The Wellness Mama Podcast

Episode Highlights With Carrie

• Winter was never meant to make us feel miserable
• Why some people feel worse in winter and what it means in our bodies
• The unique aspects of winter that can make it deeply healing
• Understanding circannual rhythms and how this impacts the body
• Many of us try to live winter like it is perpetual summer
• How this creates a mismatch in the body
• What happens in the body starting around the autumnal equinox as we prepare for biological scarcity and why this is important
• The innate wisdom of wanting to rest more in winter and how to honor it
• Melatonin in winter is uniquely beneficial and we can make more in winter
• Why we don’t need elevated vitamin D all winter long!
• Melatonin binds to vitamin D receptors so in winter it can do some of the same work!
• Winter= melatonin season and summer = vitamin d season
• We make melatonin during the day when we are exposed to infrared light
• How to optimize infrared exposure
• The potential downsides of taking oral vitamin D
• Why Vitamin D testing isn’t comprehensive enough to tell us what’s going on
• How to prepare for winter in a way that your body understands
• How to actually use cold exposure to your benefit for winter (and it isn’t ice cold plunges always!)
• Ways to optimize cellular clean up and brown adipose tissue in winter
• The dietary changes that support healing in winter

Resources Mentioned

• Carrie's website and Instagram
• My Circadian App - use code Mama25 for a discount
• Carrie's Hydration protocol and all her protocols

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Episode Highlights With Katie

• Why, after 1,100 episodes, health was never really the destination
• How my view of the body shifted from something broken to fix to an intelligent, adaptive system
• The difference between supporting your body and obsessively monitoring it
• Why optimizing health is a means to living more fully, not the end goal
• How attachment to identity and others’ perceptions can quietly create suffering
• The freedom of not needing everyone to understand you
• What the Stoic idea of amor fati means and how loving what is differs from resignation
• How these lessons have reshaped my approach to parenting and honoring children as individuals
• Why being willing to say “I might be wrong” is a sign of growth
• A personal reflection on consciousness, impermanence, and the gift of being human
• What I’d tell my younger self about peace, control, and enjoying life now

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Episode Highlights With Peter

• Humans are photosynthetic and why this is important to understand
• Photosynthetic means synthesizing usable energy from photons
• Water is photoelectric and what this means
• Humans are photosynthetic because water is photoelectric
• We are 99% water by molecule count and 70% by weight so we are essentially a water solar panel
• Why many humans are a solar battery operating at 1% of their optimal solar energy intake
• What happens with mitochondria and ATP when we interact with light
• Mitochondria absorb infrared light and use this stored energy to boost cell energy
• Mitochondria are photoelectric
• The fourth phase of water and why this is important to our biology
• Our body heals itself, and light gives us extra energy
• What it might mean if sunlight makes you feel tired and get burned easily
• Water is a solar panel, and melanated water is 100x better at being a solar panel
• Melanin is the darkest naturally occurring molecule in nature and does much more than just protect us from sunlight and UV. it isn’t that it shields but it absorbs and converts it to electricity
• The highest concentration of melanin in the body is in the middle of the brain
• Hormonal implications of light exposure
• His 25 practical tips for maximizing benefit of hydration, minerals and radiant energy/sunlight
• No amount of drugs or supplements can fix chronic light dehydration or chronic mineral and water dehydration
• How this relates to iron and anemia in women
• Some practical tips you would never guess that are deeply impactful (and often free and easy)

Resources Mentioned

• The Light Body book by Peter Forhan - free to download
• Peter's website
• The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollack
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
• Mayu Swirl water structure pitcher – code wellnessmama gives 10% off

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium and digestive enzymes. Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama and use wellnessmama15 at checkout to get the best deal

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Episode Highlights With Laurie

