#272: From Autoimmune Chaos To Faith-Fueled Healing

I was miserable drinking in my life. When I— it didn't matter if I didn't drink every day, but when I did drink and put that into my body, I was not okay. I was depressed. I was miserable. I was not thriving. I didn't feel good. I gained weight. It just didn't serve me, and I don't think it serves a lot of people.

If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, Tired, exhausted, stuck in your body, and disconnected from God? This podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabitha, triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. This isn't about another diet or quick fix. This is about restoring your energy, your confidence, and your faith through fasting, functional medicine, and biblical truth. Welcome to Fast to Faith, where you don't just lose weight and feel great; you step into who God created you to be. So let's get into it. Welcome back to the Fast to Faith podcast. This is going to be a really exciting special episode because you brought a guest, didn't you?

I did.

Academy director.

I brought one of my coaches today. We are going to talk to Shannon. She is a wife. Mom of 3, and the visionary behind the Healing Ivy Co. and the Shan Renee Collective. So, she was born and raised in Michigan, and here's a fun fact: Shannon was a 2-time basketball state champion.

That is so cool.

I know, right? She brings a full-circle approach to wellness through hydration, nutrition, and mindset. And I am just so excited for you guys to get to know Shannon today, hear her story, and learn about how she became part of the Fast Faith family.

I, I feel so blessed that she is part of our sisterhood. Like, when she came in, the mood just elevated, the energy elevated next level. Like, she's intoxicating and infectious in such a good way, don't you think?

I think so. And I think you can just go back to how God literally plopped her in our lives. I'm going over, you know, creeping into 3 years ago at an event, um, when I first started working full-time with you, and she was there. And who knew we We were all going to become good friends.

Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about that. I was speaking at an orthomolecular event about gut health to other practitioners, right?

And she was doing IVs and I happened to get an IV and then I happened to win an IV and that's really what did it was I won the IV. You actually forgot to give me the card for a long time and you finally gave me the card. You were like, oh look, it was like in your book or something and so I went and we found out that our Our boys played baseball at the same facility, and it was just kind of one of those happenstance things. And then, we started Fast to Faith about a year later. So, I was still doing IVs monthly, and then, we started Fast to Faith, and I was telling her about it. And she started working at the practice, and then, she started to become a Fast to Faith coach.

So, that's cool. That is so good.

God is so good.

Well, welcome, Shannon. You're a rock star.

Thank you, Dr. Tabatha and Ashley. I feel so blessed and honored to be here.

You should be a little bit embarrassed because we just love you.

Yeah.

And we just wanna gush over you I could talk to you for like an hour because—

I do love you.

You're a powerhouse and you're an overcomer.

Thank you.

Yeah, she's a true light all the time. Yeah.

Oh, like, I aspire to be more like that.

Yeah.

So yay, let's dive into it. Okay.

Absolutely.

Oh my gosh, Shannon. Okay, so you came to, you know, you got connected, you guys are doing the IV thing, and then we launched the Fast to Faith Coaching Academy and What was going through your mind at that time? Kind of share with our listeners where you were in your life and, and everything that got you to that point.

Yeah, so that was definitely a turning point in my life. I was at a crossroad. I was— had been suffering from some injuries and was off of my normal nursing work at that time, really just praying to God, where is my path? What am I supposed to be doing? What I was doing does not feel right any longer. I was sitting in that feeling of there's more purpose for me out there, and I need to listen.

Mm-hmm.

And I need to sit quiet for a little while. And in that moment of quietness, Along came, came you guys, and it most definitely divine intervention. I, I don't know any other way to explain it but that I am here today because of that divine intervention.

Oh, well, and you obeyed, right? You, you leaned in even when it was like, are we really doing this again, right? Because you have been through it. Tell my listeners about your journey with your health and Finding functional medicine. And because when we figure out the root cause and we really start to tackle root cause things, then we can start to peel back the onions and really make some progress, right?

Yes.

And it is a journey. Healing is absolutely a journey, a journey of patience, a journey of perseverance, and truly finding your people. You've got to find your people to connect. So to back up about a little over a decade ago, after my pregnancies, just to sum it up, I had extremely high-risk pregnancies. Following each one would stir up some inflammatory autoimmune-driven response that no one in the medical community really had an answer for. I actually was considered a case study by the time I got to my third pregnancy and all the residents—

Oh my gosh.

