From Pain to Purpose: Heal from Rheumatoid Arthritis with Julie Michelson

Summary:

Julie Michelson is a National Board-Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach, best-selling author, international speaker, and the host of the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity Podcast. She is the founder of Julie Michelson Coaching and the co-founder of Navigate Wellness. Through her journey of overcoming more than a decade of decline with Rheumatoid Arthritis, she became passionate about Functional Medicine and using lifestyle to create healing. Julie is an expert in supporting others achieve the changes necessary to experience true wellness.

Find her here:

www.jm.coach
www.juliemichelson.com
https://inspiredliving.show/
https://www.instagram.com/julie.michelson/
https://www.facebook.com/juliemichelsoncoaching
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-michelson-coach/

About the episode:

Julie discusses her journey of healing from rheumatoid arthritis, which included going gluten-free, learning about the Bulletproof Diet, and trying Ziva Meditation. Julie also shared how her youngest daughter was the driver of her healing journey, and how she was able to turn her pain into her purpose.

We talk about the importance of getting enough healthy fats and the need to do full panels for cholesterol and other lipids.  And don't forget Omega-3's and GLA for women to decrease inflammation!

Julie Michelson discusses the importance of diet change and meditation in her journey to heal from rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. She also talked about the importance of slow and boring detox, as well as the need for spiritual and energetic healing. Julie now helps people access their own health information and take their power back through her coaching business, Julie Michaelson Coaching, and her new company, Navigate Wellness Health.

Transcript:

I've got a friend with us today. Herr name is Julie Michaelson. I was actually on her podcast as well. Inspired Living with Auto Immunity podcast. She is going to talk about her healing journey from autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis and how used that to kind of turn it into her purpose today and how she helps people.

6:58 - Anna Esparham

She's actually a nationally board certified functional medicine health coach and she's also a best selling author, which I just learned about, and an international speaker, so kudos to Herr. And she's also founder of Julie Michaelson Coaching and the co founder of Navigate Wellness. And through her journey of overcoming the decade of decline with rheumatoid arthritis, she became passionate about functional medicine and using lifestyle to create healing. And she's just a super expert in supporting so many people achieve these changes to heal from autoimmune disease.

7:31 - Anna Esparham

And so much Welcome, Julie.

7:34 - Julie Michelson

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and continue our conversation.

7:39 - Anna Esparham

I know I haven't heard your complete story yet. You heard mine,

7:42 - Julie Michelson

Yes,

7:42 - Anna Esparham

so it's your turn now.

7:43 - Julie Michelson

yes.

7:44 - Anna Esparham

so tell us about, yeah, tell us about you, tell us what happened, where you started and where you got to today.

7:52 - Julie Michelson

Absolutely, I started where unfortunately so many people with auto immunity or any kind of chronic illness began, which was. I started by being told I couldn't heal. When I was diagnosed with Ra, I was a newly single mom, three kiddos, four and six. Got diagnosed pretty quickly. Like a lot of people I know, auto immunity is tricky. It can take, you know, average of like eight years to get diagnosed. At the time, I felt super lucky that I just happened to have a friend who was a Dr., and she happened to have Ra, and so she connected dots for me really quickly and sent me to her rheumatologist who was one of the top docs in Colorado.

8:37 - Julie Michelson

And so all of that seemed great until I was told, you know. Oh, we're so sorry, you know, you can't heal you, you're so young. We'll keep you as comfortable as we can for as long as we can. I know it's just That was a long time ago, but the sad part is that's still what people are told and that's why we have these conversations, right? Because it is you talk about. Journey creating purpose It is my, if nothing else, to just change that story. That people know they can heal, we can heal. The body is miraculous.

9:16 - Julie Michelson

It is designed to heal. Unfortunately, I believed them. I had no, you know, nothing else to pull from and so I was like, okay, so shocker, what did I do? I declined because that was what I expected to do. I took the mens, I did, I asked questions all along the way, you know, what I heard about, you know, diet, and I heard about this and I and I, I kind of got poo pooed. And again my rheumatologist was so bright and we were friendly and she's just such a good human. She was very research based, she actually was.

9:53 - Julie Michelson

On one of the teams that developed one of the biologics I had taken at one point. And so she just very kind of entrenched in her box, we'll say Um, and so she kind of poo pooed, you know, the only thing she kind of reinforced was. My son was diagnosed at some point in my journey with celiac and to support him I went gluten free and was like, huh, I feel like my pain is a little bit better. You know, she was like, oh well, we should get you tested. That was probably your 1st auto immune disorder.

10:30 - Julie Michelson

We just didn't know it and of course which it was, but beyond that it was, everything was like a no, no, no. So I took the meds. I was a good girl, you know, raised to respect authority, and by the end of about eleven years I was on ten prescriptions. They weren't working. I, I'd laugh because I'd still be on them if they were working, right, but I had, you know, had to stop working. I was the, which is, I know, so often the case with auto immunity, you know, when we get further down that road. I would rest while my kids were at school so that, you know, I would do the mornings and then I would rest and then I would do the afternoons and evening and like, you know, pray for bedtime so I could be done.

