Dr. Traci Potterf | A Holistic & Global Approach To Addressing Anxiety By Befriending Your Body & Your Life

The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

On this empowering episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, we are thrilled to introduce our special guest, Dr. Traci Potterf – a compassionate and relatable Functional Medicine Anxiety Detective, who has dedicated her life to helping others understand and overcome their anxiety through holistic approaches.

Dr. Potterf's own personal journey with anxiety led her to discover the world of functional medicine, and she is now on a mission to share her story and expertise in order to help others struggling with the same issues. With a unique focus on "befriending your body and your life", Dr. Potterf delves into the topic of anxiety from a fresh, empathetic and inspiring perspective.

In this captivating episode, we explore:

- Identifying hidden causes of anxiety: Learn how Dr. Traci Potterf's own experience battling anxiety inspired her to specialize in functional medicine and searching for the root causes of this all-too-common condition.

- Natural solutions for addressing anxiety: Dr. Traci Potterf shares her expertise on various holistic and natural approaches to overcoming anxiety, from nutrition and supplements to mindfulness practices, prioritizing self-care, and more.

- Befriending your body and your life: Harness your inner self and learn to befriend your body and your life in order to take control of your anxiety and live a life full of happiness, balance, and health.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn invaluable insights from an inspiring and approachable authority in the field of functional medicine. Dr. Traci Potterf’s quote from the episode could not be more poignant: "It's time to reclaim our power and take control of our anxiety."

Take a step towards taking control of your anxiety – tune into this enlightening episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast and find your path to a healthier, more balanced life. Connect with Dr. Traci Potterf and embrace her unique perspective on overcoming anxiety today!

Speaker 1 (00:00):

I said to my body softly, I want to be your friend. It took a long breath and replied, I have been waiting my whole life for this Naira Wahid. Stay tuned to discover a unique holistic approach to befriending your anxiety and healing it.

Speaker 2 (00:20):

So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones and our moods, feel sexy and confident and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an OB GYN, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:13):

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Hormone Prescription. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive into a holistic and global approach to addressing anxiety by befriending your body and your life. Sounds intriguing, doesn't it? If you're suffering with anxiety, I know it can be debilitating. I used to suffer with anxiety as well and found my way out. And my guest today, Dr. Tracy Potterf, really has a unique perspective on healing anxiety. We talked about it. Sure, it's all the things I like to talk about and we do cover those, but it's so much more and she really has a unique perspective based on her background, which I'll tell you a little bit about and we'll really dive into it. And this concept, like I shared in the teaser of befriending your body who has been waiting her whole life for you to turn her attention to her and to talk to her and to listen to her might be new to you, but it's really revolutionary and foundational when it comes to not only healing anxiety, but anything and everything that's plaguing you physically, mentally, and emotionally. So stay tuned to find out more. I will tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started. Dr. Tracy Potter is a functional medicine anxiety detective who helps growth-minded people find and fix the hidden causes with natural solutions so they can live a limitless life at peace in their own skin. As a psychiatrist daughter, former medical anthropologist and recovered debilitating anxiety sufferer, she shares a unique way out of the mental health epidemic with the world. Please help me welcome Dr. Tracy Potterf to the show.

Speaker 3 (03:13):

Hey there. Thank you for letting me be a guest on your show.

Speaker 1 (03:16):

So excited to dive into this topic with you because you are the functional medicine anxiety detective and you have a really unique way of understanding and explaining what anxiety is, why we have it from an anthropological perspective that I think a lot of people miss. I think a lot of times we traditional mainstream doctors like I used to be, we're all about what's the diagnosis, what drug do I need to give? But even from a functional medicine perspective, we might look at some of the systems, but I think there are other issues at play that we might miss. You come from a family with a father, is it who was a psychiatrist, correct. So I'm sure you got a front row seat to a lot of dysfunction. , your former medical anthropologist. So talk about your conceptualization of anxiety.

Speaker 3 (04:16):

Thank you. So yeah, I learned this the hard way. I've had lots of anxiety back in the day and what I realized, and I can share more about the process, but what I realized is that anxiety is not just some genetic chemical imbalance or like some individual defect. It is a symptom. It's not a disorder and it's a natural response to an unnatural environment. And the problem is that we've normalized a culture that tries to override nature instead of working with the genius or intelligence of nature. And that's why branded is inner genius health because your inner genius is you are nature. We are nature. It's not somewhere outside of us, it's what we are and our cells, our human cells, our micro cells, our DNA, and when we work with and not against that internal intelligence, then it's amazing what we can heal. And when we live in ways that for our inner genius and make it really hard on our inner genius, then we end up with what we have, which is an epidemic of mental health issues and chronic illness issues. And then we think that's normal aging. We think it's normal. And I've heard you say this and I say it all the time, say the same thing. Just because it's common does not mean it's normal. Nature's not that cool.

Speaker 1 (05:37):

It's so true. I love that I had to write that down. Anxiety is a natural response to an unnatural environment. We think what's wrong with us that we're anxious, right? But the truth is it's what's wrong with society, . It's making us anxious. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think a lot of people hear that and they go, what is she talking about? Of course, if you have anxiety, there's something wrong with you. What does she mean?

