The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino

From Mold Illness to Healing: Taking Ownership of Your Health with Katie Poterala

• Keri Marino • Episode 21

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If you’ve ever felt dismissed by doctors, exhausted from trying “all the things,” or wondered why your body still feels off even though your labs look “normal,” this episode is for you. I’m sitting down with Katie Poterala, a bespoke jeweler turned Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, to unpack her journey through mold illness, medical gaslighting, and the long road back to alignment. Katie’s story is raw, honest, and incredibly relatable — because it mirrors what so many women experience when their intuition tells them something’s wrong, but the system doesn’t listen.


We talk about how hidden mold exposure can silently impact your energy, thyroid, and mood — and what it actually takes to heal. From functional testing and safer detox protocols to the role of nervous system regulation, yoga, and somatic practices in recovery, Katie shares how she learned to rebuild trust with her body and design a life that finally feels good again. Whether you’re navigating mystery symptoms, burnout, or simply craving a deeper connection with your health, this episode will remind you that healing isn’t about doing more — it’s about learning how to listen, slow down, and take ownership of your body’s wisdom.

About Katie Poterala

Katie is a bespoke jeweler turned Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® Practitioner whose journey into wellness began during a season of deep personal healing. After becoming unexpectedly ill while caring for a new baby and running a business, she struggled to find clear answers through conventional medicine. That experience led her to functional medicine, where she learned to understand her body and eventually support other women in uncovering the root causes of their symptoms. At heart, Katie’s work has always been about helping women feel like themselves again and reclaim their inner sparkle. 

Learn more about Katie on her website or Instagram. 

About Keri Marino

Keri is the founder of The Nourished Woman and a Somatic Yoga Therapist who supports women in feeling more alive, grounded, and at home in their bodies. Through a calm, gently spiritual approach, she creates spaces for women to explore healing, reconnect with themselves, and move through life with greater ease and confidence. With over 16 years of experience, Keri guides yoga and somatic practices that honor the nervous system, the body’s wisdom, and the fullness of being human.

Find out more about Keri on her website or Instagram. 

If you love the sound of short daily somatic yoga rituals that help you become a more radiant woman, with bottomless pleasure and aliveness. 

Get instant access to 150+ nervous system practices made for women on everyday topics like: digestive health, back care, period relief, core strength and emotional well-being. 

Try a 7 day free trial of The Nourished Woman Sanctuary here. 

