Rise Past Trauma Through Love with Dr Katie Branter, ND on The Healers Café with Dr Manon Bolliger ND

Co Op, you know, I did a co-op thing in high school at a health food store. And I learned about naturopathic medicine. And I was like, this is right up my alley, because people would just come up to me and asked me for like, tips, like, as if I already knew what I was doing. When I was young. I didn’t know I didn’t have any of the tools yet. But I just always found out, you know, what do we do for this? How do we approach that and being a sensitive, I’ve always been told I was too sensitive, you know, I’m fully empathetic I learned that yeah, I sort of I think, you know, when you’re sort of born with that healing energy or the knowing. And so, I actually did an undergrad, I didn’t think I was smart enough for medical school, which was part of my journey now is the not enough, like, you know, working through the not enough. And then I had my son on pretty much like the day I was supposed to graduate from my undergrad. So, I had a child and I realized I need to learn all this stuff, and work for a couple years. And then I was like, I’m going for my dreams. And this really is an interesting story. I was actually in the hallway of my house, applying for jobs. And I swear my father passed when I was six. I swear he pushed me and said a swear word. What the hell are you doing? Go for your dreams. And that was it. I realized that CCM had a prep program, then I could apply to it. And yeah, so I went.

 

Dr. Manon 03:26

Yeah, actually, it’s funny. So, did I. It’s sort of kind of a crazy thing if you think about it, because even that, I mean, it’s such a heavy curriculum, right? Intense. I remember working full days. And then, having dinner, putting everyone to bed and then waking up and where’s my second wind and then studying to like, two in the morning and then off it goes again.

 

Katie Branter 04:04

It was the exact thing. Same thing for me.

 

Dr. Manon 04:08

Oh, that’s funny. So, then you are a practicing naturopath. And so, where have you been practicing?

 

Katie Branter 04:19

When I finished at CCNM {Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine} my ex-husband and his family were living in, Stratford So I went there for a year. And then yeah, and then we split up and I ended up moving back to Victoria, which is where I’m from. So, then I built my own practice here and then joined another, my girlfriend and I actually worked in a skincare practice up until my son passed away in 2016.

 

Dr. Manon 04:50

Yeah, that’s fairly recent. I can’t imagine that really.

 

Katie Branter 04:57

Yeah, you don’t want to.

 

Dr. Manon 05:03

So, did that change things in a massive way? when you get when you yourself get sick, it changes you massively, like I’d stage four cancer. And that was a big deal, because I realized that if the ship was going to keep going forward, I was going to have to be that captain, you know, and at the time I was not in. I was not having a healthy relationship with myself, but also with the partner I chose. And then I had three kids at that time. And so, for me, it caused me to go deep into a lot of questioning and many fundamental things changed. But when it’s a child. I am still at a loss of what I would… How do you get through that?

 

Katie Branter 06:04

I mean, that’s such a good question. I was actually quite ill, not anything diagnosed, but we had been living in a very moldy home, and I had a lot of health problems, like really insane, nervous system, neurological stuff that hadn’t been diagnosed. And of course, we know that mold is a neurotoxin. And there’s layers and layers of that Epstein Barr and all this stuff. So, when my son died, we had just moved into a new cleaner home. Three weeks, because we both realized both he was struggling with his health, and I was struggling with my health. And we realized it’s the house. So, but if you do the research, mold affects teenage boys, particularly negatively. I had done a lot of research, obviously, you know, that’s what we do. I read some really interesting articles about how it affects their neurology and can cause a lot of depression leading to drug use, and you know, all this stuff, because they just want to get out of their bodies. Because, yeah, I’m not sure exactly why it has something to do with the neurotransmitters, but, when we moved into that house, that he started having problems, which coincided essentially, with his puberty and, there were moments where, you know, I just knew I just had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good. This wasn’t going to be good. And I was also, I also had gotten pregnant unexpectedly couple years before, so I had a young daughter, and trying to balance my practice and our finances and my son’s depression, let’s say, or anxiety more, so you’d say. So, I was burnt, I was burnt out, and still taking care of a lot of people in my life. And so, when, you know, three weeks into living here, my nieces had just moved here because we had been through a ton of trauma as a family as well, we almost lost my one niece, my other sisters’ husband had left her, and they were just moving back. And so, it had been three years or two years, really, of just so much overwhelming my nervous system. So, I actually didn’t know when he passed away when I found him how I was going to make it through.

