Back To The Basics: Having An Identity & A Vision ft. Brendan Vermeire
Episode 121
In this part two episode of The Integrative Wellness Radio, Dr. Nicole chats with Brendan Vermeire of Metabolic Solutions. The two cover their personal experience with toxics, abnormal but commonly accepted symptoms, and how they were introduced to functional medicine. Brendan provides insight on the misconception that illness is physical, when in fact it can and very often is psycho-emotional. Dr. Nicole shares a patient's story on Lyme disease, identity, and how having a future vision can affect your healing. Interested in working with IWG? Book a complimentary consult call to learn more using this link: https://bit.ly/IWRcall2021 Noteworthy Time Stamps: 2:15 Daily toxin exposure 3:26 Why Brendan got in functional medicine 7:17 “Normal” symptoms that aren’t so normal 10:40 A bruise to the nervous system 19:08 Badge of honor dilemma 21:05 Lyme disease & identity 23:00 Why you need to have a vision
Topics: standard, brendan, american, identity, vision, medicine, lyme, healing
Key takeaways from this episode
- And the unfortunate reality of that is I did a It ended up being a two-hour podcast with Grace, who uh who works here at Integrative Wellness Group, because we were I went to Iowa, which is where my husband’s from.
- He was we were chatting a while back, we’re like, "Standard American brain and metabolism and gut and, you know, Saggy Sam with the..." It was getting a little funny.
- Because as you’re pointing out and elucidating, virtually every facet and aspect of the standard American, standard Western modern lifestyle is very pro-inflammatory.
- But then there is that other demographic, and this demographic is growing a lot, that these are individuals that they were already metabolically ill because of that standard American metabolism.
- Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. [Music] Sometimes I tend to lose myself, and I’m out here.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Like you said before, and I know that a large portion of our audience, they are usually listening because they’re hitting those plateaus.
I’m trying to eat well," according to maybe what they know, what’s in their wheelhouse, thus far.
Transcript
Having An Identity & A Vision ft. Brendan Vermeire
[Music]
I’ve been up all night, no sleep.
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr. Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
[Music]
Sometimes I tend to lose myself, and I’m out here.
Like you said before, and I know that a large portion of our audience, they are usually listening because they’re hitting those plateaus. And they’re like, "I’m trying to exercise. I’m trying to eat well," according to maybe what they know, what’s in their wheelhouse, thus far. And they’re hitting up on that that plateau. So for those of you listening that are like, "Well, that sounds really easy, but I don’t feel like that has helped me at this point." Is that doesn’t mean that eating well and getting out in the sun and exercise isn’t working. It just means that there might be a roadblock. And that roadblock might be something that’s in your body that shouldn’t be there. Yeah. And the unfortunate reality of that is I did a It ended up being a two-hour podcast with Grace, who uh who works here at Integrative Wellness Group, because we were I went to Iowa, which is where my husband’s from. And the lifestyle in Iowa is very different, and, you know, nobody in the family necessarily is consciously trying to make an effort to eat healthy. So get it go in the fridge and I just start seeing condiments that everything has soy oil, high-fructose corn syrup, and I looked at Miracle Whip and I was like, “This ain’t so miraculous.” The ingredients in Miracle Whip were horrid. So, anyway, it was such a reality check of how many toxins people are exposed to on a day-to-day basis from literally the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep if they are not consciously making an effort to not get exposed, because that is how much the industries are working against us from the pharmaceutical to the food, to the farming. There are chemicals in and on everything. And that is a layer that we very often find that we are helping to facilitate some type of healing around, is how can we remove these foundational roadblocks so that you can now get to a place that you are being able to maximize your healthy diet and maximize your exercise routine, but it breaks my heart when I see people that are like, "I’m trying to exercise and I feel like I’m dying. Like it’s so hard to do, and I feel so sore and so fatigued." And they’re like, "It’s just getting really hard to stay motivated with it." I’m like, "Listen, I get it, but you have to understand, you have so much crap in your body that we need to get out." Totally. Well, and that’s that’s exactly what got me into functional medicine was because when I’m consulting with private clients, like I kind of just in my head put them in one of two buckets of this is either just standard American metabolism, and that’s the sluggish thyroid and the HPA, and the standard American gut, and fatty liver, and diabetic, and standard American gut. Yeah. I got it. It was Corin that coined that one, Corin. He was we were chatting a while back, we’re like, "Standard American brain and metabolism and gut and, you know, Saggy Sam with the..." It was getting a little funny. But, you know, it’s that, right? It’s that just standard American metabolism, which I think is representative of the plague that is unconscious consumerism, right? Because as you’re pointing out and elucidating, virtually every facet and aspect of the standard American, standard Western modern lifestyle is very pro-inflammatory. It directly promotes chronic