How to Reduce Inflammation & Optimize Healing with Julie Michelson on The Healers Café with Dr. Manon Bolliger, ND

 

Julie Michelson (02:05):

And as I had put enough of the pieces together that my brain fog was a lot better and I really knew I was healing. Dave Asprey started a coaching program through the Bulletproof program at the time. Now it’s the human potential training Institute, but and I thought, Oh, this is it. Like, I want to help people do this. And that began my journey into coaching. Through there I found functional medicine and that continued to help my healing feel a little more passion. I dove deeper and got some training as a functional medicine coach and just really know that I’m on this earth to help people, you know, shorten what took me years to do and find their road to healing.

Dr Manon (02:59):

It’s funny how everyone has their unique journey. Right. And that’s when they’re born, you know, that this is what they’re meant to do, but I mean, there’s nothing like illness as a teacher, so, so how long were you taking, you know, the conventional approach?

Julie Michelson (03:19):

For about 10 years? 10 years. 10 prescriptions?

Dr Manon (03:26):

So, and what, I mean, obviously your child woke you up in that sense, but, what was happening in those 10 years that kept it be, you know, 10 years as opposed to nine, as opposed to eight, as opposed to not even going that route? Like what, was the good girl syndrome that you’re talking about?

Julie Michelson (03:52):

when I was first diagnosed, I went to the top rheumatology facility where I live. And I literally was told by more than one doctor we’re so sorry, we’ll keep you, you know, you’re so young, we’ll keep you as comfortable as we can for as long as we can.

Julie Michelson (04:14):

And it never occurred to me that, like, there was any other option other than to expect decline. And so as a little preface to this story, you know, at the time my daughter came to me, I was in my mid forties and my father had passed away at age 54. And he was seemingly healthy until he left us. So I really did not believe, and I hadn’t voiced it to anybody, but I didn’t believe I would live to see 50. So it was kind of a hail Mary, if you will. I won’t say that I believed I could heal when I started to try these different things. But I had never met anybody that gave me any kind of alternative perspective because I was so entrenched in the Western medicine world that it was just an accepted thing.

Julie Michelson (05:12):

Like if you have rheumatoid arthritis, you’re just going to get worse.

Dr Manon (05:18):

I totally appreciate being in that position because one of my passions and my life work is to let people know that the impossible is possible and that the body is magical yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s so well-made if we learn to listen to it and then check in, then we can absolutely make massive changes. But what I’m really interested in your story, because you’re really representative of the people …..that you didn’t have any options. Like when I got sick, I was actually already a naturopathic doctor. So I already knew I was already treating me !!!in the world, So in some sense, it was much easier. I mean, it’s never easy if it happens to you because it’s your life your family, your kids, your circumstance, whatever, you know, it’s very visual, but I already knew that there were options.

Dr Manon (06:19):

So in that way, it’s very different. So when did that shift happen? Because that’s what I’m really interested in. Like, how did you, so your daughter says this, you are, you’re already programmed to basically go downhill, to expect downhill. You even believe that you didn’t believe that you could heal because that’s not even taught. It’s not even part of the paradigm it’s disease management. So here you are, you’re in this paradigm kind of in a box, a child tells you, your child tells you what were the exact words, please don’t die and leave us, please don’t die. So what in that Shifted things?

Julie Michelson (07:09):

the shift was, I obviously couldn’t promise her. I wouldn’t write that wasn’t……. So I promised her that I would do everything I could to try to heal. Right. And so I had no idea what it meant when I said it, you know, what that would entail, what it included, but I told her that I would try. And so that, something about that shifted in me that, you know, again, I wasn’t like………,I thought I’d found the Holy grail and I knew everything was going to be great. And it really was a very gradual healing, you know, I would fix one thing and I’d feel a little bit better and I’d fix another and I’d feel a little bit better. So it was, it was gradual, but I promised I would do everything I could and included everything I could, So I just kept going.

Dr Manon (08:08):

So what was the first step? like the first step that when suddenly you said without understanding what it meant that you’re going to try………………… So I began with diet because what I was………. The two dots, I was able to connect on my own and very early on my eldest son was diagnosed with celiac part way through my journey. And I went gluten free to support him because he was in middle school, you know, big, big shift. And I noticed that my joint pain was a little bit better when I was gluten free. And at the time the doctor said, Oh, yeah, you’re probably celiac as well. You know, we should get checked and still not connecting the dots of the direct influence on the rheumatoid arthritis. Right

Julie Michelson (09:13):

And I do for the record fully believe I have been celiac my whole life and did not know. But I was actually unable to get a successful biopsy done because having gone gluten-free for the first time in my life, when I tried to put it back in to get an accurate biopsy, I was so sick. I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t eat anymore. So that had happened. Right. It helped, did it heal me? Was it miraculous? No. Did it help? Sure. So that was my easy starting point of like, I wonder, you know, I wonder what other foods might be influencing my inflammation here. So how did you experience the, your body’s acting up, especially when you’re reintroducing, gluten to do a test, to diagnose you with yet another condition, another diagnosis, but now, how did you, how did you experience your body when it was saying, like, I can’t, I can’t do it.