• What children are subtly learning about being human by our own presence and reactions
• Our children can bump into places in us that are not resolved
• What they learn about if sadness or anger is welcome even within themselves
• How to shift so your child isn’t inadvertently responsible for managing our nervous system for us
• The most powerful things we can model for our children and it isn’t being perfect
• How can my child know what I feel without making them responsible for what I feel
• Children don’t need a parent who never gets activated; they need to know that they won’t be abandoned because of the activation
• How do we listen and communicate in a way where each person is taking responsibility for their perspectives
• Empathy and boundaries can exist together, and the downside of doing everything for our kids is that it makes us feel good, but they learn that we don’t think they are capable
• Not every childhood pattern looks dysfunctional from the outside. Maybe I became patient because anger wasn’t safe. Or I do everything because being needed feels like love
• Questioning: “Am I choosing this or am I compelled to do this?”
• Our job is not to make our children happy, it is to alow them to struggle and teach them they can handle it, to teach them all parts of them are welcome and they are still responsible for their actions
• Moving away from reactive parenting to intentional parenting and how to repair when needed
• “Who are we committed to being as a family?”
• Learning and teaching the distinction between doing and being
• How to repair when we don’t handle things like we wish we had

Resources Mentioned

• The Return Experience - Use code wellnessmama
• The One Thing Underneath Everything
• Follow her on Facebook, and Instagram
• The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!book

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

Episode Highlights From Laurie

• Why just knowing why we do something isn’t enough to shift it
• Her start in psychology and what she learned through her own experience as well
• How to be freer inside moments that used to run you
• What does the body have to do with changing emotional patterns
• It isn’t that behavioral change is unimportant; it is just a doorway, not the destination
• Often, the pattern starts in the body before the mind, but we think it starts in the mind, and that we can change it only with the mind
• The body becomes a doorway into slowing down and how this is so important
• Can you notice what is happening inside of you without trying to change it or explain it
• Experience is made up of three things: thoughts, feelings, and physical experience
• What does SEE - BREATHE - STAY look like in an ordinary moment?
• Differentiating what happened vs. what we make it mean
• Healing in a relationship: Can I bring those old activations into the relationship
• The difference between mindfulness and actually staying with ourselves in emotional moments
• Being aware of not bypassing or abandoning when staying with a feeling
• Not “can I get rid of this feeling” but “can I remain with myself while the feeling is still here”
• We spend so much of our life trying to control our external world so we don’t have to feel certain things, and how to shift this

Resources Mentioned

• Follow her on Facebook, and Instagram
• The Return Experience - Use code wellnessmama
• The One Thing Underneath Everything

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Episode Highlights With Angel

• What iridology is and how it actually works
• Her work with thousands of people and how the eye can be an insight into health
• How she got into this work and how this has been practiced for centuries
• There are 28,000 nerve endings that come into the eye
• Iridology can’t see blood pressure or blood, but can see most other things
• This is not a diagnostic tool but a complementary one
• What stress lines are in the eyes, and what they can indicate
• Personality lines in the eyes and what they can tell you about someone
• What shows up most in women and moms, and the patterns she sees most
• Her Iris-Hormone map and what she can see based on these
• Cortisol is the base of the hormone hierarchy, and she sees this in many people
• Her one-week plan to help start moving cortisol in a positive direction
• Eyes do not lie (but people can)
• There are four spots in the eye that show the pancreas and can indicate a person is consuming too much sugar for them, even if they think they are low-carb
• Importance of real food protein
• Thyroid deep dive related to the eye
• Some easy and free tools to improve insulin sensitivity
• Too much exercise and under-eating can be big problems, especially for women
• She looks at the gut whenever the thyroid is off

Resources Mentioned

• Dr. Angel's website and free gift
• Follow Angel on Instagramand Facebook

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Episode Highlights With Laila

• How to create a strong family foundation with structure, values, healthy habits and connection
• Boxing was her outlet when she was younger and what she learned through that
• Why she wrote a children's book to inspire kids to follow their spark
• The importance of physical outlets for kids
• Why her dad didn’t want her to box and why she did it anyway

Resources Mentioned

• Connect with Laila on Instagram and Facebook
• A Spark of Greatness: The Autobiography of a Fighter by Laila Ali
• Reach! Finding Strength, Spirit and Personal Power by Laila Ali
• Free signed, personalized book plates from Laila
• Laila Ali Lifestyle - Spice blends

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

Episode Highlights With Lora and Elmira

• How they got into looking deeper at the oral microbiome and the connection to oral health
• Root cause factors of oral health that many people don’t realize
• Oral health can be a missing part of the puzzle that most people don’t look into
• What oral testing is and what it can help reveal
• The specific pathogens they test for and the ones they actively work on
• Oral environment is microbially rich and the balance of bacteria matters
• Most common things they see flagged on oral tests and which ones they take seriously
• A big myth about oral microbiome balance
• H. pylori can appear in the mouth and be linked to periodontal disease
• How the airway can impact oral health and why this is important, especially with kids

