Discover the transformative power of intuitive eating with Laura Heflin, a certified holistic nutrition and wellness consultant, as she shares her compelling journey from struggling with an eating disorder to advocating for a balanced, vibrant life. Laura opens up about how she shifted from restrictive diets to embracing whole foods, abandoning the scale, and learning to heed her body’s natural hunger cues. Her story is not just inspiring but also a treasure trove of practical advice for anyone looking to improve their relationship with food and overall well-being.
Unveil the secrets of intuitive eating, a non-diet approach centered around honoring your body’s needs without judgment. Laura and I explore effective tools for assessing how food impacts your energy, digestion, mood, and mental clarity. We share personal anecdotes, like identifying the effects of specific foods on conditions such as estrogen dominance, to highlight the benefits of this mindful approach. Additionally, we delve into how even everyday items like hand soap can disrupt your hormones and health, and why grounding practices can be essential for reducing inflammation and enhancing overall health.
Balance and empowerment are key themes as we navigate the intersection of holistic health and modern medicine. Laura reveals her own experiences with postpartum depression, miscarriages, and autoimmune challenges, emphasizing the importance of listening to your body and addressing underlying causes. This episode encourages questioning medical advice, embracing lifestyle changes, and rejecting the normalization of pain and discomfort. We wrap up with heartfelt gratitude to our listeners, urging everyone to take new insights from our discussion to wake up and thrive in their own lives. Don’t forget to rate, review, and share for more empowering episodes!
If you want to inquire about coaching and receiving support in helping you create stronger connections to yourself, your purpose, and those in your life email me your story here....bridget@findherwildcoaching.com
FREE masterclass: 3 Skills necessary to create intimacy in your marriage. Watch it here. Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching Check out my website and my offerings here
Discover the transformative power of intuitive eating with Laura Heflin, a certified holistic nutrition and wellness consultant, as she shares her compelling journey from struggling with an eating disorder to advocating for a balanced, vibrant life. Laura opens up about how she shifted from restrictive diets to embracing whole foods, abandoning the scale, and learning to heed her body’s natural hunger cues. Her story is not just inspiring but also a treasure trove of practical advice for anyone looking to improve their relationship with food and overall well-being.
Unveil the secrets of intuitive eating, a non-diet approach centered around honoring your body’s needs without judgment. Laura and I explore effective tools for assessing how food impacts your energy, digestion, mood, and mental clarity. We share personal anecdotes, like identifying the effects of specific foods on conditions such as estrogen dominance, to highlight the benefits of this mindful approach. Additionally, we delve into how even everyday items like hand soap can disrupt your hormones and health, and why grounding practices can be essential for reducing inflammation and enhancing overall health.
Balance and empowerment are key themes as we navigate the intersection of holistic health and modern medicine. Laura reveals her own experiences with postpartum depression, miscarriages, and autoimmune challenges, emphasizing the importance of listening to your body and addressing underlying causes. This episode encourages questioning medical advice, embracing lifestyle changes, and rejecting the normalization of pain and discomfort. We wrap up with heartfelt gratitude to our listeners, urging everyone to take new insights from our discussion to wake up and thrive in their own lives. Don’t forget to rate, review, and share for more empowering episodes!
If you want to inquire about coaching and receiving support in helping you create stronger connections to yourself, your purpose, and those in your life email me your story here....bridget@findherwildcoaching.com
FREE masterclass: 3 Skills necessary to create intimacy in your marriage. Watch it here. Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching Check out my website and my offerings here
Speaker 1:
Hi, my name is Bridget and this is my podcast, wake Up and Thrive.
Speaker 2:
My intention for this space is to help women around the world, live more awake, aligned and truly alive.
Speaker 1:
I believe wholeheartedly that we are designed to live, feel and experience the full range that life has to offer, and in doing so we can live fully turned on in all areas.