disease and comorbidities and a low quality of life. And it’s like we we know this. But then there is that other demographic, and this demographic is growing a lot, that these are individuals that they were already metabolically ill because of that standard American metabolism. But then they got bit by a tick, or they lived in a moldy house, or they also had, you know, the metal amalgams in their mouth, or they were vaccine-injured, or whatever it was, right? It was kind of that they were already metabolically compromised and then they ran into, you know, a root cause factor that just crippled them and The straw that broke the camel's back. Exactly. And that’s why I got into functional medicine was, we need to be able to create, you know, these fancy sophisticated protocols and programs that help remove those those roadblocks so that way they actually get the reward for their effort when they're trying to be more active, they're trying to get outside more, they're trying to eat cleaner. But yeah, it’s just like most people don’t. And I don’t say this to be um, you know, doom and gloom, it’s just like people don’t stand a chance until they kind of wake up to this truth and choose a dramatically different way of life than is being not just spoon-fed, but forced down our throats through mainstream everything. That’s also convenient. So it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. And it’s cheaper. But I want to just even comment further on this idea of the straw that broke the camel’s back. And uh for those of you that have listened to the podcast for a while, you’ve heard me talk about this before, but my story is is very different, because I didn’t have any so-called issues. I mainly got into this field because I wanted to help people and I did not want to do it through a conventional medicine approach. It’s very odd, but from day one, and my mom, you know, taking me to the pediatrician and it was constant strep throat. It was always an antibiotic and I literally looked him in the face, I’m like, “What else you got?” You always gave me the same thing when I come here. You don’t even ask any questions. I’m a kid. And I just my mom would be like, “Are you going to take your antibiotic?” I’m like, “No, throw it in the garbage.” So, I think I was just a stubborn little brat most of my life, but anyway. Strong-willed, oh, yes. Oh, yes. That’s Still to this day. But what I realized when I did my functional testing is that I had a lot of things going on, but the symptoms that were associated with it were my normal. You know, the low-grade fatigue was my normal. Random dizziness when I got up too fast was my normal. Random gut issues was my normal. There was always a reason. Oh, I ate too much. Oh, I shouldn’t have had that. Or, oh, I had heart palpitations because I drank too much coffee. And there was always a reason why I had random, you know, blips of these symptoms. And what I realized is that I’m fortunate that I did the testing early enough that I didn’t have that moment of the straw that broke the camel’s back. But I was I was getting there. It really only took one, you know, additional thing that would have put me into a state that I was really not functioning. Yeah. So when individuals come to you and I, we we help you to understand that your chronic fatigue didn’t happen overnight, your debilitating joint pain didn’t happen overnight. Like these were things that there was a lot of foundational issues, and it took that one moldy apartment or that one asbestos school that you worked in, or it took that one tick bite, or whatever it is, or it took that one life crisis, that one major loss, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed your body over the edge that the immune system shut down, the stress hormones started, you know, popping off, which then shut down your adrenals, and your body went into full-blown inflammation mode. Survival mode. Yeah. And, you know, we’re trying to then reverse engineer, okay, you know, how are we now going to, of course, palliate the major symptoms at hand, but at the end of the day, we have to fix the foundation. So when you come into this model of functional medicine, integrative medicine, is you have to start asking better questions as the the patient, the client, whatever you want to call it, is that this is not about the natural like short simple fix. Oh, here’s the supplement protocol that’s going to fix all your issues, is that if you truly want to get better, you truly want a life that you can enjoy, you truly want, you know, good mental health and good sleep and to actually wake up excited every day is you got to fix that foundation. Yeah. And this isn’t about, oh, if I just take my, you know, my top five vitamins, I’ll be good to go is, you know, you’re working against the system like you said that is it’s all around us. It’s in everything that we’ve been programmed with since we were children. And yes, it’s not it’s not easy. It’s not it’s a lot easier to go to a convenience store or grab fast food on the way home, it’s harder to get home and make yourself a nice salad or dinner. Um, but it’s really just a matter of, does it become a value. Does it become a priority? Absolutely. Well, and as you said, it is exactly that where the people that come to us, they are already are in that crisis, they’ve already been really broken and shattered. And I love how you pointed it out too and I think that’s important for the audience where, you know, the straw that broke the camel’s back is not always a tangible external thing like a tick bite or mold, it could be psycho-emotional in nature, right? You know, the emergent literature on like, for example, PTSD of like, yeah, that that psycho-emotional injury, it’s like it bruised our nervous system that causes