Healers Need Intuition to Help Their Patients Heal with Dr Sarah Marshall, ND on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

my first asthma attack when I was nine months old. They didn’t know it was asthma. I was nonverbal at that point was preverbal. And by the time I was 18 months old, they finally figured out that’s what had been going on. I was, you know, that’s a pretty young age to be diagnosed with asthma. I had around with mononucleosis that hospitalized me when I was 13 years old, I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out after I ended up with antibiotic resistant strep throat when I was 18 years old, there was a whole series of health challenges. And again, my parents were so awesome. Like I saw a homeopathic doctor when I was eight, nine and ten years old before they got kicked out of New York, and we’re no longer allowed to practice. And those were the only two and a half years that I basically had completely controlled asthma. And while we would have me on, you know, inhalers, my mom was adamant to not have me on steroids, which I’m grateful for. And we would do as much as we could also, when I’d be in the middle of an attack, she’d take me outside into the cold night air, and we would use herbal baths. And quite frankly, I wear Malachite around my neck to open up my lungs and my heart chakra. And so, like I had my feet kind of in both worlds throughout my childhood. And the thing that always struck me was at no point did any doctors say when you’re not having asthma, here’s what you can do to heal your lungs.

Manon Bolliger  04:32

Right.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 04:32

In between attacks. This is what you could do to like improve your health. There was no conversation and even then, that was weird to me. And I did notice we were required in New York State to take swimming class in high school, which everybody hated because you had to get your hair wet and you’re in high school and your makeup and your hair is ruined and all that. I figured out my freshman year that when I took swim class over the winter, I had less asthma attacks. And so, I started swimming routinely through the winter. And it helped my breathing because I was basically doing breathing exercises, which I now can see. But at the time, it was like, you know, there was this strengthening that was happening. And so, there were these pieces that started to come together. And then my undergraduate was in chemistry. And I always thought the human body is like the ultimate chemistry set. And so, I started messing with my nutrition. And I would try all these crazy diets. I did a diet that was called chrono biotic nutrition where you ate certain things at certain times during the day based on when the sunlight hit them. Like, I mean, I was just going for it, I would try all sorts of things. And I was always hanging out in the nutrition but also metaphysical sections of the bookstores back when we went to bookstores. So that was all there for me. But what was interesting is I had never heard of a naturopathic physician. I actually didn’t know our profession existed, I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a medically trained, licensed practitioner, who also specialized in homeopathy and herbal medicine and nutrition. And I saw a advertisement in a magazine that literally said, you will be a naturopathic doctor. Now, I don’t actually know if that’s what the advertisement said or not like, that literally was like what happened. And I was like, what the heck is a naturopathic doctor and I googled it and looked it up and found the accredited association of naturopathic physicians and the schools that were related to it. And within like, days, I was downloading applications and applying to medical school because I had just finished my undergraduate. So that was a lot of the process that brought me and when I read, there’s a page in that website that has the tenants of naturopathic medicine, there’s six kind of coded tenants. And it was like reading a page out of my own journal, it was so in alignment, you know, of the healing power of nature and treating the root cause and, you know, truly physician do no harm as much as naturally possible and doctor is teacher and you know, the just the innate, vital force that lives inside of all of us, that can actually be opened up to heal. And I was 25 years old at the time, like, there was some ancient wisdom that was coming through me. And I feel like I’m free to share this here, that I’m quite certain I’ve been a medicine woman for a long time. And that something ancient, whether it’s past lives, or if it’s just the collective consciousness that comes through me, there’s something that was already alive in me. And this was just the right fit to take on this profession. I truly thought I was going to the Hogwarts of medicine, though. And I had some disappointments when I got to medical school. And it was like, way more about conventional medicine than I expected it to be. And so, I had to go through it. That’s a whole nother part of the story. But that’s essentially what led me to naturopathic medicine.

Manon Bolliger  08:04

Wow. Again, you know, no coincidences, right.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 08:08

Nope.

