Uncover Unique Approaches for Handling Crohn’s and Colitis

Introduction and guest backgrounds 0:00

Welcome back. We're continuing our conversation on reversing Crohn's and colitis. I'm your host, Sinclair Kennally, and today I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Erika Schultz. And the wonderful Dr. Lauryn Lax This powerful duo is going to help us unpack. But the physiological, the spiritual and the emotional complexities, how do these chronic conditions develop and how do we unpack them and reverse them over time with a holistic perspective? So I really want to, at this magical conversation to happen, we actually have a lot of synergy between the three of us as clinicians, because we deeply believe in approaching things from a root cause perspective, and that this is a mini, layered, multifold experience.

Right? So these conditions absolutely can be reversed. And Dr. Erika Schultz has the track record to prove it. So she's a DACM and LAC and ACN and a concierge natural health doc specializing in high performers, renowned as the creator of the resilience method, she introduces a fresh perspective on health optimization, firmly believing in the body's innate perfection and its ability to self-heal with the right support and conditions diverging from conventional natural health strategies. Dr. Schultz Resiliency Method addresses chronic conditions by prioritizing the repair and rebuilding of the entire body with a proven record of reversing autoimmune and chronic health issues.

She introduces a novel perspective by seamlessly integrating functional medicine with the time tested wisdom of ancient medicines. And Dr. Lauryn Lax is joining us today. She helps people reconnect to their gut intuition so that they can realize their true potential. As a former TV news journalist turn functional medicine and gut health expert. Her work is inspired by her 25 years of clinical and personal experience overcoming 13 incurable illnesses herself, the diets doctors and Doctor Google could not solve.

Today, she's on a mission to help others feel good inside and out through her total gut reset method. Her personal story has been featured on ABC, Good Morning America, CBS and USA, and she is a published author. TEDx speaker, and podcaster. Welcome to the two of you. It's so great to have you here. So excited to be in the house. Sinclair, thank you so much. I wonder if let's just dive right in because clearly this is a passionate topic for all three of us. We all have personal health journeys that played into this, and we all have proven track records in reversing what is supposedly, according to traditional medicine, something to live with as a life sentence and eventually a death sentence.

Right? So what do you feel are key patterns associated to people with colitis and Crohn's disease? Maybe from a physiological perspective, but also from more subtle

Personal triggers behind Crohn's and colitis 2:56

layers of consciousness as well. I can jump in. yeah. Yeah, totally. well, I have my own personal experience with colitis as well. And so I think just coming from personal experience, I was diagnosed with a class on the tail end of a really stressful time in my life. And the number one question that I love to ask my patients, and whenever we are doing a deep dive in their health history. Is what was. Going on in your life right prior to diagnosis? And I would say 90 to 95% of the time, there's something to do with stress that's not necessarily do you get hit by a bus?

That's one thing. But, you know, if it's like something chronic, or an autoimmune kind of condition, and a lot of times there was something that preceded that. It didn't just happen overnight. And so for me, I was, in my 30s, like about, I think right at a ripe age of 30 when colitis struck and I had already had a backlog of all these health challenges to my name. I think you had mentioned, like 13 incurable. And I said it was just like one on top of the other. So there's got us this smacked in there.

but I had been struggling with mold. Illness was a big precursor physiologically, preceding that colitis and I had lived in a toxic mold home, lost everything like a fire had happened twice and walked away. And, the colitis journey. Really? that diagnosis happened about six months to eight months. And, that post journey, like, having recovered from and gone out of the house and just moving, I moved 15 times during the year 2020 alone. And so it just like was a very stressful time. And, that colitis diagnosis or the colitis onset really happened after I got kicked out of a home I lived in with a girlfriend, and she and her husband were not doing well.

He was in the military. He came back one weekend and they said, they're going to try to work it out, but Lauryn, you got to get out of the house. And so what had become a safe haven post mold quickly became Lauryn on the streets and not knowing where to go during 2020 because of, again, just being so sensitive. I can't just I at the time couldn't just find a place on Zillow and say, I'm going to go live there. And so I ended up running into an Airbnb and it ended up working out fine and great. But on the back end of all that stress, that indigestible conflict is smack when my intestines completely shut down, I was unable to eat or digest anything, and that presentation lasted for a good, I'd say, six months.

and I began throwing everything like a kitchen sink at the issue. From a physiological perspective, I was still really, newer to understanding how the gut and the brain are connected. are the medicine that I, I work a lot with my clients nowadays, but that's really what has been happening, is that indigestible conflict that preceded that onset. And, I, we were just chatting about this and nerding out before we got started about German new medicine and how fascinating it is as a diagnostic model, really, and also as a deeper layer of insight into what's going on for people at the emotional level.