Speaker 3 (06:04):

Yeah, yeah. It's true that if you have anxiety, something's wrong, but it doesn't mean you're inherently defective as a human being. And so it, I think of anxiety, I use and abuse this metaphor. I think of anxiety as a smoke alarm. Just like all symptoms, it's a smoke alarm. And if your, let's say your house is on fire, wish someone, let's say something's on fire and the smoke alarm goes off and you just take the battery out of the smoke alarm and that's analogous to just numbing the symptoms or trying to make the symptoms go away. But if you don't put out the fire, then your house is still gonna burn down. So anxiety is like a smoke alarm. It's your body telling you something's wrong and often your brain on fire. You have neuroinflammation, you have issues in your gut, your brain, hormonal issues often like infections, toxic exposures.

Speaker 3 (06:49):

And this, a lot of this goes back to, so you were asking specifically, what are we doing now? What do we normalize? That's unnatural. I think a lot of people have an intuitive sense of this, but let's get specific. So we're eating crap , like we're eating things. We're putting chemicals in our bodies that don't belong and we're depriving our bodies of nutrients that we need, which starts in the soil by the way. Like we have depleted, poisoned soil. And if you don't have soil that's teeming with microbes and mycelium and insects and we demonize insects, insects are amazing, right? Let's kill 'em all. Let's kill all the microbes. Let's just sterilize everything. That's the greatest way to destroy our whole species. And so we, that's another thing is like this mentality of sterilization. Now I understand if you're in a hospital and you don't want like staph infections to spread, that's one thing.

Speaker 3 (07:37):

But like in our daily lives we've become so germophobic, but we don't realize we're poisoning ourselves with all these weird chemicals, toxins. And we're not too phobic, we're just like, ew germs. But then some of us are concerned about toxic chemicals, but a lot of people are oblivious to these like perfumes and creams and cleaning products. I've taken an informal toll, like I've talked to a lot of people who've been cleaning houses for decades and almost all of them have had cancer and cleaning products. Also, I think we know just sitting on our butts a lot and not moving, not squatting, not being able to squat and get up and down off the floor. That's a big deal. Mouth breathing. We're not breathing through our noses, we're breathing through our mouth for a whole lot of reasons, having our heads forwarded so that we screw up our posture and then we have trouble breathing and it causes cardiovascular disease, like not moving in joyful, playful ways, not playing, becoming alienated and not getting enough physical healthy physical touch and being held where like lack of tribe or community.

Speaker 3 (08:34):

It just goes on and on. Our sleep is messed up, our sleep is whacked. And then our circadian rhythms, this is a big one. Like people are starting to be like, okay, diet and exercise, which I don't even like those words anymore 'cause diet sounds like die, but like how we're eating. And then movement, I like it more than exercise, I'll use exercise, but I really like movement. 'cause It sounds more like play and exploration. But we're messing up our circadian rhythms. We're staying up late at night on these electronic devices. We're eating late at night, we're doing all these things that confuse our bodies and a lot of weight loss resistance and leptin resistance is tied to both how we're eating not and our sleep weight cycles and a relationship to light and the kinds of light we're exposed to at different times of day in the time of day we're eating.

Speaker 3 (09:19):

So it just goes on and on. But the thing is, all the solutions to all this are actually fun things that feel good. So I came up with this concept I call healthy hedonism, which is, so hedonism is like the pursuit of pleasure, but often people, we have a culture that's normalized toxic, addictive pleasures, things that destroy us. They feel good for a few minutes and then they destroy us and are often depressants, which are often neurotoxins. They are things that cause inflammation of the brain and nervous system, which causes anxiety, depression, brain fog, fatigue, trouble sleeping, just goes on and on. It is also because our nervous systems get dysregulated, then it messes up our immune system. A lot of people don't realize our nervous system and our immune system share biological structures and are in lockstep with each other. So then you have, you get sick more often or you have an overactive immune system and you end up without immunity and it just goes on and on and on.

Speaker 3 (10:09):

But what I want people to understand is the solutions. You can eat delicious food, you can have really wonderful self-care rituals that make you feel even euphoric. There are ways to move your body that feel like clay and you can still be really fit. We don't understand. It's not either or. It's that you don't give up pleasure to be healthy. You use pleasure and things that align with your evolutionary biology as a doorway to healing your body, healing your mind. So to heal your mind and your body, you have to heal your life.

Speaker 1 (10:38):

I love that he called it? Healthy hedonism. Healthy

Speaker 3 (10:42):

Hedonism. So pursuit of pleasure but healthy pleasures. So we need to broaden our pleasure palette. Like we need to be, like if you were painting a rainbow with just black and white, you'd be pretty limited. If you have the whole rainbow of human experience, then that's when you're really lit up and that's when you really come back home to yourself.

Speaker 1 (11:00):

So you described a lot of the lifestyle situations and conditions we're living under that are contributing to our anxiety. I'm wondering what your thoughts are, what you'd like to share about just the way that our brains function and are structured compared to other animals. One of the things I've loved about traveling is I get to encounter unique healers all over the world. And there's a guy who comes to Dubai called Ner Levy, and he does this very unique healing modality called the Ner Levy method. And he did a beautiful introductory talk one night and with the audience participation where to his work where he talked about the way in which we're living and what the difference is. And he brought in a lot of the things that you're mentioning. We used to live more rurally and communities and just the contact that we had, physical and emotional, spiritual connection with others. But this whole concept of what do we have? Why don't zebras have anxiety?

