and express love and communication. Men need respect, like you mentioned, as well.

Melissa Crenshaw  31:08  
It's difficult. It's not a sexist, feminist thing with love and respect - it's biblical. That's the way we're all made. I love watching your YouTube and how you and Lacie work together. You two work together, and it looks like you're together as a family 24/7. You don't go off somewhere and work, so your relationship is stronger, but also, there's just that constant togetherness that a lot of us don't have. I'm just so thankful that you came and spent your time with us here today. If there's anything else that you want to share, you feel free right now.

Mike  32:02  
For me, it's been proof of God to see that when the things that he has and he says to do actually work. The sooner we realize it, the sooner we can not have chaos and confusion. It actually works. Try, like I mentioned, the Queen Esther approach. Those things work, and we'll be better off for it. Like I said, just do everything you can to be on the same page together. I know not everyone is able to spend all or most of their time together like we are on our homestead. We basically do all these different projects and we work together. At first, that's an adjustment as well, because it forces you to work out problems. You can avoid it sometimes when you work at different places. You can go off and avoid each other for a majority part of the day and just come back home and eat dinner and watch Netflix and you can avoid some problems. But overall, at the end, they will eventually come in. We are so much more concentrated that we have to deal with those issues more immediately. 

Melissa Crenshaw  33:19  
So good. Well, Mike, I appreciate your time and I can't wait to come back some other day. I've done two interviews with Mike on his YouTube channel before, so maybe we'll think of something else to bring to you all in the future. Definitely go check out his YouTube channel, Mike, The Fit Farmer. How long have y'all been doing that?

Mike  33:44  
Oh, wow. I think four years now, something like that. Over 500 videos!

Melissa Crenshaw  33:52  
Yeah, it's huge! Well, thanks so much. I'll see you soon.