And, I would love to hear your thoughts and your take on Germany medicine and the traditional German new medicines perspective on ulcerative colitis and Crohn's as well. Definitely. As a German, new medicine is basically a framework or paradigm we can use in healthcare, medicine, functional health. That really explains how disease in our life shows up as disease in the body. So disease imbalance or stress in a life shows up as disease in the body, and the body keeps the score. The brain is mapped for a thousand different conditions depending on how you perceive stress or conflict.

And not all stress is going to cause disease. what really separate certain disease causing or symptom causing stressors is where there acute a lot of times you're caught off guard, you thought isolated or you don't have the resources to overcome or deal with, have intensities too much of it. Or it was like that gully washer, just like all of a sudden being told, I need to move, find a place to live, post more like there's just all of this mounting. It was like very unexpected and boom, like indigestible.

Like is how my brain perceive that I cannot swallow what is happening right now. And so for me, it showed up in my gut. Whereas if a person perceived that calmly like to be this is an attack, like this is an attack on me, and like, what are they thinking? They're kicking me out and had more that defensive an attack on like me. Show up on your skin because your body your skin is your body's defense armor. And so the way that the brain sees, that senses and perceives the stress sends a signal down the rope from the brain to the gut and then the gut.

As you may have shared a lot on this, it's connected to everything. So I say it's your health, your head and your heart. And so it's your immune system, your detox pathways or hormone and metabolism, your brain. And, your second brain is what it's called. So depending on how you perceive that, stress sends out a signal to the gut, which then fires into the specific tissue that's connected there. And so if you can think about, like lighting a rope with care or having a kerosene rope and flooding with inflammation, you've got that on fire.

And then it just allows for that manifestation of symptoms and autoimmunity in particular with Crohn's and colitis as well. not only is it related to an indigestible conflict, but autoimmune in nature is also related to self devaluation conflict. So just like, mimicking physiologically your body's attacking itself, in an autoimmune presentation. So that self-evaluation would be like the self attack, like, gosh, like I'm so frustrated. I'm not good enough to, like, overcome this. Like why I'm a functional medicine practitioner.

Why am I going through this? Like could have been my thoughts at that time. So why it's showing up and an autoimmune presentation. And the science is vast and there's a great book called The Psychic Roots of Disease, where there's a great, appendix that you can look in and just begin the sequence like what? Maybe certain symptoms are related.

German New Medicine and conflict perception 9:08

And because we can also get acute things related to like, it doesn't have to be a full blown disease where we could say get a lot of this, like sinus congestion that's related to a stinks complaint. This stinks. I had a client today experience dealing. And all of a sudden like, I don't know where this is coming from. And I just ask them like, well, have you resolved anything recently that stunk? And they were like, yes. They had been doing this like some processing in a therapy session with someone, a therapist, a couple days before.

And so it can show up acutely. We also see this of like kids, you know, if they go to like preschool when they're young and they come home with all this, like, like flu like, or cold like symptoms maybe. And when I was like, they get over it so fast. So but if you can think about dropping off a three year old for the first time by themselves, away from mom and dad with all these strangers, and they're thinking, this stinks, like, what's happening? Why are they leaving me? Could be part of that. Or they have tummy issues, like again.

And I just feel like, why do Mom and dad leave me? It's all about perception is how it shows up differently in tissues. And so that's kind of an understanding overview, general overview, of how Germany medicine works. Yeah. That's so cool. And you mentioned that this is actually like something that, the founder actually started measuring via brain scans. So you can actually see the lesions in someone's brain. How did we perceive the conflict or the stress? And then that translation into the physiology of the body, which is so fascinating, isn't it?

It is fascinating. And it's really empowering too, because it's not only just like the understanding, but with great awareness and understanding comes like more power. because the way that healing and disease happens as well, from a Germany based medicine framework is when you understand the root cause, like what is driving these symptoms, it's kind of like you're standing in the ocean and a wave hitting you, and you're you're turned away from it. So you keep sending it from behind. If you don't understand where it's coming from, you keep falling forward.

It just like keeps crushing you. But if you're on the sandbar, you see the wave coming. You stand a lot stronger as it comes. And so with more strength and awareness comes more quicker resolution of the symptoms where they're no longer dominating you. So if you continue to live, say, in autoimmunity or like disease state for a long time, you're like, there's just it's the body's way of saying knock, knock, something is up at your higher self saying, there's something I want to tell you. I'm like, let's resolve this.