11:21 - Anna Esparham

you, you had significant fatigue with it because a lot of people do.

11:23 - Julie Michelson

I had significant fatigue and significant pain. But I used to always say, you know, that they give you painkillers for the pain, right? Not that that was ideal, but it was like if we could fix one thing, I would want to address the fatigue. My life got so small because I didn't have the energy to participate fully and my main goal and focus always was family. And so I still wasn't the mom I wanted to be and had been, you know, I I went from like Pta president and you know, all the things to like, I'll do my best to get you to your activities, you know, like, And so we joke.

12:09 - Julie Michelson

My youngest is like, you know, she got the good and the bad, just being even four years younger than the oldest and and one of the jokes was always and she got to, she just She's my kids. I'm so blessed through that journey. I have three amazing humans who were just good kids and easy to raise anyway, thank God. She had said, you know, there were just rules and boundaries that her older brothers had had that she didn't because I was just tired, you know, so she'd be like, how can I get to? And I'm like, cause I'm tired, I'm just tired, you can do whatever you want.

12:49 - Julie Michelson

And again, because she made good choices anyway and so it, but actually she was the driver of my healing journey. She was.

12:58 - Anna Esparham

How are you?

12:59 - Julie Michelson

She came to me, and again, as my youngest, sat me down one night and said, You know, please don't die and leave us. And I was in my mid 40 s. I'm on the ten prescriptions, they're not working and as you know, many of them were just for side effects from some of the others. Like, you know, it was just this snowball. I kept accumulating diagnoses. By then I had, you know, enter into your world. I was diagnosed with fibro. Flashy motos. There's something else in there that I'm forgetting because I just wasn't even didn't matter right at that point.

13:36 - Julie Michelson

Like nothing changed any treatment plan or recommended, you know, approaches. And that was when I really so obviously I couldn't promise her I wouldn't die I should preface that when there I was in my mid forties again really small life my dad had passed in his sleep at fifty four And we had thought he was healthy until then, you know? And so I, I had a fear I wasn't gonna live to C 50. But something shifts when you find out that your kids are laying in bed at night, you know, with the same fears.

14:12 - Julie Michelson

And so what I did promise her was that I would try everything. And it was in that moment because I really had thought I was trying it, I tried every medication they put me, you know, I tried everything I was told to do, but I had never left that Western medicine box ever. And so that was it. That was the beginning of, and I got to kind of dig back to like, where do I start? You know, I'll try everything. I have no idea what to do. The one change I had made that I noticed any improvement was when I went gluten free.

14:47 - Julie Michelson

So it was like, oh, what else? Like is there more with food? What else can I do? I always joke. At that point I was already doing Paleo raw. I thought I was Paleo I wasn't doing it right, I was, you know, it was kind of high sugar. I was doing low fat. Paleo Because I grew up fat phobic. And so, you know, learning. Then it was like starting to learn and we talked about the fatigue and the pain, but my brain fog was intense. And so even just to learn stuff was and retain was a challenge. But as I started to make changes and things started to improve for me.

15:36 - Julie Michelson

A huge resource at that time, which relates to the fat phobic piece, was I tripped across Dave Asbury and for some strange reason bought the bulletproof diet book. I've never been a dietter, you know, for those that are looking on ca. I'm not a very large person, although I was much heavier than the knowledge I gained from That book about inflammatory foods and why they may be inflammatory was remarkable. And then for me personally, one of the huge keys was adding in a, you know, a really high amount of healthy fats, which was so hard to do in the beginning.

16:21 - Julie Michelson

I was, I mean I would like gag. You know, I've spent I don't know how many decades avoiding fat. It's bad, I'm happy to say. I, you know, if I never see another boneless, skinless chicken breast in my life, I'm good. I had enough of those. When I was younger. And so, but that all of a sudden my brain started to work again because what's made of fat, oh, your nervous system. And it was like, I don't know how many times I read that book and underlined and highlighted, you know, and I like as I started to heal, I'd go back and I'd read it again because I could, I could retain more of the information.

17:01 - Julie Michelson

And that such a huge piece for me. So we, you know, we tend to always focus on what we need to avoid when it comes to inflammatory diet triggers. But it really just as important as, you know, what are you nourishing your body with? And and I wasn't, I really wasn't. So that was huge, and I became a big Asprey fan, of course. And just started listening to more and more podcasts, right? This is why we end up doing what we're doing. Because that was my healing journey, was podcasts were great, I could listen to them, you know, whenever on the go.

17:43 - Julie Michelson

Started connecting some of those dots. And so I got diet dialed in. And then Dave interviewed this amazing human. Her name's Emily Fletcher, and she runs a program called Ziva Meditation. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I've been trying to do it all wrong. I'm not a crappy meditator. I'm gonna try her program. And that was huge for me. That was just having that committed all of a sudden. The things that were slowly getting better, you know, I My pain reduced, my energy got better, I woke up with energy in the morning.