Speaker 3 (12:04):

Yeah, that's that why, yeah, that book is genius,

Speaker 1 (12:07):

Uniquely human because we have something they don't have, which is imagination. And that a lot of the things that we are anxious about as we we're, we have anxiety over is because of our imagination.

Speaker 3 (12:21):

That's a really good point. Yeah, it's true. We make a lot of stuff up. Like a lot of the demons are the, a lot of the, the predators are in our head most of the time. And it's interesting because we sit around, we can so easily all of us sit around imagining all kinds of scenarios and making ourselves nervous or whatever. And then we're sitting there overlooking the fact that we are actively, most people, and industrialized society are actively doing things to thwart our own wellbeing. So we're actually, it's interesting because like I hear people talk about anxiety, like it's just all thoughts or you could just change your thinking. You wouldn't have anxiety. And that's true for certain kinds of anxiety. But there are different kinds of anxiety. So if you have anxiety because you have low estrogen or low progesterone or both, then sitting around positive thinking, is it gonna fix that?

Speaker 3 (13:11):

Or if you have anxiety, as I went through, I had Lyme, I've been through Lyme disease, I've been through toxic mold, I've been through lead poisoning, all of those things cause severe anxiety and anxiety was the first symptom of what was, what something was off. So that's why I, I teach people if you wanna really resolve your anxiety, and a lot of people are like, I've tried everything that didn't work and they're not very open. And the thing is there, you have to address like three areas because if you just do one outta three or two out of three, you're not gonna get better. You're not gonna get rid of anxiety. And, and I'm sure you work with people in these same areas, which is of course there's a lifestyle I just talked about. And lifestyle is your daily thoughts and actions and your environment, your physical environment, your social environment.

Speaker 3 (13:52):

So that's big. It's not just diet and exercise. Then there's finding hidden health causes, hormonal issues, infections, environmental toxins, all kinds of things like that. Like just hidden help causes. And then the third pillar is your nervous system, like how your nervous system is wired and programmed. You can rewire things to neuroplasticity, you can rewire your nervous system to go from being over overwhelmed to a state of calm. And you can actually change the neurological structure of your brain through practices that actually feel good and don't take that much time. Yeah. But back to your point about our imagination, our neocortex or executive function that we have as humans, it's a blessing and a curse. It's a double-edged sword because we can create so much , ama so much like just wonder and awe magic with our consciousness. But we also can really make ourselves miserable and each other miserable. We're still learning how to wield what we're,

Speaker 1 (14:49):

Yes, we're learning how to wield the sword of, of who we are, how do we work with it? So it helps us. Something you touched on a few things just sparked something in me. You were running down kind of the list of all the things you need to look at. If you have anxiety, and you have this in the notes, I have this in my notes from you for the show, why no one has ever tried anything. So I actually just got off a consultation with a woman who, and if you're listening and you listen regularly to the podcast, I'm talking to you , because I swear that you're telling yourself that you've tried everything. And what I will tell you is if you are still suffering with X, Y, z, fill in the blank, anxiety, insomnia, whatever the symptom is, you have not tried everything.

Speaker 1 (15:39):

Right. And anxiety really highlights this, but so does every other symptom in this order because there's absolutely, there's always a reason why. And I, we've done, I've done it issues, I've done shows about anxiety and I talk about doing all the things, but the woman I was talking to literally told me I've tried everything and I've given her suggestions before on stuff that she should do and she doesn't do it right. So it's like where, where we're in denial. So I'm talking to you if you're listening, so listen up, you haven't tried everything if you're still suffering. But what I think is so important is, go ahead. Go ahead Dr. Tracy.

Speaker 3 (16:24):

Oh, no, no. Oh no. I was just gonna say, if you think about it, we live in an infinite universe. There is no such thing as everything having been tried because there's no end in sight. You just think of it logically. That's the reality. And what you were saying that there's, it's your body's asking for something and that's something exists. Like you may not. So when people say, I've tried everything and it didn't work, what they mean is I've tried everything that the experts have told me or that I've read about or that I've thought of or which doesn't mean everything, it just means what you're familiar with. Or it means I've tried everything that I felt ready and willing to try . But maybe there's some things that I just thought maybe I don't really need to do. Maybe they're not that important and I just

Speaker 1 (17:06):

Skipped over it or everything I was willing to spend the time and money on because that's what I find, right? A lot of people are like, yeah, no, I, I'd rather get, so yeah, she was telling me about some cosmetic procedure that she was having done, but she doesn't, didn't wanna invest in this thing anyway. Yeah. Back to anxiety. How do people need to expand their awareness and really tap into what you call their inner genius? What is their inner genius and why is it crucial to heal just about anything?

Speaker 3 (17:36):

Yeah. So your inner genius is the genius or intelligent in nature that runs all of existence. It makes the planet spin in their orbit that makes the flowers win and the bees buzz and makes every chemical process, it's the magic of nature. And nature has this tendency to strive toward balance or homeostasis where it's trying to correct itself. And symptoms or sensations, emotions are nature's way of talking to us and communicating and guiding us. It's your inner guide, your inner wisdom. And when we don't listen to that or we don't know how to listen, 'cause we haven't been taught to listen, we don't speak the language, then we feel maybe like our bodies have betrayed us or like we're defective or we feel angry. But here's the thing, like if you put your hand on a hot stove and your body didn't say, ouch, get that off, would that be a loyal body?