 

Dr. Manon 08:27

Yeah. I can imagine.

 

Katie Branter 08:29

I didn’t know because I didn’t have the resources. I mean, I had the knowledge, I guess, kind of on how I was going to heal, but I was in such a state of depletion that it was really touch and go, I was like, okay, I can go either way. I go like that. And, you know, when you lose a child, part of you just wants to go with them. Like, why would I be here? But I had this really sweet little two-and-a-half-year-old, almost three-year-old that was really vying for my attention every single day and I thought I need to be here for her. And honestly, if she wasn’t in my life, I’m not sure I would have made it to where I am now. So that surprise baby, maybe she came for a reason. So yeah, and it was really day to day it was like, every day I would make the choice to put my two feet on the ground and get up in the morning. I refuse meds. I mean, my doctor wanted to medicate me, and I was like, if I’m medicated, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to, and don’t get me wrong. I do not judge like it is the most challenging thing a parent can go through if you need meds, use them. But I knew for me, I would still have to deal with the pain, and it would just be delayed, and it would affect my nervous system and it would affect my liver and it would affect all the things that were struggling already. So, I Didn’t medicate. And I went for lots of walks, and I quit my practice. And I kind of slowly started to find my way. Using, I mean, really, I didn’t even eat that well, I mean, I don’t even remember what I was doing, I think I was drinking wine. Like, who knows, right. And I wasn’t doing the best at that type of care. But my spirit was kind of keeping me in my responsibilities as a mother. And then I eventually did a couple years after getting sober. And I, wrote a blog about it on Facebook, just my experience of letting go of alcohol and really gaining clarity on Okay, this is what I have to do for my healing.

 

Katie Branter 10:52

 I feel like I had spirits or whatever you want to call them guiding me through, you know, and sort of everyday telling me it’s going to be okay. And also, just through the sweet voice of my child, Mama, Mama, you know, or, or temper tantrums or whatever that like I had to focus on. But it was the most challenging thing I’ve ever been through by far.

 

Dr. Manon 11:20

It makes me think as I’m actually now creating a training, like a mindfulness training and awareness training, which is not just meditation or anything like that. It’s really much wider as continuing education for naturopaths, and many other health care providers. And I realized, you know, none of the training really prepares you. Even though we are integrating, we are holistic, there’s no preparation for some of the challenges that life, brings. And I’m thinking we’re missing this, like all healers need to go through some sort of support, for this kind of reality, because we’re told to be so strong, that, you know, get on with it, move on, do natural things, or do artificials makes up your whatever, drugs, or whatever. But the thing is, there’s so little care about, really are our own…………. What’s the right word I’m looking for here? Yeah, our own existence in this world. our own connection to this world, our own…….. and especially when we’re starting off in practice, and you’re young, and you know, I’ve had many young people, it’s like, you know, we tell people what to do more of this and more of that, but we’re not actually listening to their entire context. To what’s really going. So, I hear you have a new venture or something else coming. So I’m very curious what’s going on because I do think like, it’s not necessarily easy, but it feels guided very much for us to be the fullest of who we really are, who are meant to be, you know, so I trust it implicitly, even though it can be extremely challenging, especially if you’re an empath, and all of those things that many of us are when we go into these fields, you know, so, anyway, go on about yourself, what did you discover that you wanted to do?