Resources Mentioned

• Orobiome Test
• Follow Laura on Instagram

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Episode Highlights With Christine

• Over-functioning and why capable, efficient people end up doing everything, but how to break the cycle
• This can look like competence but be connected to control and safety starting in childhood
• How can we actually break the pattern of over-functioning
• “If I stop doing all this, bad things will happen” and the myth of that belief
• The question of "will I still be valued if I don’t do everything for everyone?"
• For true change to happen, there is usually chaos in between
• It’s never too late to have a great childhood
• Nervous system tips for re-patterning the over-functioning
• How have you set yourself up so that people can’t help you?
• Ways to help our kids develop a healthy foundation without over-functioning
• We are usually subconsciously attracted to people who remind us of the patterns of our family of origin
• The female nervous system needs to feel safe and can feel this from the masculine through consistency and presence
• What happens to a relationship when women are overfunctioning
• Hypervigilance looks like being too “in the masculine” and protecting yourself from relationships
• Women can try to create safety through control

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Resources Mentioned

• Christine's website including the Love Magnet workshop
• Christine's books

Episode Highlights With Katie

• Why light is the most important “nutrient” your body receives each day
• How natural light and darkness influence metabolism, hormones, gut health, and circadian rhythm
• How blue light after dark affects melatonin, glucose, mood, and inflammation
• Why sunrise light is nature’s most important daily reset button
• The difference between UV, visible light, and infrared ... and how each impacts biology
• How to align light exposure with your biology for better sleep, energy, and emotional regulation
• Simple, family-friendly ways to create a light-friendly home
• The 10 rules I personally follow (flexibly) to keep my circadian system aligned
Why light exposure is more foundational than diet or exercise
• How to start improving your light hygiene in just one day

Resources Mentioned

• Follow Peter Forhan on Instagram
• Follow Roudy Nassif on Instagram
• The Light Body by Peter Forhan
• My Circadian app

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Episode Highlights With Colleen

• How hormones affect hair health for women
• Why hair loss can increase in perimenopause
• The reason thyroid and medication can affect hair
• Nutritional deficiencies that affect hair
• How PCOS affects hair health and growth
• Insulin resistance can come into play as well
• Understanding the connection of thyroid problems and hair loss
• Hypo and hyperthyroidism both can cause hair loss
• What is a normal amount of hair loss, and how to know if it is too much
• Nutritional factors that influence hair health or loss: collagen
• How GLPs affect hair loss and why these can increase hair loss (plus how to help avoid that)
• The problem with some topics and prescriptions that can slow hair loss
• A compound that works naturally to slow and stop excess hair loss and why it works

Resources Mentioned

Purality Health- 40% off Hair Renewal with code WELLNESSMAMA40

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Episode Highlights With Torrie

• How living in Thailand inspired her current work and what she learned about Eastern medicine
• Her own health story and how this inspired the work she does
• Biggest missing factors in health and wellness that some people miss
• In Asia, they look at lifestyle first, and how this shifted her approach
• What she learned about herbalism on her own journey
• The root cause of all root causes
• Why are we seeing an increase in toxic load in the modern world?
• How to support the body in healing naturally
• Important things to know to detox without overloading the body
• Why she recommends test, don’t guess
• Parasites are a piece of the puzzle for a lot of people
• How to show your liver some love and support it in health
• Ways to support the lymphatic system effectively: movement and hydration

Resources Mentioned

• Dr. Torrie's Website
• Follow Torrie on TikTok, Facebookand Instagram
• Dry brushes for lymph system
• LMNT Minerals

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Episode Highlights With Katie

• Why your identity (especially your “I am…” statements) shapes biology more than any protocol
• How the nervous system responds chemically and electrically to the language you use about your body
• The difference between identifying with your symptoms vs. identifying as someone who is healing
• How subconscious narratives can keep you stuck in illness patterns, even when your actions are “healthy”
• The surprising way language influences your mitochondria, redox balance, and stress responses
• Why your thoughts become safety signals or threat signals
• How to rewrite your internal scripts from limitation ? expansion
• Real examples from my own healing journey (AIP, chronic symptoms, identity shifts)