Manon Bolliger  08:09

Yeah. So, I mean, it’s interesting, because you, you’ve been in practice 15 years, right.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 08:15

Yeah.

Manon Bolliger  08:16

And that’s about when I think the as a profession, the naturopathic profession wanted to look more and more like what we call the allopathic profession the conventional drug therapy. But I wonder, you know, because I’ve always said, I’m just thinking out loud here. But that’s what this podcast is. But it’s like, I’ve always thought, oh, it comes from this lack…from this idea that we’re not good enough with what we have. And therefore, we need to, like, copy medical doctors. But now having gone through the last three years, like everyone else, I’m thinking, you know, and then there was a Carnegie report and all this, which predates it ages ago, but I wonder if it wasn’t very well orchestrated, if it wasn’t really about the takeover of a profession that really could help people heal. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 09:29

Oh man, you know, I personally, just to…this is a choice, right. Like I choose to live in a world view that people are not inherently malicious, like on purpose. I think that there’s…we as human beings are hardwired to acceptance and belonging. It’s an innate, like every infant has to have this connection to their family members and many of us and we can go into the world of trauma and what we’ve learned about when those connections get not well fed or broken due to whatever circumstances that happened in our childhood where we don’t actually experience belonging, we don’t experience being loved and nourished and accepted the way that we are. And this is my spiritual view, and also somewhat my psychology informed view that those traumatized humans grow up to be politicians. And they grow up to make decisions about the world. And that there’s a lot of things that get determined based on…human beings right now we’re expressing that it’s more important to try and belong to a club than it is to follow along with an innate wisdom or what actually is in the best interest of the planet and the people. And so, a lot of decisions are being made based on who are they going to win favor with, and how are they going to be funded, which is also just a metric of winning favor, and who will they upset and they’re not willing to be courageous and stand out to upset the applecart, so they stay safe. So is it absolutely possible that there’s something more orchestrated here…completely. My personal worldview is, if you want to know just follow the money, it probably is something in the realm of defunding or overfunding, or whatever that kind of is, you certainly can’t say that what we would deem complementary alternative medicine, I just call it medicine is not a source of profit, as you know, supplements in the wellbeing industry is like one of the largest multi trillion dollar businesses in the world. So that doesn’t totally add up. But I can’t really speak to having a lot of education about it. But it’s definitely interesting to see, even inside of our own profession, there are factions, and there are groups of people who would prefer like, you know, I’m a part of the Utah Association of Naturopathic Physicians. And there’s a lot of conversations that come up regularly about expanding our formulary, which is the law that tells us what we can and can’t prescribe. Specifically, what pharmaceuticals we can and can’t prescribe. And it seems like there’s an essence of even some, and I’m really going out on a limb here. So here we go. That there’s people in our own profession that also have those wounds and those traumas such that it’s important for them to prove themselves. And the only way that we can prove that we’re real doctors is if we have the scope of practice of a standard conventional doctor. And then that becomes more important to legitimize our medicine because we can prescribe all these drugs. Where to me, it’s like, we’re measuring the wrong thing. We legitimize our medicine by the state of health of our patients.

Manon Bolliger  12:54

Yes.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 12:55

You know, is it working? Are they healthier? Are they better, and if you want to play those statistics, I know there was a survey done, I don’t know that it was published. But there was a couple naturopaths who surveyed a very large amount of naturopathic physicians through the pandemic. And there was not a single death from COVID of any of our patients. Not one. And just that statistic alone, if we want to put up the conventional allopathic model, and the naturopath and of course, these are not surveys that are being done. These are not research that’s actually getting enacted to actually look at like, if I want to hire two financial advisors, I want to know what their track record is. But when we hire doctors, which most people don’t even think about it that way, what’s their statistical track record? Like…like, would you ever go with a real estate agent that failed selling 75% of the houses they ever went, you know, worked with, like, but we don’t have those kinds of statistics for medicine. There’s a soapbox for you.