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Nourished Woman Podcast, a space for women who've been doing the work to grow and heal and are ready to feel good again, body, mind, and soul. I'm your host, Carrie Marino, somatic yoga therapist of over 16 years, mentor and mama of three. I help women like you fall in love with how yoga makes you feel. Alchemize the hard things you've been through and experience more pleasure and aliveness in your body and relationships. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Nourished Woman Podcast. I'm really excited to share today's guest with you. Her name is Katie Potterella, and she is a bespoke jewelry maker who had a health experience that really turned her on to becoming a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. And Katie, I met you locally. You reached out to me because you were interested in my work, and we went and had coffee together at this adorable coffee shop with blue walls. And you were one of those people that I could just talk to so easily. And I felt like you really understood what it takes to grow and heal and explore on a deeper level women's health. And so I'm really excited to have you here and to dive into our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I feel the exact same way. You know, and I'm sort of newer to this field. I've been a jeweler for like almost two decades, but I've had health problems since 2008. So I've been kind of in this functional medicine world, but not really until sort of like shit hit the fan. But I've come to, you know, respect what you do so much, which is why I reached out to you because the nervous system work is like the very last thing that got on my radar. You know, it's like it's like not the gateway drug part of getting into functional medicine. It's like you've done all the other things and then you realize there is something missing. And that tends to be right where you come in and show people their, you know, their buried trauma and what's stored in their bodies and, you know, some things you just wouldn't think about. You know, it seems a little woo-woo. It isn't, you know, there's plenty of science to back it up. But, you know, from what I've seen and who I've known and what I've been through and the program I went through, it seems to be people's kind of last stage in healing. Um, I don't know if that's how you feel about it. Um, you may see people coming in different areas, but that's how I came to it. So, anyways, that's what got me to reach out to you. And I'm glad, very glad we had that conversation. And I'm happy to meet with you and have another one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Together, it was one of those conversations that like we both had to go, but we just I wanted to keep talking to you. So I'm glad I know I could have could have been there all day. Yeah, well, I'd love to ask, what is just feeling so nourishing to you right now? Like body, mind, spirit are in your life could be something simple, something big. What is just like it feels so good?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I think I wouldn't say for the first time, you know, I'm I'm finally healing really. It's been a years-long process. I went through mold, which I'm sure we'll get into later. It, you know, it kicked my ass, it changed my life, you know, it changed everything. So one, I'm just starting to feel like myself again finally after like years of hard work. And then two, not for the first time, but I I think I feel more aligned, you know. I've always loved what I've done, but I sort of feel like everything I went through, I've never been that person that says things happen for a reason, you know. But here I am thinking, well, you know, I'm not all that upset that all this happened to me, even though it's horrible and I would never wish it on anyone, because this kind of feels like what I'm supposed to do, this new, you know, this new venture, this new thing. Because I've always all of the years I've like made people cry when they pick up their jewelry and they love it and I love working with them. I've always had this thing in the back of my mind telling me it was a little bit frivolous, and I wasn't really helping people. Do you know what I mean? So this is sort of just feeling like it clicked into place. So I'm very excited to see where that's going. So this alignment feels the new to me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And it seems like it's nourishing a part of you that wanted your work to feel like it was impacting people on a more, I don't want to call it, I mean, I think your work before is powerful and wonderful. And people are appreciating it and feeling good in themselves every day when they enjoy it. And it was almost like you needed something a little more, like a little deeper.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, and I don't discount any of that. And I still love doing it, but it just fulfills a different part of me. Um, and you know, that will fulfill a different part of me when we see people's improvement, you know, and and watch them get better. And that will change their lives in a different way. You know, I like to make people feel beautiful and and remember people that they loved when they look at their pieces, but this will be different. It'll, you know, yeah. Fulfill me in a new, exciting way. And and I just already know it, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I love first off, I just want to acknowledge that seeing you give yourself permission to change and then like that's not a small thing. If you've built a business and a brand and people know you for that, and then you're like, hold up, time for a good pivot. You know, like here I am, showing this whole other side of me. That's really a large thing. It's very brave and audacious of you. And I see you, sister.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you. You know, at this point, I felt like that is my life, is just changing it up. Yeah. Because, you know, when I was in the middle of the mold, I had to end a whole business. I had to get out of a commercial lease. Like life, I mean, I just had to. So I already did it one, you know, one other time just a couple of years ago. So it's like I started over, here we are again. Not that I'm leaving the other thing totally behind, but it's like becoming my new thing. I hope it doesn't happen every two years. But you know, there's something fresh about starting over. And like I've always been okay with change. It's scary, but like that's how you grow. And I've always known that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's incredible. Good on you. I have been a little more reluctant to change. Yeah. Like some of it I love, and some of it, I think it's the Capricorn in me. I'm like, uh, we have to change. Like this was going to be a good one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is hard. It is hard. But you know, it's like sometimes I have no choice. Like I had no choice then, and I think that made it more empowering and more easy this time because it felt so aligned. And like I said, I haven't, you know, I'm not leaving jewelry anytime soon either. So if people know me, don't freak out when you hear this. Yes. Not leaving that behind, not anytime soon. But that it does help when you feel aligned, you know. And I don't think I've ever felt quite so aligned. So it just fits.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I see you, and how beautiful that you're leaning into that. You're letting yourself express that. And I know you've truthfully done a lot of work to arrive where you are now and to feel that aligned sense, both in your health and in your work and in your in your motherhood journey and all of it.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your story and this journey of making jewelry and then what was going on with your health that really became this catalyst for an awakening of sorts. Can you tell us about what that was like for you and some of the things you walked through and experienced?