dysregulation, that causes heightened inflammation and stress hormones. So, when you look at the physiology, like the the stress hormones and immune dysregulation is like the common underlying mechanistic theme of like, like everything practically. And that’s the hard part is it’s like we have to you know, we have to kind of attack those elephants in the room like the mold or, the, you know, whatever it is. But we're also trying to like rebuild the foundation while it's crumbling, while there's so much pressure and weight being put on it, and that's hard to do. That's like the real work. 100%. Yeah. And and also what you’re saying about PTSD, just to be clearer to the audience is PTSD doesn’t mean, you know, you got attacked by a dog or you were a victim of domestic violence. Like it could be, but PTSD could be you lost your job. You know it could be you, you know, your dog passed away. Like it’s it doesn’t have to necessarily be events that I feel like are more commonly portrayed as PTSD, but, you know, like a divorce can be PTSD. Mhm. So, so it’s a spectrum. Yeah. There are so many life events that we are all navigating on a day-to-day, and it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just unfortunately conventional medicine is not acknowledging that this can actually play a role in your physiology. And I feel grateful that my husband has kind of branched into the Chinese medicine world and got me more acquainted with the idea that even emotions and traumas can live in tissue and live in organs. And when I really started to understand that, I started to see it in my patients. And I’m like, “Wow, like this is no joke. Like this is this is real.” And it’s primarily because you would have certain individuals that would implement all of these amazing things we’re talking about. They would implement the diet, some of them would be, you know, that type-A personality like hard core, I do not stray from what you told me to do. You know, they take their supplements religiously and they they do some detox therapies, but there’s something that’s not allowing them to get past a certain point. And that is what really bridged the gap for me is, you know, I have to I have to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I have to get comfortable as a practitioner opening up the conversation around these, you know, different life events and these emotional adversities because this is not something to be ignored anymore. And this could easily be playing such a significant role. And I’m not saying that’s maybe my zone of genius is to help them work through that. But having that network to say, this is a layer that’s really important for your health. Oh, absolutely. As for um my client and friend, Nicole LePera, has done an amazing job of bringing a lot of awareness to nervous system dysregulation through trauma, which really exists on a spectrum. And, you know, it isn’t always that severe, horrible, you know, it it’s a spectrum. Like every mental condition is really a spectrum in a lot of ways. Bipolar, Autism, so on and so forth. And, you know, even just like early life stress has been shown to be a major uh implicative factor in in, you know, um immunosence and increased inflammation as you age and all these things. So, you know, that mind body connection and that’s why like on Instagram, I have kind of my little brain yin-yang and that’s what that represents is like, it’s the psychology and physiology. I just I think the physiology, if you know your stuff, is like easier to deal with and navigate, right? Like doing a fancy supplement protocol is way easier than like introspecting and digging into your deepest darkest shit, right? Yeah. But and so, you know, actually that brings up a good point, because something I see more and more, I’m sure you’d agree with it. A lot of people use functional medicine as like something to spiritually bypass their issues. Yeah. Where they’re like, "I want to do all the testing to find my root cause so I can get a protocol that just poof makes it all go away." Yeah. And they don’t even realize like they are literally running from that inner work. Yep. That they need to do. And so a lot of the times, I think as providers, we have to be really careful about not enabling their spiritual bypass. And we have to sit with them and be like, "Hey, do you see your behavior? You’re like excessively orthorexic with your diet and you might be focusing on that a lot so that you don’t have to sit with your shit and own it and deal with that stuff that you’ve been emotionally repressing into your liver or whatever you know, for so long." So that’s a huge side of it. That’s such an amazing, amazing point because yes, 100% is I’ve I’ve seen that and, you know, with the way that our practice has even shifted, because my husband, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Joe Dispenza, but he has uh embarked on a lot of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s human behavior work and is working with our patients in that capacity from mental health to human behavior, to grief collapse. And I feel so grateful to have that because, you know, we now will say, "Listen, you know, we are not going to overlook the elephant in the room that literally you had all these things going on and then when your, you know, when things really turned a negative corner was right when you had that loss, or that, you know, trauma et cetera." So, that I understand that biochemically you might not be in a great place um to even go there right now, but let’s do some groundwork and work on the physiology and let’s then get you to a place that, you know, stress hormones are more calm, your body is not in this fight or flight state, so that this is something that we can work on moving forward. And that’s I find to be a