18:22 - Julie Michelson

I didn't think that was even possible anymore. You know, I was that person that could sleep 14 h and wake up exhausted, You know, that fatigue that unfortunately so many of us are familiar with. And so it was like, ha, you know, what else, you know, as I got more energy, I got more curious and, and then that led to. The coaching? Dave asked, opened a coaching program right around the time that my brain started working again and I had hope. I was like, Oh, I want to learn more and I want to help people do this.

18:57 - Julie Michelson

And then through his coaching program found out a lot about functional medicine and functional medicine testing. And no wonder my thyroid meds don't work because nobody ever did a full thyroid panel before, all those things, and it just I was like, I have to do this, you know, I have to dig deeper into the functional medicine world and and the most beautiful thing I think that I've found. Working with all kinds of patients. So my private practice, I, I focus totally on auto immunity, but I'm also blessed to work with a clinic locally and I get sent to all kinds of people who need support.

19:38 - Julie Michelson

It's really all the same. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, it's all the same, any give me a chronic illness, our approach is gonna be the same. Yes, things are individualized. But I joke, I'm like, give me, you know, your diabetics, you like where I can get that quick hit and get labs to correct, get you off your meds, but you know, we also have the patients to work. Slower healing process of the those with auto immunity. Whether you're newly diagnosed or you know, you're like me and you have this list of diagnoses and you've been declining for years.

20:19 - Julie Michelson

It doesn't matter. And that's the, that's the exciting part is it, does it, We can all heal just, you know, different speeds. And so, yeah, I just continue to, to grow. I have a certification with Apollo Health with Dr. Breton for Alzheimer's and dementia reversal Uh, and again it's very similar. It's all, you know, we're, we're focusing on the same aspects of lifestyle to reverse things that were historically considered irreversible.

20:56 - Anna Esparham

That's so cool and It's interesting because I had, you know, very similar. I had to do quite a bit of integrative and functional medicine. That was my 1st step, you know, healing a lott of my, you know, the poly glandular autoimmune disease and then later on chronic pain. But what I want to come back to. Actually a few things I wanted to come back to was the healthy fats. This is the biggest thing that is so hard. And another thing that's hard too for a lot of my patients and a lot of clients is that a lot of people who do have, you know, familial hypercholesterolemia or issues with lipids.

21:32 - Anna Esparham

Oh yeah, uh yeah, I, I actually didn't realize. I think my one side of my family has trouble with it and and I, you know, what I usually tell people is that, you know, if there's inflammation and there is high cholesterol and bad fats, it's like, yeah, that and that's, you know, a double whammy and, and you do have some cardiovascular risk. But there are actually quite a bit of labs that you can do to just make sure that you are not super inflamed and if you do have high cholesterol, it's not a big deal unless it is inflamed or oxidative and so right.

22:09 - Julie Michelson

Absolutely, it goes back to those full panels,

22:10 - Anna Esparham

And so, yes,

22:12 - Julie Michelson

right? Like we're not just checking Tsh for thyroid and we're not just looking at cholesterol numbers.

22:17 - Anna Esparham

No, we're not just looking at Hdl or Ldl, we're looking at the full,

22:20 - Julie Michelson

Here.

22:20 - Anna Esparham

like small particles, I mean the oxidative, you know, So it is, it's a much bigger panel. It's kind of tough to get, but yes, functional medicine,

22:29 - Julie Michelson

No, it's not.

22:30 - Anna Esparham

yeah, functional medicine,

22:30 - Julie Michelson

Hit me up,

22:31 - Anna Esparham

you can do it like go see a functional medicine or integrative doc who.

22:31 - Julie Michelson

it's not. We don't, we don't do a panel that doesn't have that. But and I love that you brought that up because so I, for those of you listening on audio, I raise my hand. I have familial history. As a matter of fact, my oldest son. We had labs done on him when he was a new born and he had high, he was born with high cholesterol. So yes, there's, we have this familial tendency. My primary care Dr., all those years, a bit from diagnosis to decline and reversal. Had a preventative cardiac focus.

23:10 - Julie Michelson

Okay, Western medicine, but she was very focused on cardiac health and so she was always really concerned about my cholesterol and something. She watched very closely. And as I changed my diet and went keto and I'm not saying keto is the answer for everybody, but we definitely need healthy fats. We I remember at the point where I was really feeling well and then my labs came back and she was like, you know, your cholesterol is even higher than it used to be, you know, and this is really scary and this.

23:44 - Julie Michelson

And I said to her, you know, what? Like if I feel this well and I die tomorrow, like, fine, the fine, totally fine. Well, I stuck with what I was doing it, course, corrected. And it's been lower than it had ever been before. You know, people don't realize that cholesterols. And it's an inflammatory response molecule. So if you have surgery or you have inflammation or you have, well, I had so much chronic inflammation, of course my cholesterol was elevated. Yeah, so, so I'm not saying everybody ignore your Dr., so I say, like you said, we need to dig deeper.

24:25 - Julie Michelson

Just wanted to live well for however long I'm here.