And it doesn't always have to do necessarily with the overt conflict that happened to like, maybe I saw colitis. I'm not thinking about being kicked on the streets anymore, but it's like, what I'm thinking about and vibing on at a higher frequency or a lower frequency, I guess you could say is like, I'm not good enough complex. Like, if that keeps me resonating thing with me, that reminds my body of that, or like indigestible conflict again during Covid, there's so much like unknown during that time.

If I'm watching the news or scrolling on social media and I'm processing this is indigestible, that can keep that conflict active because that root cause, the limiting beliefs, negative emotions are still being cured. It's kind of like, say, little Johnny, he's eight years old. He's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch. And he has for years. And then one day, all of a sudden he starts getting hives. And like that issue. So those are the pediatrician. The doctor says must be like gluten intolerance and peanut allergy.

Cut it out. We'll see how he does. Cuts it out. Feels a lot better when little Johnny comes to me. No, I want to. I'm curious. Like what was happening in your life right prior to you getting sick to this. You've eaten it for all of your life. What we realize is little. Johnny was eating a PB and J at the same time. He witnesses parents have an all out fight that led to his dad walking out eventually separation and divorce and the way his brain looks at it and is this is indigestible. So future pace, when he sees the PB and J.

He may not be thinking about Mom and Dad, but he's thinking in digestible conflict because the body linked that trigger with that trigger. And so that's kind of how Germany medicine works as well, and how disease kind of like stays in active conflict, active state until we begin to understand and peel back the layers of underlying limiting beliefs, negative emotions, or like the overt traumas that we kind of blocked out or, experienced. Yeah, I think that's a really amazing recap of a fascinating phenomenon.

I mean, the body is so good at learning and then reflecting back our own, you know, awareness as to us whether or not we want or we're ready consciously to deal with them. Right. What do you think, Doctor Erica, about this from a traditional Chinese medicine model as a licensed acupuncturist, like, how does traditional Chinese medicine dovetail or differ from this German New Medicine perspective of colitis and Crohn's? Yeah, I think it's, to me, and I love this perspective too, because and this is what Doctor Lauryn and I decided to partner up on is because she's such an expert in that area.

And it's such an important piece because we know from a Chinese medicine perspective, we know that emotions are one type of stress or one form of stress that can certainly impart upon the body. And, whenever there is chronic stress, whether it be emotional and, or it could be physiological, I know probably in your conversations and the audience is probably aware that, you know, parasites are a big problem for people. Lauryn was mentioning toxic mold. Some of these external stressors, they're physical in form, right?

they can cause wood exposure to. And they can cause some issues for the body. They can they can stress, they can challenge. And the response from a Chinese medicine perspective to anything that's stressful is going to be, a stagnation. So, in other words, a mood, a slowing down of energy moving inside the body. And so when you have that over time, whether it be from a physiological stress or an emotional stress, you have stagnation. And that can mean stagnation in energy, blood. And sometimes one of the mechanisms at play, especially when it comes to the gut and the nervous system, is the creation of phlegm inside the body to deal with stress.

And people don't realize this, but phlegm is actually one of your best friends and one of your worst enemies in the sense of it. Your body's smart. It knows that it must go out and gather and get, you know, collect all the things, that are not helpful and that need to be contained. And for some pathologies in Chinese medicine, you know, will become they're the beginning of when you have stagnant phlegm, you have nodules, you have sex, you have tumors, you have trilogies with weight. You have, you know, obesity, you know, those kinds of things are phlegm, patterns.

And certainly when it comes to talking about Crohn's colitis, we're talking about, significant pathology with phlegm. And that starts with the organ of the spleen, which from a Chinese medicine perspective, that's one of the major organs. Like if they say in Chinese medicine, your kidneys are at the root of your constitutional energy. and how good you are in terms of like, you know, you might come in and be really quick to express and turn on the bad genes in your in your body, or you may live a whole lifetime.

Right. And that has a lot to do with your congenital qi, your essence, your kidney function from a Chinese medicine perspective, from an already Vedic. It's called your constitution, you know, and but the single most important organ from a Chinese medicine perspective, when it comes to after you've been born is your sleep. Now, I'll clarify that in that. So the Chinese characterized the spleen, and the pancreas is one organ. We didn't see the two separate organs. but it's important because between those two organs that we know of, there's an important factor of enzyme production of blood cell production.

And then certainly the body's ability to clear phlegm from the system. So these are very, conditions that we're talking about today are very when they're displaying in what we call an excess pattern from a Chinese medicine perspective, they're very slim, like, so that will mean, you know, stick your bowels soft, your bowels, you know, and then and then over time, those pathologies are not in motion.

