How to Reclaim Your Vitality by Discovering Meaning and Purpose in Your Life?

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hello, everyone, welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition summit. I’m your host, Dr. Sharon Stills, always a pleasure to be here and spend this time with you, where we are having these life-changing, mind-opening conversations to help you on your hormonal journey. And today I have a very special friend and colleague with me, and we’re gonna get inspired, we’re gonna talk about the coaching field, we’re gonna talk about psychology, we’re just gonna have, I feel like you should grab a cup of tea, if it’s chilly where you are, grab a blankie, and just kind of cuddle up, ’cause we’re gonna have some girlfriend chat time. And my guest today to do that with is Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, and she trains people to become functional medicine health coaches, and she helps practitioners and businesses hire them, because she believes that the health coach as behavior change specialist is key to combating chronic disease and reducing healthcare costs. As founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, a collaboration with the Institute for Functional Medicine, she is a leader in the field of health coaching education. She’s an educator and a licensed clinical psychologist for over 40 years, and she is the author of How To Become A Health Coach: The Career That Can Bring People Joy,” “Functional Medicine Coaching,” and “Stop Panic Attacks in 10 Easy Steps.” And she’s proud to serve as a member of the Forbes Business Council. So you are living, breathing evidence here, proud to have an amazing second sacred act of your life. So welcome to the summit. It’s so nice to have you here.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

It’s a delight to be here, and thank you for that wonderful introduction.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Oh, my pleasure, I’m so excited to go to all these places with you today. So I guess, just tell us your story, how did you end up doing what you’re doing and starting a company at the age of, I believe 65. And so you are what we talk about here, how this is really this opportunity, I say to pause and really evaluate your life and see where it’s been, where you are, where you wanna go. And so, we have like life proof right here.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Well, I’ve had many, many pauses, so where I ended up is not where I began. It reminds me of a lyric from “Fiddler on the Roof,” “If you didn’t have a man,” anyways, I’m always, everything is musical theater with me. But so I started out as most people do, if you were female in the ’60s, your choices were, you could be a nurse, you could be a teacher, you could be a secretary. Well, I chose to be a teacher, and I eventually became a special education teacher. I spent a lot of time at colleges, teaching people to become special education teachers, I ran clinics for kids with attention deficit disorder. And early on, we’re talking in the ’70s, I was starting to get so interested in mind body medicine. 

Now mind you, there was no name for it back then, we didn’t really talk about mind body medicine, it was very, very new, but that inspired me to leave education and get a doctorate as a psychologist. And at the time it was a very traditional, in many ways still is, world in psychology. And so, I took a different path, I specialized in mind body practices, and what also didn’t have a name back then, which was positive psychology, and started to merge those methodologies and worked for many years as a health psychologist. So what that meant was that rather than seeing just people who had emotional issues, I was seeing people who had physical symptoms as well, and was helping them to recover and feel better by simple things like breathing and muscle relaxation and changing your thoughts, which comes from cognitive behavior therapy. 

And then when I got to be around 65, I realized that I just wanted a bigger mission and purpose, and I had been teaching these for so many years, these strategies, and I was approached by people who had trained to become health coaches, they were already working, and they felt like they just needed more, and they were encouraging me to start a program to started training health coaches. And so, I realized couldn’t do it alone, it’s very important for we, if not I, and so had a partner, and then a larger partner with the Institute for Functional Medicine. And that was back in 2015, we had our first beta class, now we’ve trained about 4,000 people around the world. So it’s been absolutely thrilling to have a mission and purpose to just imagine all these people that I’ve trained out there really making a difference in people’s lives.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm. So I just did the math, but does that mean you’re 72?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yes, I’m 72.