Really became involved trying to put all the pieces together, and it wasn't a clear-cut answer. It was your autoimmune or your immune system is attacking itself, and we need to just treat it and put it at bay. Right? But that wasn't the answer. I knew there was something more. I was put on multiple pharmaceuticals. I was passed around between multiple specialists. I had gained so much weight. I was off of work. For a longer period of time than I ever should have been. I was miserable. I had brain fog. I couldn't even function as a mother raising 3 children. It was miserable.

Were you told like, this is just postpartum depression?

All of that.

You're just not sleeping enough because you're a new mom.

This is what early motherhood is. Someday you will sleep again. This will, this will pass. Special. The medications I was on was causing even more horrific side effects. I just couldn't live like that.

Yeah.

I remember laying in bed like, I am in my 20s and I am not going to do this. There has got to be a different way. And no diagnosis made sense. It was just parts and pieces and they just took 'em and said, well, this is how we're gonna treat you. And I decided to do my own research. And turn to my spiritual centeredness and really pray over this. I found functional medicine. I had not heard of it. Started doing my own research. Oh, integrative care. Discovered who I will forever be grateful for—the first functional medicine doctor I ever was exposed to. He changed my life. I remember my first intervention with him. I was. Sobbing, I said, what can you do for me? He said, Shannon, give me 9 months to 12 months. You will be a new human, but you've got to believe in this process. You have to do what I say. I can give you all the tools, but it's in your lap. I said, I will do whatever you tell me. He introduced me to gut healing. That is forever my love and passion to this day because—

It shifted everything, right?

Oh my goodness. I did everything he told me to do. I healed my guts. I cleaned up my diet. I changed lifestyle behaviors. I gave up alcohol. Still, it's been almost 8 years. I have not had any alcohol. And that is a huge health gain in my life, for sure.

And as a nurse, did you have a moment of like, wait, why don't I know this? Why didn't I get taught any of this? Why aren't we doing this in the hospitals and in the doctor's offices? Because I remember going through that when I was studying functional medicine. And I just— yeah, I was angry for a little bit.

I was just going to say it brought a lot of irritability. And here I was, an ER nurse working all different shifts, night shifts, just burning myself right out, living on sugar and coffee and whatever I have to do to stay awake and survive, right? Raising kids and passing the kids off in the shift between my husband and I shift and And absolutely, I would go to work and over time, and I'm watching myself heal and seeing the changes in my life. And I'm like, this is all wrong. What are we doing? That was when I started to know it's time for me to move on. I have to move on and do bigger and better things that can help the greater amount of people.

And wasn't that scary? You spent all that time becoming a nurse. That's your life. That's your identity, you know, and you chose to step away from that security and that safe space. And why did you do that?

Because I no longer felt okay in that environment. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know where I was going to go. I didn't know what my career was ever going to look like. I just knew I had to go. And I did. I stepped away. I took an office position in a dermatology office coming out of ER. That opportunity got put in front of me, and I heard the calling, this is your way out. And I knew that is not where I would land. I just knew this gets me out of what I have only known.

It's like a stepping stone.

Yes. And I knew that. I knew that, that was for that purpose.

You see that a lot, don't you, with coaches?

Yeah, I do. And I was literally thinking the exact same words. So that's why I laughed, because I almost said, I almost leaned up and said, study stepping stone. But I, I wanna back up for a second cuz you said something that was so powerful is that the doctor that helped you so much, he said, I want, you need to believe in this. And I think that is so important because women, sometimes they, they follow direction and they'll take the steps, but they don't actually believe in it. And so I think it's important to reiterate how, how your journey happened because you believed in it. Like deep down believed in it.

Absolutely. I believed in something, a higher power, bigger and greater than myself, that I knew I could not restore myself, but only he could.

Yeah.

And that is where my spiritual connection that had been so broken and blocked for many years, um, became apparent to me, was I have blocked this part of me through the lifestyle I was living. And I need to find that part of me again. And I need to grow in that part of me and my faith. I grew up in a very faith-based home. I always had it in me. I've always been very driven in the word, but there was a period of darkness in my life where that completely was blocked.

Yeah. And it's not even acknowledged in the medical world. So here you are being told like, you now have a diagnosis of lupus and you're being put on these horrible medications. And I've seen a lot of persons that are, you know, how overweight were you? Like, you said you were huge.