Julie Michelson (10:23):

Well, sorry, listeners. I literally could not leave the bathroom. I couldn’t leave my house. And so it was no, maybe this is a problem, big glaring, you know, I couldn’t believe, and of course doing what I do now, I see it, you know, over and over and over again, pronation diets all the time in my practice.

New Speaker (10:51):

I was meaning more like, of course physically your body was clear and there’s no doubt, but how did you interpret the reaction of your body? In other words, what I’m alluding to? So many people feel like their symptoms are fighting them. It’s the, you know, it’s like, yes, it should be another way. And how did you at that time with very little knowledge except your own experience of that shift? How did you interpret that?

Julie Michelson (11:22):

So, when I was stuck, I know for that 10 years, I eventually did …….was in that place where I felt like my body was betraying me.

Julie Michelson (11:35):

And, you know, it was kind of my enemy. It was keeping me from being who I wanted to be and doing what I wanted to do. And moving toward and using the gluten. One of the things that shifted partially the gluten was an understanding. You know, I had been told by the doctors that the inflammation was part of my disease process. And so the shifts became, huh, maybe the inflammation is driving the disease process. Like that was just something my, I was able to feel in my body, on my own, as I started to make the diet changes and kind of connect the dots of like, Oh, well, you know, the more things that I can identify that are driving my inflammation, the better I can feel. And that allowed me to make the shift of partnering with my body and not seeing my body as the enemy, which of course then would allow my body to heal. Right. It’s not going to heal if it’s my enemy. Yeah. I didn’t know all of that back then. It just happened through my own process of experimentation and realization and yeah, I would get a little response from, you know, and then I learned to really listen,

Dr Manon (12:56):

Well, it’s been a journey I’m thrilled that you could explain that. So that’s pivotal, you know, people often think like, how do you get to lead when you don’t know anything? And it’s like, it’s little steps of listening, and then paradigm shifts slowly but surely through the experience of taking the first step. So, especially when you had no, no clue. So can you continue your journey and maybe like, hop ahead. What is it and how are you now, as far as the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and what were you the main things that made the difference?

Julie Michelson (13:46):

Sure, absolutely. Well, right now I am, I’ll start with I’m 51, so yay. I did, I did make it to 50 and beyond. I feel amazing. I feel better than I felt at 40, without a doubt.

Julie Michelson (14:01):

My life is full. My brain works again. I don’t have pain I am, symptom-free ,medication free and just really grateful.

Dr Manon (14:14):

congratulations for the journey. And what did it for you?

Dr Manon (14:21):

i don’t think there’s one path for everyone. At least not what I’ve seen in my practice .

Julie Michelson (14:26):

people want that, you know, prescriptive…….just tell me what to do. And I’m like, your body is unique.let’s figure it out. So for me, diet was a huge piece for sure. And not only in the sense of learning what my food sensitivities were and removing those foods and avoiding foods. But I had grown up on a low fat diet as my dad had passed at 54 and his dad had passed at 60 and we bought into the whole, you know, fat heart disease thing, unfortunately. And so as far as the diet piece, what really tipped the scales for me was learning about the importance of, you know, high quality, high quantity, healthy fats. And that was like where the switch flipped for me, for sure. It was my poor body had been starved of good fats for a really long time. So that, that was one big piece within the diet piece.

Dr Manon (15:37):

And then out of curiosity, that’s why I have a show. because I’m curious was there ever for you in hindsight, ,because when you’re in it, you might not see it either, but was there an instigating, something that triggered the start of your disease in that sense.

Julie Michelson (16:22):

As a matter of fact, the answer is yes. About two years before diagnosis, I would say within a year of symptoms starting, I had gotten divorced from my children’s father and my children were two, four and six at the time. And we had just relocated to a state that neither of us had family in. So there was a bit of stress going on for sure. And I just had this conversation with a client about an hour ago who just went through something similar and said, you know, I don’t understand, like I felt fine then. And I’m like, yeah, that’s that, that’s not that unusual either, you know, that you get through stress. And then so for me, for sure which was a great segway into, it’s not just diet, right. It’s never just diet. And so that stress management piece was my second big step in my journey you know, learning more, getting in touch with my body, creating a dedicated meditation practice instead of being a dabbler you know, and really focusing on stress management and self care intentionally.