24:31 - Anna Esparham

I, I was not getting enough fat and I just, I was just, I mean my nutrition, I just never felt robust enough to get through the day or even get through just a couple hours, without nutrition. And so once I started, started, you know, solo because I, my husband is the Master's Integrative Functional Medicine dietitian and so. So anyway, he and I worked together before we met, and or before we got together and he started saying, Hey, you just, you're kind of low in this. Because I actually did get all my total fatty acids.

25:06 - Anna Esparham

I got the full fatty acid panel, like all the omega three, all the omega six, everything. And I was low in everything, even the omega six for some reason. I, which is hard to do. And but also the poly Gant autoimmune disease,

25:18 - Julie Michelson

which is hard to do.

25:19 - Anna Esparham

it was,

25:20 - Julie Michelson

But you must not have been absorbing.

25:20 - Anna Esparham

it was an absorption issue and so I had to pile it on. And I mean I was getting, I was eating tons of saturated fat, healthy saturated fat, coconut oil, but grass fat.

25:32 - Julie Michelson

Yeah.

25:33 - Anna Esparham

fed butter, even though not everything is grass fed butter, even though it says grass fed butter. But um, that's another side note.

25:39 - Julie Michelson

We do the best we can.

25:40 - Anna Esparham

We do the best we can and then, so now, so I tell a lot of my patients and clients, because my kids, none of my patients, they don't get enough healthy fat. That's the one thing that's missing in protein too.

25:51 - Julie Michelson

Hey.

25:52 - Anna Esparham

But yeah, but healthy fat is, is. So you'll just feel so much better, especially when you are lowering your processed carbs, you're increasing your healthy fat. And I tell them this is crazy. I eat about almost two sticks of butter a day and that's not even all my healthy fat that I eat.

26:08 - Julie Michelson

knew liked you.

26:09 - Anna Esparham

I can't get enough. I was just kept piling on and I was like I literally everyone looks at my, I have this um, I do a ancient bread and sour dough bread with low gluten in it. Cause I can't do a lot of gums, like gluten free flowers with gums and stuff. It irritates me. And I can't do almond flower, coconut flower cause it, it just irritates my gut too. So I do a lot of ancient stuff and they look at my bread, and I just slathered the whole be my caked with It's like frosting.

26:37 - Julie Michelson

it's covered. it's hard to get in. Like I remember and I think for me was one of the reasons why Bulletproof was Such a great gateway to really truly nutritious healthy eating and higher fats was because using the Mct oil through Dave's protocols was an easier way. Once I got over the like ick factor of getting enough fat in and I, it's we need so much more than we think. Several years after I was feeling better, I was like, you know, maybe I don't need all this Mct oil, you know, I'm gonna like just, I know how to eat, I, you know, I know I needed fat and it, it's so hard to get.

27:21 - Julie Michelson

You have to always say if you're not consciously trying to be sure you're getting enough healthy fats, you're not like, you just, it's not gonna just accidentally happen.

27:34 - Anna Esparham

I notice too. And I, I, because I have to take, I don't have my genetics for the Delta Five Saturate, something that, you know, it, it's what evening perms oil, it's that oil that's anti inflammatory, Omega Six that you get. And and so I always have to take Gla just because my Delta Five Desaturate doesn't work super well. And I notice if I like miss a couple capsules of Omega Three S and Gla and I don't get enough fat, my skin just, it just becomes so incredibly dry and cracked and then when I start taking it again, it just I pull back up.

28:09 - Julie Michelson

You flum black up, Yeah. Well, it's so true. I've had so many people come and they're like, you know, got my skin is so, so dry and it's not a thyroid thing, you know. I'm like, let's take your Omegas. Like the, it's not. We always go to this like complicated. I have some weird thing. I always have dry skin and I'm like, yeah, you have zero, Omega three. Like, no wonder your skin is dry. It's.

28:34 - Anna Esparham

Talking about omega three s, yeah, what's your kind of experience if you do get fatty acids and kind of know how low people are in omega three s and how it promotes that inflammation? Because we're getting more omega six's than omega three s, which is not what we're evolutionarily made to have, right?

28:52 - Julie Michelson

And that's what, you know, the even if you're eating better than a standard American diet, just our food system is flooded with omega six, just is, yeah.

29:02 - Anna Esparham

It's tough, it's tough. That's why I mean I don't eat a ton of fish or anything, so I do, I do take Omega Three s and try and take a lot of it.

29:09 - Julie Michelson

I take a lot of them still,

29:10 - Anna Esparham

yeah, me too, yeah.

29:13 - Julie Michelson

like I,

29:13 - Anna Esparham

Yeah, it's so anti,

29:13 - Julie Michelson

yeah,

29:14 - Anna Esparham

I just feel so much better if I miss it for a couple days,

29:14 - Julie Michelson

just do.

29:16 - Anna Esparham

I notice it, yeah, and so, there, the other thing I wanted to talk about, oh actually side note, just for my personal information, what, what kind of labs do you do, at uh, for the uh, lipid labs, what lipid labs do you get? I mean, do you have a specific lab that you do instead of Lab Corp request or do you work with someone because we used to work with a couple people and now I can't, they're like out of business where they went bankrupt or something.