Oh my goodness, Dr. Tabatha, you wouldn't even recognize me.

Well, and you are a really small frame.

Like, you're shorter.

Yes, and you can't even carry a lot of extra weight. Yeah, so you don't have a lot of space for extra weight.

Yeah, so you're going and they're not even acknowledging the fact that your spirit is dying inside. They're just talking about these diagnoses and these medications. I truly believe that is why people are not healing in the medical system. It's not that medications are always bad or things. It's just like we're not nourishing what's actually really broken, right?

Yes. And that is what I discovered such a love for integrative medicine and with functional medicine being at the forefront, because there is a place and a purpose for medications and certain ways of practicing. But When that root cause is missed and never even addressed or talked about, nobody asked me what I was eating. Nobody asked me about my marriage or my relationship. Nobody asked me about my sexual health. Never, never once.

Yeah.

And that is what became so apparent to me when I sat down with that very first interaction, my functional medicine doctor, was he spent over an hour with me Asking about what I knew when my mother was pregnant with me, all the way through the lifespan. And he asked questions I couldn't even believe he was asking, but it felt so peaceful. I'm like, this guy cares about me. He cares about me. And I can tell he cares about any man or woman that sits in his chair.

So what did you realize when he started unpacking all of this stuff and you're answering things you haven't even thought of ever in your life. Like, wait, it matters what happened when I was 6?

I was fearful. I think also to go back to what you had said was it became apparent to me so many people live in fear. Fear blocks our healing. And I know for a fact fear at the forefront of my healing blocked a lot of my ability to be able to move forward in my life. And when I finally accepted that fear was in the way, and gave it to God, and just started rolling with it one foot in front of the other.

Was it a specific fear about anything in particular? Or it was just this, like, doomsday feeling? Or can you describe that? Because I know somebody right now is like, oh my gosh, that is totally me.

I don't think I knew at that time, honestly. But how I can describe it is, I was afraid to peel, peel the onion back, right? It was like I knew I had been through some things in my life. Some I was very aware and could acknowledge, but there was some uneven, uneasy feelings of something's there and I'm not sure what it is. And I think that has a lot to do with blockages in people's healing today, is a traumatic situation or trauma comes to the surface. And we freeze. And I froze for a long time. And it wasn't until I let it be what it was and spoke my truth. Speaking my truth is where my true acceleration of healing came.

Right. And your truth is the truth, right? Like, you found Christ through all of this. And I just wanna ask Ashley, You know, do you see this happening with your coaching clients? Like, what I understand is either trauma can be so bad that we repress it, and we either don't have that memory, or it's deep down inside, or we go on to create patterns with that trauma because we keep reliving it and replaying it in our minds all of the time and feeling all the chemicals and Oh my gosh, we're having Dr. Russ on here very soon. And we're going to talk about all this. But is that what you're seeing as well with clients?

Yeah. So I feel like what we see is a lot of times our coaches are using their trauma to help other women. So I think the coaches— what, when you're ready to coach, and you feel stepped into this, you usually have either processed your trauma enough where you feel comfortable talking about it, Or you have just a little bit more work to do, and you need to help others with that in order for you to completely heal. So I know I feel like I attract women who have been through the same things that I have been, and I've watched Shannon, and I know a lot of our other coaches too, like their traumas. We know them because we know our coaches. They attract those same women. So because they're helping them heal from that, from that trauma.

Oh my gosh. I love that. And it reminds me of when we saw Ed Mylett and he said, The authority that God has given you for your purpose on this earth to help people, that's going to be the pain that you go through because that is how you gain your authority. You live through it, you, you go through it, and like, you're just a shining example of that. So, oh, I love that.

Absolutely. You have to heal. Well, for me at least, I had to heal through the darkness. I had to face the darkness. And that is when I was able to really see who I was, where I was, identify life patterns that I didn't realize existed, and be able to just be okay with it. Yeah. Life was messy at one point. Yeah. And I used to care about that, and now I don't. It's like, hey, that's life. Yeah. And life will probably still be messy at, at some points. And—

100%.

And not striving to be perfect, but But progress. Yeah, making progress.

I think that's what a lot of times with our coaches and with all of us sitting here today, we're not afraid to admit that we've messed up. Even today, I'm sure I screwed up in some way. And so we're okay to say that and be honest about it. We're not trying to show this picture-perfect life because we don't have that. And I think that's what makes us different at Fast to Faith, to be completely honest, is we're just Messy Christians. That's who we are.