Speaker 2:
My story began with sobriety and has since been an initiation into rediscovering parts of myself that I forgot about or had abandoned, learning to reclaim all of who I am has been the greatest gift of living awake and together we will go on a journey of helping you to do the same you can expect to learn practical tools to help you connect deeper to yourself, your purpose and those in your life All you need is an open heart and an open mind. So if you're ready, it's time.
Speaker 1:
It's time to wake up and thrive.
Speaker 2:
Hello everyone and welcome back to another amazing conversation here on Wake Up and Thrive with my friend and my personal nutritionist, laura Heflin. Laura Heflin is the wife hello, hello. The wife a mom of two, certified nutrition and wellness consultant, three-time published author and podcaster. She is the founder of Live Healthy with Laura, a nutritional consulting company here in my hometown, and it's company here in my hometown, and it's all based on intuitive living, so I'm really excited to have you here, laura.
Speaker 2:
I want to give my brief introduction on how we know each other and then I'll let you start. Yeah, okay, so Laura and I met, actually locally. She has been a godsend to me on my journey and trying to uncover the root cause for some health skin challenges that I've been facing over the last few months, and if any of you guys can relate listening, if you guys have been on a similar journey, then you know how difficult that journey can be and how frustrating it can be at times. So having someone like Laura, who is an amazing wealth of knowledge but also understands the practicality of making changes, is so, so helpful. So I'm just I'm so excited to share her magic with you guys and she, yeah. So, without further ado, laura, welcome. So glad that you're here.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. This is a nice change of pace. I'm recording my own podcast.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm going to. We're going to do another interview on Laura's podcast this summer. So, laura, why don't we start with you telling my audience your story about who you are and why you are so passionate about helping women transform their relationship with food and their bodies and really lead this intuitive so my name is Laura Heflin and, as she said, I'm a certified holistic nutrition and wellness consultant.
Speaker 3:
My journey started off very rocky. I was 19 and battling an eating disorder, incredibly disconnected from my body, and was unfortunately living based on a number on a scale and letting that tell me my self-worth day after day. And it wasn't until I hit rock bottom and I was unable to literally get out of bed or I was hardly able to get out of bed, I was not able to show up for my life that I realized I had really walked down a path that had led me to a place I wasn't proud of. I wasn't able to enjoy my life, and so I knew I had to make another. I had to turn another direction if I was going to, you know, get out of bed, if I was going to keep going to work and if I was going to be able to you know, live my life with energy. And so I started um from scratch. I didn't know what else to do, but go back to eating as I did as a child and you know and eating whole foods. I really went back to the basics. I remember literally Googling what does a woman need to feel her best. Like what is a 19 year old woman need? How many you know how many grams of protein, what type of foods? Like? I didn't know where to start. I was so lost. I had lost my menstrual cycle completely. I was in a really horrible place mentally and I I didn't even know the first question to ask, much less ask my body.
Speaker 3:
So, um, what I slowly started doing was just implementing back whole foods, like I said, okay, I'm just going to eat foods from the grounds, fruits from nature. My body can recognize. I'm going to throw out the scale, I'm going to throw out the numbers and I'm just going to try to ask my body questions. Because I came across this whole thing of intuitive living. I remember reading about it one day and thinking, well, huh, like that's interesting. I've never asked my body what it needed. I didn't even know that was a way of living and I've just always gone off of what others have told me I needed.
Speaker 3:
So over time I started gaining back my strength. I regained my menstrual cycle, my hormones balanced, my mental health recalibrated, you know, and because of my passion that grew in this department, my husband saw me just so excited and feeling better. I was already in the medical field, working for my father, who's a family physician, and he said you're already working in an office that could use you. Why don't you just get certified and go help others? And so I've been working with my dad for 14 years as his nutritionist in his office and now he's with another location, but I'm here at Naturally radiant working twice a week and I'm couldn't be happier.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, I don't know if I knew that part of your story about the eating disorder. So, thank you.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it was it was a year of. It wasn't um ever to the place where I had to get hospitalized, but it got to a place where I was I I ended up very sick mentally and physically. So it was a. It was a year. Thankfully didn't go on longer than that. I know many others struggle for longer, but God got ahold of me before that and, thankfully so, I was able to find healing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but it also. It also really makes sense because I have texted you multiple times throughout this journey of like it's not working, things aren't working, they're taking forever and you definitely um have that personal knowing of I know how frustrating this journey can be.