Speaker 3 (18:28):

If your brain's inflamed and you're damaging your gut and your intestines with the food you're eating and your body didn't make your tummy hurt or make you have brain fog or headaches or anxiety, then you wouldn't be being notified. That would be betrayal. If our bodies didn't tell us something's off, that would be betrayal. And so your inner genius is your best friend. It is infinitely intelligent and it's something you can tap into. And one of my favorite ways to tap into this is a meditation practice. And for those of you who are thinking, I'm so tired of hearing about meditation, I suck at meditation. That is a story. And you're, that's your imagination. That's imagination. That's not an objective reality because there are ways, maybe you've tried things that didn't work for you, but there are ways, like I teach people really concrete ways to meditate that gives your mind a job.

Speaker 3 (19:19):

And believe me, every one of us when we start meditating or if we skip meditation and then go back after a while, you're gonna have what they call the east monkey mind. You're gonna be like, your mind's gonna be all over the place. It's gonna be like , especially mine, but , it's okay. That's normal. And here's the thing is that's what's going on inside of you all the time. You're just used to the background buzz. And when you sit and be with it and you're willing to get out of your comfort zone and just sit and unconditionally be with yourself on what arises, and you give yourself a way to breathe, you give yourself a way to focus your mind. Anyone can meditate and, and what ends up happening in your nervous system feels like magic. And so one of the things I I offered is free, I call it a brain trick meditation, and someone else called it a magic meditation because it really does feel pretty magical.

Speaker 3 (20:07):

There's something you can do with your attention and with your breath at the same time. That's so easy. Anyone can do it. And in 15 minutes you're a totally different person. So if you have physical pain, emotional pain, anxiety, and also I accidentally discovered through my clients who are doing this at bedtime, it helps people who are having trouble sleeping and people, you can memorize it, it's a technique you memorize pretty quickly. So then you just have it the rest of your life. You don't need the recording anymore. And my clients just spontaneously started, they would wake up in the middle of the night, couldn't go back to sleep, they would do this process and then they would con out, they couldn't even get through the whole thing and they'd be back asleep again. So it's actually, I like this, I like to say it's better than melatonin for sleep or any other sleep aid.

Speaker 3 (20:47):

So like, just what we're able to do with our consciousness, with our breath is amazing. And that puts you in a possibility that then allows you to tap into your inner genius to stop sabotaging yourself and to get out of your own way and open up to the infinite possibility of your life. And then when you learn to do that, then that helps you have more of the wherewithal for the, the self-care, the wherewithal for the the functional medicine part and that kind of part, that kind of like all the, so it gives, it opens up the doorway to help you be more open to all the pillars, like all the steps you need to do to fix the problem. And I really fully believe that when you go through a mental health crisis, physical health crisis, even if it's been going on your whole life, I've had clients who've had anxiety since they, they remember being babies or toddlers having anxiety. They never remember not having anxiety. So they think, oh, I must be inherently defective and it's not true. So I have people who, who've been anxious their whole lives and within just a few weeks or really weeks to maybe a few months, three months, something like that, their anxiety has gone from like an eight to 10 daily, two to four. And that's, that's your ingen.

Speaker 1 (22:00):

Yeah. That's amazing. So I'd love that you bring that up because it's really like the prep work you need to get in the right space where you are open to receive the help that you're needing and you can tap into that eness. I think that we all have an innate intuition about what speaks to us and what we should go towards and what we should go away from. But we've learned to dampen it down so much that we're always looking to quote unquote experts to tell us what should I do? Right? And we really lose that internal guidance. That was true for me too. It's funny because when I learned about functional medicine after I transformed my health and then started working with people and some, a lot of people got it and some people just couldn't pick up the tools. What I realized is that there was a step before that happened for me that is exactly what you're talking about, Tracy, where I was able to tap into that inner heterogeneous and tap into being open.

Speaker 1 (22:59):

Because the truth was that these tools had come across my path years before and I had dismissed them and discounted them because I wasn't tapped into that frequency. So I love that you've created this pre-step for people to start tapping into that inner genius. So I definitely wanna say to everyone listening, that would be step one and then the person who is really anxious and I can identify with that because as everybody knows, I shared this before, I was so anxious at one point in my life before I found a, a root cause approach where I was on five psychoactive medications for anxiety and depression. And it ended up being all the things I like to say, right? It was my hormones. Yeah, it was my toxicity, it was my gut health. It was, you name it, right? Nervous system. And so now I've untangled all that and I really don't have anxiety or depression and I'm not on any medications and haven't been for years.

Speaker 1 (23:57):

But for the person listening, they're like, okay, Dr. Tracy, I get it. Okay. I need to calm my mind. Oh, I really wanna say one other thing about what you say about people who say, I can't meditate. I'm so tired of hearing about meditation, right? Do we ever say that about sleep? I'm so tired of hearing about sleep, right? , I'm so tired of hearing about my diet and what I eat. Like this is just something that you're gonna have to accept and face that you need to be doing, that you need to quiet your mind to get to the health that you want. Mm-Hmm,

Speaker 3 (24:29):

. And you don't have to stop thinking that's not the point. Like people think, oh, I'm supposed to, I have to sit in the lotus position and I have to stop my thoughts and I have to like, and if I don't experience some kind of merging with the universe right away, then like I did it wrong. And like that's all like that. Those are all myths about meditation. And I wanna talk about meditation. If you're not meditating, it's like you're missing one of your senses. You're not, you're operating at a very narrow spectrum. If you look at the full spectrum of light and or this full spectrum of color and you only knew about three colors and you didn't know about all the other colors, like there's an intrinsic pleasure and value in going into your in, I call it your inner verse, your inner space going into inner space.