29:49 - Julie Michelson

my typical go to in my practice is is Vibrant America.

29:54 - Anna Esparham

Oh yes,

29:55 - Julie Michelson

they have a really nice deep dive panel,

29:55 - Anna Esparham

yeah, that I know, I know of them.

29:58 - Julie Michelson

but also Cleveland Heart, like for people that do lab Corp,

30:01 - Anna Esparham

That's it.

30:01 - Julie Michelson

the Cleveland Heart.

30:03 - Anna Esparham

That's what I have. Okay, I just wanted to see if there was something else, okay, okay, and then I didn't want to talk about Emily Fletcher too, because you did that program. I was thinking about doing her program. I read her book and that was before I got into meditation because I couldn't meditate. I had such a hard time meditating and sitting still and relaxing. It was, it was just so stressful for me, and I read her book and I was like, I gotta meditate. And then I found a spiritual coach who helped me get into the meditation and then I progressed from there.

30:35 - Anna Esparham

But tell us a little bit about your experience.

30:38 - Julie Michelson

It was great. This was, you know, again several years ago and and same thing. Like I thought I was a terrible meditator because I really did think and I tried it like on and off throughout the years I lived just outside of Boulder, Colorado. So it's not like I hadn't heard of meditating. But I could clear my mind, you know, and so I thought, well, I'm terrible at this. Like I'm just no good. I'm making a shopping list. I, you know. And then I heard this interview with Emily where she was like, the mind isn't supposed to be blank, like that's not actually it.

31:13 - Julie Michelson

And I was like, what? This is amazing. And so she, I did her, her Ziva program online, which was literally and, and she, she practices betic meditation, or at least back then it was all betic meditation. So it was mantra based. I signed up, they gave me a mantra. Her whole thing was like literally just do it, like do it in perfect. But do it. You don't have to, you know, sit in a perfect pot, like just get your butt in the chair twice a day. I believe it was 20 min twice a day. It was cute because the afternoon one and she does not encourage meditating before bed.

31:58 - Julie Michelson

I practice a little differently now, you know, we more often we try new things and now that I'm an avid meditator, I like all the, all the ways. That afternoon one was harder to get in. I was religious about the morning and again really quickly I noticed, you know, pain decreasing, energy improving, sleep improving, and I got a pause button and I'm like a pretty mellow, low key person, I think anyway, but I literally I had people asking me like, wow, how did you handle that, you know, like with such grace, and I realized like, oh, it's the meditation, like I don't have to react, right, I can choose my responses.

32:42 - Julie Michelson

Anne But when I would miss that afternoon meditation, like more than twice in a row, my daughter, who you happen to know would be like, Mom, why don't I drive to the barn today and you can meditate in the car? She would notice like there was definitely an energy shift that she would notice.

33:04 - Anna Esparham

Were you great?

33:04 - Julie Michelson

I didn't think so. You know,

33:07 - Anna Esparham

Oh,

33:07 - Julie Michelson

but she just,

33:08 - Anna Esparham

okay.

33:08 - Julie Michelson

you know, maybe slightly less patient or like she would always like just, and she was smart enough not to like call me out on it just to offer like the opportunity and I'm like, huh, better take her up on that, I guess. And so from there I just got into all kinds of, I got into quantum physics and ancient Chinese energy medicine and I always say, you know, the so looking back and I am a kind of jump in with both the kind of person, I mean, I don't start my clients. Is meditating 20 min twice a day unless they want to, you know, feel like, but it's rare that that half the time you can see, like you say the word meditation and you can just feel their blood pressure.

33:59 - Julie Michelson

Because we all have these like stories or we think, you know, oh, that means I need to add an hour to my day or no, and I, we start small, like 5 min, like not, you know, really small. And I always say and I did learn this from, from Emily as well. It doesn't, there is no best kind because whatever resonates with you that you'll do is. So if you like guided visualizations, that's great. If you're more of a mantra person or a, you know, and the, the gold is, it's an exercise and the gold is coming back from your shopping list or wherever you wanted to, like that's.

34:37 - Julie Michelson

And so that shift for me, huge. And I was like, Oh, well, I can keep returning. So it might feel better to get that really deep, lovely, floaty meditation. Even when you have a regular practice, that's not how it always goes. Sometimes it's like every However many seconds you're like wandered off, I'm returning, you know.

35:02 - Anna Esparham

Yep, no. I yeah, I've been doing it for years too, that's the same.

35:06 - Julie Michelson

And that is the goal. And I think once we learn that, like it was not about, like I feel relaxed, I meditated, it's like, oh, it's, it's your training, your training.

35:20 - Anna Esparham

What are some of the other action steps that you took to heal from rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia and hashi motos? Was it all functional medicine and what did you do that was like the most helpful?