Dr. Sharon Stills

We all wanna look like you and have your energy when we’re 72, that’s just, that’s amazing. And I want what you represent to be the norm, not the exception, that everyone could be so passionate and healthy and vibrant at 72. I think we think of it as this odd thing nowadays, but it really is what I strive for women to embrace. So I love that you are here sharing with us and showing us that it is so possible. And so, there’s a few things I wanna ask, but I guess you mentioned the health coaching, so let’s just go there, because we haven’t really talked about that on the summit. And we talk about, obviously I’m a physician, and I’ve had other physicians on, and some health coaches and so forth, but what is a health coach? What is the role of a health coach? Why is it important to have a health coach? How does it help your healing journey? So, there’s a lot of questions.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Sure, well, actually, the word coach is from stage coach, what does this coach do? An old-fashioned stage coach takes people from where they are to where they wanna be. to their destination, what they determine And the defining feature of coaching is that it’s client-centered, that means it is not the coach’s agenda, it’s not the role of the coach to prescribe a diet plan, to tell people what their labs mean, that’s what we have doctors for, or nutritionists. So what a coach does is help people change when change is hard, and somebody who is at a place where they need support, and often they need accountability, and they need a sounding board, and somebody who can really be their guide and their ally. And it’s a very powerful relationship, this alliance that you form with a health coach. And increasingly, health coaches are playing a bigger and bigger role in emotional health, because the lines between therapy and coaching are really, unless somebody has clinical symptoms where they have are clinically depressed, seriously depressed, or agitated. 

Most cases when people are stressed, burned out, thinking they’re just fatigued, and it is very, their thinking is often unrealistic, and they’re catastrophizing, having a coach can be very, very therapeutic. And there was a major study that was released that shows that coaching is on par with therapy in terms of the effectiveness. Now, again, this is not for people who are severely depressed and need perhaps a psychiatric intervention. We’re talking about people who are functioning on the outside, and need support. And so, coaches, and particularly what’s cool about coaches working in this arena, is that from a functional medicine perspective, we know, root cause, that the mind is not just out there in isolation. And so, mental health is connected with physical health. So a coach who is helping people with movement, with exercise, with better sleep, relaxation, choosing better foods, their mood is going to change, they are going to feel better emotionally as well as physically. So that’s one of the new, emerging roles of a health coach, we have a lot of companies who are hiring health coaches for that role, ’cause there’s a critical shortage of therapists.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So this is such a different perspective, and one that I love, because a lot of times you see that health coaches are out there saying, let me do your stool test, and, let me tell you what’s wrong with you. And as a physician, I’m always like, this doesn’t seem right to me, because there’s a lot that goes into being a doctor, and so it’s like these years of training that let me critically think, that you might not see outwardly, that are happening inside those. So I’m curious what your thought is on health coaches who are out there doing labs and playing doctor.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Well, I would say, and I really take a strong position on this, if you encounter a health coach who is ordering and interpreting labs, who is doing stool testing, who is telling you what’s wrong with you, run in the other direction, they are not medical doctors, they are not licensed, and there’s no state where they hold a license to practice. They are the guides, they are the behavior change specialists, they take the recommendations of the license providers and have this crucial deep conversation with somebody to say, okay, what are your thoughts about this, is this doable? Where do you wanna start? What matters most to you, what brings you joy in your life? If you had your health, what would you wanna be in your life? And, I’m here to support you with that. And they are also advocates for patients that are working in a medical practice, or if they have their own business, they can help you to navigate the medical system, perhaps you were overcharged, for example. They are also the ones, they can facilitate groups, which is a big growing area, and if they’re working in medical practices, they can help with data that’s coming in as we are more and more wearing wearables.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I’m wearing.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yes, we do. And the coach can work collaboratively, so the coach is one individual part of a care team, and this is why, when I think of back my roots when I was in special education, that whole model was based on a multidisciplinary team, we had the teacher, we had the social worker, psychologists, physical occupational therapist. And then the same with a medical care team, there might be many people who are involved. And so, we teach a model of who, not how, you’re not the expert, you are the coach, you’re the behavior change person, and you consult with the dietician, the nutritionist, the doctors, different specialists in the medical field, and you all work collaboratively, and people will respect you more.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I think that like right here, live action, I’m going, I gotta change my practice. I need one of these coaches, because my assistant ends up doing coaching, and she’s not a trained coach, or I end up doing it and I’m busy doing other things, and I can so see this need for someone to renavigating the journey with you, which when you do come to the alternative type of medicine, you really become an active participant. And for some people that’s not so easy, and it can be overwhelming, and you really need someone to hold your hand and support you.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yeah. And there’s another piece that I just wanna make sure I mentioned, because just about everybody who goes through our program, we do a deep dive into positive psychology, and it’s a personal transformation, the process of learning to be a coach changes you for the better. And now you find that you interact better with your loved ones, with your family, with your friends, and it’s deeply satisfying. And it’s also when you are on a journey with somebody, and they have that aha moment, and they realize it’s in their power to change, it is so fulfilling for the coach and it is a really powerful experience. And so, we have actually many practitioners who choose to become coaches to enhance their practice, or they decide that they love this process so much that they are going to start incorporating the coach approach.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, I love that. Yeah, I actually trained with the Wellness Inventory to become a coach as a physician, because I knew it was such an important piece, but it’d be nice to have someone really helping me with that. We’re gonna talk over this.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yeah, we’ll talk.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So first, for women here, so we’re focusing on this menopausal transition, the hormonal journey, what are some things that coaching would help them with, specifically as they’re going through hormonal changes?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Well, one of the main things, and this comes from positive psychology, it’s to turn everything around and always ask what’s right, instead of what’s wrong, what’s right with you, and not what’s wrong with you. Because often, as women particularly, we’re so good at picking out, and we could have done 99% things perfectly, but that 1% will dwell on it, will focus on it to be perfect, to be pleasing everybody, not to disappoint anyone, including ourselves. And so, focusing on what you do right is so, so important. And it can also be a perspective for physical symptoms as well. So for many years I worked with people who had chronic pain, they had migraine headaches for example, and they would come in and they would just say, oh, my headaches were like at a ten, like it was just constant pain, of excruciating pain. Then, I would walk them back from that through an inquiry process, and they would then come to the conclusion, well, it wasn’t a hundred percent of the time, every waking moment. 