Speaker 3 (25:13):

There's magic that happens there. There's it, it's amazing. It takes some time but not that long. It just takes consistency. Just like moving your body, just eating, just like sleep habits. Like it's just a habit. And it is, I really feel like if you go through a human life without ever developing meditation practice, you are missing out on a huge part of human possibility because there's like an inner world inside of us that makes us feel complete, that makes us feel whole. That makes us feel like you hear people mocking one with the universe, but feeling at one with the universe is really awesome. It feels amazing. So I just don't miss out on that. Don't like to do homework like you've gotta go meditate or else you're a bad girl or a bad boy. Most women here on this podcast, right?

Speaker 3 (26:00):

No, don't miss out on this inner party. Like it's like there's this amazing party and you're missing out on it inside of you. And your inner genius, yes. Is that consciousness and that consciousness drives your thoughts, your emotions, your awareness. But that consciousness drives all chemical processes. Your inner genius is also the chemical processes in your body. The inner geniusness is how microbes talk to each other and share genetic information. The inner genius is happening in the soil, it's happening in the plants, it's happening in the stars, it's happening in the sun, it's happening like that. The inner genius is happening. There's, for the inner genius, there's no differentiation between physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. 'cause It's all the same consciousness.

Speaker 1 (26:41):

Yes. And be patient with yourself. You didn't learn how to tie your shoes in one day, so it takes half.

Speaker 3 (26:46):

You did not.

Speaker 1 (26:47):

But yeah. So I have to, you gave me some beautiful quotes that I just have to pull all of them in before we end. So I've gotta start doing it now. You have this one from, do you say it, naira Wahe. And I said to my body, softly, I want to be your friend. I took a long breath and replied, I have been waiting my whole life for this. Oh my gosh, that gives me chill bumps. I've never heard that quote before. Tell me a little bit about this quote and what this means.

Speaker 3 (27:18):

At the end of the day, that's what our bodies want. That's what the pain is telling you. That's what the suffering is telling you. That's what belly fat is telling you. That's what the headaches, that's what everything is telling you. I wanna be your friend. I wanna take care of you. I want you to pay attention to me. I want you to love me. I want us to be on the same team. And we don't have a culture that teaches us to do that. And we have such a cliche culture. We usually look at TV shows and movies and advertisements. It's, I had a bad day, I need a drink. Let's like wine and chocolate is the only way to feel good. I'm not saying you can't ever enjoy wine and chocolate. I'm just saying that's so narrow compared to the vast. And so I just, yeah, we have to make friends with our, with our bodies, with our inner genius.

Speaker 1 (28:01):

I think for a lot of people, that's a really novel and radical concept because like you said, our culture is all about, oh, you're stressed, drink or do XY shop or whatever. But so for those people who are intrigued, how do they start to befriend their body?

Speaker 3 (28:19):

Well, one of the things I say, I think it's still on my website where you can get the brain to take meditation. I think it says unlock yourself healing superpowers. I don't know if I still have that on there, but it's, I feel like when you first start to have experiences where you have the ability to change, disrupt and change and transform a pattern in your body and you realize you have more control over your body than you realize, or you first start making changes to the quality of the food you're eating. Like here's the deal. You can still eat things you love whether it's hamburgers or pizza or curries or whatever, you just eat healthy versions of them and you balance your meals better. That's a whole other conversation. But if you're using quality ingredients and you balance the nutrients, there's kind of nothing within reason.

Speaker 3 (29:03):

There's very little you can't eat and still feel good afterwards. And like having, I think a lot of people don't have, we talk about boundaries these days, which I think is an important conversation. But what about boundaries around how you treat yourself? We talk, we have junk food, we have junk thoughts, junk beliefs, junk habits. And one thing I like to say about food is like when I give talks, sometimes I'll say, what is the most intimate thing we do with something outside of ourselves? And most people are thinking sex, right? Sex is incredibly intimate, but eating is more intimate because the molecules of the food become new. They become your body and become your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, the perceptual lenses in which reality, right? And why wouldn't we have standards around that? And one of the things I just wanna gripe about is all the people saying restrictive diets.