35:35 - Julie Michelson

I, I always say I was so blessed and obviously this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Because I, you know, I work with so many people and and I remember in the beginning like I'm gonna find my root cause, like like it was a, a thing, right, that one thing, or I'm gonna help people find their root cause. Now I know so much better. So the fact that with diet change and a meditation practice, I and diet change, this was like, Hit or miss trying stuff, reading stuff and trying stuff. I had no testing, I had no functional medicine labs, no food sensitivity panels, like nothing to.

36:17 - Julie Michelson

Yeah, but also this journey took me many years. You know, and so I get jazzed about like let's heal you quicker. But the fact that those two changes got my brain working again reduced my pain enough and gave me the energy to fully function. Truly a miracle. I started to learn more about functional medicine and biohacking and just lifestyle medicine if you will. I realize, oh, you know, when I found all the testing and I have so many toxicity issues. I've got heavy metal toxicity, I have mold of mycotoxin illness, I, I have environmental toxins.

37:05 - Julie Michelson

And this is after clean, you know, thinking I was living clean for years. And so the I, we say the fact that my needle moves so much even without addressing those other issues and I think that's a piece we miss a lot is, you know, that inflammation is cumulative and it's not ever just coming from one place. And so that's a huge one the, for me personally. Managing my toxins and reducing my body burden has been huge and I continue to work on it because, you know, we were talking about genetics before.

37:45 - Julie Michelson

Like I, I'm a collector, I'm just genetically a collector and so I can live as clean as I want. I did that environmental toxin panel, I think, two years ago and almost fell over when I saw that my Bpa and my Glyph as A were off the chart. I've been eating organic ever since you could buy organic food in the store, and I've been avoiding plastic as long as you know, you know, So I always, I'm a big proponent of When you have health challenges, you know, those tests are, I think are invaluable because we need to know, even if we're doing the right things, like what's still really going on in there, which doesn't mean, you know, you can't clean up your act without testing, you can for sure, yeah.

38:33 - Anna Esparham

Did you do any type of detox or plan?

38:39 - Julie Michelson

I did so at that, but the point that I found out I had toxicity issues, I, you know, was being treated by a functional medicine doc and I'm I'll give, I'll quote him as I do all the time. You know, detox should be slow and boring, right? And so many of us don't want it to be slow and boring. And I will say, you know, when you hit it too hard, you're not doing yourself favors and and that did actually end up happening to me. The things seem to be. Going well and I was doing chelation therapy was fine.

39:18 - Julie Michelson

And then all of a sudden, I mean, I just tanked and I had muscle wasting and I, I mean, and this was, you know, in the better part of my journey where I was feeling better. I remember I now live on a horse farm and I remember like going to do something with the horses and yes, even in my 50 s, I'm that person that Well, hop over the fence instead of walking around. And I went to hop over the fence and I didn't have the upper body strength, yeah, exactly to push myself over the and that was like, what is going on, what is wrong with me?

39:55 - Julie Michelson

Like it was, it was a shock, it was a really good Highlight and underscore For me, the detox should be slow and boring and we don't get shortcuts without consequences. For sure, yeah.

40:14 - Anna Esparham

I had a, I think I had a house fire once and I had a lot of, lung issues and they found, just a lot of chemicals and stuff from the fire in the, in the system. And so I was seeing someone too, and they had put me on a detox protocol of Iv glutathione and all of this amino acid mitochondrial kind of detox stuff with like pectin and other,

40:37 - Julie Michelson

Hello.

40:44 - Anna Esparham

yeah, and can't remember what else. I think it was just yes, maybe Pec, pect tool,

40:50 - Julie Michelson

Well, the,

40:50 - Anna Esparham

that's what it was.

40:50 - Julie Michelson

yeah, the Pect tool is,

40:51 - Anna Esparham

Yes, and um,

40:52 - Julie Michelson

is amazing.

40:52 - Anna Esparham

I remember even with that I got so sick, I remember I didn't have muscle wasting, but I was like, I felt so like like flue, like I had the flu.

41:04 - Julie Michelson

Well, yeah, yeah, you were hering and, and I see that. And again, this is where I'm so fortunate, because you know, you when I found out about detox pathways and before I knew anything about mine, right? I've like added lipoma glutathione to my regimen and actually would notice a difference. It actually does help me feel better, but I was always in the beginning of working with other clients really fascinated. And at 1st I was like this doesn't make sensee where sometimes just giving somebody like oral lipoma glute iion is too much, right?

41:42 - Julie Michelson

Like they just And so, yeah, we really like if you're doing anything, whether it's a protocol or just something you're doing to support your own pathways and you feel flu, you, you got to back off. It's, it's too much. And sometimes it's, yeah, and people can't use a binder. Like I used to think, well binders are. Great, They're helpful. Well, sometimes it's too much. Yeah,

42:09 - Anna Esparham

too much.

42:09 - Julie Michelson

yeah.

42:09 - Anna Esparham

Yeah, so I had to back way off. Yeah, I had to do it way, way slower and just kind of let my body take and I did later on. I also did a lot with my, like intuitive healing and kind of did it with my like spiritual elements to help do it a lot more slowly and a little bit more gentle for me. So That seemed to work pretty well. Okay, well, tell us how you're helping people and, and what you're doing now and um, a little bit more about you.