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

Episode Highlights With Ian

• Understanding detox and why harsh ones can be too much for the body
• The things you don’t know that you’re breathing in and how to avoid accumulating it
• How to avoid becoming an aggregator of air toxins
• All of us have been poisoned in some way in the modern world
• Can we have perfect health? And what’s the alternative
• Why indoor air is more polluted that outdoor air and what to do about it
• The sneaky microplastics in most clothing these days
• A great reason to open your windows every day
• Why to air dry your microfiber cloths in the home
• What advanced glycation byproducts do to the body and how to avoid them (pressure cookers don’t produce them!)
• How to reverse the damage of AGEs and slow aging
• Brazil nuts aren’t the right form of selenium
• You can’t hack your system, the body is way too smart, and what to optimize instead
• Consistency over intensity for long-term change

Resources Mentioned

• Healthy Home Bulbs – Use code wellnessmama for a discount
• Activation Products – Use code wellnessmama20 for a discount
• Pact organic clothing andQuince clothing

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Episode Highlights With Lauren

• How she went from health blogger to an incredible inner and outer journey to writing about some even bigger topics
• Why healing the body can also lead to questioning deeper topics
• It’s hard to open to truth when we’ve been manipulated by fear unless we know there is more love on the other side
• What did Jesus actually say vs how it has been changed throughout history
• Being comfortable in curiosity rather than certainty
• When were the gospels actually written and what changed based on who authored them
• One thing Jesus never said - that blood atonement was necessary, and he actually resisted this idea in what we know in some of his writings
• The Bible itself says it was corrupted, so even if we believe that it is the unquestionable word of God, it says it is corrupted
• Why is it necessary for God to have blood or murder to forgive?
• Love itself cannot be harmed and God cannot be harmed by the actions of humans
• Forgiveness is a human process that humans have to go through and projected onto God
• Why was blood sacrifice so prevalent in ancient Judaism and how did it become a cornerstone of Christianity
• Was Jesus an Essene and what insight this may give us about his message
• The real roots of eternal punishment and the theology of hell - important historical context
• Wisdom is the journey to more love and less fear
• Some important considerations about the book of Revelation

Resources Mentioned

• Lauren's books
• Truth Activist podcast

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

BONCHARGE
I like so many of their products - from their red light products to their sauna blankets. Red light has been so helpful for me during my recovery from Hashimoto's. To find out more, go to boncharge.com/wellnessmama

Episode Highlights With Degree Free

• The shocking data around college now, and how many jobs actually require a degree
• What has shifted in the last couple of decades, and why new data is important to consider
• Most people who are employed in the US do not have college degrees
• Less than one in five jobs even mention a degree as preferred
• How is this a simple supply and demand problem
• The real deal with student loans and the college industrial complex
• The Social cost of criticizing certain areas of society and why questions are important
• A large percentage of careers that require a degree are marketed to women
• Debt will close more doors than a degree will open
• Physicians have the highest suicide rates of any profession
• The most important career conversations to have with your teenager
• Why teens struggle to answer "What do you want to be?"
• Important reason not to ask or have these conversations with your teens in a public forum or even around other people
• Where the majority of jobs are that are outside of traditional degree jobs or even trade jobs
• Why college grads are actually having trouble getting jobs because they don’t have work experience
• College grads actually churn at a higher rate in jobs and are sometimes not considered because of their degrees
• The very real way having a college degree can now make getting a job more difficult
• We are 11 years into the trend of companies down credentialing and not requiring degrees

Resources Mentioned

• Follow Hannah Maruyama on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTubeand on X
• Degree Free website and podcast
• Degree Free Way workbook set

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

LMNT
I talk often about the health benefits of salt and electrolytes and I am a big fan of LMNT canned drinks and packets. Go to drinklmnt.com/wellnessmana for a special offer.