“Oh, I went to the movies,” “And did you get lost in the movie? Did you kind of put yourself on the screen where you were so absorbed and you were in a flow state?” “Was there a fraction of a second when you weren’t aware of the pain sensation?” And I said, “Oh, yeah.” And so again, it’s a focus on what’s right, and not what’s wrong. And so, that can be really, really helpful. A coach can also help someone to set a goal. Let’s say they want to make some changes. They realize that, well, they really wanna start moving more, and a coach can help them to break down, “Well, when are you gonna do that? What’s the first step?” So coaching is client-centered, and that means it’s wherever you, as the client, wanna go. So let’s say you have determined that you want to start an exercise program. Maybe you’ve gotten your lab results back. You’ve been to your doctor, you want to change those numbers, and one of the ways you’ve decided to do it is by starting an exercise program. So the coach, through an inquiry process, might help you determine, “Well, what do you wanna do, do you wanna run?” So they might say, “Yeah, you know, I remember I used to run in college and I used to like that.” 

And so, “Okay, now where are you gonna start?” It might be as simple as, “Well, I need to buy some running shoes.” “Okay, when do you wanna do that?” And, “How do you want me to check in?” Okay, at the next session you say, “Okay, we’re gonna talk about, did you get those running shoes?” It might be in between the session, it might be a text, a reminder to get the running shoes. So it’s a constant breaking down these habits into very, very tiny, actionable steps, and that is something that a coach can help people with. And the key also is they celebrate, let’s say they did go out and get those running shoes, maybe they went out and they started to take a walk, and so you celebrate that change. And in fact, there was a study just released in Health Psychology that was a randomized controlled study, and this was a group of 200 participants, and those who had 10 sessions of coaching at the end of 12 months we’re almost three times more likely to still be exercising than the control group that didn’t have health coaching, they just had like a genetic risk assessment explained to them, but no health coaching. So it is powerful, and more and more, we are seeing randomized controlled trials showing that, in fact, we are embarking on one of, what we’re really excited about as well to show the effectiveness of coaching, and IFM Institute for Functional Medicine, is helping us with that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Wow, I have to say, and for all of you listening, that I’m just sitting here thinking, I know we’ve had, all the talks are important, but this is one of the most important talks we’re having, because it’s one thing to get your results and know what you need to do, but if you don’t have the support in actualizing it, I, as a physician can only go so far in saying, these are your results, this is what I need to prescribe, this is what we need to do, this is the testing we need to do. But ultimately, you are then making the choices of what you put in your mouth, and when you go to sleep, or when you move your body, as Sandy was just talking about, and having a coach is going to support you, that just from what you were saying from that study. And so, this is crucial on mastering your journey, that it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to ask for support. I think we’ve been taught so often we have to do it alone, we have to be brave and strong, but no, we are women, we are community, we do good when we circle up, we do good when we support each other. 

And so this is powerful message, and finding the right coach, because I see so many “coaches” who “prescribe,” or do these things and then, patients end up in my office, and then I have to go and fix everything because they weren’t given the right instructions, they weren’t given the right information, the test results weren’t understood properly, and it’s such a disservice. But when you utilize coaching in this way, I’m like, oh my God, I wanna be a coach, I wanna coach, I want all my patients to have a coach, I’m like, this is just so, so important. And that’s why I wanted to do this summit, because I wanna give women all the tools they need, and this is such a huge tool in the toolbox. Because I do a lot, a lot of it is coaching you how to remember to take your hormones or to take your supplements, or to get enough hydration, but when you see the doctor, you see me once a month or however often, but if you have a coach, now you’re having this relationship, and it sounds like from what you’re saying that the things happen so much easier.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Absolutely. And we also know that a coach is more like having a friend. In fact, there are some doctors who call their coaches, in their office, the friends of the practice.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love that.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