42:41 - Julie Michelson

Obviously, Shocker, this is my passion, you know. Wanting to spread the word and, you know, hoping for in our lifetime change of conversation, right? I just Look forward to the day where nobody is ever told they can't heal from stuff that we know they can heal from You know, I joke, I'm like I used to think I was smart and it took me, you know, eleven years to try to find a different approach. And so that's the podcast you mentioned inspired living with auto immunity. That's why we do it right.

43:19 - Julie Michelson

Have these conversations so that people can hear and connect with my guests and their journeys. And so that's that piece. I have my coaching business, which is Julie Michaelson Coaching. We really focus on high achievers, people that want Like high touch. All the things they told us not to do in coaching school, I do in that programm with my one on one clients. These are often, you know, people who are on the go, have multiple businesses and just are like, No, I'm not going to decline, you know, I'm not accepting that.

44:00 - Julie Michelson

You know, maybe they don't cook or Ma, you know, just individualizing plans so that people can achieve that lifestyle change. And so that's lots of fun and it's really unique. It includes all the labs we talked about and more, which is kind of unusual for a coaching program, but I'm blessed to be able to offer that. And those are things I used to add later, you know, there's certain things we all know we need to do and help people do. And then it used to be like, well, if their needle wasn't moving enough, we'd add more labs, and now I'm like, now we're going to get all the data up front so that we can get progress as quickly as possible.

44:41 - Julie Michelson

Possible for people. It's me. You kind of have me in your pocket to travel through life with you and help you figure it out. All the labs and then uniquely also it includes a functional medicine physician because I have found that often Hence your podcasts, you know, working a lot with women and working a lot with women with hormone challenges who don't have a good Dr., and they're not well supported, and it's such an important piece of healing, you know, and other deficits. And so I'd love that, just that team approach.

45:19 - Julie Michelson

I have a great doc I work with and bring him on board and he's, he's, I have his ear so, you know, my clients get him through their coaching journey, which is wonderful. And that's, you know, evolved over time, right? It used to be referring and this and that and I'm like, okay, this is what works the best and this is how we get the best results. So that's Julie Michaelson coaching, and then I have my new adventure with said physician. We have these conversations and people are like, Well, I want, I want that lab or How does my sister get that lab?

45:57 - Julie Michelson

So we've just launched Navigate Wellness, it's the new baby. You can go online and order functional medicine panels, deep dive panels, toxin panels, food sensitivity panels. That vibrant panel, it's a customized panel that hass that full cardiac panel in it. And lipid panel in it. And so because Pe, like we should have access to our own health information I remember on my journey because again we do what we know, right? I, I would ask my, my Gp who I referred to before, like oh, when I found out about a full thyroid panel, I wrote down like what's in it?

46:37 - Julie Michelson

And I brought it to her and I said, can you, can you order this for me? And she was great, she was like sure. Didn't know what to do with the results when they came in. But it was just hard for me to access those functional medicine labs. And so we've got the labs and we've got the high quality supplements that are trustworthy, ship direct from the companies, you know, no counterfeit, no Amazon type stuff. So that people can just access the things that'll support their health. So it's a baby company.

47:11 - Julie Michelson

We'll be adding programs and things like that to it, but for now, it's just a way for people to get their power back, right? This is why you do it. You have power in your eye, have a program, take your power back. It's all about just giving people the tools to up level.

47:30 - Anna Esparham

I love that and it's, that's, navigate wellness, is it? Navigate wellness,

47:35 - Julie Michelson

It's Navigate Wellness Health.

47:36 - Anna Esparham

okay.

47:38 - Julie Michelson

is the website and you can get to the store from there or navigate Wellness Store. If you don't even want to be bothered and you want to go straight to the store,

47:45 - Anna Esparham

Oh, just go. Okay,

47:46 - Julie Michelson

yeah,

47:46 - Anna Esparham

yeah.

47:46 - Julie Michelson

just go. That's fine too.

47:47 - Anna Esparham

Oh cool,

47:48 - Julie Michelson

It's all good.

47:48 - Anna Esparham

okay, great, yeah, I'm just looking at it, I love it. And where else can people find you or how can people find you? Would you tell them? And then I can also let them know. We'll put that in the podcast. Details and show notes.

48:03 - Julie Michelson

Sure my best shortcut to find me in all the places is Jm dot coach. And that will link you. Then you can choose website, social, navigate, wellness. It just is easy. I like easy.

48:19 - Anna Esparham

Oh, perfect. Oh yeah, cause that has everything there. Oh, got it.

48:22 - Julie Michelson

Yep,

48:23 - Anna Esparham

okay, I see it.

48:23 - Julie Michelson

yeah, so depending on, you know, what they want,

48:26 - Anna Esparham

Hey.

48:27 - Julie Michelson

you know, and I, I love supporting people. So if you're somebody who's interested in your Le, I want a coach in my pocket, hop on the website and, and book a call and we'll hop on Zoom and we'll chat.

