How To Practice Intuitive Wellness Through Natural Nutrition, Mindset & Spiritual Aspects with Katherine Peloso Smith on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

now it’s about five years, I have been working closely with them and realizing that, yes, there is so much we can do on a physical level, which is fantastic, and when it comes to food. But there is there’s a whole other energetic spiritual level of our healing. And so, I really wanted to tap into that a little bit more and provide extra support to my clients. Because I was just always coming up to these barriers. And now it’s really opened up the doors for some pretty amazing transformations that I that I’m able to witness and an experience alongside my clients. So that’s sort of my journey in a nutshell. And I feel like it’s still it’s ever evolving, but that’s kind of where I’m at right now. Yeah, very interesting. I think it’s interesting to whether I talk to physical therapists or people we’re working with nutrition, which is also physical on one level, obviously, it’s biological and, you know, has and feeds us but that healing usually is bigger than that. It takes it takes more. So are you…would it be okay to sort of explore either through your own journey or a client’s journey without names, sort of where, so that people who are seeing naturopaths for example, and naturopaths as a training, we don’t necessarily have any spiritual like education, it’s more our journey or not our journey. And as you probably know, naturopathic physicians have a wide array of modalities they can offer, but everyone is quite unique. Right? So, in other words, we may call similar stuff, but we treat a person from our own backgrounds with these modalities. And I should just state, I was a naturopathic doctor, I am now deregistered. So, for legal reasons, I should…I had to clarify that. But, anyway, in principle, you know, that, that connection to spirituality and that path, how would one know that that could be their block? Yes.

 

Manon Bolliger 04:42

Like, in other words, they have a physician, or they have a doctor, they have a practitioner who is not inclined that way. And they’re not getting quite the results like, so what are the kinds of blocks that you’ve seen? And where does one go, hmm, I need to wake up here, there’s more going on?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 06:44

Yes. So, for me, it’s stepping stones, and not a lot of I would say, not all of my clients, most of them aren’t really ready yet for that spiritual chat. So, the way that I kind of transition them into thinking that way, or starting to open and broaden their, their mindset with it is with mindset. So, I always kind of go over, you know, these are things you can do physically, these are the foods that you can be eating to help support X, Y, and Zed. And then I’ll start to dabble a little bit in the idea of our mindset, and what that can look like and our limiting belief systems that we can carry and, and just our thoughts and beliefs in general and our subconscious mind and how that can affect just how we go about our daily lives and the things that we believe about ourselves, and how that affects our overall wellness among many other things. But I really hone in on the wellness piece. So, you know, if for instance, someone believes that you know, that they’re overweight, or that they’re never going to achieve their weight loss goals, and they sit in that belief system. Many times, it can look like you know, you can do all the right things with calories and exercise and all that kind of stuff, but if you’re still truly believing deeply in your belief system, that you’re never going to achieve that that is a great barrier to begin with. So, looking at our thoughts and our beliefs around that. And then once I’m able to have those types of discussions with my clients, I do a lot of story work, like what are your stories around your wellness, what stories do you tell yourself? What you know and doesn’t have to just be around wellness because it is there’s a holistic view around it. So, what are your stories around love? What are your stories around your body? What are your stories around money, even like and abundance and things like that too, that I get them to tap into, and then we go from kind of sort of understanding that aspect in the mindset and then we move into a little bit about okay, now we also have these energy bodies that you know, are very closely connected to our physical body and taking a look at connecting like our chakras with physical ailments that they might be experiencing. And so, for me personally and in my practice, it’s very much baby steps. I work with people who have never really opened themselves up to these concepts before and it’s very new. So, actually the transformations and the realizations are quite extreme because it’s so brand new for a lot of them. So, we go into the energy bodies and the chakras and connecting those to what they might be feeling physically and then doing some work in rebalancing and opening those and helping them sort of make those connections and tuning into their intuition to what feels good in their body. Because I mean, we can write out meal plans, we can have special foods, but I truly, truly believe that it’s such an individual thing when it comes to our healing, and what’s going to work for each individual person and really trying to be able to uncover what that is for you without having someone else tell you what that looks like. So, yeah, that’s a long winded answer to that.