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. I kind of want to start at the beginning. I'm not gonna spend a lot of time going way back, but I think that it does inform conversation. So when I was in art school, when I was an undergraduate in college, way back like 2008, is when I started getting really sick the first time. So I was at Winthrop University. I would like my roommate can attest. We would be like trying to get our artwork done late at night in our dorm room, and I would my hands would be violently shaking so bad that I had to put the paintbrush down and I would have to just like leave it till tomorrow. I was so exhausted. I would take naps, like 15-minute breaks. I would like run back to the dorm, take a 10-minute nap, and then get up and go to the next class. Like it was ridiculous. So excuse me. That was the first time something kind of went wrong. You know, I very, very fortunately found a fantastic osteopathic doctor that was up here in Greenville who no longer practices. She was functional. That was the first time I ever had a functional lab test done. We did several. She turned my life around just over a few months. I I graduated, I left college, I was on my way to grad school. And just over like that summer, you know, just my whole life changed. I got myself back. It was amazing. I look back and I like totally took that for granted because I did not realize that that was crazy. That to get me from like rock bottom where I was, where my like had like no cortisol. I was totally tanked, adrenals were tanked, to like living my best life is not to be expected in three months, but it happened. So I had that in the back of my mind and just kind of went on with life for another, I don't know, five, six years. I ended up coming off. I had been on thyroid medication for Hashimoto's. Antibodies went all the way down, got in remission, really on no medication and felt great for, I don't know, five, six, seven years. I'd have to go back and track it, you know. Moved back home from Arizona, which is where I was for three years in grad school. And then in 2019, right before COVID hit, I had had my business ever since I moved home, making custom jewelry, just working out of my studio, sending stuff to galleries. A friend of mine and I had been sort of co-teaching for a while, and we decided to open a business downtown, and we did just a retail business. We sort of combined our jewelry businesses, did that, and moved into a space in downtown Greenville. So unbeknownst to me, that space had mold in it, and I had no clue about mold. I had never encountered it. Well, I had, but that's that's a whole different thing. I can look back now and actually see it in my original illness way back in 2008, but I didn't know it at the time. Yeah. So we move into this space, COVID hits, chaos ensues. It's crazy. We get through it, things were great. That business was thriving. I got pregnant in that space. We moved to a new house that we also didn't know was because was starting to have a mold issue that ended up not being a huge issue. It was not systemic in the house. We cleared it up pretty quickly. So, all to say, I was getting an actual like double whammy of mold exposure. So some at home, some at work. There were actually at least two at work that I've you know revealed through testing later. And that's its own sort of like awful situation because molds produce mycotoxins. And when there's more than one mold in a space, they go crazy because it's like a war. It's like chemical warfare. And each one is trying to dominate the space. So if you have more than one mold, it's way worse than just having one mold. So I'm like breathing all this in, get pregnant, get COVID a few times. And then during my pregnancy, all of a sudden my health began to decline. So all of a sudden, I knew I had a thyroid problem again. We'd been here before. I didn't know, did not know where the world it came from. And it was a real struggle because I had to see five different doctors, and they all said, Oh, your labs are fine. Your labs are normal. So I luckily my mother had a really wonderful doctor who I called his nurse and said, please, please, please see me because I know you've he follows better ranges, more functional ranges. And I know I've been here before. I know I have a thyroid issue. And I eventually had to just look at the midwife at the practice I was at and say, look, if we don't get this thyroid thing under control, I'm not gonna be able to take care of the kid that I'm about to push out. And that sort of got people in line. They finally listened. He fortunately took me, said, Oh yeah, you need thyroid medication. So that sort of solved that temporarily. So I got back on thyroid medication. No idea why I had to go back on it. I just said, Oh, it was probably the pregnancy. You know, it's harder on your body, whatever. Let's get through it. The pregnancy itself was pretty rough, just all the symptoms, never felt good. It was not one of those glamorous pregnancies that you hear people have sometimes that just love me pregnant. So the birth was also a little chaotic, you know, and I just think my body was not where it should have been to go through that process. Um, it just wasn't as robust as it could have been because of what I was unknowingly going through. So things just progressively got worse after that. I started getting every illness. Our son was not in daycare yet. He was at work with me for the first three months of his life. He was sleeping in his little bath net right under a part of the HVAC that had black mold all over it. Did not even realize, did not know, and just never looked up, didn't know it was a thing. When he went into daycare, he got super sick, stayed super sick. We ended up, it just got to the point where it was like steroid one week, antibiotic the next, and I didn't want to live like that and put him through that. So I pulled him out of daycare, took a day off of work, stayed home with him. My mom helped out. Luckily, she's here, you know, with us. So that that worked. We took him out for a year. And I got these sinus infections that just would not give up, like to the point where I was in so much pain and couldn't function that I mean, I would be ready to go to the emergency room if they could fix me, like rank them in the air. But for months and months, it turned into two years. So I was on like, you know, speed doll with the ENT and I would go all the time. And, you know, one of the nurses just looked at me one day and was like, you know, we have people that just come and like get the surgery like two, three times a year. You're just probably gonna be one of those people. So I had been on the docket for surgery like three times. Meanwhile, I was sort of out running it and like getting a little better and feeling good about it. Antibiotics all made me worse. And I just kept thinking, this is not normal. Like I've never had allergies, I've never had a sinus infection like this in my life. Like, why can't I get better? Um, and I just realized I was getting the runarounds, I had these crazy body rashes that looked like poison ivy all over me that moved around. So, like, you know, the allergist was stumped and the dermatologist was stumped. And I was just going everywhere, getting all this expensive testing. And I was like, finally, one day I was like, no one is taking this seriously, no one is listening. These are all separate people, not looking at the whole picture. And I remembered that doctor from 2008, and I was like, there is a bigger picture here. You know, so like I went back and said, okay, what would functional medicine do? You know, something has changed. And I remember the day I walked through the space and I looked up at that HVAC that our son used to sleep under, and I was like, there's black mole there. What is that? So then I went down the rabbit hole and just months and months and months of like I got turned on to podcasts. I'd never listened to a podcast until then. I listened to just hundreds and hundreds of hours of experts who I eventually found, which is the great thing about podcasts. It's a little bit like a Pinterest. You get started, and like all you do is just find more and more and more of what you want. So the people were out there and it was a thing. And there were doctors that specialize in this, and you know, they're rare and far and few between. But I found a lot of answers and I started implementing all the things I heard. And then I went, okay, look, like I don't know what I'm doing right now. I'm doing all the things I'm hearing. I need some guidance, I need someone who knows. So I just sort of like mined podcasts until I found who I thought was the expert, you know. So I started working with a functional medicine guy via telehealth. You know, he supported a lot of what I was already doing. We did a lot more testing. He uncovered some Lyme co-infections and some other things and some dysbiosis, some gut issues, some things that came along because mold tinks your immune system, right? So at the same time, I was testing my body for mold. We were testing, I was testing the space. We'd already dealt with what we had at home, but there was nothing we could do in the space. It was, you know, at some point I just had to get out. So the way he phrased it was we were trying to outrun a freight train, you know. Um so we were trying to clear the toxins from my body faster than I was breathing them in. So I had to come to the hard decision, sort of like we started to get into earlier, is what do I do in this space? So I decided I could not stay in the space. We had a little over a year left on our lease. Our landlord did not take it seriously. He had somebody come and do air sampling, but that guy was honestly very gaslighting himself, you know, and acted like there was no issue. But when it came down to it, I already seemed to know more about the situation than he did and more about the testing. So he conceded to some of the things I, you know, knew already. So I did my own plate samples. There it was. There's mold that was in my body, there it was in the space, plus a couple of others. We got, we were able to get our landlord to have somebody out to clean our HVAC and they did not test it. But the guy that the young guy that came in and did it made a point to tell me how much black mold was in it, and it was a good thing that we did it. But that was all that that could be done. It was a hundred-year-old building, and we had a restaurant above us that would rain water down on us. Yeah. So there was stuff in the ceiling, you know. So that's how I discovered it. That's how I eventually got help. But go ahead, you were gonna ask the question.