48:41 - Anna Esparham

Yeah, it's life changing. Clearly we've both been through it.

48:43 - Julie Michelson

Yes, yes, yeah.

48:45 - Anna Esparham

Well, thank you so much for being on the show and again, I'll have that for everyone. I have all of her link so you can find her and check her out, on the podcast details and the show notes, as well as on our social media when we're marketing it, for the week and um, any last words, I'm not putting you on the spot, but just making sure we covered everything you wanted to cover today.

49:09 - Julie Michelson

You know, I, I spoke about like the obvious basics your audience already knows because they're your audience, but Spiritual energetic healing. Essential. And so you can't just and joy and stress management and mindset, like you can't just do those physical things. Expect the results that, that we get because we are whole people and so, but we don't have 5 h for the conversation and, and they don't need to hear that from me because I know they know, but I just want to reiterate that it's essential and, and what happens with so many of us as We're struggling with chronic illness as life gets smaller and smaller like it did for me and we, who thinks about joy at that point?

50:04 - Julie Michelson

You're getting through your day, but building that joy back in your life is essential. Silver healing.

50:11 - Anna Esparham

It's a funny because um, this is still I, I still have to work even though I am certified and, you know, clairvoyant healing and different intuitive healing methods and the medical intuitive and all of that. It's, I mean, I still have to get help in the spiritual energetic piece because it's just so big. It's such a big piece for my healing. It was the biggest and strongest piece for me, as I had discussed on your podcast. And it's funny because um, a week ago on Friday, I always get these like Heb Gds and I, I don't know how to call it, but I just get this like feeling and it's not a physical necessarily feeling more maybe an emotional, spiritual feeling and I can't quite pinpoint it and I'll meditate and I'm, I'm still got this like block, right?

50:57 - Anna Esparham

And finally my friend, she's a medical intuitive, she came over today and she's a Dr., too, and she goes, yeah, you probably need a little treatment, don't you? I say, yeah, I've got like something going on here on my Could you, could you help me? And she goes, yeah, she just takes a minute and she's like, okay, yeah, you know, you've got some deep grief. I said, Yeah, I know, I'm just trying to figure out where the freaking deep grief is,

51:22 - Julie Michelson

Yes.

51:23 - Anna Esparham

from where does it come, Trying to work through it. I've been trying to work through it and it's sometimes hard to do it for yourself, so you always need help, you do needed help for this stuff.

51:35 - Julie Michelson

Absolutely. And we're never done like that was the part we are, you know, we're like onions. I had somebody, not even not a client.

51:44 - Anna Esparham

Ohh.

51:44 - Julie Michelson

I was talking to yesterday and she was, you know, sharing about, she just had this experience of, she was divorced years ago, thought she processed through all the stuff and it just came up like bigger and more painful than ever and she's like, I don't understand and I'm like, well, you weren't ready yet. Les Another layer, it's another level. And we all need that support and stuff's always changing. So you know, you, you sound very human is what that this is to me,

52:13 - Anna Esparham

in life is stressful It's just how it is.

52:16 - Julie Michelson

right? Like

52:19 - Anna Esparham

I mean I and I do, I do it every day, I work on myself every day and I still, I still need help.

52:25 - Julie Michelson

Well, and what did they say? Don't trust a coach who doesn't have a coach, right? So. You know, that's, that's the whole thing is we, we live on a connected planet and, and in universe even, and so always I love that. You said, you know, you're always learning and growing and, and working on yourself. So it's a, it's a process, so all of health is always a process.

52:52 - Anna Esparham

That's such, yeah, that's such a good takeaway, especially at the very end. Thank you so much, Julie, I was so happy to finally have you on our show. We'll have to do some more, we'll have to do some more, like deep dives maybe into like functional medicine and stuff that would be so fun.

53:06 - Julie Michelson

It would be so fun. I I'm like,

53:08 - Anna Esparham

yeah,

53:08 - Julie Michelson

Oh, I talk to your husband too.

53:08 - Anna Esparham

he is so smart, this guy, he knows more about chemistry and physiology than I and that I do. He did the, I don't know if you know this, but he was one of like just a couple people and he was actually the 1st one who did the Masters in a Integrated and Functional Dietetics because it was at the academic medical center where we used to work at and then. And then eventually the corporation of the medical center shut it down because they weren't that interested in integrating functional medicine.

53:41 - Anna Esparham

It's a whole, the conversation.

53:43 - Julie Michelson

Well, it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't. That's a whole nother conversation I'll filter doesn't support their agenda.

53:46 - Anna Esparham

It was good for marketing, but yes, otherwise it doesn't support the agenda.

53:50 - Julie Michelson

We'll leave it at that. Yes.

53:57 - Anna Esparham

The correct, good way to put it at the very end, okay, well, thank you so much, I love having you on the show and we'll do this again.

54:04 - Julie Michelson

Yes, and you'll come back online as well,

54:07 - Anna Esparham

Thank you,

54:07 - Julie Michelson

so thank you for having me.