Speaker 3:
It is frustrating and I think you know we want. I think our culture has done us a disservice because we believe that healing should be a rapid fire experience where, unfortunately, if it's not always, but it's always worth it in the end. I can always say that that the work behind the scenes is not glorious. At times it can be upsetting and frustrating, but in the end, not living in a doctor's office, not being in bed exhausted and having the energy to live your life that payoff is worth gold, so it's always worth it in the end.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. Why don't we go backward? Let's go back a little bit and I would love you to just explain for anyone listening that may not know. Like, what is your definition of intuitive eating? Oh, did we lose connection? Nope, I got you now. Can you hear me? Are you there? I'm here.
Speaker 3:
I see you. I think we lost connection for one minute. Do you see me?
Speaker 2:
Okay, laura, so let's go backwards. For anyone listening that might not know, one of the reasons I came to you was because of your knowledge and intuitive eating, um, and with my background in all the work that I do with somatic work and embodiment, like, I know how important and how individualistic, like healing must be, um. So why don't you explain, can you, can you share, like, your definition of intuitive eating and why you think that that really like beats, I guess, is the only word I can think of, but beats any diet or fad or trend out there?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so it's actually quite the opposite of any diet. It's a non-dieters approach, a non-dieting approach to eating, to living. So it's not just in the kitchen. I take intuitive living to every department in our life, but when it comes to eating, so it's not just in the kitchen. I take intuitive living to every department in our life, but when it comes to eating, it's basically um, what we do is what I do is I teach clients and I've taught myself to learn cues, to, to, to understand what my body's saying and to actually um, ask my body questions and evaluate my body without judgment or fear. And I always say that.
Speaker 3:
I think that, again, our culture has told us what is right or what is wrong, that we've completely lost faith in our own bodies, and so I believe in honoring our hunger, I believe in answering, listening to our body and taking care of its needs, and not putting our body in this box of how we should be day in and day out. We're not robotic. I'm not the same as you, you're not the same as me, and I think you know it's a lot. It's about asking your body questions and it's about it's not one thing.
Speaker 3:
I think people get wrong when they hear intuitive eating. They think it's just eating whatever you want, all day long, whenever you want. It's not that because you are honoring your body and loving your body in the process. It's not eating on impulse. Instead, the way I like to describe it is you pause, you ask your body, you know what is my body asking, you evaluate. So you pause, you evaluate, then you react by eating right, by feeding your body what your body is intuitively asking. And then, after that fact, you ask your body well, how did that make me feel? So, within an hour of eating, something we can gauge and we can see if we have an inflammatory response. We can gauge our energy, we can gauge our digestive track, right, like we can gauge where we're at.
Speaker 3:
And so really, it's just when it comes to intuitive eating, it's we want to feel our best, we want to reach optimal health. So it's not people you know be like oh, I just intuitively, I'm just going to eat cupcakes all day. No, that wouldn't be honoring our body, because if you tuned into your body, you would see that wouldn't make you feel good in the end. So it's kind of a, it's a circular motion, right, where you learn to know what your body loves and what it doesn't love over a period of time. And again back to your what you said earlier it's not, it's not overnight and it does take time, but the payoff is so worth it because once you develop those neural pathways and you get to know what your body's asking, you get to know, you understand what it feels to feel good. You know what it feels like to not feel good then. So it's kind of like riding a bike and once you have it, you have it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah yeah. I want to share one of the tools that you had me do was you had me set an alarm on my phone, I think it was. It was either an hour after I ate or when we started like. This is my favorite part about your approach.