Traditional Chinese medicine and gut stagnation 17:18

And you've got pain. You know, you've got some of the the stringent gut wrenching which all of us are familiar with from our own personal stories with dealing with these conditions. So, yeah. You know, this is so interesting because I always associate the spleen with shocks and traumas and, you know, the digestive tract with your ability to not just manage stress, but, you know, also digest difficult experiences. And so that's really interesting to hear about the spleen relationship in traditional Chinese medicine to also, you know, being linked so closely in their mind to the pancreas to.

Yeah. And the one another thing on the spleen too, that, you know, a lot of people aren't aware of is it's a responsible for tone in your body and, yeah. And, and we're talking about some of the gut brain connection pieces. And one of the biggest connectors of the brain to the gut is the vagus nerve. So on our in our chronic Crohn's and colitis people we have call them real soggy vagus nerve. And we have a soggy vagus nerve. You know you have trouble with handling stress because your nervous system is just not as capable of dealing with stressful events.

So, you know, we're all we're humans. And so our human experience is going to be we're going to face emotional trauma. And, that's the human experience. There's like no getting around that. Right. And, so repairing in my approach to actually repair and restore or eventually tone ify those types of tissues and organs so that we start to find a new level of adaptability to stress in our external environment. and when we see that play out and not in terms of, you know, even reversing food sensitivities in our practice, with some of the worse, I mean, I was one of the worse, I know.

Raise your hand if you're gluten sensitive. Right. you know, I at one point, my, my girlfriend was I got a gluten bun, and, you know, I was like, we got to leave now. My throat swell closing up. And, you know, mine used to do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We head out and she was helping me not go into anaphylaxis. And and that was part of my journey was realizing that, you know, just the avoidance of these things wasn't going to take me as far as I needed to go, because I had also neurological issues. You know, I had a seizure disorder.

And so I really needed to, to continue to move forward beyond just like avoidance diets and, you know, having to control my environment all the time, which is where a lot of my process came from. And that's why it's, aptly named the Resiliency Method, because I really see the value in taking it far enough, the healing process, far enough to where, you just have better adaptability. Yeah. The name of the game for sure. And both of you have like a really lovely facility with the understanding the nervous system and how it plays into these chronic conditions.

Is there anything else that you want to make sure the audience understands about the role of the vagus nerve, in light of what we've already touched on today? Because I really want to get into the spiritual and emotional aspects with the two of you. So, this is like your last chance to talk, talk nervous system with me. Before we go there. I will say one thing and just speaking of vagus nerve and like, I think stress is the under number one thing to address for sending, colitis and Crohn's and remission and autoimmune in general.

And like I used to hear that and like be like I'm not stressed I, I'm supposed over my health, but like, I'm not just in my life. And I didn't realize how many little things like just our the way that we live nowadays for our physiology just in modern life is stressful without even hard to our physiology. So our physiology, our environments change tremendously. But our physiology as humans really has not changed from eons, thousands and thousands of years. And so things like circadian regulation and blood sugar balance and just like not pushing like that pedal to the metal every single day, even if we're not running from bears and sprinting in the wild.

But it's like marathons on our computers and screens, or just like the the stack of the load. I live here in Austin, Texas, and every night can feel like a weekend or something fun happening, like event wise, and just can be like an outpour pouring of energy. And, if you're not mitigating that with something I call like breath breaks in our days that just give you like that opportunity to put on your oxygen mask where, I really never thought that, like doing a yoga practice daily or wearing blue blockers or balancing my blood sugar, or just, like, making sure I was getting enough protein and like, little things like that that are just like, simple really would be such big game changers.

And, I do too, when I say like, what we resist persists. So like thinking of stress as well. Like if we're like, this with our disease and trying to figure it out like I was that girl, like a lot of my patients where I had to huge band of supplements and I was eating 5 to 10 foods. I was barely eating anything because my body couldn't handle lines. And it was like doing all the things and even running labs that weren't really effective, because it's like what I'm going to do. I know what I'm feeling with this anyways.

And so what we resist persists. So the more that I just continue to focus on the disease and like what I could do with all my, my like more effort. then the further and further I seem like I got away from my goal. Like I just continued to be like evident and really a big shift. before even thinking about mitigating anything in my lifestyle really began with the mind. And just like how I saw myself in my identity with, again, like, am I picking up the Sherpa bag every day that I have colitis or Crohn's?

And like, accepting that identity or am I transcending that and believing that healing is possible every single time my body is healthy, every single cell in my body as well. And when given the right tools, my body innately wants to heal itself. I know that because if you break a bone and slap a cast on it, it'll heal. And so that like overtly was the number one stress motivator is just the stories we tell ourselves. And so just thinking like there's so many little things that we are doing that may not seem stressful, but that would be probably the number one is the story we were telling ourselves.

