Vital Mind Stories: Christine’s Gut Healing Journey

We know that the brain impacts the gut and that the gut affects the brain. We also know that diet can take us a long way towards healing even long-term gut damage. But what if diet isn’t enough?

A homeopath, herself, Christine was surprised and delighted at the unexpected side effect of beginning a daily kundalini meditation as a part of Vital Mind Reset—resolution of chronic constipation!

Listen in on our chat below, and then learn more about Christine here.

Full Video Transcript

Dr. Kelly Brogan:  Hi, everyone. So I have the pleasure of being here today with Christine. She is a Vital Mind Reset course completer. And well beyond that, she is a classically trained homeopath. And I’m so excited to speak with her really about the surprising, perhaps, gains that she achieved through the course.

A lot of my focus has been on reframing the mental health experience. And the kinds of scientific papers that I like to bring to attention really tell a different story than we’ve been told, namely that the mind and the body are not this sort of strange, different compartments. In fact, there is an interconnectedness between many different systems, and also between the material and etheric elements of our being that we’re beginning to appreciate now.

So, I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about what brought this kind of work to your attention, why it essentially resonated because, certainly, not a typical patient, and you’re also not a typical program completer. And so I’d love to sort of talk about what you got out of it.

Christine:  Sure! I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

So, as you’ve said, I’m a homeopath. And I love homeopathy. I’ve been following your work for some years now and have been excited every time one of your blog posts comes into my inbox because I know that I’m going to learn something first of all.

And I just love that we share this common belief that when we get to the root problem of someone’s disease and suffering, it can be healed. There are lots of different ways to go about that. I certainly don’t believe that healing is a straight path or that everyone needs to share the same path by any stretch.

But when the Vital Mind Reset program became available, I didn’t even really know why I needed to do this program because I’m not a psychiatric patient and I’m not on medication. But something in my soul just screamed, “Go!”

And so, I am at a point in my life where when that happens, I just listen and I go!

And so, I didn’t even know really a ton of what the program was about. I knew a little bit. I knew that there was a nutrition piece. And I knew that—well, I guess that’s really most of what I knew, the nutrition piece. And so I was just like, “Okay, let’s dive in and go!”

And the truth is that I have been mostly eating the way that your program sets out by and large. I mean, I knew going to the first couple of modules that the odd ice cream that I enjoyed with my family and the bag of Ruffles that got busted open, they were going to need to go. I knew that. But by and large, my family eats pretty much that way. And years ago, we had called our home a product that I knew weren’t serving.

So, those weren’t the huge bits for me that were new. But the goals, the goals and the meditations, ahhh… The meditations, I didn’t even know meditation was part of the program. But that must have been the bit that my soul knew was there, and I’m so grateful because the one that has truly become my best friend is the removing of fear of the future meditation. That, of course, as you know is the very first one that gets taught in the program.

And I love how you say that not everybody maybe has five minutes, but everybody’s got three minutes. And I thought, “That’s so true.” I mean, we all have three minutes. So, I diligently set my alarm a little bit earlier, I sat up in bed and I did the meditations. And something very, very profound occurred for me. It was as if the anxiety that I would experience—I do experience some anxiety from time to time for sure. It was as if that meditation just seemed to melt it away.

I could more easily get back to my body. I could connect with my breath. I could be reminded that all is well, I am safe, life is okay. And it just started to trickle out into my life in so many ways.

I’m going to say that, as I’m sure you know, when we are balanced, and we live with other people, there’s a bit of a ripple effect that happens. And because we’re all connected, and we’re all one, when I’m feeling good, others are around, vice versa.

And another side benefit which I know doesn’t always get a lot of air time, but I’m all about the bowel movement. I know my four children, if they ever watch this, they’re going to be horrified. But there’s a lot of poop topic that goes on around my house because it’s so important. It’s so important.

So, one of the other things that I noticed as a result of the daily meditations was—you and I were joking about this earlier, but I’m this gold medal pooper.

Dr. Kelly: That’s so great.