Like, hello, I need Jesus every day. I will never arrive. That means I'm ready to pass on to the next life, right? Like, we need Jesus. We are going to continue to fall and need to be picked back up. But I would love to hear from you because this is another thing that we get from people is, well, I know I need to do gut healing. I know I need to nourish my spirit. I know I need to do all these pieces, and they don't know what order to do it in. do it in. So they get analysis paralysis and they don't do anything. They just sit and like ruminate on their problem instead of taking some forward action. So I would love for you to speak into that as a Fast Faith coach with clients and what you went through yourself.

So sharing experience, strength, and hope is a huge piece of, of how I am able to connect. I share when sharing feels right to share, always with them at the forefront. But when you can truly see and make a connection there, people feel comfortable. They're like, wow, you went through this too? I thought I was unique. It's like, no, we're not unique. We all deal with this stuff too. But helping them realize that it's not as complicated. As we make it, I know in my early phases of healing, I complicated it so much that it made it tougher for me. But when we can simplify the process and break it down into what works for you, what works for me isn't always going to work for you or you. But I try to help them pinpoint the areas in life of how we can formulate this way of life. And it's not they help them understand this isn't something you just accomplish and we're done. This is transitioning and learning.

Amen.

This is a lifestyle. We're not trying to talk about a fad diet or a diet, or let's not even talk about dieting. It's just, let's teach you and educate you and help you understand how to fuel and nourish our bodies, our temples that we were given, in the way they were meant to. And when we can feel what that feels like, that is what Fast of Faith helped me to put that back in together was, wow, I don't have to think about this. It's brainless, really.

Right. It's like reading the Bible. It's not a book you read once. You read it every single day of your life. And you just read the Bible in a year, but you read it again today. That is the same with gut health and with this health journey. It is an everyday ongoing thing and you have to learn how to make it a lifestyle, right?

Lifestyle. And then there's maintenance. And then, for instance, I just got back from a vacation. We all know what vacation does. We do our best to eat and choose the food that we can, but it's not going to go that way. We always put that 5, 6 pounds on sometimes on vacation, but the beauty of it now today is I know what to do. I know exactly what to do and not stress about it and not get overwhelmed, but how to go right back into the lifestyle I know.

Well, and I also know you enjoyed your vacation and you're coming home and you're able to get back, you know, right back on track and you don't feel guilty about it. You were, you were In the Dominican, enjoying the beautifulness and enjoying the foods, but got right back on track. Yes.

And he didn't feel like garbage. No. Like, yeah, I hated when I would take a vacation. Not only would I physically feel like garbage, but then work had piled up. And so then you're slammed and it's like you have to pay for going on vacation. It's not even worth it. You know?

Right. That's the way it was.

You need a vacation from your vacation. Yeah. Yeah.

And, So I just think we have to reframe how we do life, period. Right.

And how we think about it, our thoughts around it. We can hang onto it and stew in it, but there's no reason to do that. Right. It's, and nothing should ever feel restrictive. Nothing we do and help women is, and when I work with them, is to, to get out of that negative mindset at the forefront. We have to start speaking life into what we want. And where we want to be and who we want to be. And life changes when we learn how to practice that.

Yeah, I really want to talk about that because a lot of women say to me, oh my gosh, I could never give up gluten. Like, are you trying to kill me? Why do you want— why do you hate me that much? Or the same with alcohol and things like that.

Sugar.

Like, they all know they need to give up the sugar, but they start to threaten when it comes to gluten and alcohol. And you are so transparent transparent about the fact that alcohol was destroying your life and it had to go, right? I would love for you to share that story with our listeners because number one, transparency, when we bring darkness into the light, that's the only way we heal. But when you share stories, you realize you're not alone. Like, absolutely, literally everything under the sun has been experienced before. That is what the Bible says. If you're listening to this, you probably hopefully listened to our episode last week about alcohol is not your friend. No. Right. And so how did you decide, like, you're not being deprived by giving this up, but it's actually a blessing and it's actually a better decision for your life?