 

Katie Branter 14:00

Oh, my goodness, well, it’s been a long journey. Like, right, even before Matteo was struggling. I had inklings and ideas of doing group programs for young people and teenagers and young adults. But then he died. And so that was really around the time I was starting to think of something other than practice. Because the practice was burning me out. I knew that there were needs that weren’t being met. Because like you say, we were taught what to do, but how to be, is really what we need to be looking at, right? Are we the wisdom of our bodies, tuning into the wisdom, tuning into the wisdom of the messages that we’re getting, of our spiritual selves of the you know, of our light of our consciousness, and I really learned I mean, my son was Star seed, he was one of those like we always said he was from the stars even before I kind of understood what all that meant. And he said to me once when he was three that, you know, Mama, love is the real trophy in life, and you are my trophy. And I thought, what the…….. what three-year-old says that, like, just the wisdom that he had up until the like, I remember a couple days before he died, he put his hands around, you know, struggling, we had just moved into the house, I was tired. And he was like, you know, Mom, everything’s going to be okay. And he would say things like that, to me. Like everything falls into place as it should as it needs to and trust and I was like, and I just wasn’t trusting I was just in fight or flight I was freaking out. And because I had never been guided, I had been through a lot of trauma in my life. My father died when I was six, and my mom almost died when I was 19. I was an empath. So, nobody understood how to support someone who is a sensitive. And so, throughout my life, I have learned how to do that. And throughout my practice, and through all the people that I support, and that have supported me. And so, I did my “why” my purpose finally a couple of weeks ago, and in my human design, I’m in the theme of love. And so, my Why is to be a loving presence so that those around me can heal and thrive and tune into the love that they have within the love that they are. And then my purpose that like I was like, what am I going to do so I let it kind of percolate over last few weeks. And it was like I’m creating an online community for young adults, teens and their parents. And we’re going to learn all this stuff together, we’re going to go through all this stuff, I’m going to teach some practical mindfulness, we’re going to learn how to nourish our bodies and our souls, our spirits, our hearts, we’re going to learn how to allow grieving, we’re going to learn how to love we’re going to learn how to generate loving presence. And so, I’m calling it Rise Through Love. And it’s going to be a membership, very affordable, 300 bucks a year. And I’m going to do weekly calls for young adults, teens, and then for parents separately. Because I’m a parent and I had to go, I’m still going through tons of healing, I need guidance. And then the young adults can guide the teenagers. And I’ve already interviewed a ton of amazing young women. I’m hoping to bring the young men in as well. And they are just so excited about this. They’re like we need this so badly. So, there will be an aspect of mentorship. I’m going to bring guests on to do and I’m going to do biofield tunings, I’m going to teach them how to bring their consciousness into their lower bellies, how to manage their emotions and let the cycles of emotions run its proper course. How to honor themselves.

 

Dr. Manon 18:00

Wow, it makes so much sense. But that’s a real true need out there. It’s like, you become something because it makes sense. And it shows more, and life shows more, you know, it’s very interesting. So, what do you now when you’re reflecting back when you’re looking at what is happening in naturopathy? What are your thoughts?

 

Katie Branter 18:54

I hope I don’t get in trouble for saying what I’m going to do. I don’t know.

 

Dr. Manon 18:57

Let me just put a caveat here. You can get in trouble because our governing boards and you know, are accountable to the public and you can’t say certain things apparently now.

 

Katie Branter 19:20

 If I’m honest, I feel like it’s lost heart.

 

Dr. Manon 19:23

Heart. That’s it. That’s a simple way of saying it.

 

Katie Branter 19:25

So, I’m going to leave it at that. And I think our profession, there’s so many amazing people in it, and there’s a lot of persecution and fear. And that’s being generated, especially right now. And so, all I’m going to say it needs healing. You can feel it.

 

Dr. Manon 19:50

There’s been, persecution amongst our own members for literally doing no harm. Literally. Yeah, surely doing no harm and helping. And you know that we don’t have the community that can support and stand up to that is disheartening? There we go. Literally disheartening, you know, so yeah, no, I feel that way to. And I feel like we really sold out to the idea of green medicine. It’s not what it was when, you know, the people who trained me as a naturopath, where they came from, I mean, we’ve varied people. And, yes, there was science, it’s not that science is wrong. It’s that there’s more to all healing than just one little component. And I feel that we’ve become more rigid and more small and more, so called scientific, but it isn’t really science anymore. The way we’re looking at things, we can’t all be put in a bottle.