Christine: And I know, it’s probably TMI for a lot of people. But it’s so great! It’s so great. And as I’ve said, I haven’t really changed a lot of other stuff. I mean, I cleaned up my eating a little bit. But I don’t know if the degree to which I had cleaned up my eating really should’ve resulted in the increased gold medal status or what was going on in the GI…

Dr. Kelly: You are so, so amazing. I love it! I mean, truly, it’s the most powerful sort of testament to what science is showing us, which is that this gut-brain bidirectionality is real. So obviously, it’s almost easy to focus on nutrition as a way to impact the rest of your system, whether it’s your immune system, endocrine system, or your neuronal function, sort of the gut to the brain direction.

To many holistic folks, it makes a lot of sense. But I think it’s hard for a lot of us to really, really believe that the stress response to the gut is also a direction.

Christine: Absolutely!

Dr. Kelly: Even though we know that because if you’ve ever had performance anxiety or something, or you could have diarrhea—we know that it’s true, but do we really think that we can heal our gut through meditation? I know that I was very skeptical for a long time. And so you’re living proof that it’s such a powerful top-down intervention.

And also, proof that three minutes—I mean, this is obviously why I am a Kundalini yoga zealot. It’s three minutes of an investment. Obviously, we are accessing an ancient technology that has survived thousands of years for a reason. I like to joke that, probably, we’re not going to be prescribing Prozac and doing open heart surgery in 7000 years. And so for it to have survived to make it into our hands in 2017, obviously, this is a powerful intervention—and just three minutes a day.

I like to think—and I don’t know if you would agree—that it’s the daily commitment. Maybe even more than what is going on in that daily commitment, it’s the daily commitment that sends your entire system a signal of safety because you could pause every single day even if it’s for that short bit of time. Maybe that’s why you’ve enjoyed these dividends.

Christine: And it’s only three minutes. I mean, there were days when I was doing this three or four or five times a day. So it’s not like it’s this enormous commitment of time.

Or it’s not like you have to be in any particular place or you need particular equipment. I could do it while I was waiting for my daughter in my van while she had her singing lesson. I could go upstairs to my bedroom and do it for three minutes. I could do it in the forest. I spend a lot of time in the forest.

Dr. Kelly: That’s beautiful!

Christine: That’s another place where I gain deep, deep connection to myself and all that is. And I have a dog who gets impatient if he doesn’t get his walk to the forest every day.

So, it didn’t matter where I was. Those three minutes were doable. And they’re accessible for anyone and everyone. That’s the beautiful thing. Anybody can do this.

It’s truly just breathing. I don’t know, that hand posture, for me, I love the way you say that it sends signals of safety to the body and the soul and mind. For me, that has been so true, so true.

Dr. Kelly: And ultimately, maybe what we get to enjoy when we do commit to that is just a sense of being more ourselves. So you’re already on the path. You’re accessing deep levels of healing wisdom already. But perhaps just consistently sending that signal allows you to feel more free to be you, just to manifest you and get out of your own way sort of a thing.

Christine: Yes!

Dr. Kelly: It’s beautiful!

Christine: And ultimately, that’s why we’re here. It’s to be our full selves and to tap into why we’re here and to connect with our purpose here and how are we here to serve and what do we want to do, how do we want to be a spark here on the planet.

I think when we can do that, it’s beautiful!

Dr. Kelly: Absolutely! And listen, if you have a perfect poop while you’re doing it every day, even better! I’m telling you, that was literally my a-ha moment early on in my Hashimoto’s journey. I didn’t know as a woman—what was I, 30 or so at the time—that pooping once every two weeks wasn’t normal. I had no idea. I never thought about it. I was so unconscious of my body. It wasn’t even a consideration.

And so, when I engaged dietary change, which was my point of entry, and everything changed, and all of my inner workings came into alignment, it was a near religious experience for me because it converted me from conventional medicine to holistic medicine. So this is powerful, what you’re saying.

And everyone knows that it’s primary evidence that your body is healing, when you can engage this elimination in a healthful way.

Christine: Yes!

Dr. Kelly: So, I just love your story. I love your energy. And I’m so grateful that you had the courage and wherewithal to step up and talk about it because I think it is important to reframe healing as this web-like experience.

And when you make significant progress from a top-down level, it’s going to reverberate—not only all throughout yourself, but like we said, all throughout the rest of your life.

So, I want to thank you so much for sharing. And I’ll see you in the group!

Christine: Absolutely! My pleasure. Take care, Kelly. Bye!

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