Speaker 3:
It was one, I think it was one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we do one hour after what were the things we were checking? Again, it was energy.
Speaker 3:
So you want to do? Well, oh, this is the body scan first thing in the morning. Is that what you're referring to? So that's what you, when you wake up, you want to do, the same time every day, where you ask yourself how did I sleep? Where's my energy? How is my digestion today? Um, stress level and um, did I say energy? Hold on, I'm missing one Energy, sleep, mood and mental clarity. Yeah, mood and mental clarity. So, basically, you gauge where you're at in those five areas and then you can continue.
Speaker 2:
But no, yeah. And then you basically like, if I, if I'm low in any of them, she would have me go back through, you know, my, my, my food log. Or just like, think back to what I ate an hour before and it will reflect. Yeah, yeah, it will reflect. And I, the thing that I was the most surprised about is I've known for a very long time I should I'm saying should with air quotes be gluten free. But when I came to Laura, one of the things I told her, for example this is just one of the many things I've learned from you is I'm like, yeah, I'm gluten free. And I said something about like chickpea pasta.
Speaker 2:
And she made a comment of like yes, that's gluten free and there was something else that we were working on. It's estrogenic. Yeah, it was estrogenic. Yeah, exactly, so I have estrogen dominance or I'm estrogen dominant, which a lot of us are, that's probably the conversation.
Speaker 2:
But that was interesting to me because it falls under the umbrella of gluten free, and so I thought, oh yeah, I'm totally fine. And then Laura was like have you done your body scan? Because and I'll let you kind of take it away, but I just thought- that was interesting, that that specific food group doesn't always agree with.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, we've lost faith in our bodies and because we get in such a rut and the diet culture has told us what to eat, we no longer ask our body well, how do you feel? And when you eat that? And so within an hour, yes, we can totally gauge where we're at. But also, I recommend a full body scan once a day. It takes literally three minutes where you pick the same time every day. I like to do it, um, in the morning, and I asked my body these questions. And if I'm feeling off, um, I'll share a story in a moment explaining why I'm always.
Speaker 3:
We're all on our own journey. I do this every single day, but if I'm feeling off, then I don't just continue with my day. I take, I take the time to go back with a fine tooth comb and say what did I eat, what did I not eat, how much time did I get out in nature, what toxic person did I pick up the phone for? How much sleep did I get or not get? And then I piece it together. So, instead of this inflammation or this issue building up in my body and getting to a place that blows up. I deal with it head on, um, and I get to know my body and I mean I've had clients with crazy breakthroughs say I had no clue that this one food was triggering my migraines until I did the body scan, um, and started asking my body questions like there's going to be foods that are, yes, they're in a healthy category, but it doesn't mean your body doesn't have a hypersensitivity to them for whatever reason. Right, we're all made up uniquely. So the other day, do you want to share a personal story? Okay, so just to share that. We're all on our own journey and nobody has it all. I do this every day. I was feeling like a crazy mess, like very irritable, and last this is last week and I'm like what in the world is triggering my hormone imbalance? I feel off, I feel inflamed, my gut's doing a little weird thing.
Speaker 3:
Well, I had gone shopping with my daughter and picked up a new line of soaps believe it or not, dish soap, just that were. It was an organic brand, but I'm not going to throw them under the bus, but they were loaded with phytoestrogens. But I did not see that at the time because I was shopping quickly. I did. I was like, oh, it doesn't have the main ones, I'm going to keep it. Smelled like heaven, smelled like spring, anyways.
Speaker 3:
It impacted my hormones and my gut for seven days, and but I had to pause and say wait a minute, something is, something has changed. I brought something into my home or into my life or into my body that has impacted me and I'm not going to just keep going until I figure out what it is. And then, of course, I brought it into naturally radiant. They tested it on me. They said, oh, your body hates this. And I literally was just washing dishes with it and using my hand soap, but it was loaded with a plant estrogen that was really causing inflammation in my body. And so all that to say it's not just what you eat. It can be things you're exposed to, but this is just to show you like it is so powerful. And if I had kept going I would have still been a crazy mess. So it's, you know, it's one of those things that we need to tune out the noise from the outside world and tune in to ourselves.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. And I love that you encourage the body scanning, because what I have found on my journey is, the more that I do the body scanning, or the mindfulness or the meditation I start to pick up on, I can tell like a week and a half before I'm going to get my period, when I'm about to start to notice things that are moving or things off when I really couldn't before, or you know I'll be at dinner with my husband and I'm like nope, that didn't agree with me.
Speaker 2:
And he's like there's no way you can tell. I'm like, yes, I can tell, like my body, I can tell, um, but I I think that that goes back to doing the body scan every single day, proactively, just getting to know your body, getting to, to, to, to understand the language of your body.
Speaker 3:
It's so true and, like you said, people joke with me like Laura, you've turned me into a microchip and I always say, actually we're the blessed ones because really, when we're in tune to our body and we can pinpoint something within an hour of it entering our body or us being exposed to it, because we are that in tune to our body, we end up not dealing with the aftermath effect of you know, I used to deal with panic attacks or crazy rashes and things that would happen, because I didn't tune into that inflammatory response and I would just let it build. So it's one of those. It's actually a blessing to be able to be that in tuned and it does take. It's it's, it's a, it's an art that's learned, you know, but it's a beautiful one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I think, especially for women like we talk about this a lot on the podcast walking around from the neck up and have this disconnection right From our body. So I our first meeting, when you told me to body scan, I think I looked at you and was like I knew I liked you.
Speaker 3:
I'm a little, you know I'm hippie. I'm the nutritional consultant That'll be dressed up, but then I'll take my shoes off and go out in the grass Like I. I am very like, I look put together, but I'm also like I would just love to lay in the grass like and be one with the earth. I'm very hippie in that way and I think that the nature has has so many healing properties.
Speaker 2:
Actually, will you share that Cause? I thought that was. That was the other reason. I just absolutely loved you, as you were like okay, yeah, when one of the things I was working on early on was stopping coffee. And there was two things that you did that were amazing. First of all, like I think most nutritionists would have been like, oh, coffee for the GI thing that I was working on in the skin issue, like coffee was just really bad. But Laura didn't start there. Laura wasn't like no, no, no, no, no, Just cut out completely caffeine. Like you shouldn't have it. She actually gave me like an alternative one to try, and then she told me I want you to set your alarm. When do you typically grab your second cup of coffee? And I was like two o'clock, three o'clock, Then I'll let you take it from there. She said set your alarm and label it for grounding how that can help your intuitive.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so there's a negative electrical charge in the earth surface. You know, we're all electrical beings and it's in the same way that if we don't plug in our cell phones they're not going to charge, Right, and we are electrical beings and we need energy input, not just output, all day long. And so what's happening is we're so disconnected from the earth because we live in homes and we wear shoes and you know, our ancestors used to live in one in connection, in tandem with the earth, touching the earth and um, and they weren't as sick chronically, chronically as sick as we are. And inflammation builds and builds and builds unless we give it a place to deplete itself, and the by grounding barefoot, actually instantly.
Speaker 3:
I just had a Dr Laura Conover on the podcast. She's the founder of Conductive Medicine, but she, you know, is so amazing and really truly follow her practices, because instantly we lower inflammation but we recharge every cell in our body. And so when we would go reach for the second cup of coffee, why not just go fix the root of the issue, that our cells are probably drained of energy? We've gone for all those hours supporting others, right, or maybe coming into contact with some toxins. You know that are unavoidable things like that. Why not go recharge for five minutes barefoot? And you saw a difference, didn't you?
Speaker 2:
I did see a difference. I did see a difference. Yeah, I still, I still, I still drink caffeine, but not in the afternoon anymore.