And what happens is you tend to feel that you can tell your coach anything. And even if, for example, if you had the experience of, you went to a doctor, you got a whole list of recommendations, a whole long laundry list of supplements, and you’re confused, perhaps they are expensive, and you’re afraid to tell the doctor why you are not using them, or you may decide you’re gonna go to get the local discounted brand, which might not be good for you, and a coach could provide that education. But they also can be the communicator. they are the bridge, the communication, between you, as the client, and your doctor so that things will be understood. And the doctor said, “Oh yeah, that makes sense, well, we’ll adjust this here.” So it is really the coach as the communicator, as your advocate, who’s going to help you navigate the medical system, ’cause it can get complicated.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love that, I love that. And I wanna go back to what you said. Well, first of all, asking that question, what did I do right? I was thinking, what a beautiful practice, we often talk about at the end of the day, thinking about what you’re grateful for at the beginning of the day, but I think coupling with the gratitude is that question of, what did I do right today? What did I rock today? Or, what am I gonna rock today? And to really shift, rather than focusing on the thing that didn’t go the way you wanted to. So I invite you all to start adding that question into your life. And then the other thing you mentioned was celebration. And I think that is such an important piece, because we don’t celebrate. We celebrate birthdays and weddings and babies being born, but we don’t celebrate the menopausal transition, we don’t celebrate the young women getting their periods, we don’t celebrate getting a divorce if we were in a bad marriage, we don’t celebrate getting a new job, or leaving a job, or taking a trip or learning to dance or to cook, we don’t celebrate all these things. And I think when we celebrate, it just amplifies, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on celebration as a medicinal tool.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Sure. Well, I am going to turn to the work of B.J. Fogg, who wrote “Tiny Habits,” and he created this name for this emotion, called shine, which I love it, ’cause that was my daughter’s nickname growing up, they called her Shine. And shine is this experience, picture an athlete crossing the finish line. What do you do? You just raise your hands and you’re like, yes, yes I did it. That is shine. So we tend to think of this as being important, or used in big wins, like that athlete, but it can be, I made my bed and I really like the way it looks. Yes, it’s that yes I did it. Or you are, you said originally, every time after I go to the bathroom, I’m gonna do a pushup. In fact, that’s how I started doing lots of pushups during the lockdown. And so every time you finish a set, you say “yes,” and it is to consolidate the learning, it is to solidify the habits. And that is what is really key, to habit change, to acknowledge it. It’s not enough to do it, but to celebrate that you did it, and also to not judge how you did it, it’s the fact that you did it. Or you may notice incremental changes. So I take ballet, and I’m not good by any means. But anyway, I could balance, I could go up into a pose, and I stayed there for 10 seconds longer than the last time, and you celebrated it, it’s that shine.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, I love that. And as you were talking about it, I was thinking about my granddaughter who’s two-and-a-half who celebrates everything block on, yes, Bibbi, yes, yes, we’re always celebrating, whoo, good job, good job. And why we stopped doing that for ourselves, because she’s always clapping for herself, if we’re not clapping with her, she’s like, hello, I just did something amazing, you need to clap with me. So while we’re getting so many good tips on what we can really do just right now in our lives, and celebrating, and I’m thinking about, sometimes I procrastinate doing things, and today was going to the post office, I had all these things that needed to be shipped, and they were sitting on the kitchen counter. And finally, today, I was like, I’m going to do it. And I needed to have a shot.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yes, exactly.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yes. ‘Cause I felt good. I felt, oh good, I got that off my thought process. I needed a little more celebration, I should have been doing a jig in the parking lot at the post office. So I’m gonna change that. What about though, it’s easy sometimes to talk about feeling great and celebrating, but what would you say to women right now who are like, yeah, I wanna shine, but I just feel exhausted, I’m burnt out, I’m struggling, I’m having difficulty, what kind of words of wisdom would you have for them?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