Episode Highlights With Scott

• How we track so many things, but often don’t know what’s going on with bowel and urinary health
• His path into this- both of his parents are doctors
• Is there something we can learn from our poop that we are missing?
• How stress comes into play with gut health
• The big factors related to gut health that people don’t always get right
• We know gut health affects the whole body, but we miss some big warning signs with gut health
• 70% of our calories come from ultra-processed foods, and we are the first generation to experience this
• The staggering numbers he sees on gut health-related things
• 52% of Americans think it is normal to have abdominal pain on a daily basis (it isn’t)
• 62% of people surveyed said they had some digestive issue that week
• The stats on colorectal cancer show that it is now the most deadly cancer in Americans under 50
• Colon cancer is the only cancer that is on the rise right now!
• 1 in 20 people will get colon cancer at some point in their lives
• Interesting reason that the DOD funds colon cancer research
• Why veterans were at higher risk for colon cancer decades later
• How throne is improving hydration levels

Resources Mentioned

• Throne Science use code Katie for a discount
• Follow Throne on Instagram, on X, and on Facebook
• Follow Scott on Instagram, and X

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Episode Highlights With Mindy

• Cutting through the myth… can women fast and what we need to do differently
• How to navigate fasting with a female hormone cycle and why it is so important
• The three types of women and how each fasts differently
• There are times when women shouldn’t fast and times when it can be a game changer
• We have two metabolisms: glucose and ketones and how to use them differently
• Somewhere 8-12 hours after food we shift to ketones
• The healing switches that turn on when we fast
• What flex fasting is and how she helps people find what works best for them
• Perimenopause and menopause specific fasting guidelines
• The cortisol component and how to pay attention to this part
• Can fasting be brain protective post menopause
• When to fast and when not to, and the most important meal you eat after fasting
• The important nutrients to focus on after fasting and the story about leucine
• Let’s stop making beans the enemy! And her take on sardine fasting
• Supplements she most often recommends and why
• The one food group that kills our ability to make our own GLP (it might surprise you)
• Order of food matters, not just the amount and type!
• Important concerns with GLPs and how to make your own and not lose muscle!

Resources Mentioned

• Mindy's books - Fast Like a Girl,Age Like a Girl and Eat Like a Girl
• Mindy's YouTube channel
• Stress questionnaire
• Live like a girl podcast

Bioptimizers
I love and use so many products from them, but I especially love the magnesium (Magnesium Breakthrough) and digestive enzymes (Masszymes). Visit bioptimizers.com/wellnessmama to get the best deal!

Episode Highlights With Stef

• His work with gold medalists, special forces soldiers and elite entrepreneurs and the wound that always shows up
• What people call chemistry is actually nervous system dysregulation
• We move toward what feels familiar even if it is dysfunctional
• The nervous system is a hidden matchmaker often operating in the background
• Why do we want to create situations that feel familiar
• These circumstances are the body’s attempt to have a re-do and move from disempowerment to empowerment
• We heal relationally and we are relational beings
• The somatic aspect of integrating and processing this
• Big T vs little t trauma
• Why this process doesn’t start with logic or cognition and must involve all parts including the body
• We avoid our truth because we make it mean something
• Curiosity not judgement

Resources Mentioned

• Tuned In and Turned On by Stef Sifandos
• Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and on X
• Stef's website

Episode Highlights With Katie

• Why healing often requires unlearning more than learning
• The invisible beliefs, identities, and patterns that kept me stuck … even when I was doing “all the right things”
• How clinging to control, perfection, and certainty created more stress than peace
• The surprising nervous-system science behind letting go (and why your biology resists it)
• How my identity as a “fixer,” “caretaker,” and “high achiever” held me back from true healing
• How rewriting internal stories (“I am responsible for everything” ? “I am allowed to live with ease”) transformed my health, business, parenting, and relationships
• How grief, loss, and major life transitions became openings rather than endings
• Why releasing old stories frees up enormous energy, creativity, and resilience
• Practical ways to start letting go in your own life … without fear, force, or overwhelm
• The difference between surrender and giving up, and how to tell which one you’re doing
• How to trust yourself, your body, and your path even when it doesn’t fit the old rules

Resources Mentioned

• Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by David R Hawkins, MD
• Awareness: Conversations with the Masters by Anthony De Mello

Just Thrive:
Just Thrive Health has been one of my longtime favorite brands for gut health and they have an amazing Daily Gut Detox. Your immune system, gut barrier, and digestion get the support they need to stay strong and healthy. You can find this and their probiotics at justthrivehealth.com/wellnessmama or use code wellnessmama for 20% off your order.

Hiya
Hiya created a super powered chewable vitamin for kids that packs twelve organic fruits and vegetables plus fifteen essential vitamins and minerals into every dose. Try it at hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama.