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clear search termsDeep Dive on Why They Don’t Get Better: Unexpected, Practical Insights for Practitioners
Are you confident about understanding Why your patients or clients just Can’t Get Better, as seen through the functional medicine lens? Despite your best efforts?
Although you may already be a savvy practitioner, I am certain you will learn something new in this video. You’ll walk away with pages of notes and practical pearls you can use in your practice right away.
Here are some of the things we’ll be discussing:
- Ah, the revolving door of gut imbalances … think beyond the GI tract and microbes this time.
- When the true root cause of disease doesn’t even involve any anatomy?
- Replacing medications with supplements is Not functional medicine. And often doesn’t address true root causes!
- Its not about what actually happened; it’s about what you think happened?
- The #1 overlooked, insidious root cause of recurring disease – that even savvy practitioners often miss.
- Unexpected root causes in unexpected exposures.
- You’ve got to go there: who are you sleeping with?
- Are you suppressing the very thing most needed to promote healing?
Thank you very much for joining in the fun and learning!
With warmth and gratitude to you for sharing your gifts with so many –
Below, please find the first 16 minutes of this Facebook Live which was interrupted by a technical hiccup. Some powerful points covered here as well. Don’t miss out!
P.S. If you are passionate about transforming healthcare through the power of functional medicine, we encourage you to learn more about our training program here.
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Hi again! I was so excited about posting my comment that I didn’t mention what inspired me today.
It is definitely how trauma that we endure, even at such a young age, can affect us so deeply throughout our entire lives. There is so much interconnection here, and I look forward to learning so much more!
Hi Tracy, you are a pearl yourself! :)) What an inspiring lecture, I always enjoy to listen to your practical tips and insights. Thank you for the free stuff that you are sharing with all of us, it s definitely making me a better practitioner. I have recently graduated and just beginning my practice, but someone has asked me today, what my ultimate goal and dream is as a naturopathic nutrition practitioner. And my answer was – I would like to set up a clinic with a variety of practitioners, nutritionists, coaches, talk therapists, personal trainers etc – all working together to provide a comprehensive and synergistic support to our clients. I think that in many conditions (e.g. fibromyalgia, weght loss) nutrition is just not enough – people need a psychological support as well, to resolve obstacles to healing on an emotional level. So what you said today about past traumas that stop us from getting better, and your idea of a multimodality practice – both resonated with me deeply and I am so happy that you mentioned these just today, when I dared to express my secret dream for the future. I’m sending lots of love to you and… Read more »
This is so powerful. I often think that the work surrounding our mindset and belief is the most critical and lost in the hardest part. It resonated with me when you spoke about why sometimes people don’t see results is because they fear what that change might mean. What would it look like to lose weight? What would it look like to heal or be healthy? What does it look like to be successful? The unknown is scary and I think deep down within us with can’t move past our fear. Until our Why becomes stronger than our fear of becomes hard to make a change!
As a Lyme, Mold, General Health, and Brain Health Coach I have found that trauma, especially childhood sexual trauma, is very common. Actually, I have not had one client to date that has not experienced sexual abuse trauma. I have also seen clients not be able to maintain weight loss due to underlying trauma issues. Thank you for going into depth regarding this issue and bringing up the point that autoimmune issues can be a deep seated suppression of what happened to them. The brain is an amazing thing in that it can protect us from overwhelming memories, yet we were not designed to live with suppressed trauma indefinitely. We must be able to somehow address and resolve those experiences or we will be faced with a myriad of health issues. While I cannot provide mental health counseling as a brain health coach, I can use my awareness of these issues to help direct my clients to mental health services and also help them with their current and future goals in order to move forward. Your teaching on this helps health care providers and coaches to recognize this in their patients so that they can get better and have a… Read more »
As always- there were several key points so it is difficult to just pick one. Looking further upstream, specifically at immune function, absorption of key nutrients such as the Fat soluble vitamins and zinc so that the immune system can on goingly handle stressors the body is dealing with. Looking at the possibility of hypothyroidism that is not autoimmune driven but rather due to cellular function and uptake of thyroid hormones, and finally SLEEP! Just really going basic and getting people to sleep regularly and deeply and get out of sympathetic nervous system dominance!
Thank You!
Linda Downey FDN Practitioner, always looking to learn more
Hi Tracy. Always amazing to learn from you and I really appreciated your comments on trauma. Until I began working at the VA, I did not fully appreciate this as a root cause. In diving in further, It’s opened my eyes more to childhood trauma. I was talking with a psychologist about this last week- it’s no wonder these folks on antidepressants, anxiolytics and antipsychotics aren’t getting better!! (Not to mention the adverse drug reactions that occur!!)
Dear Tracy,
Thank you so much for your recent insightful and inspiring FB live presentation. I appreciate the reminders about how important it is to acknowledge all aspect of our patients/clients (physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual)
I am a registered acupuncturist and TCM practitioner in Toronto, CA. I also have a background in functional medicine and nutrition. The longer I am in practice, the more I am realizing how past trauma and spiritual imbalance is associated with my patients’ chronic conditions.