Speaker 3 (29:54):

When people decide, Hey, I'm gonna take care of myself. I'm gonna stop poisoning myself and start nurturing myself and only eat like really yummy things that serve me. And other people are like, oh, you are on a restrictive diet. I'm like, no, I'm being liberated by my choices. This is freedom. There are so many hundreds of thousands of species of healthy edible things on this planet. And we are fixated on all this processed crap that's made from the same few in ingredients of natural ingredients and then thousands of chemicals. And we think we're being restricted when we decide to stop hurting ourselves. Like I got, if someone got out of an abusive relationship and said, I'm not gonna be in this abusive relationship anymore, will we tell that person, oh, you're really restricting your life by not letting this person abuse you. That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (30:38):

And I think it goes right into this other quote you offered from Maya Angelou that I love. If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be because I think that we try to fit in quote unquote normal. We wanna eat like everyone else and live like everyone else and have the same cars in the same fashion and all these things. And we spend so much time trying to be normal. But talking about how that affects your health is an example you just gave. Like the diet that's right for someone else might not be the right diet for you, but how you look at it, if you call it restrictive, it's different than this is the right diet prescription for me. So talk a little bit about that and how you can let go of being normal so you can know how amazing you're

Speaker 3 (31:33):

Yeah. Yeah. I love, yeah, I love that. I love period. But I love that quote. Yeah, so it's okay. It is so normal. We're tribal creatures. We evolved in tribes. We don't wanna get kicked out of the tribe and like, how are you gonna fit for yourself? How are you gonna get food? How are you gonna have a get sex and partnered and whatever like it, it's normal and understandable that we want to be part of a tribe, we wanna be in communities and we wanna fit in. I get that. I totally get it. That's nature. But what's not natural is now that we've normalized what we think is normal, goes completely against the very essence of what we are. And we, we, I heard, I think it's Gabor Mate said something about we have a culture, I forget what he said. That incentive our culture incentivizes us to betray ourselves, is what he was saying.

Speaker 3 (32:23):

Yeah. And so here's the deal. The way we make culture is by you and you and me and Dr. Kieran, like Dr. Dunston, like all of us are voting on culture. We all create it with our lifetime. We create it with how we spend money, we create it, it with what we consume. We create it with what we share. I don't mean getting on a soapbox and preaching at people and being righteous. That's obnoxious and that's not gonna create a connection. But when we all start as individuals and just lovingly making different choices, we model something different to other people and then those other people who are right on the edge of being like, I've been wanting to do that too. Suddenly it starts a domino effect. Like when I started changing my lifestyle, I tried preaching, didn't work, blow up in my face. That's why I say, don't do that.

Speaker 3 (33:06):

That was in my twenties. Didn't know better . But what I've noticed now is like when I've had housemates or people that live in my home, I don't tell them how to eat or preach to them, but they watch what I do and then within months they've all lost weight and are feeling better and are eating differently. Because it was just modeled to them that we're like, we learn through mimicry, we learn through modeling by being willing to be different and to come back into alignment with how the ways we evolve to live, to start to work with. And not against your inner genius. You're coming home to yourself and you're letting yourselves come home. You're letting your consciousness come home and that feels so good and lights you up and puts you in a much deeper state of love and expansiveness. And then that's contagious.

Speaker 3 (33:46):

And then other people want that. And people who criticize it or don't get it, they're just not your people. They're not your tribe. They're a different tribe. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. And I just want people to understand. And here's another reframe for you guys. I think just on a primal level, we all have that little kid who doesn't wanna be left out at the birthday party or whatever, at school or dinner. And here's the deal, if you do what everyone else is doing in the main, in the mainstream, if you follow the mainstream, you're pretty much guaranteed to have chronic illness, to have mental health issues, to have cognitive decline, to become disabled, to be in diapers in your elder years, not be able have a walker be in a wheelchair, to be in lots of pain, to get autoimmunity, to get cancer, heart disease, to have your organs fail on you, to have like really invasive surgeries to like, you know this like that. If you wanna be included, that's what you're opting into. But what if being left out wasn't the worst thing in the world? What if you're being, instead of being left out, you're opting out of all these horrible things I just mentioned that we think are normal aging. What if you're opting out and by doing so you are setting an example that can help other people in your tribe do the same thing so that we can co-create a culture of nurture instead of a culture of torture. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (35:04):

I think that's something definitely important to ponder. And I think it's really the era that we're going into with this age of Aquarius coming, this myth of normal HaBO mates. And really our individuality and our uniqueness. And instead of top down, we're more communal and sharing and finding what's right for each one of us, which is going to vary greatly. But it can't happen if you don't have a relationship with your body and you're, you haven't befriended your body. One of the things that I love to teach women to do is to talk to their bodies. Talk to different folks. Yes,

Speaker 3 (35:45):

Me too. Oh my God, I love that.

Speaker 1 (35:47):

Yeah. Talk to their symptoms and ask what is the message that you have for me? Right? I always say that symptoms are the messengers, they're not the problem themselves. Mm-Hmm. , they're pointing to the problem. Right. But with every I Amen. Symptoms. Yeah. That we have, there's always a reason and a role that it's serving. But I love how you said earlier, Tracy, that it's usually multifactorial and there are often physical, biochemical, physiological correlates and there's usually a deeper meaning. So I think it's important to focus on all of these. And I know some of you are listening and thinking, Karen, you haven't gone into the microbiome in the gut as a cause of anxiety and you haven't. Okay. It's hear all those things. But no, I'm just saying people listen, , we've done that on other podcasts so many times. Go listen to the other podcast.