 

Manon Bolliger 10:33

But so, it’s kind of like a, an uncovering process, that makes them more likely to do the right things for themselves, because they’re more connected to themselves.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 10:48

Yes

 

Manon Bolliger 10:48

In that sense, right? And then, yeah, it made me think to how are you distinguishing the fine line between mind set, like your mindset, and you don’t call it spiritual set? But spirituality where does it? How do you see that?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 11:10

Yes, that’s, that’s a great, that’s yeah, it’s, it’s hard to sort of distinguish the two. And I think it depends on the person too, and what they’re open to. So, to some people, you know, the more spiritual aspects will be called mindset, even though they don’t realize that they might actually be tapping into something a little bit higher than then their mind then themselves quite yet. So there definitely is that and I think, I think the intuition is the key. So with the mindset and getting comfortable with your thoughts, and tuning into what that looks like, through meditations and things like that, that can help you just tune into what you’re thinking what you’re feeling, it strengthens that connection to our intuition, which can then bridge that gap into higher states of being and connecting to maybe your higher self, even if they are so willing to go in that direction as well.

 

Manon Bolliger 12:17

Okay, yeah. That makes that makes sense. I mean, again, they would have to be individual. Like, there’s no other way. Yeah. So, what, what has surprised you the most about your practice?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 12:37

Oh, goodness, what is such like, surprised me?

 

Manon Bolliger 12:40

Yeah, that, you know, something you may not have expected, that you either had to go through positively or, or so called negatively. I know, they’re always teaching lessons, but nonetheless, they can be challenging. Like, as in what, you know, what did you not know?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 12:57

A lot. I think, for me, coming into being in the health and wellness industry, there was so many things that I feel as someone who is not, doesn’t have a doctorate, let’s say there are a lot of barriers for myself and what I can offer, but it’s also been quite a blessing in other ways that I get to do a lot of other things and offer my services in ways that you know, might be different. So that’s been a journey in itself and kind of navigating that a little bit. Just being an entrepreneur has been something in itself that, you know, has been a lot of learning. A lot of learning a lot of you know, new expectations and things like that, but I would say I mean, my niche has continued to change. And I think when I first started off, I really wanted to work with prenatal, pregnancy, postpartum and that sort of area. And I do still really love that I have two young boys myself, so I’ve been there. And I love working with women’s health more specifically. But this area of the spiritual side and mindset and looking at you know, very holistically where we can go with our bodies, and I am still feeling pulled to that there’s more to explore in that area too. So, for me, I just I didn’t realize that I would be continuing to learn and explore and add on and I’m just feeling like I am very flexible and free flowing with what I’m seeing for clients as well. And it goes beyond just the I want a meal plan, right? I want. Maybe it starts off that way, but after working for like, a couple of months with someone, it really begins to blossom into something much more than that. And yeah, I don’t think I ever really expected that, especially in the industry, as like as nutritionists and what we’re deemed to be able to do and what we should be doing and that kind of thing. I just feel like it’s really blossomed into something quite different.

 

Manon Bolliger 15:36

Yeah well, and that’s, in part because of your personality. I’ve been allowing being flexible, open. How much do you think, and this is just a curious point, because I’ve done a fair amount of marketing myself, and, a lot of practitioners don’t realize that they’re actually entrepreneurs?

 

Commercial Break 15:57

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Manon Bolliger 16:37

That’s usually the biggest awakening, it’s like, oh, my goodness, I may be good at what I do, but if nobody knows about it, how do I get the word out? So, I have found that a lot of the marketing training I’ve done has really helped me also hone in to, you know, when you said your…what was the word? Did you use avatar? Or what did you use as your, your niche? That’s what you used. Yeah. Okay. But how? Like, how’s your dance with marketing? How, how has been your evolution with that?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 17:14

Yeah, I would say, I am so fortunate to have a business background. So having that foundation was really beneficial when I first started out because I had an idea as to what that might look like to actually get myself out there, what I needed to do, social media, things like that. It prepared me in some ways, but I’m continuing to explore I just recently finished an eight week business accelerator course, like I’m constantly learning because business is changing too. Even from where I was in university many years ago, it’s now, it’s changed quite a bit. And a lot of it is virtual, and a lot of isn’t online and having to shift with that. And it’s almost a full time job in itself. Marketing and social media and all of that, it’s, yeah, it’s quite a dance. And it’s wonderful. I mean, I really enjoy it, it actually allows me to have a side sort of creative outlet that I enjoy. Creating my website and things like that. It’s quite fun. Although, although time consuming, for sure.

 

Manon Bolliger 18:25

Yeah. But you, you, you would enjoy doing that part. So, like social media, and

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 18:34

Yeah, yeah, I do, too to an extent. I would say I like to engage with followers, I like to share information and, and share my personal life and things like that, too. There’s a lot of nitty gritty things that I one day, I would like to send that off to someone else to do for me, essentially. But yeah, but I do. Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 18:56

Yeah, I think that’s probably the key, right is to, if you enjoy it, then it’s easier to do on some level. But it’s true that it can be creative, like, you know, with the use of Canva and, and those kinds of tools now, it’s a little more accessible to the, you know, to the healthprenuer, basically. Right? You know, at least you can do something yourself without having to delegate everything, which also becomes extremely costly to, yeah. So, you’re most of your clients, how do they find you?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 19:34

Um, that’s a great question too. So, I, a lot of them will be through social media, but a lot is from word of mouth, which I really love. So, I do…I run a program actually called the Back to Your Body Program, and it is all about tuning back in to yourself through mind, body, spirit and Yeah, I’ve just recently launched it in February. We finished it in March. And that was a group program. So, I was doing an…like one on one for a long time. And then I did it as a group program. And it’s just been really great word of mouth. So, people who have gone through this program are now really excited about the results that they experienced and are now sharing it with their friends and family. And yeah, it’s just been it’s been really great that way.

 

Manon Bolliger 20:29

Oh, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Well, and I think it’s, like group programs. Is that one of your first one?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 20:39

That was my first time running it as a group. Yes. It was always, you know, wanting to do one on one. And then I found people like community, they like to hear other people’s experiences, they like to know that they’re not alone. In this journey to and yeah, it was really great. Really great to see. And I want to continue to do more group work.

 

Manon Bolliger 21:04

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I like, I like doing that myself. That’s something that I find rewarding. And I think that is the key, it’s community. That’s a lot of people are looking for that not to feel that they’re all alone. And then when there’s just more to share with other people, you know, I think that whole privacy thing is possibly overrated, when it comes to not…I mean, there’s aspects, I think it’s the fear, like what you wouldn’t put on social media, for future employment might be the same kind of thing you wouldn’t want to share in a group, you know. But it’s usually not crucial to your health in that sense, you know, to your wellbeing, like health and wellbeing because nobody really cares so much if you know, they’re sensitive to wheat, or the other ones sensitive to dairy. It’s like, who cares?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 22:01

Right, exactly. Yeah.

 

Manon Bolliger 22:06

So do you. So, your Tell, tell me a bit more about your group coaching?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 22:12

Yeah, so the program itself is, it’s eight weeks, we do a discovery diet plan, which is very similar to an elimination style diet. And although I’m not a fan of structured diets, for long periods of time, I find this plan is…works very well to listen to your body and really find out for yourself, what’s working and what’s not working, without having to do a food sensitivity test, which it can be helpful in some capacities, or, you know, in addition to doing a discovery diet style of plan, but I like people to really get the sense of how their body feels when they consume certain things. So, it really starts that journey of intuitive eating. And the goal over the eight weeks is to create and design your own intuitive lifestyle of living as well. So, we take into account lifestyle practices, habits, body movement, stress, digestion, all of these different topics that we go through. And on a broad scale, you know, I just kind of go through all of these topics, and each person can sit with the information and figure out what works for them, and their lifestyle. So, I’m not going to sit there and tell everybody, you know, you have to be working out 30 minutes every day. It’s like, these are the you know, these are some recommendations, try this out, see what works. How does that feel in your body? Are you feeling like you’re recovering? Or do you feel good when you’re eating this food? And yeah, and we go through that different types of topics throughout the eight weeks. We also go through energy bodies, and we kind of introduce them to chakras. And by that point, they have a good sense of what foods are not feeling good in their body, if any, sometimes it doesn’t, doesn’t come up, but I would say it’s quite rare. Typically, there are some reactions that happen after the reintroduction phase, that really open up people’s like, oh, my goodness, I didn’t I had no idea that dairy did not sit well with me, I’ve been eating dairy for years. So, things like that, that are really interesting. And the types of reactions that people are or are feeling in their body we connect them to the different chakras as well. And we can kind of dive a little bit deeper into those areas and see, you know, maybe there’s some more deeper rooted healing that that needs to happen to really set up that specific body system to heal as well.