Manon Bolliger  13:59

Good, good points, you know, because I was thinking, it’s a bit different here in BC, we have prescription rights. And I was thinking, that’s about when things changed. You know, and I’m thinking on what you’ve just said, it’s like, yeah, that it changes who wants to come who wants to learn and sort of the, you know, the child inside that needs to heal. It attracts different, you know, different people than 30 years ago, for example, right. So, it’s, it’s interesting how all that works. And, and I agree, I mean, you know, you can follow the money trail for sure. You can go well, hmm interesting. You know, pharmaceuticals, okay, well, who gains from us using pharmaceuticals? You can also go hmm interesting. Why is it we’re just about to lose 80% of all natural products in Canada. Right? Because it’s a big industry makes tons of money, why are we losing?

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND15:09

That brings a whole different set of questions up? Yeah,

Manon Bolliger  15:11

It certainly does, you know? And then you go, Hmm, it’s interesting. So, what is the plan about all of that? You know, and, and I’m not trying to reduce our, our wonderful conversation to these thoughts, but, you know, a lot of naturopaths in Canada are wondering, what are they going to do when they can’t access, and the patients can’t pay for the supplements that they might actually need even for temporary time.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 15:45

So, this is an interesting, so I thought I was gonna live in the Netherlands long term, I moved there briefly. And the medical landscape in the Netherlands is very different than the United States. And there’s almost no herbal medicine and supplements available. It’s very limited. I mean, you can get 15 or 20 different herbs, and you can get 15 or 20, basic, you know, vitamin C, vitamin B, zinc, iron, but there’s not at all anything like the Pharmacopoeia that we have of options, right. And I really was looking at, okay, I’m still committed to healing and to assisting people. And that’s actually where I leaned very heavily into, I would bring my homeopathic mother tinctures, I would work with flower essences. And I would practice energy work, and food is medicine. Like I started to just look like there’s a fear of what’s happening in the censorship of natural medicine. Absolutely there’s a concern for that, and the limiting…anywhere when we’re limiting human freedom, I have concern and a lot of questions. Then there’s this other place, though, where it’s interesting what you said about the point that our profession possibly took a big turn is when we actually started to get prescribing rights for pharmaceuticals. And I see this in the younger generation of the new naturopath, they tend to fall back on and rely on pharmaceuticals, they like prescribed way more pharmaceutical, I basically don’t prescribe at all pharmaceuticals. But a lot of that I find comes from a place of they don’t actually trust, the natural medicine, they haven’t seen it work. They haven’t actually been trained in such a way to see the ease and the beauty and the possibility and also the longevity, because some things in naturopathic medicine takes time to unwind. And we don’t have our school set up to actually get us that information. It wasn’t that way when I was there. If I had only stayed inside of the conventional education, the standard education model, and I hadn’t taken seminars every single weekend with doctors outside of my standard education, I probably would have felt the same way. But I went and sought out practitioners who were doing work that I saw was working. And I got to witness the miracle of natural medicine through homeopathy, through physical therapies through, you know, all sorts of different modalities. So, I got to be one of the ones that came out with a solid belief and experience of what’s actually possible in our medicine. And I see in many of our younger, you know, the doctors that have been graduating since I graduated that’s not there. And, and so then all they think is like okay, well, I’m going to, you know, low dose Naltrexone and I’m going to keep them on the, you know, the standards in this still prescribing antibiotics and hormone replacement therapy, which is another whole that could be a podcast in and of itself. You know, all those things. So, I’m going to pause there because yeah,