Speaker 1 (36:41):

But I think that what Dr. Tracy offers is, yes, gut health. Yes. Liver detox. Yes. Heavy metals. Yes. Mold, yes. Line, yes. All the things you've gotta do, the hormones, all the things and check all the things. But she really offers, you really offer a unique perspective that I don't think all root cause practitioners offer. And that's what I want everyone to hear and get is this connection to yourself, to your soul, this connection to other people, your connection to nature and universe and expressing that is a part of healing all physical health problems, including anxiety. So talk a little bit about that if you would. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (37:28):

Like our consciousness changes our biology. I think there are a lot of people out there that are talking about scientists, doctors. It's come out of the realm of just flu, which is where it was relegated for so long. Yeah. Because if you look deeper than, say you look at gut health and Lyme disease and all that stuff, if you look levels deeper, what caused that? Right? And why can some people have certain kinds of worms and what we call parasites and viruses. And there are people who have Borrelia or tick-borne illnesses or people who have HIV. There are people who have all kinds of different pathogens in their bodies. So there've been studies where they'll test thousands of people who are so-called healthy. I don't know where they're getting these people seriously, because I don't think there are that many Americans who are healthy.

Speaker 3 (38:13):

But I guess people who don't have diagnosed conditions and think they're healthy, there's, I remember this study, I wish I could, I need to find it again. But they did this elaborate testing on thousands of people who weren't considered sick and found that these people tested positive for a lot of these different conditions, a lot of these different pathogens, these critters inside of them that we consider pathogens and they weren't sick. Because it's not just the presence of the pathogen that makes the disease, it's how your immune system dances with it, which is directly tied to how your nervous system dances with it. So if your nervous system is dysregulated, your immune system becomes hypervigilant, just like your nervous system. So I think of a lot of these mold sensitivity and just stuck in chronic Lyme and chronic gut issues and just goes on and on. Even hormone stuff. Yeah. Mass cell activation, all these things is, and oh, and autoimmunity, I think of them as immunological PTSD. So your nervous system has PTSD and your immune system has PTSD and they're stuck in a rutt together. And I don't know if I'm going off down a little bit of another angle, but

Speaker 1 (39:18):

No, I love it. I just think that's amazing. Immunological. P ts d Go on

Speaker 3 (39:23):

. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, what ends up happening is a lot of this is in the nervous system. And so the thing is you can't just meditate and do nervous system work and not clean up the infections and not clean up your gut and not balance your hormones and, and not eat well and not take care of yourself and not get sleep. You can't just do one, A lot of people wanna just find a magic bullet, but we're trying to orchestrate, like you have a cellular symphony that you're trying to get to plain harmony and you can't focus only on one instrument and expect the whole symphony to sound amazing. And so there's a process like that's why I've created a proven process. And I know Dr. Dunton has proven processes that we take people through. So you have some support with this.

Speaker 3 (40:06):

'Cause It can be overwhelming. I'm really, I'm supposed to do all this stuff, like I have a life, I'm busy. And so getting help because we are tribal creatures, right? And so it's just really important to really work with our nervous systems and our connection to something deeper as to circle back to what you were saying, like when we are connected to something beyond ourselves, we open up realms of possibility that we couldn't have even imagined possible before. And when you open up to that possibility, then suddenly all these other parts of the puzzle start filling in as well. And that's why having a guide that can help you through a process, because a lot of people just wanna go to someone and give an, get an appointment and have them tell me what supplements to take. And maybe I'll cut out a few foods, which are all fine things.

Speaker 3 (40:50):

There's nothing wrong with that. But if you don't do the deeper work mentally, physically, emotionally, in terms of your self-care, your daily habits, your thoughts, actions, beliefs, if you don't go through, go on a journey. If you don't go on this inner pilgrimage, like your body's gonna still keep telling you something's wrong and then you're gonna think something's wrong with you or you're gonna be mad at your body or feel betrayed. But that's not what's really happening. What's really happening is that you need to go on this inner pilgrimage to move through the different layers to come into the version of yourself that is sitting inside of you. You're not, the idea of this isn't to become a better person, it's to polish your, you're a gem and to polish, get the mud off and polish the beauty of what is inside of you already that is not getting fully expressed.

Speaker 1 (41:33):

Yeah. I love it so beautifully said Tracy. And I think that the gift of chronic symptoms and chronic illness is that eventually it will force you into this inner path and this inner journey if you keep at it, unless you give up. And that inner path and inner journey really is what not only brings you to physical healing, but greater expression of yourself in this lifetime. So I know we are running short on time, but I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about the demonization of estrogen. One of my favorite topics. Yes.

Speaker 3 (42:14):

A

Speaker 1 (42:16):

that it has caused so many millions is currently causing so many millions. Somebody reached out to me on social media the other day and said, Dr. Kieran, I've been on estrogen, I think she said for five years. And now I'm 55 and my doctor's telling me I have to stop it or I could get cancer or die from a heart attack. And this is a regular occurrence that people are told this and we can't stress it enough. So why don't we talk about that before we wind up.

Speaker 3 (42:46):

Oh, I love to. Let's get into it. So one of the first things I wanna say. My dad was a doctor. I grew up helping out in his office. I grew up in psychiatry and I can tell you doctors don't have time to delve into the research 'because they are so stinking busy. And there are certain people, practitioners who really stay abreast of research. I know Dr. Dunson does too, right? Do you like to be called Kieran? Dr. Kieran? Dr. Dunston.