Speaker 3:
Not in the afternoon. It replaced it for me two years ago and so again it's back to. But if you hadn't asked your body questions like oh, how do I feel? You might not have even noticed that grounding made a difference. Right, it's like or caffeine was making me feel jittery. It's just about taking the moment to pause, you know, and our culture doesn't teach us to pause and ask questions. There's just so much noise and so we've lost complete faith in ourselves, and I just really try to give every client and listener and reader, whoever they're connected to me like, the power back right. I want to empower them to ask them their own body questions.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and actually that's my next question is what do you think? For me, the hardest part of the journey has been creating that new habit of like tuning into my body, cause it's so easy to just eat on the go, eat in the car when I'm getting my kids, and just move on to the next thing and not actually take the time. Um, for you, working with all the clients over the last year, it's like what is the hardest part about transitioning away from diet culture fad dieting or whatever to intuitive living and intuitive eating.
Speaker 3:
So I'm a visual person. I like to picture it like well, first of all, we don't have trust in ourselves and I really want to just say that again, we don't. We have tuned out our own bodies for so long and the diet culture has you know, with all the Tik TO and reels and you know everything. We're constantly flooded with information overload. This is one of the reasons I delete social media for 48 hours every every Friday afternoon. I don't get it back till Monday morning. Too much noise, even if it's positives, I don't want to see it. It's too much information overload, because the more information overload we have, the less connected we're going to be with our own body and our own intuition.
Speaker 3:
But the reason I think it's so difficult is we it's been a learned. It's a learned process, right, like we're like always listening to others. It's like a child that is afraid to go into the water. They don't know they can trust themselves, they don't know that they can swim right until they get in the water and then they feel like I'm paddling oh, my head's above water. I can do this, but it just takes time. Really.
Speaker 3:
It's like when I've had clients, you know, with eating disorders, or clients that have been doing, you know, certain things weighing their food, and they are so entrusted into numbers, to such a degree, that they wouldn't even, they don't even know the first question to ask, in the same way I didn't. So I think it's just our culture has done us a disservice and we don't know. We don't know that we can trust ourselves. But really, all the answers, I believe God has implanted them within we. Actually he will guide us with our intuition on on what questions to ask and how to follow suit. But we have to stop looking outward. Instead we need to start looking inward.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. If someone's listening today and they're like, okay, I either A want to work with Laura or B just start like living intuitively, how would someone even just get started?
Speaker 3:
Well, if you want to work with me, you can contact, naturally, radiant, and here in Fredericksburg, virginia, I also have a podcast, the live healthy with Laura podcast, on Apple and Spotify, and that's I talk about intuitive eating and living all day long. Well, every Monday is an episode, um, and you know. I would say, though, that, like all of that aside, just every time you eat a meal, pause and ask your body simply, a few minutes later, how do I feel? Do the body scan? Check in with your body every morning If something feels off, don't continue with your day.
Speaker 3:
Love yourself enough to say wait, I'm going to go figure out why there's a glitch in my system. And by doing that over time, you know it's again. It's not the marathon you sign up for, it's not these big life changes, it's those little tweaks in our day. By doing that over time, day after day, year after year, you become a whole new version of yourself, like you elevate to a whole new level and you're optimally healthy, but it's nobody ever did it for you. You can feel so empowered because you truly did that for yourself, simply by tuning in and asking questions and letting the judgment go fall to the wayside, you know. So yeah, just keep. Just start your day off with how am I doing, and after you eat, how am I feeling. Simply put, it is.
Speaker 2:
It is simple. I mean it is really easy.
Speaker 3:
It sounds simple but it's not simple if you've never done it, and I want to let everybody know here, listening, that I see you and I don't want you to feel like a failure if you're trying it out and you're like I again back to that child that doesn't know they can paddle, they can swim, they're afraid, you're afraid. That's normal, but it takes about 21 days to form a new neural pathway. So give yourself some time and, um, I think you're going to start seeing that it's actually very doable and you're going to, you're going to thrive, you really well.
Speaker 2:
Okay, sorry, we were having some technical difficulties, but you were saying it. It takes time and just really and that, to trust your body and trust the process.