I would turn to the teachings of positive psychology, which is all about what’s right, not what’s wrong with you. And it’s a study, it’s a scientific study of how we flourish and how we thrive. And it’s based on the study of character strengths, and those are psychological capital. So if you’re feeling tired, if you’re sad and despondent, you haven’t lost your psychological capital. So we tend to think of, the immune system, it’s our defense system, and we also have a psychological defense system, we all have them, they’re called character strengths. And the researchers and positive psychology spent years identifying, they looked at literature from philosophy, and psychology, and religion, looked at all cultures, and came up with these essential strengths. These are traits, we’re born with them and we all have them. 

Some are underused, some are overused. One of my signature strength, is zest, I’m always jumping up and down with excitement, or love of learning, curiosity, gratitude, hope, they some are of the mind, some of the heart, and they are waiting to be used. So we talk a lot about gratitude, there’s a lot of research done on gratitude, a lot’s been written about gratitude, the power of hope. There are also things like appreciation of beauty and excellence, which happens to be one of my signature strengths. So some of these strengths are at the top, they’re really what make you you. From the time I was a little girl, I appreciate beauty and excellence. 

So when I first got on with Dr. Sharon, what did I do? I appreciate, oh my God, I’ve got the colors, or backdrop, I was like, I’m going crazy, with appreciation of how beautiful that is. And so, you use these strengths, and it’s how you thrive when you’re in a funk, when you’re not thriving. That day that you just described, you’re not calling on this psychological capital, you’re not digging into what you have that can help you. So perhaps it’s curiosity combined with love of learning. So maybe you’re going to pick up a book, you’re gonna listen to a podcast, you’re gonna learn something new. Perhaps you’re gonna cook a new recipe, or try a new food, or have some adventure. So that might be it for you, for somebody else, it might be using another character strength of judgment or perspective, some of the thinking types of strikes. So that is a way to really see your way through, realizing that, there’s been a lot of studies, psychological capital leads to resiliency. It’s how we help people who have chronic medical conditions, or who are going through severe trauma to become resilient and come out on the other side with what we’re calling post-traumatic growth.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm. So is there a place where you can find a list of all this psychological stuff?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yes, fortunately, there is. We work with this wonderful nonprofit, it’s called VIA, V-I-A. So you could go to via.org or it might be via character, I think it’s just via.org, there’s a survey, this is research based. So you can take this quick free survey, you can find out what your top strengths are. Now, when you do this survey, people will naturally look at well, which ones don’t I use as much. You want to say you have them all, some just come more naturally to you, like zest comes more naturally to me than prudence, in some ways. For example, my husband was always more prudent, but in other ways I display a lot of prudence. So you can go and take this survey, the cool thing is you can give it to your kids and your partner. People do it in work organizations where they have strengths talk. And you look at which ones are at the top. So for some it’s spirituality, for example, or the justice strengths, strengths of fairness, love, kindness. There are 24 of them, and you have all 24.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And it’s V-I-A.org.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