And then just like health, physiology and environment aren't always matched up very well nowadays for less stress. I agree with that. And I think, oh go ahead, doctor Erica. Oh I was just going to say and to add on to that. Yeah, I think the physiological does to say one more thing about the physiological pieces. And this is very true, especially with folks that are dealing with digestive issues, is that you really sometimes have to get a little bit more specific. So sometimes just stopping at the protocol isn't going to be the answer from a standpoint of, you know, a supplement protocol, for some people they will respond fine.

I have found clinically that with colitis and definitely with Crohn's people that, you know, there's already a lot of like trauma around putting something into your mouth in general. You know, when it comes to a supplement, or, you know, anything that's like at a physiological way that we're going to address it. but so that's where I found that going beyond just the lab tests themselves and being able to put it in the right order at the right time, in the right amount, is really critical for folks that are dealing with these conditions.

And that's where we can, you know, drill down a little bit further to make sure that the healing can still happen at a physiological level. And Doctor Lauryn and I are like, emphatic on the same page about the fact that

Vagus nerve, stress, and nervous system resilience 24:58

we have everything we need inside here and this God given ability to heal. And, you know, our bodies are insanely intelligent, way more so than any of us are, you know, and it's, it's possible. And a lot of times you to take things beyond just even, you know, the labs, even beyond the protocols, and really drill that down to put it in the right order, at the right time, in the right amount for, more sensitive people because, you know, a nervous system that's challenge is going to be a little bit more hypersensitive.

Same with the immune system. We do. Yeah, yeah. And with increased prevalence of mass these days and all that, I mean, we're just seeing so much of that and I, I really appreciate the, the territory we're covering in this interview today because when we tell people in our clinic and in our audience is that pills are about 20, 25% of the healing protocol itself, like, is in the action steps that you will take to become, well, can you skip that layer? Generally, once you've developed a chronic condition?

Not really. You know, they have their place for sure, but what we're looking at at the biochemical level is downstream. You know, there's a downward causation here. That's what we look at from the bio regulatory medicine perspective of like, you know, spiritual identity level, mental fields, emotional field, bio fields and then which is, you know, bioelectrical and then biochemical. So it shows up at the biochemical level last. And usually we actually see a resulting shift as we heal the first shifts at these more subtle layers of consciousness.

And then again, the biochemical will lag a little behind because it's the the 3D version of us. And it takes a little while for those shifts to become consciously apparent, but they're happening. So interesting. I think with also chronic digestive conditions, especially that are autoimmune in nature, when we see our live shrink down to the size of our symptoms, the size and shape of our symptoms, we spend a lot of time anticipating the next stressors and trying to organize our lives around those anticipated insults, whether they're food or socially.

And there's some that's impossible to unpack. The two of those. Right. And what is my relationship to the toilet? You know, at work, at home, out in the world, you know, there's this there's there's a lot of privacy and shame that can get, like, all mixed up in there as well. Like, I tried so hard, I expended so much energy trying to hide how ill I was, because I didn't have the energy to have the conversation with people who didn't have the capacity to be kind to me and and hold presents for me anyway.

And I wasn't expecting it. So it was like, the lowest, you know, expenditure of energy was to hide it, even though that took a tremendous strain on me. And I think we also get to acknowledge that about chronic digestive conditions. And you know this when when we're talking about simplifying in our self-talk and supporting our nervous systems, that's a big part of it, is that people don't understand what I'm going through, and there's no way to take a break from food. I mean, we can. Sit or. Learn and. I it's. Not.

But yeah, it's our it's our it's our nourishment. It's our fuel into our it's our gasoline, you know, into our, our bodies. And you're talking about like some of the most basic survival, like at that level, you're talking about survival issues. You know, you have to eat, you know, and it's at that first level of that hierarchy where you have to encounter that need to survive. Right. And then you can move up the pyramid to the next need. but when we're talking about these conditions, we're talking about survival, you know, in terms of the way that we relate to them.

Absolutely. That's a huge piece. And I think something that began to help me getting out of that is like I call it rejecting the 3D where it's like the story I was telling myself and not saying, you know, I am surviving or I am alone. And so I just when we reframe our talk and just like focus on like, what is the one next best thing that I can do? And I talk a lot now in my clients about like that love versus got hate and like just getting into that posture of like less effort, more ease and like less grip on like the next thing or that like because when we're in fear state or when we're in anxious state like that is anecdotal to healing because the body is still stressed.