Speaker 3:
It's not going to be learned overnight and it's like riding a bike. Over time You'll start realizing oh, my body's telling me this, my body's telling me to not eat this or to eat this, or my body's telling me to move in this way, or or go to sleep at this time, or or or to get off social media like little. Uh, your, your nervous system will, will tell you, your body will tell you, and it's a beautiful relationship we can actually form with our body, when we learn to trust our body.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's funny, I was always called highly sensitive when I was little, but the actual word of sensitive means like I can feel.
Speaker 3:
I'm, you're in, you're in tuned, and people look at that as a negative. It's a positive. Actually, I would rather be a microchip and know my body is telling me something than not know at all.
Speaker 2:
Agreed, Agreed. So I want to ask you one last question, and then I'll sort of um hand it off to you if there's anything else you'd like to share. But another thing that I really loved about working with you you said your dad was a family practice physician, and so I know that you utilize Western medicine.
Speaker 1:
You're not against Western medicine, can you?
Speaker 2:
just like speak a little bit to kind of your 80-20 rule, but also when it comes to using Western medicine and then also doing a more natural approach.
Speaker 3:
Sure. So I was on medication myself for my own mental health a few years ago. I was not in a good place. I had really horrible postpartum depression. I had several miscarriages and losses and traumas in my life that I had buried, like I had not dealt with, and my nervous system was very taxed.
Speaker 3:
And so I am a big believer that holistically, there's a lot we can do, a lot we can absolutely do. I'm no longer on medication, but there's also that 20%. I believe, like there's a time that I do believe God leads us to medication and it's provided. We're in an amazing, we live in an amazing modern day world that it's available to us. So I take the approach of I'm going to do everything holistically I possibly can first, and then, hey, you know, if I need the antibiotic, I'm going to have the antibiotic. You know, if I need the, if I need the antidepressant, I'll take it. Um, but you know the beautiful thing is back to intuitive living.
Speaker 3:
I do believe for the most part I could have avoided some of the medication in my life if I had been more in tune in the first place and given my body what it needed.
Speaker 3:
Again, I let, I buried a lot in my life, throughout the years until I, you know, became certified and learned what I know now that I teach, and I think it had some repercussions. And so if I had, you know, listened to how caffeine made me feel and how it felt to stay up late and not sleep, and how I felt skipping breakfast, if I had paid attention to that, I think I would have had more, you know, progesterone and serotonin, and maybe not had been at such a deficit, but I didn't know. And so again, um, I think that there's a place for it a hundred percent. But you trust your body first, ask your body questions. Um, don't be afraid to ask questions to your doctor as well. Um, that's what they're there for to answer your questions. So you're allowed to take ownership of your health and ask questions if you're not comfortable with what they're telling you. So it's all about feeling empowered to know you're allowed to speak up for your body.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I love that approach because they're definitely I mean, I know, with my journey like I needed a certain cream for my skin because it had just gotten so bad and it was. It was almost to the point where it was embarrassing for me. So when I reached out to Laura I did sort of feel like, oh my God, I'm such a failure and she's like there is a time and place, like we're doing the background work, we're doing the work to uncover the cause.
Speaker 3:
I really battle psoriasis in the spring when my histamine flares up from living in Virginia you know one of the States in the U? S that's the hardest to live in with our seasonal allergies, and I have my own. I have my own autoimmune issues and so I actually have um, I have a dermatology I'm sorry, dermatologist. I have a cream for my dermatologist on hand for moments that I just the flare up is too much for me to handle and I have no shame behind it. I think it's all about loving your body's, letting go of shame, judgment or fear, and that includes when I need a little boost. You know I'll. I need a little boost. You know, once in a while if I need a Benadryl, I'll take a Benadryl if I can't handle the histamine load.