SPEAKER_01:

It seems like you it was like the lid got taken off, and then all of a sudden it was like this, and then it was that, and then it was this problem. It was, it reminds me of that idea of like a ship that has like so many holes, and you're just like running around trying to plug a hole here and plug a hole there, and that they're just kind of everywhere. And I know that that was a lot for you. I know when we were sitting at coffee, there was a conversation about how your body was really like screaming at you that it needed care and it needed help. I also know how challenging it is sometimes to navigate that medical system and how like it is so fragmented in a way. Like you're seeing the allergist and they're looking at just this slice of the picture and then this person and this person. And I know that functional medicine for you has been this place where every part gets looked at. Like the whole absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a really great way to put it. And yeah, when you're in that scramble and you're like your system is so far down, you're just in survival. So, like bringing it back to like what you do. I look back and like I was like fight or flight, like I've never known it. Like the tiger was chasing me 247. And I also didn't know at the time mold, mycotoxins, your body knows they're there. Like, if you're in those, you cannot get out of that nervous system state. Period. It does not happen. Um so yeah, I mean, getting out of the space was sort of you know, step one at the same time as trying to deal with it. So that did happen. I was lucky. Our building sold. The new landlord was great. He let me write out. And I just wrapped up that business. Like it also pointed to some, there were some issues in the partnership. You know, it was pretty toxic too. So all signs pointed to like just get out of this. So that's what happened. And in a way, it was, I'm sort of thankful now because of everything I know. And I'm so much healthier now. And I will be forever because of this. You know, and it kept me out of another toxic situation. If I'd signed another 10-year lease and gone on with that business, that would have been a just a different type of toxic situation.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm a little thankful. It seems crazy to even say that. But all of that brought me to a point where I was a lot better, but I wasn't through it. And I had begun to look quietly for, you know, about two years before I found the program that I did for something. And I almost pulled the trigger. I just couldn't quite do it on like another master's degree that would have been in a functional nutrition degree that I think would have been great, but it would not have given me the access to the labs that had changed totally just really changed my life. You know? It's like you can, I went to all these doctors and spent thousands of dollars. And in one session with this guy, we found out I had Lyme. We identified the mold. We found all these gut bugs, and we had a plan to get rid of all of it. You know, it was like in one session. Three laps, right? And I'm like, oh my God, where has this been my whole life? So that's what I wanted. Like those, those were where the data was. And I'm a data person and I like science and biology. And like I want to see it on paper and and then have a plan and know how to understand it. Um, so I'm like a problem solver and I need to know how everything works. Like it's not enough for somebody to just say, hey, go do this, because I'm gonna want to know why. And when would you do the other thing? You know? So that is what this program gave me. Like within a week, three or four people maybe recommended this program out of nowhere, right at the perfect time. I was settled into like having restarted my new business all over again. That was going smoothly. And then all of a sudden, it's like slowly for two years, I never saw this. And then three or four people just here it is, here's the program. And it was like direct line to everything I wanted. And it was actually better than I could have ever imagined it would have been, as far as like conceptually understanding how the body works and how all the pieces fit together. So yeah, it was it was one of the best things I've ever done.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that it's so anytime we can have a personal experience with something that that we then alchemize, like we take this really hard thing that we've been through and we go through a whole journey to heal or to recover or turn that into a better version of our life. And then we go out and share that with the world through our professional offerings, right? As you're gonna be doing now in your functional diagnostic nutrition. It like people can feel that, right? Like they can feel that you, in essence, took your trauma and you're like, let's make something beautiful and clear. And I appreciate so much that it's the faster route, right? Because let's be honest that we don't all have access to that level of resources to spend all of this money on testing here and here and here and here. And the offer that you have through functional diagnostic nutrition can really save people a lot of time and a lot of money, similar to what I do with somatic yoga therapy. Like, let's just really get to what the difference makers are so that then you can actually experience what you're trying to experience, right? Which is a more enjoyable life. It's being in a body that feels aligned, like you were talking about earlier, rather than a body that's screaming at you or your mental health screaming at you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, and you know what? It's just getting back to your life too. It's like there were there was a period when our son was like a baby that I feel like I missed a lot. I wasn't I wasn't there, you know, I was too sick to be present. Sorry. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's getting back to that. And and the financial part, it's crazy, especially when you think about mold. I'm not going to add it up. One day I know that I will add it up. Yeah. But I am not doing it now because it will stress me out. But when I was like, you know, in the store downtown, like I knew at the time I was like, I'm spending more money than I'm making, just trying to outrun this. And if I had found, you know, FDN, like, yes, the guy that helped me helped me tremendously. But he, you know, there were some things I know now that we should have done differently and we could have done differently. But you know, if I'd found FDN like before all this, well, it probably wouldn't have happened to me because I would have been aware. But it still could have, and and you know, would have cost me thousands and thousands less, you know, and people do all the time go through programs and detoxes and protocols, and sometimes they miss a step or they do it in the wrong order. And then it's like they wasted all this time and money because it's not quite working the way that it should. And that happens a lot. It's it's complicated.