And so whether even if it's directed towards our healing or if it's directed towards where we're at and I get it like, just like when you're feeling some demonic, it's really hard to like it's not just power positive thinking, but it's like the proactive steps that I began to take would be thinking like, well, what would Higher Self me do? Or what would like thriving me do? Or what would like recovered me do? Like when it came to like approaching my next meal or when it came to like looking at this like big load of supplements in front of me and like I began to just like, take the next best step.

And like with supplements, for example, of adding a lot of my healing happened just when I begin to take that locus of control feeling back, at least I actually threw everything out. And like, just like Kerplunk. Like I had no idea what was working, what was not. And then I just decided to like, I like. There was one thing that I introduced at a time and, really less than a handful of things that I put back in on that front. And then with diet, like, same thing, it was like I was eating not much.

But how can I reframe this? Like this is going to be nourishing meat stock or bone broth and like began to like really just like re nourish and myself mentally, emotionally as well as physiologically where the body did begin to like open up to receptivity of like protocols or other foods, etc. and began to kind of like do more of a towards versus in a way mindset. So we can want the same thing. You can want healing, but depending on where your focus goes is where you're going to be. So I think a great even example of this would be like with money.

So say you want like wealth and financial abundance and another person wants to get out of debt. They can both want more money, but the person that's focused on like, I don't want to be in debt, I don't want to be in debt somehow keeps like getting pulled back or they're living in scarcity mindset. Whereas the millionaire mindset, the one that's the about face like towards like I want wealth. And they think in that years or ten years down the road mindset, they began to live in the penny saved as a penny earned.

Mindset, identity, and emotional healing 31:28

And same thing with like again, health. It's like if I'm focused on what I don't want versus what I do want and who I'm becoming, it's kind of where we end up. So if I don't want to be sick, I don't want to have colitis or I don't want to feel like this, that it's kind of like telling a little kid, don't eat the cookie. The kid wants the cookie. So the way the subconscious mind process, the word not or don't is stressful. And then it kind of just latches on to what you don't want. And we see this a lot of times of weight as well.

Like I don't want to weigh this. You may have a friend that's like, can't lose the last 20 pounds, 10 pounds of the life in them. And they're so focused on the weight. And then I see clients all the time when they start, start focusing on like just the healthy habits and who they want to be, and they start weighing themselves every day. The weight starts to fall off. And so it's a universal law that can apply in many areas of our life. But it's like, what are you? Where's your focus and where your focus goes?

Your energy, your body, your cells flow. I agree with that. I think it's really interesting to for me, it's a fine line, honestly, because I want to make sure that the practitioners listening to this are not, taking it upon themselves to shame our clients and patients for our thoughts and our feelings, because the body never lies, you know, difficult and challenging emotions and, you know, frustrating thought patterns are real. And the last thing I want to see is a bunch of, you know, New Age constricted, clients and patients that are shaming themselves for having real thoughts and emotions.

That's not what we're talking about, guys. We're making a really important distinction here. Like the way we talk about it in our practice and with our, students also is, just checking in throughout the day is the thought that I'm thinking adding to my life force or decreasing my life force and coming at it from a place of observation and neutrality. It's like, okay, that's good to know. And wouldn't it be nice to, you know, be increasing my life force? It's okay. Whatever the answer is, when you're not feeling well, you're going to have disproportionate reactions.

You're going to struggle with boundaries, you're going to feel porous, and other people's emotions are going to come further into your field because your field is not strong enough to maintain your own vibe, you know? And that's it's not a technical term, but it actually is proven in the science, you know, nerd out on quantum physics and you'll see it throughout the data. It's really interesting. So all we're inviting you to do is look for the, the the gentle path. Right. Yeah, definitely less effort, more ease and just more.

Yeah. I like talking about observation of the thought or where is that coming from or that emotion as well. And all all emotions definitely fit in the healing paradigm as well. and then can I add another one to play with? Absolutely. The identity and the way we associate how how that illness becomes a part of who we are and how we play in the world. And we might yeah, I'm learning another 30 or 60 minutes to delve into this one, but that's one of the things that I invite my patients to do as we're working through the physiological aspect and we're making improvement, it's at a certain point where I say, okay, now I want you to start thinking about there's there's a there's an opening here.

There's now a vacancy inside your field, which is that your attention isn't having to deal with the symptoms and the status of your health. So how are you going to fill in that gap? Because it will be filled in in some way. But I want you to be really deliberate about the fact that you have an opportunity now for expansion. And you now that health in your physical health and this these issues are not is significant or in your face, and you're having to deal with them every day. Now, what are you going to do?