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Manon Bolliger  19:52

Yeah, nobody you raise really important points is that if you know…traditionally, we learned from watching others practice, right, and now we’re in a school. And a school always teaches a certain way, whatever it is, it’ll go kind of with the culture and the times and the financing. And, you know, I mean, we’ve seen how it changes our school systems. I mean, just look at our general kid’s school systems. What’s happening there? It’s shocking, right? So, you know, it’s not surprising that, that what we hold to what we really want to learn, because intuitively, we have seen, or we know, we’ve experienced, when that’s what we want to learn, it’s not what’s being taught now officially in naturopathic schools. And that’s why so many of them, you know, in the last little period of time where we lost 8000 healthcare workers in BC, you know, they’re like, well, maybe, maybe I really wasn’t fit to be a whatever it is. Because they don’t have the confidence in it. And you know, I’ve had so many in the past when I had a practice, I had so many medical doctors come in and say, they just feel like they’re drug peddlers now, You know, they don’t, they were saying, Oh, you’re so lucky to be able to choose the appropriate medicine and to actually work with the body. And I’m like, wow, it’s like almost flipped around. Right. But I think we’re, we’re at a stage now where it is going to be our own path. It’s going to be what we choose to bring into our field into what we want to learn, you know, and I think, like, like you did, you took seminars every weekend, right? I think that’s kind of what matters more now than the labels that people have. Because you can’t know, you can’t know anymore. What does the naturopath know, if you try and refer to a naturopath? I mean, there’s no such it’s like

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 22:16

It’s a broad range.

Manon Bolliger  22:18

A broad range. I mean, they’re all medically trained. Okay, that is in common. But that’s not why people necessarily go, you know, they really want solutions that don’t have detrimental impacts. Right. So, yeah, it’s gonna be very interesting whether our profession will survive these times, and maybe grow into like, I know, here, there’s, like parallel societies being built, that are really interested in providing true care. You know, that’s it’s shocking is, goodness that happens so fast. You know?

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 23:02

It’s fascinating.

Manon Bolliger  23:03

Yes. Fascinating, you know, so it is your journey, ultimately, right? What you bring in what you connect with, you know, and, and you brought up intuition. And the word divine in both your statements twice now. So why don’t we explore that?

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 23:24

What would you like to know? Because there’s a lot there.

Manon Bolliger  23:27

Well, no, but how does that play in for you, like, you know, because it’s very, not common, but in the healing community, a lot of people, you know, have experienced intuition at some point in their life. And then they’ve either suppressed it fully or learned not to believe it. And then later, they’ve come back to it. And I think Divine is a little bit the same way. It almost feels to me like, they’re, they’re almost similar processes. And so, I’m just curious how you’re looking at this.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 24:06

So there yeah, there’s a lot of things I could say about it. I actually want to speak to the Divine because that word’s riskier for me, I think, than intuition. I think we’ve come to a certain place where we’re even honoring and respecting not universally but the conversation is present. That intuition makes a difference for medical doctors and for nurse practitioners and for nurses and that there is actually a role for our heart, I would call it heart centered instincts to play in healing and the care of others. And then the divine that throws people a little bit further for a loop, you know, and it’s really, it’s non-religious for me, but I looked at a lot of different words. And you could say spiritual or spirit or energy and definitely I would say there’s a lot of interchange but it’s like energy is very broad and generalized and can refer to lots of things. And then spirit and spirituality kind of hones in but there’s something about the word divine, that is very powerful. And it connects us to something. ineffable, that I’m now going to try and talk about the thing we can’t talk about. But it’s, you know, it’s about, for me, you know, I say, the reason for my existence, that the whole purpose of my life and why I’m here is to support myself and others in you know, being free, and being connected to the divine. And I could even say being the divine, but that would be even more risky. I think it’s our innate nature of who we are and what we’re here for, I think it’s a recognition that there’s something bigger than just our molecules and our body parts. Something that is, we, you know, have a frequency or vibration or a force inside of us that says, This is the experience of life I want to have, this is the kind of version of Julie I want to be this is the kind of Matthew that I want to express, you know. And that there’s this amazing opportunity, as being a human being as a unique species on this planet, to get to change our minds and do different things and create and create again, and have our hearts broken and discover courage to love again, and all of these experiences that we have as human beings. And for me, there’s some I know, this is a podcast, you can’t see me, but it’s like there’s something channeling through from the top of our heads into our bodies, that is like wanting to be expressed. And that when we disconnect from that, or we deny that or we pretend it’s not there, or we’re numb to it is a source of dis-ease. I actually think it’s one of the ultimate sources of dis-ease. And part of how I came to that is being with people over the last 15 years, 20 years, really, and standing for their healing and watching them do their own healing work. Everybody comes to the same place, which is as their body repairs itself, and as they get freed up from pain and from some of their symptoms and suffering. They start asking these questions, who am I? What am I here for? And what do I want my life to be about? And that’s not just even in physical that’s in therapy that’s in like, I’ve been a part of personal growth and transformational coaching programs. And when you free people up from their trauma, when they wake up out of the suffering they’ve been in, its universal, people start asking the question about their purpose. For me, I connect that to something like you could use the word divine, you know, but whatever people are comfortable with. And I think that if we quite frankly, want to speed up the process of healing is to just get honest faster about what we’re really here to do. I can take the slow road, and we can talk about, you know, vegetables and not cooking with bad oils. And that’s great. That’s useful. And I do that. But like, we could also cut to the chase and say, What is your life for? And what are you here for? And what really matters to you? And then what do you need your body to be and do so that you can fulfill on that? Now, here’s the diet for you. Right, based on that.