Dr Manon (17:38):

Okay. I’m going to ask you more as you’re being so open. So I really appreciate you and you can just flip and talk about other people if you’d like.

Julie Michelson (17:51):

It’s only intended to talk about stress, you know, and that’s like a big word.You know, the understanding of, the sympathetic system or the inability to down regulate, Stress makes sense. As far as the cause of disease, you know, they say up to 97% cause of disease, but what is stress to you in that sense? What does it, what does it really mean? Because we know that people have different events yes. In their life and they don’t respond the same way. So what is it for you for you or what have you noticed in your practice? Sure. so my position on stress, if you will, is it is a biological process. So it’s not bad. I mean, we are designed to experience stress, but we’re designed to experience acute stress, right? That short limited, Oh my gosh, there’s a tiger. everybody run. And most of us in society today, wherever you’re listening to this, you know, we were all living under some form of chronic stress. And that’s where the trouble really begins. And I actually see, you know, big, happy events, funny doesn’t know the difference, happy event, scary event. It’s the same biological process going on on the inside. And many of us, I for sure will claim me, I’ll talk about myself here. I didn’t have the tools, you know, to bring all of that back down. So I tell people, it’s not like I can, I don’t have a magic wand. I can’t help people eliminate all their stress. But we can compensate and teach the body how to come back to that state where healing can take place.

Dr Manon (20:00):

And do you feel that internal conflict?, I agree with your version of stress, and good stress, bad stress, your ability to adapt, to stress and switch off and teaching the body, you know, both mentally, emotionally, and my work is also physically how to turn that off But conflict, if you go back and how big a role is internal conflict and what does it mean to you when I raised the issue conflict?

Julie Michelson (20:48):

So first thing that came up for me was Gabour Mate,s work the personality types and the diseases we tend to manifest or you know, we all hold stress in our body. And so for me, I will just speak about me personally. I have avoided conflict my entire life, external conflict, my entire life, and had internalized all of it.

Julie Michelson (21:22):

And so, and you know, i wasn’t living my true self, I, again, was that good girl, right? So I did what was expected. And there is no question for me that plays a pivotal part in an illness, especially when we’re talking about chronic illness like this. And I see it in my practice all the time. I really do. So do you have suggestions potentially, or from your experience, how to identify that you’re in an internal conflict? Ooh, that’s a good question. You know, my work is one of, one of the reasons what I do works is because I create a safe space for my clients that safe container. And I’m not saying one needs a coach to figure out if they have internal conflict, but one needs to take time, right. Step back and take time and look in there, check in with yourself, you know, are you happy?

Julie Michelson (22:43):

Like really happy, not, you know, did you have the best day ever, but like, is your life where you want it to be? Are you, living the life that is true to who you are?and a lot of us it feels safer to run from and not go there. You know, if the answer is no to any of those questions, we tend to just not go there and kind of put one foot in front of the other. And so I would invite anybody who’s listening to hit the pause button, ask yourself those questions,

Dr Manon (23:20):

I totally agree. and it’s interesting because I mean you’re a coach and you have a background in functional medicine, which is really about also establishing, dietary patterns, all of this, seeing what’s wrong can you explain a little bit how your practice goes in collaboration with other people as well?

Julie Michelson (23:49):

So I have my own coaching business. And as you said, I definitely identify as a functional medicine coach. it’s root cause medicine it’s always root cause medicine. I focus on the lifestyle areas. So I love working with clients, you know, and their functional medicine doctors. I do work with a clinic here in Colorado as well. And I like to say I’m the bridge, you know, one of the docs I work with when he sees somebody coming back time and time again, and they’re not following the care plan, they’re not making the changes. That’s usually when Jose, pretty sure you should give Julie a call. Because most of the time, it’s not that we don’t know what to do, or haven’t been told what we could do.

Julie Michelson (24:48):

I know it’s well, what that looks like for you and what that looks like for me is different. You know, how I get that done in my life is going to be different. So that’s where the coaching can really create success. So, you know, the doctors love working with me because their outcomes are great, you know, and, and it’s exciting for me, it’s about the empowerment, as I mentioned before, I had lost my power. Right. And, so I want people to know that, you know, they have the power to heal and what they do does matter.