SPEAKER_01:

It can't even be dangerous. Like I attempted to do detoxes and things like that and actually ended up in the hospital because I didn't do them smart and I did them in the I have a background in eating disorders. And so it was like part of an eating disorder behavior that I was exploring doing all these cleanses and detoxes. And so I feel like really we need to understand that like when you're dealing with something like mold or chronic health conditions, like I used to have candida. I had chronic candida overgrowth. And it's not it's not the same as mold, but it's it's like in that same camp of like these are really, these are really tough things to overcome and treat.

SPEAKER_00:

And you have to be very difficult, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Really strategic and careful because you're in essence playing with fire. Like I love the your practitioner said you're running from a freight train. And it's like, first off, that's not a fair, that's not a fair fight. Like you're on front and there's a freight train coming. Right. And also I wanted to touch on that piece about like that tenderness of what was missed, right? The kind of presence that was missed because you were running from a freight train. And I feel like we can all relate to that in a way because we just don't know what we don't know. And I see you as a woman who's very strong in your pursuit of knowledge. Like you were, you're a fighter. You're like, I'm gonna figure out the answers. I'm gonna, I've got to find a solution. I'm not gonna live my life this way. This is not the way that I want my motherhood journey to be. And how powerful it was that you really owned that you could explore even when it was hard, even when people couldn't help you make sense of something, you kept going. And then look at where you are now, where you get to show up with your son in the way that is reflective of what you always knew could be.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you. Thank you for phrasing it that way. Yeah, I mean, you know, as as difficult as all that was, I think that the most powerful thing that somebody can do if they're having health problems and they don't know what's happening, and maybe they're getting gaslit, and you know, at every turn it happens, they're not finding help, is you have to take ownership. Like you have to realize you know your body better than anybody else. You know what normal is for you. Um, I mean, I think it helped me in a way that like the first time I got sick, I was in my 20s, and I was in a lot of ways doing worse than my 90-something year old grandmother. You know, so like I knew that this is not normal, but the problem is our society tells us it's normal. Like, oh, you're just getting older. You go to the doctor, oh well, honey, you're just getting older. You know, like the things that were happening in in my 20s and in my 30s were absolutely not normal. They might be common, but they are not normal. But your friend will tell you. My business partner told me, oh, now you're just a mom. Your your brain's never gonna work again. Well, that's not true. Like, I couldn't even complete thoughts. You know, like I had days where I was driving home and I called my husband and said, Hey, go pick up our son because I'm not putting him in the car right now because I just felt so off. Yeah, like that's not normal. But everybody around you will tell you that. So, like when you have that feeling and you have knowing and you have intuition, it can be hard to listen to. I think we're trained out of it, but like people just have to grab on to that, especially if like it's such a dire situation. Like that's your body trying to tell you something. Um and it's easy to miss, you know. I mean, I sort of feel like I got slapped over the head with it, you know. But the the day I looked around and found it was the day that that happened. Like I finally listened. Um so I think that's a powerful message for people.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, absolutely. And to keep letting your intuition speak to you from that point. Like you used this, which was awful. I want to acknowledge how awful this was. Like it truly was horrific for you to go through that. And it became a great catalyst for the woman that you've become. And I think sometimes, like, you know, we live in a world that wants to make everything like polished and pretty and fine when it's just not sometimes. Like sometimes we go through really terrific, terrifically bad things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think we go through that in order to become something new. And I don't want to say like, oh, everything happens for a reason, but it's like we can always make something beautiful out of whatever happens and to keep trusting ourselves through that process and getting creative, right? You were like, oh, hold up. Somebody in 2008, they helped me in a way that I could get help again. Let me find that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01:

We also spoke together about how often we don't actually know how good we can feel until we feel better. And then we're like, oh shit, this was an option the whole time.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Well, and you so what happens, and I see I did this myself. I have a funny story up just like a year ago. You tell yourself, like also comparatively, right? It's all relative. You're like, oh my gosh, I'm doing so much better. I feel great. And that is your brain's not always telling you the truth. You know, I mean, yes, maybe you feel better, but like, how good can you feel? You're right. Like, I'll I'll tell a personal story, you know, a year ago, well, a little over a year ago now, like this is a good two, two and a half years of mold cleanup detox, getting out of the space, felt so much better. And I'm like, okay, yes, yes, I'll do that follow-up test. It's about time. I know I'm over the mold. Like, it's gone. I'm so good now. Totally failed the test. There's a visual contrast test. The Dr. Shoemaker, who's like kind of like the OG big big mold guy, it can actually, you know, mold can affect your brain, and it can actually affect the ability to distinguish contrast. So there's a test you can go do online. It's really great. It's inexpensive. If people are just curious, if maybe mold is part of their problem, they can just go do it. It's like 15 bucks. There are other testing, you know, that that needs to be done too. But this was just a good follow-up because I didn't need to do urine again at that point. Totally failed. Both eyes. And I was like, what? I feel so good. And then here we are, a year, year and a half later, and like feel twice as good as I did then. So people don't know. You're right. And we're we normalize feeling like shit, really, in in our society, and especially for women, you know, like I feel like it's worse for women. Like, we're just supposed to take it all, we're just supposed to put up with it, deal with it, blamed on our hormones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. And like we're just told everything is normal and you're just getting older and it's your hormones, and maybe you're in perimenopause, which doesn't have to suck either. People don't know that. A lot of people think menopause has to suck and it doesn't. Like, you know, people just don't know how good they can feel. And we're surrounded by toxins that make us feel horrible every day, too, and we don't know how to get them out of our bodies. So you're right. But I will add to that, like, the beauty of like what I can do now is I'll never do testing without coming back to the client and having them weigh on on weigh in on where they're at. Because if you don't see how you answered, you know, these questions on day one, when you're at day 30 and you answer them again, you won't see that improvement. And that shows you how much better you feel and it keeps you motivated too. So, like, I want everyone to see where they started because you will forget about it. Like, that's the weird thing, is you'll forget some of the symptoms you even had. You'll forget how bad you felt. I mean, even now I know how bad everything I went through was, but like, oh, it wasn't that bad. You know, your brain just changes it, your memory changes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's important is to take stock of like where you were and like own it and write it down somewhere. Like write a list of all your symptoms. So three months later, whatever you're doing, you know, you'll know if they're better or worse, whether you're working with somebody or not, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that's important for people to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I feel like you said you made so many good points there. And I want to just totally random, but also share this. Have you heard the term cougar puberty? No.