 

Manon Bolliger 25:04

Can you give an example or something like concrete to follow what you mean by that this with the chakras and how that works?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 25:13

Yes, so I’ll use myself as an example too. So, for me, with my thyroid, so having a low thyroid function, the thyroid is closely connected to the throat chakra. And diving deeper into the characteristics of throat chakra, and what that looks like. And when it’s unbalanced, there’s a lot of feeling of not being able to be fully self-expressed. And that was what I really closely connected to the most I was feeling like I wasn’t able to speak my truth on certain topics, I wasn’t able to communicate well. And there were just blockages in my speech and my ability to connect thoughts with words and things along those lines. So I found through doing different activities that really activated my throat chakra like singing, you know, putting myself into experiences where I was speaking more publicly, even journaling, really starting to get my thoughts out of my of my brain and onto paper, really, really helps to accelerate, I believe my healing process in conjunction with other things as well as like supplements and things like that, that really helped to rebalance my thyroid hormones. So yeah, that’s kind of an example that,

 

Manon Bolliger 26:43

Yeah, that’s a great example. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, it sounds like a great program. So, you’ll be launching that again, to your clients, I guess. And, and probably it’s open right to the public, or do you? Do you do both?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 27:03

Yeah, it will be open, I am going to launch another one in June. So that will be another eight weeks that we’ll be going through that I like to I’m planning on doing it three times a year. So, we’ll do like a winter, we’ll do like a spring. And then and then a fall as well. I find people in the summertime are not as open to doing programs and things like that they’re traveling, they’re like, I don’t want to do any strict diets or anything like that. So yeah, so kind of working around that a little bit. And it’s open, it’s open to whoever would like to join. It’s not specific to just…

 

Manon Bolliger 27:40

It’s also good from I used to madmen I used to, I guess I still am, but it’s coming to an end, the masterclass on marketing and for healthcare practitioners. And one of the things about courses too, it’s also wonderful lead to new people that you can then potentially work deeper one on one with, because it gives them an opportunity to sort of see how you think, achieve something, you know, so I think a course, that gives them something, you know, some insight about whether it’s like, you know, in like in your case and automation style diet, where they can see what they’re sensitive to and connect back to themselves. That’s certainly a huge start to then going deeper, you know, and it’s great way too, and to position yourself as well. Yeah. And it’s also much easier to when people refer to say, oh, you know, she has this course, it actually works very well. So yeah, congratulations to figure this out.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 28:54

Yeah, I would say it’s like, yeah. Once people are able to feel what’s going on, and they’re noticing their symptoms, and they’re able to connect clearly, I call it clearing the fog. By doing a discovery diet, you kind of clear out that fog, and you can really listen to what your body’s telling you at that point. Because most of us are just walking around not knowing that we could feel a lot better than how we feel. So, by doing that, yeah, and then, more often than not, by the end of the eight weeks, people are like okay, now I want to dive a little bit deeper, like why am I having these gut symptoms? Why, you know, why am I getting these rashes that come out when I consume dairy, you know, and then we can dive a bit deeper and start talking about, you know, plans and things that they can put into place to accelerate or continue on their healing journey.

 

Manon Bolliger 29:45

And how have you found to that, once you’ve, you know, heal the gut but also heal the person from their interaction with food or their gut interaction that summer these triggers are just not triggers anymore.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 30:04

Yes, 100%. I would say, I mean, it’s different for everybody. And I think it depends on where the trigger is coming from. So, I always say there’s two sort of ways of looking at it. One of them the food is the actual issue, right, we could have a true intolerance or a true sensitivity to something within the food. Or we could have an underlying condition or issue that’s going on within the gut of some sort, right? And so, if we’re able, if that is the case, we can clear up, rebalance the gut microbiome right and get things functioning more optimally. So that when we do introduce that food, the reaction isn’t as great, or they’re able to eat it in moderation. It kind of just depends on the food and the person too. But generally, over I would say over time, yes, you can reintroduce. You’re not going to be experiencing the same symptoms.

 

Manon Bolliger 31:04

Yeah, and sometimes it’s the food but sometimes it’s the chemicals in the food.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 31:09

Exactly.

 

Manon Bolliger 31:10

That’s a whole other story.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 31:11

Yes. Yes.

 

Manon Bolliger 31:14

So, I mean, our time is almost coming to completion is there any kind of final or last words you want to share with everyone?

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 31:22

I would just love to share that I believe so strongly that healing really does start within. So, with you, seeking that help from people who are able to support you and guide you in the right direction. But to really tune in and listen and be able to make that connection to your own body is really beneficial because nobody knows your body better than you or your mind or your spirit and take the information that is going to make the most sense to you and run with that. But at the end of the day, always, always come back to what you feel truly resonates in in your mind, body and spirit.

 

Manon Bolliger 32:07

Well, thanks very much, Katherine. And well good luck with your course on your practice.

 

Katherine Peloso Smith 32:12

Thank you so much.

 

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.