V-I-A.org, the via.

Dr. Sharon Stills

You know where I’m going after this talk. But I never really, I love curiosity and that’s such a meditative and Buddhist principle, but I’m very interested to see.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yeah, it’s great, our curriculum is based on this Ryan Niemic, who’s the executive director at our faculty, and teaches the strengths-based, when all else fails, you turn to your strengths, and that is how you thrive and flourish.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah, and I definitely see that with the patients I work with who are chronically ill with an oncology diagnosis, or an autoimmune diagnosis, or a serious disease process. And the ones that thrive are the ones who, I didn’t know, it had a formal term. So I’m excited about this, but they have this, whether it’s zest, or this understanding, or they see everything as a gift, or they’re curious, and they get so engaged in their journey as a patient, and it really makes the healing process so much easier and more efficient and more full.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Yeah. Humor is one often overlooked, and not thought of as really important, but it is, it is a really strong strength that is associated with physical and mental wellbeing.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Wow, I love this talk, I got so much outta this, this has just been such a blessing. Is there anything else that you wanna leave the ladies with?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Well, perhaps, since I mentioned humor, that might be a good place to end, because traditionally, we look back, the female comedians, there are some priceless routines that they had about what was called “the change.” And it is women getting together, I remember my mother and her friends, and we’d get together and they’d laugh about the hot flashes, that they were experiencing. So using humor, how can you let go and really find a way, now, it’s very cathartic to laugh. I’m in a book club with women, I’ve been there for many years, and we have great time just laughing. And so, I think community humor, belonging, having mission and purpose, which I found with founding the coaching academy and putting that all together.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, fantastic, yeah. I think of, what was his name, Norman Cousins who laughed his way, I think it was Three Stooges he was watching.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Marx brothers, yeah. Yeah, watch movies.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Laughed his way to health. So yes, laughter and seeing the, there’s always a piece of humor you can pull out if you just see things a little differently. Well, you are just a joy and a gift, and thank you for bringing so much important information and mindset to the listeners today of the summit, I really appreciate it. I think this has just been very, very powerful. And I know you said you have a free download or something, how can they learn more about you and what you do?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Sure. So our website is functionalmedicinecoaching.org. They can go to fmcafreebook.com, and we have a book that I wrote, “How To Become A Health Coach: The Career That Brings People Joy.”

Dr. Sharon Stills

And yeah, maybe some of you listening are like, I wanna do this. Maybe we are helping you right now in this moment decide your next step. So, I love that. It’s like what we talk about in action, and that’s really what it’s all about, is putting the philosophies, the mindset into action and making change. So thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

It’s been a pleasure.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Check out her information, let’s go to via.org together. Let’s not all go at once, or we might break the website, but let’s go in a little while. We’ll go in little bits and pieces, and let’s go see our character, what did you say it was?

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Character strengths.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Character strengths, and your, what you are financially, character-strengthed with, and you can focus on, right? Your currency.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

Your psychological capital, you’re savings.

Dr. Sharon Stills

There it is. I knew it was something about money, your psychological capital. Yeah, so let’s all harness that as we master our menopause transition. So thanks all for being here, be well.

Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum

It’s been a pleasure.