SPEAKER_00:

No, tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01:

It is just bringing me so much joy. Like that people are calling Perry Menopause and menopause cougar puberty now. And it just makes me so fucking happy to think about it as like, yes, we are just going through another part of puberty on a different spectrum. And I love what you're saying about what it's like to be a woman navigating the medical world and the health world. And even just like, there's so many things that we accept as if they're okay and they're not okay. Like, you know, incontinence, for example. Like we just accept that that's okay, but it's actually not okay. And it's really impacting our self-confidence and how we feel. And like, even we like people overthink how they're laughing, right? When they have things like that going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and like, can I leave the house for this? Can I not leave the house for this?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it does not have to be that way. We cannot just tell a mother that she's having brain fog because she simply had a baby and it's always going to be that way. So it's, I think it's this empowerment piece here of like women actually take stock, all of us take stock of how we want to feel and how we do feel, and then celebrate ourselves as we make progress on that path because it's so easy to just forget and move on. And I think all of us as women need more time to just celebrate how far we've come and really embody the woman that we are now because it's such a powerful place. And I feel like this is part of what somatic yoga therapy helps us do. Like once you're out of the like the worst of whatever you're going through, like you're out of the crisis. How do we then really embody contentment or joy or pleasure or happiness? How do we let go of being a sucker for our own suffering and actually enjoy our lives? You know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's a great point. And I think to add to that, I think people have to learn to feel their bodies. And I know we talked about the sun before, and I was like prime example. I did not feel what was happening in my body. I was in my brain all the time. My brain would tell me how I felt. Like something really had to hurt. You know, I've always had a high pain tolerance, and I think that's it. It's like something has to really, really be wrong for me to like feel it. And that has obviously gotten a whole lot better. But I think that people don't always feel those signals, you know, and they don't know how to feel their body. So I think there's like a retraining thing happening. And it's just really easy in your mind to just say, oh, this is because of that, and just put it away. And then you don't have to acknowledge it, then you don't have to feel anything. And I think that there's a role that women, women have to play too, just speaking about women in general, because I see it all the time, is women gaslighting other women and women not supporting other women. And like, I feel like women, I hear women say things like this to other women more than men do, which is crazy to me. Sort of like belittling a feeling or, you know, not acknowledging something someone is is feeling in their body. And they just like, you know, it's like one woman writing it off for another woman and then she just shuts up, you know, and that's not okay. And our society does that. And I don't quite understand fully why, but I see it everywhere, and that is not helping any woman anywhere, you know. So those friends you have that support you and want to know more and ask you questions when you say these things, those are the ones you want to keep, you know. But if every time you bring up something, you know, it's being written off, like get rid of her. Whoever that is in your life, like, sorry if it's your mother, but like find a way to like do you know what I'm saying? Like, do you see that too?

SPEAKER_01:

I do see that. And I also see that the women who who shut down in that moment, like that's a nervous system response to shut down. It's fawn or freeze, right? And it's also a choice because your nervous system's not actually in charge around here. Your highest self is in charge around here. And so recognizing that, like, oh, that person makes me feel this way, and then I shut down. Oh, but actually I get to choose because I'm highest self me, and I get to decide what do I put my energy into? What comments do I receive versus say, like, nope, return that to sender. I'm gonna choose again. And to really be intentional about the way we spend our lives, which I feel like both of our bodies of work invite women to do because your work really requires a lot of conscious effort. It's not like people come get these tests with you and then they're they're just like, oh, they just did it. They got the test. That was all we need to do. Like they have to really get in there and make some changes. And my work too, like it requires actually showing up for yourself, making different decisions, making time to prioritize the things that really matter to you. And that in and of itself is a is like a really large shift from I'm just operating based on my nervous system pattern versus I'm actually choosing how I want to live my life and what people I want to let in or not, and what I want to take on or not.

SPEAKER_00:

So go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

I was I was gonna like steer us a different way. Is there something that you wanted to drop in here before we do?