Dr Manon (25:26):

I think that’s a big piece of it is shifting from the, the victim induced paradigm to that little things matter, what you do matters, and then experiencing the change, so what, so when you take people, you know, you’re referred to them, what have you found is the main thing that keeps people stuck? You know, that you’ve had to sort of help unblock for people.

Julie Michelson (26:02):

I’ll go back to me again because I do see it in one shape or form. I think people’s stories keep them stuck right …. stories. So while their stories may vary…..what’s keeping them stuck in place. And those are the things, you know, I always it’s like thread pulling threads. You know, those are the things that we unravel as we work together and that we can start with diet change. But in the meantime, I want to hear, you know, what are those Stories going on in your head ……..so a lot of just creating new approaches mentally, emotionally that mindset shift that you mentioned, you know, that’s, you know, if we can’t, if we can’t hear the stories, we can’t change them. It’s bringing people to consciousness that it’s a story.

Julie Michelson (27:19):

And it’s so interesting. I mean sometimes we really dig in and have fun with it. And my background was psychology, so I just love the whole human condition sometimes I’m like, well, whose voice is it? Is it even yours? You know, often, it’s somebody else’s voice that just got stuck in there.

Dr Manon (27:45):

So I’m gonna ask you now, en even odder question…….This is without I’m really not trying to discuss politics people particularly, or, you know, structures or any of that stuff. What I’m looking at is ……..

Dr Manon (28:09):

Now with this whole, Corona crisis in that sense, there is a lot of stress, and there’s stress for numerous reasons. There are stress one because of…….. And again, I’m not going to take sides because there’s so many sides and so much of it we don’t have access to as well. So things sometimes disappear nowadays. It’s very interesting. So about the virus they’re stressed about freedom of speech and censorship, they’re stressed about sort of technocratic control. They’re stressed. Like there is stress on so many levels and anyone who appears to speak either against, or show another perspective, it doesn’t matter how scientific they are, how experienced they are or how on the scene they are, if it’s not the, line that is to be towed. You know, they’re, they’re called a conspiracy theorists. Right? As people in both complimentary health we’re, we’re quite used to this, but, the thing is what do you feel, how does one deal?………….. Or you may not have thought of this, but there’s a lot of, how do you, how do you position yourself? Because we know that stress causes disease. So I’m looking at this, like the chances of dying from COVID are very small, I mean even the official numbers are quite small, but dying from the million, other possibilities are much higher right now from isolating for six months and then dying of a cold or something like that, or suicide, mental health issues, the people that are stuck in homes that are not healthy. There there’s a lot of stuff to be stressed about going on. Personally, I feel like COVID is at the bottom of the list. You know, it’s, what’s happening because of that ,that’s causing the stress. And I try to be very careful about what I say, you know, I’m back to that whole, the censorship and the, I can’t help people if I can’t talk at all.

Julie Michelson (30:54):

And very interesting though, the one video I did do on covid and it had nothing to, it was just this self care aspect and what we can be doing and, and creating the rainbows, finding the opportunities in the challenge and interesting enough, a doctor from another country saw it. And I’m speaking to over a hundred physicians in another country on Saturday because they were like, I haven’t heard anybody say anything positive about COVID. This is amazing. Can you talk to our doctors? You know, I actually had a call with them today and they were like, but you are going to actually use the word COVID in the talk. Right. And I was like, I will do whatever you want me to do. So different country, different experience. And so I’m just, I used the words this time a lot when I speak or write, or I will use the word pandemic. but I don’t, I stay away from the medical stuff. And I mean, I do, even in general, I talk about healing symptoms. I don’t talk about healing auto-immunity because people say, well, do you say you have RA or you had RA. And I was like, It depends on who I’m talking to because I’m symtom free. So it doesn’t matter. You know, I’m not, I don’t get wrapped in like the, you know, What’s the label and the diagnosis and the but it is definitely a time to be mindful and careful and not expected for living in the country I live in. And it just it’s, it is a bit surprising. And I actually, my mom almost died from COVID, so I’m not making light. And sadly she was, I took her to the hospital here and because she didn’t need a ventilator, they sent her home with no treatment at all. You know, thank goodness I have friends in the medical community who decided that was not going to be okay for her to just die in her bed, because that was what they were doing at the time, especially when there’s these, you know, researches that are clearly coming out saying, there’s things we can do for the blood clots there’s things we can do for for the immune system.

Dr Manon (33:42):

And we’ve known that as a naturopathic physician, we’ve known this for years, you know? and, what’s interesting is we, in, at least in Canada, we have the gag order. We cannot talk about immunity. We cannot talk about, so I’m actually just talking about the politics. That’s all I can talk and see, we don’t have a gag order here, but as I’m sure, you know, because we’re in similar circles, you know, the avenues of expression are policing and pulling information and shutting it down. Correct? So how do you deal with that situation?