So alcohol for me, through my very beginning phases of finding functional medicine, I was So inflamed and realizing how inflammatory alcohol is. Every time I was putting that in my body, I was just inflaming my cells, fogging up my brain, disrupting my spiritual self, and blocking that spiritual health. Alcohol for me was problematic. It took me a long time to accept that, to be okay with that, and to give it up. And it'll be almost 8 years in March, and I will never look back. I live every day in gratitude of knowing that that substance served me not one good of bit, or not one bit of good in my life. And alcohol doesn't have to always be a problematic substance for people. It's just not healthy. It's not healthy.

Right. It is a toxin.

It is not healthy.

classified as a carcinogen, like it causes cancer. It's a poison. It's an antimicrobial. So back in the Western days, they used to pour their whiskey on their open wounds to heal because it killed the bacteria. So think about it, it kills the bacteria in your gut, right?

I was miserable drinking in my life. When I— it didn't matter if I didn't drink every day, but when I did drink and put that into my body I was not okay. I was depressed. I was miserable. I was not thriving. I didn't feel good. I gained weight. It just didn't serve me. And I don't think it serves a lot of people.

Yeah. So was it just you decided, I'm going to shift my mindset? Did you create a mantra? Did you just get in the word? Or how did you give it up and make that shift?

I attempted to give it up a few times in my life, and I always went back. But I will tell you, it was my pride that got in the way. It was fear of what other people will think. And so—

Back to fear again.

Okay. It was fear of what will people think of me if I express this part of me? I didn't stay away from alcohol until I truly faced that. And until I spoke my truth and I looked in the mirror and was like, I am an alcoholic.

Mm-hmm.

I'm an alcoholic and I need to correct this and get rid of alcohol. AA was very powerful for me. I know it's not for everybody. There are multiple recovery programs, but at the root of AA is a higher power. And for me, that higher power's God. And when I gave my will and surrendered and accepted who I was and accepted that part of me and dove into the recovery world and committed myself to that lifestyle, connected with people out in the recovery community, did open talks, told my story alongside the functional medicine health journey and healing my guts and my health and my cells. Weight came off, brain fog lifted. I enjoyed being around my kids. I had energy to go do things. My marriage flourished.

Yeah, pride will destroy you. It really will. God wants you to overcome that pridefulness. And I tell myself, because I struggled with this as well, and I think everyone does, I need to have more fear of God than I need to have fear of man. Like, I need to care more about what God thinks about what I'm doing than I do what my girlfriends think about what I'm doing. And that is when everything shifted for me. And it sounds like for you as well.

Oh, it did, 100%. And the connections you make in the community, people actually, I find, are very intrigued when you speak of that. The fear in me always thought, when I say this or disclose this about myself, what are they going to think or how will I be viewed? I no longer think about that. I don't care. I do see a response on the other end of curiosity or people being intrigued. And I know for certain through God, the stories that I have shared has saved other people. They have come back and said, I'm sober today because of you shared this. And it's like, if we don't speak that truth and allow others to hear that you're not alone and there's nothing wrong with you, Yeah, that's what I love, the Monday calls in our Fast to Faith Sisterhood, because women are sharing their stories.

And when you speak that out and bring it into the light, everybody starts to heal, not just you, but everybody, right?

Yeah, the community piece and the Monday calls. But I also think it's important to talk about the community piece that we have within the coaching, because we That, I think, is what is so— another thing that is so different about Fast to Faith coaches is we have a community, we have a weekly call, we have calls outside of the weekly call that are just hangout calls, and we've become a sisterhood of coaches. And so we know that we have each other to lean on, especially when we're coaching clients. If we're like, you know, so-and-so's struggling with this and I've never dealt with that, but someone in our coaching community has, And it's so nice to be able to go to one of our coaches and just say, how do I deal with this? So I think the community piece is huge.

That is what drew me to Fast of Faith. I was praying and looking for connection. You know, we're not perfect, right? I had my journey, I shared already how many years ago, and did gut healing, but we're forever changing metabolically, spiritually, physically. And And there are ups and downs in life. There was a down in my life. I was overcoming an injury. Inflammation had surfaced. I had gained weight. I started to lose that part of me, and I knew how to get back there. And it was back to my roots of all I've known in functional medicine. Gluten had been back in my diet.

Yeah.

And it was like, I know better, right? And so Fast to Faith, he healed me. Again. Yeah. And we forever have to.