Speaker 1 (43:13):

. I'll answer any Kirin is fine

Speaker 3 (43:16):

. Anyway, So I think people don't understand, doctors are human beings. And once you're taught something and it sticks in your brain and you haven't had the timer bandwidth to really like dive in and refute it or change your thinking, and then you also have these American medical Association or whatever country you're in, standards of practice that put a gun to your head that if you don't follow the formula, then you could get sued, you could lose your license, you could get in trouble. So it's really rough. So a doctor would have to feel extraordinarily well informed to go against the grain and have a really strong convention to take that risk. And once you do research this, you find out that there was never any evidence that estrogen causes cancer or heart disease or dementia. That has never happened, never existed. The Women's health initiative in two, 2002 that where they stopped the study because they said that there was increased risk with hormone replacement therapy.

Speaker 3 (44:07):

That was like, if you go dig into it, like instead of spending a lot of time, I'm sure you have lots of other episodes where you talk about it. And I'm sure like you can go read, there's this great book called Estrogen Matters that goes through step by step dismantling the whole thing. It doesn't take that long to read. You can also get it on audible. Estrogen matters. So one of the problems culturally is that we have a history of demonizing estrogen. And from a medical anthropology perspective, one of the things I've really looked at is history. Even if you look at the word hysterical comes from the Latin root for the word uterus. And like femininity in so many ways, like female hormones, female body parts have been pathologized like going back centuries. And we don't do that. Men are low on testosterone.

Speaker 3 (44:53):

We're not like, you're not allowed to have any, if people are low on thyroid, then we're not told you can't have any, if people are low on D three and that's a hormone, not a vitamin, we don't tell people you can't have any and it's gonna cause cancer and kill you. This whole idea that estrogen causes cancer, like estrogen cause cancer, then the people getting the most cancer would be really young women with high levels of estrogen, not older, middle aged women. It just makes no sense. If you look at the evidence there that that has never been shown and researched to, to exist. It doesn't exist. It's a, it's like literally one of the most damaging rumors that has ever made its way through medicine. So if you need estrogen, there are ways to get support. Now you I, in my, you can see what you say, what you think, but I don't think people, I think it's important not to take, if you can make your own hormone, then you don't wanna take so much that you impede your body's ability to make it own, make its own. But if you are really low on estrogen or progesterone and you're suffering, you need to take it. And I personally really am an advocate of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as opposed to synthetic, especially progesterone progestin. It's not even the same molecule as progesterone. So I think it's really important for people to use really natural progesterone like the actual progesterone molecule and not progestin. I dunno, what do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (46:14):

Oh yes. Natural, absolutely. Bioidentical biologically identical. I mean, everybody listening knows we've got her hormone club if they need access to physicians who are experts in that board certified and licensed if they need access. But biologically identical if you need it, it's not appropriate for everyone, but Right. For the right. Yes.

Speaker 3 (46:36):

Yeah. And also, I do wanna say I am a huge supporter of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. And it's important to know, if you look at the domino effect of like the cascade of hormones in the human body, so much of hormone production starts in parts of the brain that also create chemicals that make stress hormones. So when we are stressed out, and then of course, I know you guys know from following Dr. Kieran, that all these toxic chemicals in our environment, our liver, you know all this, like this is all causing hormonal havoc. So when our brains are dysregulated, hormones are happening in our brains, they're happening in our liver, they're happening in our microbiome, our microbiomes are managing hormones. A lot of people don't realize that. And so when we do all the parts to really take care of our nervous system to nur nurture and nourish ourselves to sleep and to rest, and to have a meditation practice that, that you can fit in your schedule in life and that works for you when you do all those things, a lot of your hormones will self-Correct. When you get the nasty chemicals out of your body, a lot of it will self-Correct. But whatever does not self-correct, through self-care and all these measures, then it's okay to take hormones. Please do. It's not worth being miserable just to say, I'm not taking this.

Speaker 1 (47:53):

Yeah, it's a whole other conversation because that's what my TEDx talk was about, the consequences of hormonal poverty. So even for people who don't have symptoms, they, you do need to educate yourself on the consequences of not having these hormones because it's more than just symptomatology, but it's more than we have

Speaker 3 (48:13):

To go into. Yeah. Yeah. It does increase all risk mortality. It does increase your risk of outcomes of diseases. Like basically, it's dangerous not to have your hormones balanced.

Speaker 1 (48:23):

And gosh, Tracy, we could talk about for so long, we could talk forever. , I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your very deep perspective on anxiety that people aren't going to hear anywhere or most places. So I know you've got the simple brain trigger me for them. We will have the link to the show note in the show notes, but tell them all the places they can find and connect with you online.

Speaker 3 (48:52):

Absolutely. You're welcome to join my email list and get content there. You can follow me on Instagram, YouTube, or I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn. So just the usual social media channels. I'm really easy to stalk , like my phone, my name is very unique. No one else has it. So if you can spell my name, you can find me.

Speaker 1 (49:10):

Awesome. Thank you Dr. Tracy Potter for coming on the show, , and we very much appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (49:18):

Yeah, thank you. I've loved connecting with you. Thank

Speaker 1 (49:20):

You. And thank you for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kieran. I hope you found today's episode inspiring, insightful, and you've probably heard some things that you've not heard before about your health. So I look forward to learning how you're gonna start befriending your body and going deeper and really start having a conversation with her because she's talking to you and she's waiting for you to talk to her. So start listening, reach out to me on social media and tell me all about it. Until next week, peace, love, and hormones, y'all.

Speaker 2 (50:02):

Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormones and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

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