Speaker 3:
But in general, I would say 80% of the time I'm able to do a lot holistically. But there is no shame when we need extra help Absolutely not, and so that's the beautiful relationship I have with my dad who you know instead of him, just like putting somebody on cholesterol meds, he'll say go see my daughter for three months. I really bet you could do something with your diet and totally avoid these medications and you don't. Then there's people that have genetic high cholesterol level. Genetically their cholesterol levels are high, and so again, it's just an individual based situation. But yeah, there's so much we can do, but there's no shame.
Speaker 2:
I love that approach though. That's like a real life approach and and super, super practical. So is there anything else that you? I know we could go into, like so many different topics, but I think leaving it sort of general and overview of just introducing intuitive living is going to be really helpful for my listeners. But is there anything else that you have found in your work or your own journey?
Speaker 3:
I just think that we need to stop normalizing pain or discomfort or hormonal imbalances, gut discomfort, skin rashes, anything like that that we're told to accept as normal. You know, you're in menopause, you're going to feel this way, you're going to just be miserable. Here's, you know, deal with it. I don't believe in misery as being part of that should not be accepted in any way, shape or form. And so I just will always challenge every listener, reader, client, friend to rise above that belief that our world has told us we must believe like this, this, this approach of you know, just deal with it and roll over and play dead just until it's over.
Speaker 3:
I disagree. I believe that if something is off and we're living intuitively in our body, saying hey, something's off, back to last week, feeling like really irritable and snappy, and realizing, okay, something's off, I'm not going to keep living this way, um, you know, know, I will. I believe in loving ourselves enough to take a nosedive and doing the work to figure out what is off, because nobody should accept the life that's beneath them, living in misery, and so I just want to put that out there. You know, let's not normalize pain, let's not normalize hormonal imbalances, let's not normalize depression, discomfort. It's a symptom that our body is bringing to the surface to alert us of something that is just not right, and we can choose to love our body enough to pay attention and figure out what's happening.
Speaker 2:
I love that. I am glad that you brought that up because I see that a lot in my work at the hospital as well, with pregnancy and postpartum and just-.
Speaker 3:
Because you're a lactation.
Speaker 2:
Postpartum nurse oh, a postpartum nurse.
Speaker 3:
I'm sorry, that's right Okay.
Speaker 2:
But you're absolutely right. I mean, even with lactation and nursing babies and pain is not. It might be common but it's not normal. So I love that you said that.
Speaker 3:
It's not normal, but our culture and there's lots of reels out there that wants to make poke fun at tired, exhausted moms with depression and I just I'm, I'm very insulted by them. Actually, I think that it's not right we should be uplifting moms and challenging them to go do whatever they have to do to to reclaim their health for sure and reclaim the trust that they once had in their, with their bodies be at home in your body.
Speaker 3:
You should feel at home in your body, not like a complete stranger to your body, and that's the goal of intuitive living.
Speaker 2:
I love that. To create the, create a good relationship with your body, yeah, yeah. So, laura, thank you so much for all of your wisdom. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, Now I would love. I know not all of my listeners live locally, so is there any? Is there an opportunity for people to work with you virtually?
Speaker 3:
I'm virtual, just not in the summer, with my littles being home. I'm here at the office twice a week. I'm actually radiant, but I am Wednesdays. I'm virtually. But then also I think the closest thing to me for anybody worldwide is the podcast, because I do share what I teach on there Obviously not an individual base, but you get a lot of the Live Health with Laura brand on the Live Health with Laura podcast. So I think anybody that's wanting to get to know more of my belief system that would be a great place to go.
Speaker 2:
Amazing. Yeah, I will link all of that in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, I'm just super grateful for you being on this journey with me and then spending your time here with us.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for having me. Sorry about our connection issues.
Speaker 1:
We're all good, all right. Thanks so much. You're welcome. That wraps up this episode today. I hope you learned something new and or are able to take away a fresh perspective to apply to the moments in your life. Remember to rate the podcast, share it with someone you love or leave a review. I'm always grateful for your time and I'm always rooting for you to wake up and thrive. I'll see you guys next week.