Your breakdown of thyroid imbalance on a cellular and metabolic level was super profound for me to hear. i am inspired to look beyond the thyroid data of my patients, and instead work on reducing inflammation and working on helping my patients stay predominately in a parasympathetic state.
I’ve listened to a few of your FB lives over the past year and I can say that every one of them has been very valuable.
Thank you for providing this valuable education for health practitioners!
My biggest take away is around childhood trauma and how may still be affecting someone health!
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I was inspired by the notion that sometimes the limiting factor to truly healing is well covered by a psychological injury, a memory or feeling that has been consciously suppressed but is holding us/the client back. It reaffirms the notion that the work needed to heal has to be holistic and it needs to reach the root.
Really helpful info, Tracy. I am wondering what you feel works best to help clients (in general, of course) with their history of trauma: EMDR, EFT, other? It just makes sense that we need to work with the whole person, thanks!
I loved the interconnected of the nervous system with the immune system and how there is so much there that effect like stress, trauma, and thoughts. I don’t think this is addressed enough. I would love to learn more about why kids are being born with immune system and nervous system issues and strategies to help them overcome it to balance out their systems to not live with chronic illness.
I love the conversation around thyroid. Even though the lab numbers of TSH, FT4, FT3 may indicate a person has an optimized thyroid, they may still be experiencing symptoms of hypothyroidism. It’s important to pay attention to symptoms and continue to look further upstream at what might be at play–maybe gut infections, low cortisol, maybe there is a belief they don’t deserve to feel better. There’s always a connection to every symptom in the Body.
I was really inspired by the topic of childhood trauma. I’m working with several clients who have experienced this and can see how this has such a tremendous impact on their health and their ability to get and stay well. Thank you!
I have of couple of takeaways…
1) Now that I have a bit of knowledge under my belt, thanks to SAFM, I feel my insights and education about the revolving door of disease are improving. I am constantly fighting using my conventional approach while trying to implement the foundations of functional medicine. When Tracy was speaking about finding the root cause and going further upstream in the case of malabsorption/infection/immune dysfunction it resonated with me because I struggle to reboot and think about cause instead of trying to treat symptoms.
2) concerning treating trauma… This was powerful! Particularly in regards to drawings. Many times as practitioners we occasionally bring our histories and ways of coping with us… unfortunately. Coming from a background where “what happens at home stays at home” and you just suck it up and deal and get on and pretend everything is ok, “don’t be weak”, you would think I would know better than to not question reasons for anxiety, depression, etc. I needed to be checked on this.
There were a couple of things I found in this facebook live that helped deepen my insight into how to help my patients 1) People who have fatty liver, insulin resistance, are on 2, 4, 10 drugs, will have problems converting T4 to T3 hormone. I had never thought of that, but totally makes sense that the liver prioritizes detoxing all these other things instead of using energy to change T4 to T3. As Tracy always says, the body will prioritize living (aka detoxing the worst things) over thriving, so the liver will make enough T3 to function, but not enough to THRIVE, which then can cause all sorts of hypothyroid symptoms. 2) The interesting research coming out on ACEs and how that affects the brain and primes the brain to be quick to jump into “fight-or-flight” mode when something minorly stressful happens later in life. I know this has to be at play with a lot of my patients. Some of those patients I know suffered abuse or neglect, but a lot of my patients have not opened that side of their lives yet. I have been thinking about implementing the ACE questionnaire to my patients to start to… Read more »
Your words are inspiring. I was very interested in what you shared on how past trauma can unconsciously direct our ability to sustain wellness and it leads me to wonder something. I know a patient who has had two liver transplants due to autoimmune disease, who also suffers from multiple other autoimmune conditions. This person also has trauma in the past, as well as from the disease process. Where do we start with addressing the multiple issues surrounding this persons immune system as well as their mind body connection? I have so much to learn!
One thing that resonated with me on a deep and emotional level was not being able to lose weight as a result of trauma. I was raped at gunpoint in my own home at the age of 27. I started to gain weight at the age of 30,then went on to have 2 beautiful children. My weight increased by 250 pounds!
Every time I would lose weight, whenever someone would compliment me, I would backslide and gain more weight than I lost. So, now I understand why.
I have two clients that I look forward to talking with them about childhood issues as they are both obese and have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder yet I feel in my gut that it’s in their gut and Per haps this childhood trauma. Thank you again for more pearls that I can use in my practice; helping people those I serve.
Hello Tracy!
Today was my first time joining your Facebook live and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I shared it with my classmates from IIN (Institute for Integrative Nutrition) as we are all on our way to becoming holistic health coaches.
Thank you for your insight and wisdom!
Kristine
What inspired me most today:
Childhood trauma is deeply embedded in our physiology. Our brain protects us with respect to conscious recall, however, our subconscious memories can be toxic to our health and wellness goals. Mental and emotional processes need to be explored to reach and sustain optimal wellness.
Thank you for another wildly informative monthly session!