I can actually remember the day that I told you about the coaching academy. I feel like you were the first person that I spoke it out loud to. You were at my house, we were doing an IV, and I think I was working on my computer, like, you know, really doing it. I can't remember the exact question that you asked me, but I was like, oh yeah, I was like, um, I guess we're like opening this coaching academy. And you were like, wait, what? So I was like, kind of explained it to you very loosely. And I think we were like days into it at this point. And I was like, I remember you leaving and me thinking, I don't even know if I was supposed to tell her that or not, but it just like, it just kind of spewed out, you know? So, and you, you were in the very first cohort. And one of the things that we did with that very first cohort was you got to heal your gut and you got to do a Dutch test and a GI map and do all that stuff because you were struggling at the time. Like you were back on gluten.

I was.

Yeah. And I remember that. And so will you talk just a little bit about, because you also made a really big decision when you decided to do the Fast to Faith Coaching Academy, because you were about to do something else at the time.

Oh, yes. Oh my gosh.

I was. How could we forget? I was studying to be a nurse practitioner. And I just knew—

Because we always need more degrees. Right, right, right.

Like, I just, we're not enough yet.

Let me get there.

So what did I do in my time? Time of despair and darkness was, I've got to seek that avenue, right? That'll make it better. I just knew burning inside me was a desire to reach more humans, connect with more women. I knew there was a purpose for me, and I thought, well, nurse practitioner, then I can help treat or help guide. But lo and behold, That's not the avenue God intended for me. It was a piece put there to get me to that next. And it was just this epiphany of like, oh my gosh, this is how I wanna reach women in the way that you guys had it set up. And I wanna do this. And I'll never forget the call I had with you, Dr. Tabatha. You asked me, why are you going back to study nurse practitioner? What is your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? And everything I shared with you, you're like, You don't have to do that. You're already capable in doing that. And the program was just laid out and the rest is history. Here I am. I love that so much.

Yeah.

God is so good.

He is. And I— you have such a special gift because you're already touching women's lives on a daily basis, going to their houses or having them come to your place where they can get an IV. So, How did Fast of Faith kind of uplevel what you're doing? Because you've just— I've just watched you intertwine it all. It's so natural for you. And that's where your new name, your Inspired Glow, came from. That's your coaching company, which I love so much. So will you just kind of share how you've intertwined your everyday life? Because we get this question a lot where they're like, how can I, you know, continue to do whatever it is that they're doing? Maybe they are a nurse or a teacher, or maybe they're a stay-at-home mom.

Yeah.

How can I bring Fast to Faith into what I'm already doing and kind of marry them? So will you share how you did that and what it did for your business?

Yes, it really all just streamlined very nicely. The part that Fast to Faith and Her Higher Health offers was the pieces I was missing in, in being able to offer and help my clients. Vitamin therapy, you know, nutrient replacement was so huge in my life. I, I was depleted of all B vitamins, I was told, well, this is why you're on antidepressants and anti-anxiety. You have no adequate nutrients, minerals, and vitamins to thrive. And when I shifted over into doing IV therapy early on, that was so huge for me. I got off of all those pharmaceuticals. It's like my brain woke up. And that is where my love for the IV therapy and being able to offer convenient offerings to people. However, there was still that missing piece. So many women in front of me, like, I just, I can't get over the hump. And it's like, I knew what they needed, you know. I'm trying to explain my journey, but I didn't quite have the pieces to, to put it there in front of them. And so now I'm able to share that part of what we do in the coaching and in the practice. And I have seen incredible transformations. I always said the glow, the inspired glow, came from It's the glow that comes from within. What you see on the outside is what you're doing cellularly inside. And, and that's—

Yeah. What is one of your favorite patient or client stories that stick out to you recently? Because I know that you see a lot of women.

Goodness, I can connect so much with, with several of them. But one that reminded me so much of myself was dealing with a Autoimmune activation, skin rashes, which I also had crazy inflammatory itching skin. She—it was like me. I was watching myself go through this journey, and it's gut. When when we healed her gut, all these skin symptoms went away. She lost thirty pounds that she never could get off before and struggled to get off, and. It's so beautiful to me on visit, visit 3, when they pop up and it's like, you're glowing. Look at you. Oh my goodness. Like, you see yourself every day, but time goes by. And then when I get to see you, that just lightens my— brightens my soul so much when they pop up and you just see them radiating.

Yeah.

And she was smiling. And when I first saw her, she was sobbing.

Yeah, that is my favorite part as well. And we're going to have to do some gut episodes coming up very soon because it is the root cause of a lot of stuff.