Dr Manon (34:46):

is it bringing up many, you know, internal sometimes even the completely subconscious conflicts, which is bringing tremendous stress, also tremendous awakening, right. Because when people can recognize this, now they have a chance to look at a bigger paradigm, but what would you say to people who do really believe everyone’s a conspiracy theorist and just are looking at that, they’re in a sense they’re in the same box as many of the patients who ended up in taking drugs and they’re not really getting better. And obviously that cause,s tremendous stress to Your body and damage to your body,And this is impacting their stress.

Julie Michelson (36:06):

Yeah. Boy, that’s a light one. You were going gentle on me before. I really having, not given it any forethought to be fair. I think I would encourage people to be focusing on where they do have control. Right. So a lot of these stressors are about things we don’t have control over right now. So I therefore think it’s really important that we are taking action where we do have control and not staying in that. I mean, that’s, that’s what anxiety is right.

Julie Michelson (36:54):

Are you fretting about the future, you know, so I think coming back to being present, and I’m not saying it’s not solving the problems the world is having right now. Right. But really none of us are going to be solving that from our living room right. This minute either. So that was off the top of my head, you know, taking action and control where we can and maybe, you know, really exploring what are our positions, right. As in having actual dialogue. No, I want to talk about this. I’m going to talk about this. I know doctors here who, you know, were told not to use certain medications, not to treat in certain ways and all I’m saying is my mom’s alive, you know, because So you know, the doctors, I mean, everybody’s stressed in different ways for different reasons of all of, kind of the fallout. But I think, you know, for some people it’s towing the party line is, is there a right answer? And for some people it’s, you know, what are my values and I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do when I’m going to do what needs to be done. And I think a level of creativity from all of us on how to have some of these conversations. Right. And not pretend it’s not happening.

Dr Manon (38:36):

You raised that point……….. Denial. Right. because I think that’s a very dangerous place to be in, on health in general……and again, I’m being off the top of my mind, not that I haven’t been thinking about it, it’s just that I’m the kind of person that only conversations allow me to come up with what I feel into what I say as I’m in the presence of saying, you know, and if I don’t agree, understand, I don’t agree with what I just said. I’ll say, Hmm, no, I don’t think that’s quite right, but I have to really feel into it. You know? And I think that it’s, to have the conversation, I think that’s really important. And you know, there are groups, even if you can’t do it vocally, you can’t post anything on Media platform without being a top like personally attacked, which is very interesting, you know, but there are people that are having these amazing conversations. And, and I do think that again, it comes to community support daring. There is a little bit of absolutely like, I don’t know you, you know, but not totally into it. And you went there anyway.

Dr Manon (39:58):

I think that’s part of it. And then it’s like, you know, it’s raising the question and then seeing how you align to it And, you know, I love the way you said, it’s, it’s also finding out I’m going to misquote you entirely. But what I understood was something like, how do you feel about it? You know, where do you position?

Julie Michelson (40:17):

Sure. Because you know, that anxiety comes up and we’re not even thinking about our own feelings or, you know So, and I think, you know, I love what you said about conversation. What came up for me when you said that was wouldn,t that just solve everything. I mean, if you think about relationship and then you did circle back to community and to really what wouldn’t be improved with real conversation.

Julie Michelson (40:57):

I think I’ll add on my end, at least for what I’m going to do, selective conversation. Right. I’m not going to go stand on the street and just randomly, you know, try to get people to have shared their deep thoughts with me, but yeah, we all, and we all need to be safe and balanced.

Dr Manon (41:21):

And appreciate the context too, you know, because I would imagine that the reason that when your mum was sent back, basically the solution you knew inside you because of your own health journey and the work you do that there’s got to be a solution.

Julie Michelson (41:43):

And they also knew because of my medical background and training that she was going to die at home right now. I mean, it was, you know, simple things like oxygen.

Dr Manon (41:55):

Anyway, well, listen, our time is up, but it’s been just wonderful having you on the podcast. And also I just appreciate the tips you’ve given people and insight into the process. And is there any last words you want to leave with?

Julie Michelson (42:24):

I’m going to reiterate what you opened with is I want everybody to know that healing is possible and that things you do do make an impact. And so if you’re out there and you’re struggling, take your power back, it’s time to take a step.

Dr Manon (42:43):

Agreed. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (42:47):

Thank you for having me.

 

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