 

Katie Branter 21:11

Exactly. Or an IV drip.

 

Dr. Manon 21:15

And again, that can be useful.

 

Katie Branter 21:17

Absolutely. It’s all useful. Yeah.

 

Dr. Manon 21:20

It’s the perspective, right? It’s Yeah, the bigger it’s what holds it all together, which is kind of problematic at this point, I was just curious what you thought.

 

Katie Branter 21:32

I agree. So that’s how I feel

 

Dr. Manon 21:37

And I do think that what you’re doing is so needed, because when we look at our professionals, none of the professions really do. Nursing that used to be very much catered to being bedside really helping the patient, which is a huge part. Now they are administrators. They’re really literally running around, filling the prescriptions. And they’re not happy.

 

Katie Branter 22:14

I treat a lot of them.

 

Dr. Manon 22:16

Exactly. Yeah. And then you’ve got a lot of medical doctors, that they feel like they’re pharma peddlers. And even though, there’s nothing wrong with some of the drugs, and some of the times it saves people’s lives, there’s no doubt for mostly, life threatening things, if you if you’ve got a chronic condition that hasn’t been addressed properly. Okay. But, I mean, a lot of them are not happy, there’s a very high suicide rate amongst them, so if we look at all the different healing professionals, and I’m not talking about all of them in my few examples, but we’re really missing the mark, about changing or helping people be more empowered, and yet be trusted advisors on their path. It’s like, we have knowledge. Like, of course, we should be part of the picture but it’s almost like the equation is wrong.

 

Katie Branter 23:30

I agree with you. 100%. There’s just so much more available. And I think the empowerment piece is so huge right now, because the load for the doctors, the load for the even public health officials, I have a few friends who are in that right now. And they’re overwhelmed. And it would be so incredible if we could work as an integrative team. And if we can, you know, really gain the perspectives of the it’s not just one way, there’s many ways that we could be supporting everybody. Right, and bringing in the natural empathy with the emergency medicine with a public health with the acupuncturists. They’re brilliant, you know, that your Vedic practitioners, imagine if we worked together instead of this, you know, delineated, oh, that’s that profession, that profession, everybody’s separate, and you know, they’re wrong. And it’s really part of the problem with what’s happening in the world right now.

 

Dr. Manon 24:31

I was just part of a global…I forget the name of the conference. It was global scientific Guild, and we had speakers, international speakers from everywhere from the old Russia, from Taiwan from just everywhere, and it was incredible. Many of them were researchers with many published papers. One thing that was in Common with everybody is pretty well what we’re talking about today. And it doesn’t matter that they were this or that, you know, some of them were medical doctors, there were a few naturopathic doctors, Chinese medical doctors, and a lot of just researchers, and what I became amazed that because homeopathy was a big part of my practice, is the technologies now, the frequencies, all of these things that, of course, we didn’t learn 30 years ago. They weren’t really the same way available. But there’s so much happening in that field, in that working even remotely, which is, which makes sense on some level, you know, on frequency and heart connection, yes. And especially if you’re highly intuitive, you have a sense of this. And the more sensitive you are usually the more you can tap into that. But it’s really uncanny what’s out there. Like, I’m in a, in a complete new world of, you know, looking at scientists who have published all these medical papers, working with frequency, and I’m just like, wow, like, frequency really resonates with me. Sound therapy and all that. I’m like, it makes complete sense, though I don’t know how and why, it’s just that learning there is a resonance.

 

Katie Branter 26:40

 I learned last year with another naturopath. We drove down to Portland and learned biofield tuning.

 

Dr. Manon 26:46

Tell me about that.