It is. And I think Shannon shared, and I shared it in our very first episode together, we've both healed our guts before and she's had to heal hers again and I'm currently healing mine again. So it is a kind of an ongoing journey that we have to take care of ourselves. Yeah. Because it's not a one-time thing.

It's alive in there. There's an entire world, an ecosystem living and trying to function and fight through all the toxins that we have, fight through all the crap that we give it.

Well, and I always tell women, give it a little while. You'll be telling me what you need because we help women and men to learn how to connect with body. Body's speaking to us. If you have a symptom, we've got to address something.

Yeah. I heard you just say that this week, actually, when I got my IV with you, because we do it with Um, someone else, and you said to her, you now know what your body needs. Yes. Like, she—

and you see the light bulb moment. Yeah, we did. We experienced that.

No. Yeah, so good.

And even when I just had to revisit, you know, gut healing a little over a year ago, I was inflamed again. I was coming off of all the inflammation from injury. I knew gut was the issue. I, I was dealing with hidradenitis suppurativa in my groin area. Some women can get it under their armpits. Horrific nodule. You could probably speak a little bit more to it, but yeah, it's like tracks and nodules under the skin.

They go deep inside. They're very painful. They can become infected and cystic and oftentimes in the groin or inner thighs or armpits. And as a medical doctor, I would just say, I'm sorry, I can try some antibiotics for you, but there's Not really anything else we can do except surgically excise it. And it's like—

Scar tissue.

Yeah. You don't want your thighs cut into. What the heck? But that's all we had to offer.

Yes. Or biologics. You just need to suppress it and take these injections. And that is the route that I would've been told to take. I don't have that happening in my groin. It went away.

It's all healed.

It all healed because I had H. pylori. I killed that off. I've renourished my good flora gut bacteria, and I'm not suffering from hidradenitis suppurativa. And I know a lot of people who have that, and they're just told it is what it is.

Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad you shared that because, yeah, women live in shame, especially that kind of stuff where it's like, Closed up areas. Nobody's talking about it. The doctor has no answer. And so you just live in shame, and there's really healing for all of it.

Yes. And the hormones— my hormones got better after I healed the gut again. My hormones got a little, a little wonky on me, and Dr. Tabatha, you helped me straighten that out.

Well, that's another piece of it is We're constantly transitioning as we add more birthdays, our body physiology starts to change and we get into that time period of the roller coaster. And then everything that used to work and got you through your 20s and 30s, all of a sudden you're like, why doesn't this work anymore? What just happened to me?

I was like, I forgot I was supposed to be like that now. But it's true. And being open about it. Absolutely. Allowing women a safe space to speak of these things. And in regards to sexual health and their intimacy, it needs to be okay to talk about those things.

Yeah. Yes. And speaking of that trauma, you know, we don't have a lot of time left, but next week we are interviewing Dr. Russ Irwin and we're diving deep into trauma. But you have talked about that as part of your journey because A lot of times trauma comes up and we mentioned it a little bit at the beginning, but can you just kind of wrap this up in a pretty bow of how you finally came to understand that the trauma was, you were keeping score in your body and it was affecting your physiology and your mindset and all of that?

Oh, absolutely. And you just pulled from a piece of the book I love, The Body Keeps The Score. And it truly is a great read for anybody trying to understand why the body continues to react, or reactivity of fight or flight. I was forever continuing to flare up with fight or flight constantly. I didn't know why. I couldn't understand. I never thought to think about trauma until a few years into sobriety, really. And I started to work in a holistic recovery center, working with women coming in freshly out of rehab. And one of the biggest things we targeted was trauma responses. And that allowed me to dig even deeper. I went through accelerated resolution therapy. I began to identify there is a reason I continued to react. And not know why, but the why is the neurological system. The nervous system is going to continue firing until you learn how to tap into that. Trauma doesn't have to be just some crazy, obvious traumatic situation. We deal with traumas all the time. I didn't realize that. I never tied certain things that happened in my life to being trauma, but the body harvests it. And when when I started to make that connection. And being open and transparent, being very transparent and vulnerable. Vulnerability is a beautiful part of healing.

It really is. And you're right, it doesn't have to be a big T trauma. You don't have to find your parents murdered in your home. You can have a mother who is chronically dieting as you are a little girl, and you're hearing her talk negatively to her body and then saying things when you're 9 and 10 years old of like, Gosh, honey, you're getting a little chubby. You better stop eating. That stuff is traumatic. It's true.