Because I find that if we don't get that our attention on that and we don't start putting the attention on that, then they start to get a little bit more there. There's can be a codependency that'll develop. You know, I had a patient tell me, well, Eric, I don't want to get better because I want to talk to you every once in a while. And I'm like, well, let's go talk, you know? But we're not going to be it's not going to be the same conversation, right? It's going to be a different conversation. And what are we going to what are we going to talk about?

Let's start talking about what we're gonna talk about. When your identity isn't wrapped up in being sick. You just said a mouthful right there. And most clinicians don't know how to gently open this conversation with people. so I'm really glad you're bringing this up. The the way that we do it, as we say. I invite you to leave your diagnosis behind while we go on this exploration with us. But it's, and to hold your labels so lightly because they're only a current description, and they may not even be accurate, because whoever handed them to you, while they may have been in a one up position, every practitioner is in a one up power position.

So it's we want to be very intentional about the words that we're using right. Because those words go in. People will quote back to me, I'm sure the two of you have this all the time. People will quote back to me something the doctor said to them 10 or 20 years ago. It goes in and it stays. you know, the doctor looked at my X-ray and said, how are you not screaming? And she vibrates. She's saying that to me, you know, with the the shock and the trauma of that, you know, where I got told I would never be?

Well, I got told I was infertile at 13. I got told all sorts of things, you know, okay. You know, and I could still remember those conversations. We want to be so intentional with the body. Something that you didn't understand is the secondary gains kind of based on what Erica saying. But like how being sick, was meeting some innate human needs that I had that I didn't, I was not aware of. So for example, like love and connection kind of you mentioned love and connection, but it's like, you know, as Lauryn said, like there's a lot of focus on her from my family or from even doctor, the doctor and them kind of like coddling me like this patient that like I was getting that even though I didn't want that.

It's like I was subconsciously getting that or, control. Like there was like, I love control. And so if I can control my diet and my supplements and you just give me the protocol, it feels safe. Even if it doesn't feel like it's really working very effectively right now or my body is not responding. There was always the next thing. And also like growth in the need for like continual like learning and development, there's always the next thing the explorer, the next biohacking. And there's a great Tony Robbins, Ted talk.

It's like, why? Why you do what you do. I think is what it's called. But if you want to understand the six main human needs, like and just be curious of like, what if any of these needs is my disease inadvertently trying to me. And when we're more aware of that, we can then find healthier ways to try to meet those needs. Or at least we are aware of it. and then we're going to see kind of like, I see what's happening here. Also at a subconscious level, if we're finding it hard to like, kind of like, what is that unknown abyss without this illness or this label or what is life like in a different state?

I haven't known. this is so interesting to me. I'm always asking people, you know, what will be expected of you once you become well and. Exactly. And you know, the responsibility inherent in in being back in charge of your own life. Right? What were you going to say, doctor Erica? Oh, I mean, I just I think that's so right on. That's so spot on. That's and that's tying into what she's talking about. And the, the control piece I know was a big one for me because as a teenager, I started having grand mal seizures.

Talk about a lack of control of your body. Right? Like you're in total spasm mode. And, you know, I felt grotesque. And and here I am, coming of age and you know who's going to ever want, you know, a monster that looks like me, you know, and and that was the piece of like, you know, you do you want to, like, get control of things and especially in terms of, you know, neurological, digestive, they're all kind of connected guys. If we haven't driven that that point home, you know, they, is gaining that control that, was really through taking control, taking action.

And you have to have a healthy relationship with it. I think you have to understand that. Yeah. There is a piece of that of something that you're trying to get control of, and you have to be aware of that, you know, and that was one of the things that I didn't stop at. I knew that I hadn't found all the answers, even when I first started out on my health journey, you know, and I kept going and I kept persevering because I was intent on moving the needle further than the needle had been moved. and I also had to see that part of my desire to do that was to expand and create something that necessarily wasn't created before me, and that was we're not ever changing.

And by unveiling environment in terms of technology since the industrial revolution, and medicine has to change too, in terms of the way that we medicine is a factor or a byproduct of what's going on in our environment at any given point in time. Absolutely. The the last piece I would just want to cover for the audience when you're thinking about like, well, how does that fit in for kids? You know, because what what child has a secondary gain? What will they be responsible for? They're just children.

Well, but wait a minute. Your child is coagulating with you. You're as parents. And this isn't a blame game. This is an invitation to look at the family as a whole. Because for children's illness, you know, there's so many different models will agree on this from the world over, you know, whether it's, you know, modern self-development models or, you know, ancient methods of healing that the child illness has both the expression of distress for the family and also the invitation to heal the family dynamic that's out of balance.