 

Katie Branter 26:48

So, it’s a type of sound therapy that works on the field. But you can work on the chakras and the organ systems and finding rhythms. And I just kind of did it for fun. Because I hadn’t done a CE for a long time, I got my license back. We wanted to go for a road trip.

 

Katie Branter 27:03

We’re on the same wavelength this other ND and I. And so, then COVID hit right after we got home because it was end of February last year. It was like holy, and we didn’t we only learned the foundational stuff. But I was like, I can do this, I’m going to try doing some group stuff. Because I was leading a women’s group and I would do adrenal resets. And I had just learned all this. But it came so naturally to me, I just knew what I was doing. So, I’ve done hundreds of them over the course of the last year. And wow, wow, the changes I’ve seen in people has been more than any supplement I’ve ever given anybody, by like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of percentages. And just seeing and that’s something I’m going to be doing is group tunings for those who want to take part in that because of course, there’s always permission when you’re working on the energy field. Informed consent is really important. And so, I always ask for that. But it’s been on, and I’ve done my own tunings, obviously you know, heal the healer always have to do your own work always. And it’s been unbelievable, and so that’s working with different hurts like she actually had her own. Eileen McKusick, who’s the one who spent on the shift network, she’s pretty amazing. She’s the one who came up with this particular type of tuning. She had to make her own forks and because the forks weren’t handling what she was wanting to do in the field. And because the energy is so dense now, yeah, she has this whole set of forks, but that works on the field. And it helps with PTSD, it helps with anxiety, it helps with the immune system digestion, like it’s, been unbelievable. And so that’s something that I just started to incorporate in the last year and has been truly beautiful, beautiful work. So biofield tuning look it up. It’s pretty amazing.

 

Dr. Manon 29:07

And, have you had, because we’re allowed to do labs and what have you been able to do before and afters? Outside the symptomatology.

 

Katie Branter 29:20

You know what, it’s so challenging right now, because people’s finances are lower, you know. It’s hard to do and you know, thinking about that doing some form of research on that, but I just don’t have the energy to be on this. I just want to see my patients getting better. And that’s what’s happening on a mental health level and on a physical level, which is pretty, pretty beautiful to watch. Yeah, especially young, and young people because they don’t have as many layers as we do.

 

Dr. Manon 29:57

The reason I asked for research is because it’s The same thing I did. I don’t know if you know about Bowen therapy. So, I was using that to deal with trauma, and both physical and emotional. And so many times I need to restrict searches, I need to show what I’d like to demonstrate what I’m seeing with my very own eyes. And, at this point, it’s still, you know, it’s still one of those things I wish I had the research to show this, you know, to be able to really incorporate it, especially now that we’re doing this major witch hunt anything that doesn’t have all the proof. We soon may not be able to do our practice. And the medical doctors, in my newsletter this will come up, but they’ve been asked this is in Ontario to stop using cam practices.

 

Katie Branter 31:01

 Really? I think I missed that…that petition.

 

Katie Branter 31:14

I’ve been off my Facebook group, because I need to be off Facebook, but I think it showed up on there.

 

Dr. Manon 31:18

But it’s crazy………………we could maybe talk but maybe another time.

 

Katie Branter 31:29

Maybe another discussion. So, we can still have these discussions.

 

Dr. Manon 31:41

Anyway. I’m really excited for you. That sounds a perfect. I’m sure you will be connected as you do this with your son,

 

Katie Branter 31:51

Yeah, I agree.

 

Dr. Manon 31:52

And it’s a beautiful thing.

 

Katie Branter 31:56

I hope so as a legacy to him too.

 

Dr. Manon 32:01

All right. Well, so where do we get hold of you?

 

Katie Branter 32:05

Yes. So, the best place is just my website or my email. So, it’s dr.katiebranter.com. Okay, And then yeah, it’s just [email protected]. my email.

 

Dr. Manon 32:24

Okay, perfect. Then I’ll have the details in what’s written underneath the podcast too.

 

Katie Branter 32:31

Awesome. Thanks for having me this has been so lovely.

 

Dr Manon  31:28

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.