Manon Bolliger  28:14

That’s, yeah, that’s funny. I know, I totally agree. And one of the questions I ask people, and I realized, I’ve just put it together with what you just said is, why is it you want to heal? Like, you know, so they have knee pain. Why? Why does it matter that you heal the knee pain. And that just opens up the dialogue, it’s like, it’s the fast way. But once they’re aligned to the why they want to whether it’s to be able to run after their grandkids or whatever the story may be. But once they have something bigger than the understanding that mechanically, this is wrong, this knee should work. And now we’re going to make it work, you know, when surpass that we are into that field. Immediately, you know.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 29:09

And then did you close the loop? You asked about intuition? I would say that one way of looking at intuition is it is your opportunity to hear the language of the Divine. You know, and that’s a whole skill set. I truly believe everyone is intuitive. I think it’s a part of our innate human being. I think that there’s whole levels of our body and our physiology that we have not yet, you know, we didn’t know the immune system existed, not that many decades ago. And we barely understood and now we have this whole map of cytokines and all the different types of T cells and B cells, and you know, pathways of immunity. It’s gonna be the same thing as we branched further into the energetic body that we’re just starting to get language around the frequencies, and there’s aspects of that that have been we’ve tapped into for 1000s of years of ancient medicine through shamanism, in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, that we’re already working in alignment with what in our medicine we call the vital force. But I think it’s even more than that. And when you partner with that divinity, healing is very fast. And, and it’s amazing, what the body’s capable of. And so, for me, intuition is like, the coding or the language or the way to start to get access to that, just from something as simple as a gut feeling. Do I actually want to go to the baseball game? Or do I really want to stay home and watch a movie? And asking the question, what is in my highest and best interest? You know, how you phrase the question makes a really big difference. But then from there, you know, you can go way deep, and I do intuitive medical readings with some of my clients that request it. I also am firmly rooted in, here’s the medical scientific answer. Here’s the diagnostic information I’m trained in, I want you to have all of that. But if you’re open, we can also have a conversation to access something that might go beyond what the labs can show us. And I hold it as that I hold it is just this is not…I don’t think it’s like the answer. But it brings in a level of that person often feels very witnessed and seen. And it’s like there’s a place in their heart that goes, Oh, my gosh, yes, this is what I’ve been waiting for a healthcare practitioner to say back to me, I knew there was more to it than just my antibodies are doing this. And my blood cells are doing that. Right. It tends to speak to people in a…in an…like an eight-knowing place. So, I bridge the two together in my practice.  Wow. That’s, I mean, it’s so exciting, that there are no triples doing this.  We still exist, we’re still out there.