really successful approach. Uh some people come and they’re like, "Let’s dive in. I’m I’m ready to deal with my stuff." But then there’s other individuals you could just see it on their face, you’re just like, "You’re not ready, that’s okay. Let’s, you know, let’s calm the nervous system down. And then, you know, then we’ll be able to bridge in these tools. But um, but what you said is so huge and and it’s funny how you said it, because I’ve had those individuals. Unfortunately it’s been a lot of men. And they’re just like, they’re so obsessed with testing. I’m like, “We don’t need to do two Lyme disease tests.” Like and they’re like, “No, no, no, I want I want two.” I’m like, “Okay.” That’s fine. You can pay the money to, you know, get these two $500 tests. Um, but they we do all these tests. And I’m like, “Okay, I’m still going to call you out on what I think the root problem is here.” Um, but it’s very focused on like, "No, I just need the new protocol. I just need the new protocol." Um, so it’s just gotten to a point in our practice that I’m like, "Listen, if you’re not going to work with us and address the root cause, then you’re going to have to go somewhere else that’s going to just kind of, you know, meet you where you’re at and what you’re willing to do. But I’m not going to have you come here and you’re going to be two years in saying like, you’re like not better because you’re not allowing me to do my job." Yeah. Um, so I’ve just become I’m still just stubborn like you said, so. Right. And it’s exactly that and kind of tying some of the points we’ve made together of like identity where, uh identity is very powerful. And anything that threatens our sense of identity, you know, we fight or flight, right? And just more stress hormones, for sure. Of war. And so this is where like, I’m starting to see this this increased phenomena. I get these inquiries. Oh, my gosh. And these inquiries like, you know, this huge track record of, I’ve worked with five to 15 other practitioners. I’m $50,000 to a million dollars deep in my functional medicine journey. Wow. I you know, I have MTHFR, I have mold, I have this, I have this, I’m super complex. And what I'm seeing, a lot of these people, they’re really heavily identifying as complex chronic illness. And it’s kind of weird where they almost kind of wear it like a badge of honor. Of like, I’m too complex for your average practitioner to figure out, I need that super deluxe. And it’s kind of this self-righteous, self-indulgent, perpetuating their own issues. And they created of like, oh, I’m I’m just so you’re creating your identity as complex chronic illness. And of course, like if you keep telling yourself this story of I am this, you’re not actually allowing yourself to be what you truly are, and you’re running from your authenticity in a lot of ways. So, it’s a huge problem that’s re I I sometimes have to just turn these people away, because I can tell just based on their inquiry, they’re not in the psychological head space that I can help them. They’re just looking for one more functional provider to enable exactly that. Like give me the three more. I want three Lyme tests this time. I want the the more fancy protocol, and they're they're creating this new sense of identity and they're too scared to see what is my authentic identity under this kind of bullshit story that I'm telling myself. Yeah. We can't help that. It’s exciting. So one of the questions I actually unfortunately worked with a huge population um that was that mindset, because I got very deep into the Lyme disease community because I had such a passion for helping them. And there was a large portion of the Lyme disease community that got amazing results and they wanted they really changed their their lives. And, you know, one of my patients who was uh she was 16. And she had a dream of moving away, and she went she actually lives in LA, she’s going to film school and she’s been able to embark on her dreams. And I remember thinking of her of, you know, I met her at the same place where I met a large portion of my other Lyme patients. Again, identity. And I was like, you know, why is she doing so well and some of these others are not? And I realized is that she had a vision beyond. She had a vision beyond being less symptomatic or not being symptomatic. So, one of the things that I now ask, and and this is really for the audience, too. Like for the audience that are kind of like getting a little pissed off right now, thinking like, “Oh, well screw you. I’m sick, and you don’t you can’t relate to me.” I get it. We 100% get it. But the question that I want to challenge you to answer is, if tomorrow you were completely symptom-free, you were radically better because Brendan and I had a magic wand and, you know, we we were able to make wave that magic wand and you were had no symptoms, what would you do different? And if you can’t answer that question, That’s problem number one. Because if you don’t even know if you would take a walk, or if you would get a coffee with a friend, or you would call a friend that you haven’t talked to, like if you have no idea what you would do differently tomorrow, let alone in a week, in a month, in a year, then you don’t even know what you’re working towards anymore. Because working towards less symptoms or no symptoms is not good enough. And that’s a harsh statement and a harsh reality, but it’s the truth. It’s the same thing. We’re both entrepreneurs. If we did not forecast what the heck we were trying to do in this world, or what impact we’re trying to make, like if we’re just like, “Oh, I’m going to get up and do a podcast.” Like, we wouldn’t get up and do a podcast because why would we do the podcast? Who cares? Like, who cares if I do it or I don’t? But we have a forecasted vision behind how many people we want to impact. And we want to shift the paradigm of how people think about medicine. We want people to choose to have a healthier lifestyle. So they don’t have to get to that chronic illness state. They don’t have to be in a drug-induced coma. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. So the vision is far beyond us. And it’s far beyond today or tomorrow. And if you are a patient who’s a chronic illness patient and you don’t have that forecasted vision, and all you’re focused on is symptom, symptom, symptom, unfortunately, you’re not going to get better. That was beautifully, and profoundly stated, my friend. Um, but I think that so I’m like, that was a really good mic drop moment, but I I it had to be said, right? Because that’s exactly it. We're I think a lot of these people, they’re identifying so heavily with their chronic illness, they’re pushing themselves deeper into it. And like you said, I mean, let’s say all of those problems that some are very real and some might be a little exacerbated in our own mind. And of course, this is where all the esoteric thoughts become proteins. And your cells are always listening and Joe Dispenza’s work and all of that kind of comes into play here where, you know, yeah, I’m a big believer in your physiology follows your mind. And so, if you woke up tomorrow and you didn’t have any any symptoms, it’s like, what would you do with yourself? And like you said, if you can’t answer that, what are you working towards? And how can your body ever create a new physiological identity that’s in alignment with your your your authentic identity, right? So, yeah, it’s huge, huge, huge. Yeah. I love it. All right. So I want to wrap up a little bit here. Um, I love what you’re doing, because I know you have kind of three branches to how you’re working, you know, with the public. And one of those branches we talked a lot about today is working directly with clients and helping them along their health journey. And also, you’ve been doing some teaching for about five years now, um in order to really help expand the knowledge of functional and integrative practitioners. So I would love for you to talk a little bit more about that. And then I really want you to tell us about this panel that you’re creating with DHA labs to help people actually have an understanding of what is happening in their neurological system, their nervous system that could be causing them to maybe not mentally, emotionally feel at their best. Absolutely. No, I really appreciate it. It’s, you know, we’ve been serving clients. Uh, I’ve been working with clients one-on-one for like 12 years now. And as far as how we serve them, maybe it’s evolved and shifted over the years, but um, and yeah, we’ve been training practitioners, providers. So that’s kind of been my main day job for the past five years. And and I love I love teaching. I I love training providers, because we you know, functional medicine is exploding. Um, it has a long ways to go though. Like when I got into the industry, I’m like, “Wow, there’s so much going on.” It’s so big. But actually, it’s really really tiny tiny. We’re we’re a far ways away from really being mainstream. But I think the next decade is where it’s at. So I think there’s so much job opportunity for providers that want to become, you know, functional. And so I I love getting to, you know, because like we can’t do it on our own. We we need more. We need to multiply like rabbits with how many functional well-trained functional providers there are. But of course, I’m always looking at like, how can I do more? How can I impact more? So right now, I’m setting up a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit foundation. I have this whole elaborate scheme of, yeah, we’re moving into just doing clinical research and I I think I’m in some ways better suited to just be a scientist at this point in my life. But so what I’m doing right now is I developed the mental map and map stands for microglial activation profile. And uh when I came up with that, I was just like, “Bah, oh, my gosh.” Like, I was so excited. I love it. I totally love it. I mean, some people choose to get offended. I’m like, "I can’t help you, you know what I mean?" My You're not my people, I guess, but um, no, it’s fun. That’s that’s where Instagram is my main platform that I’m pumping out just lots of free content. But Metabolic Solutions is is the business. And that’s the not-for-profit foundation, that’s the LLC, that’s the practice, that’s the institute for providers. So, if somebody really wants to connect on a business level, Metabolic Solutions. But if you just want to tune in and see what’s this dude talking about, the Holistic Savage on Instagram is kind of where it’s at. And you have a podcast, correct? I do. I do. I want to have you on there too for season four, um, which is going to be here before we know it. So let’s get that schedule. Right. Yeah, for sure. Chat about whatever you want. Cool. Um, yeah, so check him out. He’s definitely such a pioneer in the market and putting out amazing content. I’m always so impressed every single day that, you know, you’re you’re putting out such good quality content completely for free just to really help educate people. So, um, it’s much appreciated probably more than you realize. But um, we will definitely be doing this again. Thank you so much for being here. And we’ll talk to you guys next time. Appreciate it, Nicole. It means a lot. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio. If you’re looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com.
[Music]
Cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
[Music]
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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