SPEAKER_00:

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So I know we talked a little bit about you like you did you've done some yoga, but you were looking into somatic yoga. I'd love to hear like how has yoga been a part of your story or how has somatic practice been a part of your story of healing?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, sure. So I I actually avoided yoga for a long time. Um, and the reason for that is when I was in middle school, I had a spinal fusion. Um, and when you or then, I don't know what you know what the recommendation is now, but when I had that, I was, you know, 13, 12 or 13, there was a whole list of things I was not allowed to do. And bending and twisting for life were two of them. You know, so I always followed the rules. And, you know, when I was, gosh, I don't even know how many years later that was, after grad school, you know, I just realized one day, like my body is so stiff, you know, just every part of me, like cracking and aching and just like every muscle was so tight. And I just did not, you know, I did some things, but I never stretched them. You know, the activities I did, you know, I did some hiking and I did walking and I did a little bit of weightlifting, you know, like nothing. I was never like a very hardcore workout person. But everything was harder than it should be. And like weird things, you know, it's like when I did bend over, it was like I was 90 years old, you know, like not age appropriate. And I I realized everything was tight. And I just went, you know, like this seems so low impact. Like, I'm just gonna like try it. And it was very hard because I like. could barely stretch, you know. But I kind of stuck with it. I did a hot yoga class, which was a terrible idea for me at the time. Yeah. That was not the way to dive into it. But you know, I just said, okay, I'm not doing that again. And I just I kept with it. And I did some I added in Pilates at the same time. And then I don't know, like a year later I could do everything. And like it was just a whole different world. So um that was before all of this other health stuff happened. So at the time I just knew yoga. And I preferred the slower yogas. You know, I hadn't really gotten into restorative at that time, but like I was not doing power yoga. That didn't serve my body the way that you know the slower yogas did. And then fast forward with the whole mold thing, I started to learn about the nervous system for the first time. And then got into that and learned about somatics and read some books about somatics and somatic therapy. And you know it was like a light bulb went off and it made so much sense. And then I was able to relate relate you know the nervous system activity back to what I've been through with the health conditions and start to learn about you know things that get trapped in the body. And I did a little bit of somatic therapy with somebody and I got really curious, which is one of the reasons I reached out to you as you know about somatic yoga because I've read about somatics, you know, and and know about some other programs and had done some kind of one-on-one work. But the yoga connection really interested me because that I remember how much that helped me and it also relaxed me but I wasn't relaxed me and I think regulated me but I wasn't aware of that at the time. Yeah. I knew that it helped my body and you know being more limber and my muscles and all of that. But I was not picking up yet on what else what it did for me mentally and how it regulated me and how I got so much better also at the same time, you know and it it took a few years later for me to understand. So I'm the understanding type you know I have to know how it works. I'm not I may not even see it. And that's what happened is I went oh that was happening at the same time. So now I know why yoga is so good for me on multiple levels that I did not know that when I first started it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah absolutely and it is you know we all have different access points for like what keeps us plugging into something or what helps us to see the true value in something. And I hear you saying over and over again that you're very intellectual like you need to unpack it. You want to understand it. You want to know the why behind it. And I feel like yoga for a very long time we didn't really have the language to describe what was actually happening. Like what is the medicine of yoga? It's like we could tell you that it would do all these things but we couldn't really tell you how. And I feel like the yoga therapy world as a career and like all the research that's happened in the past couple the past decade really more so than anything, we now have words to actually express that like yoga is actually the OG somatic therapy. Like it is. But we didn't have the word somatic therapy for it the thousands of years that people have been doing yoga or the concept of like you know like cytokines and like inflammatory markers in the body like we now know like we can show it through evidence-based research that if somebody has a lot of inflammation like yoga can help bring it down it can help with our stress resiliency. Yeah so many different things and so I love that you explored yoga almost rebelliously like I'm not supposed to do this but like I I did it anyways and then you found value. And also that feeling of success like you saw yourself make progress and that actually wires up a new kind of relationship with your body because you experience a lot of pain or a lot of difficulty in your body it's very easy to feel betrayed by your body or frustrated by your body or limited by your body and then something like a yoga experience can actually like open a whole new way of seeing your body.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah that's a great point.

SPEAKER_01:

Well we have covered so many different things today I I love the work that you do. I love that it can save women time. I love that you have such a personal relationship with it because I feel like you have the heart for doing this kind of work. You're going to really see your clients for who they are as individuals and like you're like a detective that won't stop. You're going to like find the answer for people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well and I want it to be easier for them than it was for me. You know like I went it's such a roundabout way you know and like seeing where I messed up is going to help me keep people from making the same mistakes which I'm very excited about. People just want to get back to feeling good, you know, and they want to see what's wrong. You know they they want to stop being told you know that them feeling like shit is normal or that you know oh nothing's wrong with you. Let me write you a a script for you know like it's all in your head. Like that's not okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I want to segue into a random thing and then I've got two final questions for us. So I was with a woman recently and she's a pharmacist who helps people come down off medications, which is a really cool like that she explains yeah but she was talking about how like when you're talking about all these different doctors, all these different people like a lot of women will end up on many different medications that aren't being regulated by one person. And sometimes that list is long, right? Like you know five, 10, 15 different medications that are making her feel like shit. And so I just kind of want to acknowledge how complicated this can really get like even biochemically for women and the chance to go off some of those medications and to feel better and to have free range of movement or mental health like it's just so credible life changing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah I mean I do I think you're absolutely right. I think that's great to have any conversations about that. I want to add in that some of those things are very dangerous to come off of so like if somebody is listening find that pharmacist find a doctor that knows how to bring you off of certain things specifically I'm thinking like SSRIs. Yes. You know and obviously your doctor has to help you come off these things but people think they can't I mean if you ask your average person with the thyroid problems I've had like you're gonna have it for life you're gonna go up on your meds for life there's no such thing as fixing it. And there are so many people out in the world that have that have gone into remission. I did it once I'm on the path to do it again. Like yeah you don't have to be on all of these things forever. But you're absolutely right and the funny thing is I feel like I see that come to light more for like have you ever seen like when families have a family member in the nursing home it's like all of a sudden all the kids see that and they're like why are you on a hundred medications and none of your doctors are talking to each other. But we don't realize that until that point you know a lot of times it's sort of crazy. We don't take stock of our own situation like that. But when it's our mother in the nursing home and we want to know why in the world she's so drugged up, we'll start looking around and asking questions.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah that just kind of came to me because that's where I see that a lot, you know, just in in normal life with people absolutely and there's there's just there's safe ways of writing a new story for ourselves that exist.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh one of the questions is just how has yoga been a part of your growth and healing journey I feel like you've touched on that some but are there any thoughts that you want to add to how yoga has been a part of your growth and healing yeah I would say for me, you know, we're so overstimulated like we talked about this a little I have a I'm one of those people that has a very hard time meditating. I know the benefits I know the science like I know it's good for me. I can do yoga you know and I think the movement assists me get into the right state because I just cannot meditate. Maybe one day maybe one day I'll be that person but also don't enjoy it like I enjoy yoga like for my body in particular I just resonate more with the movement with the quiet even if it's restorative even if it's like you know 10 poses that are 10 minutes each like that that gets my body into that place in a way that I I can do and it fits into my life. Yeah. Where if I try to sit and meditate, I'm like, all right, has it been 10 minutes yet? Like oh I got other stuff to do. And I think I'm probably not alone in that like if I think a lot of people have probably tried meditating and I think we're so bombarded these days that our brains maybe need an intermediate. I don't know if you would see it that way but I kind of see yoga as more of an intermediate because the body's involved where you're not asking yourself to just totally stop.

SPEAKER_01:

So for me it was an easier entry point you know so for everybody listening I just made a podcast episode called How to Fall in love with meditation and it addresses everything that you're just talking about there. I need to listen to that one. I think you might I think you might get some really good stuff out of it. I do because there a lot of the way that meditation is taught is really shitty just if I'm being honest. And there's actually like our modern brains and our bodies need a different route and there is a way to just absolutely enjoy meditation in a way that like you're genuinely in love with it and to get those benefits. So I just want to plant that seed there.

SPEAKER_00:

Katie where do people find you if they have listened if you've listened to this episode and you're like I need to know more about this woman where what's the best way for them to find you and then how do you do you have something you want to tell people about like an offering yeah yeah so now having having been through everything I've been through what I do now is I work with people one-on-one. I don't do any group right now maybe one day but I'm not right now I just want to work with people one on one and what you know what I want to do is work with mostly women and entrepreneurs I think because that's who I really you know those are my people and I want to work with people who have been told their labs are normal who feel like shit and know that that's not true and aren't getting answers. And what we do is we we run the functional labs. You know, we do a really extensive intake and we look at your entire medical history, all of your symptoms and then we see what is like under the surface. We do the tests nobody else will do. We do urine stool tests, saliva tests, we look at your hormones and your cortisol pattern and we look at your gut and if you have anything going on in your gut that shouldn't be there. And then we also look at everything together you know we don't look at tests in isolation you know I spend on average seven or eight hours with all of your tests in front of me making the connections between them and figuring out what is actually going on in your body to the best that I can. And then it's just an education program really it's teaching you those insights how to see them, what they are, what they mean for you. And then I've got like a component that's like a six week online program to go along with this that teaches you about diet and lifestyle you know so diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, which is a huge one, which is where you come in you know, and then of course we get into supplementation because a lot of us do need to supplement our bodies but it's all strategic and it's all one-on-one. There's no like one size fits all. So that's what I do is it's just a a health building program. It's one-to-one I don't want to work with people forever. I want to get you to a place where you feel great and hopefully you never need me again and hopefully you have a lot of tools you know some are free. Some of these tools are free you just have never been taught them that you can go on and use for the rest of your life and hopefully never need me again or you know hopefully need some less doctors than you need now, maybe less medications, you know, if you can work with your doctor to come off of them sometimes people are able to when they they build their health up elsewhere.

SPEAKER_01:

So that is what I do and you can find me at emerald dashwell dot com and you can also find me on Instagram at emeraldemerald.well dot FDN Okay excellent Katie thank you so much for telling us your story today it's clear how much passion and knowledge you put behind it and I feel like anybody that works with you is really going to get a lot of personal care and attention which is kind of the opposite unfortunately of a lot of people's medical experience and so I'm glad you're doing what you are doing and sharing this with the world. Thank you for being here today. Thank you this was wonderful I really enjoyed it thank you for having me thank you so much for listening to the Nourished Woman podcast. I would love to hear what resonated with you and what you're carrying with you out into your life. Send me a message on Instagram at theNourishedwoman or even my email. Your messages really mean the world to me so don't be shy. The beautiful music that you're hearing is by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. You can find them on all streaming platforms. I'll see you next week for another episode