Manon Bolliger  31:51

But I mean, that’s the thing. What, Why, why wouldn’t we? You know, why wouldn’t we make it easier? You know, and, and in their language, right? Like, when you’re saying, you know, intuition. Let’s cut this a little bit more detail here. Are you…do you feel that it’s a process of you seeing them and their story? And then something is guided for you to say? Well, for example, was it…was there a grief that happened? Or like, is it like a very open questioning process? Or do you feel that they’re in a state of opening? Like, how do you see that that this information comes to you?

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 32:53

Oh, my gosh, I mean, I think it’s, I think it’s in the in between, I think it’s both and. I think that it’s recognizing the inner resonance between both me and that other person. And so, I used to do readings where I was like, here’s what I see. I actually don’t do that anymore. I may pick it back up again, which is interesting. But I’ve mostly shifted into inquiry. And so, my intuition guides me a lot on what questions to ask. What’s way more interesting to me is their answer than whatever my version of interpreting the imagery or whatever I see. So, a lot of my intuition and my practice on a regular basis is just guiding me what questions to ask, when and how, and then how to respond to whatever they may be dealing with in that moment. I trust my just instincts and how I respond to them. Because a lot of my work is done in conversation. It’s like my therapy, and I’m not hands on. And that way I’m word on. So, I do a lot through communication. And it’s all over my astrological charts, that communication is one of my healing gifts. But I also have a very concrete way that I do a roadmap where I have built a spreadsheet, and it’s binomial, it’s yes’s and no’s. And I have a whole diagnostic list of options and things that might be going on with this person. And I also look at their Chinese five element theory and I will look at their seven chakras. And it’s like reading an intuitive MRI. And I take that information and share it with them in the context that this is intuitive, and it’s non diagnostic, and it’s just for their information, and they should keep whatever resonates and anything I said doesn’t make any sense to them, just toss it. But what happens is it starts to…that’s that place where one of the aspects of healing I think that’s really important is when we’re fully heard and seen, and I actually believe when you feel an experience being fully heard and seen energy leaves your body like trauma can come out of your body, you can actually release things that have been trapped. And I’ve found that doing those medical assessment, medical intuitive assessments that way, for many of my clients, they have this deep sigh of like relief. And this breath leaves. And they’re just I mean, oftentimes they cry, because for many people, they’ve suffered a lot of medical trauma. And they’ve been to many, many, many doctors and specialists, and they start to feel crazy. And there’s all sorts of things they’re dealing with. So, there’s a piece of it that is very mechanical, like, yes, no answers. Where’s the source of inflammation? Is the hippocampus involved? Is it a testosterone issue? Are there heavy metals? Might there be hidden viral infections? And it’s, I don’t even know. Is it pure intuition? Or is it me organizing my thoughts? I don’t care. And it’s how it’s useful. And sometimes it points me diagnostically to run tests that I wouldn’t have gotten to that test as quickly. But it’s just screaming off the page that we should do heavy metal testing. And I’m like, Look, here’s what I’m thinking, how do you feel about this, but then I let them come into their own resonance in agreement with that versus me being like, this is what we have to do. I don’t I don’t do any of that in my practice.

Manon Bolliger  36:10

Okay, I’m gonna leave it at that but that is so conversational. I’d love to thank you, Sarah. So much for sharing your wisdom and your, your energy.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 36:26

It was great to be here.

Manon Bolliger  36:27

Part of what profession I think, you know, has still the potential of being an amazing profession.

Dr. Sarah Marshall, ND 36:37

Yeah, yeah. Very powerful healers, for sure. I’m grateful to know another one in you as well.

ENDING: 41:33

Thank you for joining us at the Healers Café with Manon Bolliger. Continue your healing journey by visiting TheHealersCafe.com and her website and discover how to listen to your body and reboot optimal health or DrManonBolliger.com/tips.