And we create beliefs out of all of that.

So gosh, I can't wait to fuck it up.

And through my trauma healing, I had discovered just real short here, because it could be a whole nother level of conversation. I'm so glad you're doing that next episode on trauma. But I would've never put the two and two together that my firstborn son, that the birthing experience I had with him was traumatic. Not just for me, but for him. And to be able to discover that in my trauma healing sessions and kind of reinvent that situation, to be able to view it how I would've loved for it to go and heal through that. I was continuing to respond and react from a traumatic birthing experience. My body would react that I never knew that was why.

Oh my gosh. Somatic work. Yeah. So good. I did that somatic therapy session with your gal and I learned a lot about my children's birthing experiences and why they are the way they are.

That was powerful.

I don't know if I should share it because I don't want to embarrass them. But yeah, that kind of work needs to happen. You need to get into whatever it is. I know when we talked to Dr. Russ, he does neuro brain spotting and different things, but you said EMDR helped you. Renew those pathways, like start to have different thoughts and beliefs subconsciously. And that's—

And it's hard work. It's work that you have to be devoted to and be okay with and know, you know, there's even such thing as even coaches or people working in a healing space, things can get reactivated when we experience working with somebody. It can reactivate a trauma response in us. And I think it's also a huge thing to identify Taking care of our own selves and being able to recognize not to carry others' energy with us, but yet how do we heal through that? Not to allow ourselves to become reactivated.

100%. Yeah. We talk about that when we train the coaches. And I would love, you know, for you to speak into this about a lot of women go on these journeys and they're like, okay, let me try this. Let me try Reiki. Let me try crystals, whatever it is. And it isn't until we get into the Word and we really invite the Holy Spirit into that journey that everything shifts. Isn't that what we hear from coaches like over and over again? That's what you told me.

Oh, I was seeking every avenue, every avenue, but every avenue led me to one core part of this.

Yeah. And it's okay. Like, there's no shame or condemnation in Christ. Like, it doesn't matter how we got here, you know? We hear so much stuff in the Christian space about like, oh, you're going to hell. You had a Reiki session. It's like, but maybe Jesus knew that that was going to get you to him.

Like, you don't know.

It was the path you needed to take.

Yeah. So stop beating yourself up and just trust that God uses everything for your good. Like, he literally does. Every bad mistake, every mess that you make, he turns it around for your good. And you were just You're just such an incredible example of that. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

I wanna ask one last question. So for the women listening, we covered probably 10, maybe 12 years of your life in this, you know, conversation. And they heard a lot of things and you didn't do them all at once. So for the women listening and they're, they know they need to start somewhere. When you go back 10, 12 years to the girl who was struggling, who went to that doctor who saved her life, What would you say to her to get her just to start and start somewhere? What advice would you want her to have?

To think very simplistic about the process. Give yourself grace and be open and willing to listen. I think the most beautiful part of my beginning journey was I, I sat back and just started listening. Yeah. And praying and, Sitting in my faith. You have to have faith in the process you're trying to do.

Yeah.

You have to have hope. You have to believe everything's figureoutable. Thank you, Marie Forleo. Awesome. What a good conversation.

Thanks, Shannon. Dr. Tabatha, what verse are you leaving us with this week?

Oh my goodness. There's so many. I can't even— The harvest is plenty, the workers are few. That's what's popping up to me right now is there's so much work to be done out in this world, and God is calling us to do the work. And I'm just so proud of you for stepping up and being one of the few workers and just feeling the fear, but doing it anyway.

Thank you.

So good. I love it. All right, ladies, we will see you next week. You have got to join us next week because Dr. Russ Irwin is unwrapping trauma from a biblical perspective. Jesus is all up in your trauma, ladies. I promise you, he is using it all to just create you into the beautiful, amazing woman he wants you to be. Shannon is a shining example of that. So thank you for your time. We value it. And here I want to— this is what I want from you ladies. I don't ask for stuff often, but I want you to share this episode on social media and tag me @GutsyDrTabatha. If you do that, we're going to send you a gift. So do it. Tag any part of the episode or another episode, whatever. Just put a little story up, a little post, and we will bless you. So thank you so much. I love you. Go be Christ's hands to serve. I'll see you soon.

Bye, ladies.