You know, there's so many kids that we have seen come through our practice where the child was really struggling and they'd been named the problem, you know, really loving parents. Like, of course, you're only as happy as your second child,

Spiritual practices and daily support tools 41:48

deeply committed to helping their child become well. But what happens when the child becomes ill? Suddenly they have Mom and Dad's or both. Both parents undivided attention, and both parents come together to work together for the benefit of the child. And how healing is that for everybody? You know, if that wasn't the case before. well into you, you mentioned quantum physics and, you know, I could talk to you about that in more depth, too, but everything's energy, right? And so I can see how that plays out.

My tensions lie on the physiological piece, but I can see when, you know, when the parents come in and then the kids come in, they have the same at first things look a little different in terms of their progress, but they have the same issues. So it's like this energy that's just multiplied and it's showing up at a physiological level, and it's showing up at a spiritual and emotional level, and it's all energy. So no matter which way you tackle it, which other lens you put on it, you've just got to put some attention on it so you can start opening.

You know that that conversation, whether it's at a physiological level, you start entering into healing or physical or emotional or spiritual. it's just about getting going a lot of times too. Right? Absolutely. So I know we're over time, but I really want to give you both a chance to weigh in on what your favorite spiritual and emotional support tools are for healing chronic digestive conditions and or other conditions. Because I know you both are going to have something juicy to say about that.

And, also where people can find you, of course. So, that's your favorite. Go to tools for spiritual and emotional components of resolving these conditions. So many out there. Yeah, yeah. I mentioned inadvertently or just finding yoga was huge and I yeah. So I think that really getting away from screens for one, for that hour a day, I prefer to go to a class where there's no distractions. I thought Covid yoga was really challenging, more so, and then I do something in the mornings. I call it workout and worship set, but like, and I'll just like bullet journal my prayers during my workouts.

I listen to worship music and it's a time like, if anything, I'm not checking my email or doing text messaging or social media within the first couple hours of waking. And I find that that really just like pre-game strategy sets the tone for my entire rest of my day. Or I'm more at cause versus effects like I happens of the day versus the day happening to me. and so and then I think just from a physiological perspective, blood sugar regulation like and hands down has been really helpful from a cortisol perspective.

And so just eating enough protein in particular and then just regularly scheduled meals and being pretty like just mindful with that timing, has been really helpful from a physical perspective. That I have for me, it's kind of similar. It's trying to start the day off with the right intention. You know, I, I grew up Catholic, but I also, have always been drawn and, interested in learning about all different world religions and, and approaches and philosophies and, one of the ones that I kind of geeking out over right now is in shamanistic, medicine.

And so I'm actually involved in a course. So one of the things that we have is a beautiful, prayer basically that you can do to, you know, open it's called opening sacred space. So, my current thing is that I have on my Alexa reminders every morning at 8:00, it goes, Erika, open sacred Space and say, hey to God. And so that's kind of my little, like, routine right now. So that, as I'm getting the day going and getting the dogs fed and everything that I actually take the time to have some kind of moment for, there's for prayer, intention, setting, reflection, and just really like, you know, being, forthright about how I want the day to go.

Okay, one more thing, Joy. just like I call it sparking joy and doing one thing daily that, for me, it's been hip hop dancing lately. but I had a client colitis presentation as well, and she found when she started, like, volunteering at the local zoo. And she just loves animals. Like those days. Her symptoms are lessened, and I'm just, like, really challenged all my patients to do at least one thing. It's very small. It doesn't have to be a hobby. It could be just like going to your favorite local cafe and like writing or doing creative work at a coffee shop or, going on a walk with a friend.

But something that just like you're intentionally doing to spark joy in your day. And gratitude. One of the things that you can be grateful for. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Mindset. so good. Okay. So where can folks find the both of you. All right. drlauryn, on all my social media and, website drlauryn.com and then total gut reset is coming out,

Where to find the guests and closing remarks 46:58

which is my new company launch and program to take your health back in your own hands here in the new year. So be on the lookout for that as well. yeah. And then I'm Dr. Erika with the K. Erika. Erika online. And, that's, you can look me up and find out I'm on Instagram and Facebook and, I can be found on LinkedIn as well. and, I have a free report that will be putting some direction to so that we'll see a little bit more, understanding of how I approach cases and whatnot as well. Yeah, absolutely.

And you really spend a lot of your practice focus on colitis and Crohn's, don't you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The. Yeah. Yeah. So excellent. So folks are looking for clinicians. You guys are also available for a more in-depth, experience, which is wonderful. Thanks so much for your expertise today. This was so fun to do with you. And talk about more of the subtle layers of consciousness together. Really appreciate you both. Thanks. So.