Whole-istic Mental Health with Charlotte Herring

Welcome back to the Doctor Body Mind Soul podcast. My name is Dr. Jude. And this is a podcast, which explores how we can integrate modern medicine and alternative therapies to help you get the holistic health care that you deserve. I will be speaking to healers and seekers, researchers and authors who will share their experiences and the evidence to help guide us all to Holistic Health. Let's do this.

So today, I want you to meet Charlotte, a nurse for over 10 years working with mental illness across the United States, who is now a holistic health coach, passionate about using yoga, meditation, visualization and Reiki to support her clients in a way that she just couldn't do in her previous role. So Charlotte, can you outline what it was that you thought was still missing in the system you found yourself working within? And what it was it really forced you to change your whole approach?

Yeah, definitely. So you know, I think I had a really unique kind of clinical background that I was able to bring into my clinical decision making. So I trained in New York City and San Francisco, so two major hospital systems that I worked in, on kind of opposite coasts of the United States. And I've also done a lot of work abroad. So I've worked in Greece, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Honduras, Peru, and it really gave me this kind of, again, this is very all encompassing, look at different healthcare systems, at different ways that different cultures looked at integrative health care, mental health, what have you. And so, you know, I did my nursing degree at NYU, worked there, and then did my Master's at University of California, San Francisco. And then when I went abroad, you know, my initial goal was to go for like a year, get some clinical experience, and then come back to the US and go back to my normal nine to five Austin office job. One year of traveling became five years of traveling and as it sometimes does, and in that, you know, I think about six months in, I kind of made the decision that I was never going to go back to a normal, quote, unquote, clinic job. I just, it felt as though at least in the American system in which I worked, it was heavily pharmaceutical based, and particularly in mental health care, it felt a lot like we were just throwing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, things like Prozac at the wall and just seeing if they stuck, and that there wasn't really a lot of other modalities that we were bringing, to kind of augment that and help our patients. And I'm also personally someone who has anxiety and who had also experienced the American healthcare system on the flip side, as a consumer and as a patient. And so you know, I think, kind of coming to that realization that I felt like the way that we handled and managed mental health care was very myopic, and very one track in terms of pharmaceuticals. I think that was the point that I kind of said, you know, what, enough, I am not going back to a regular nine to five job. And I also want to start looking at all of these complementary and alternative measures, things like mindfulness, things like mindset, work, visualization, supplements, you know, all of these things that I had basically been told that my training was kind of hocus pocus and was stuff that should kind of be like put off to the side. And I really witnessed my own healing once I implemented these integrative practices into my own care. And, you know, that just really propelled me forward even more with like more vigor, to move into a place where I was providing this to patients.

So I feel so much resonance in our, in our journeys, you know, from, you know, this experience of our own personal struggles, our experience with travel, and just being able to experience and be exposed to different perspectives on how the body and illness is viewed to then really allow us to question you know, our own presumptions and prejudices, perhaps, that we had, unknowingly internalized. And then I guess, you know, there comes a point where you, when you experience it yourself, as the patient, you sort of really start to understand where perhaps our approaches falling short, and really want to promote an advocate a different way. So I really hear so much resonance. And I'm just really curious. I mean, you're, you're telling me about, you know, all all of these different healing modalities that you use and you tried in your own personal experience. What do you think, if you can really sum up is what they're driving driving us toward is the red thread. Can you expand on knot. Can you speak to that?

Yeah, absolutely. So I would say that the overarching umbrella of most of the coaching work that I do so just to back up a little bit, so you know, I had kind of clinic jobs working as a nurse practitioner felt like I wasn't able to bring a lot of these integrative practices. So again, mind body connection practices, mindfulness, guided imagery, or visualization is another word for that, you know, Reiki, or energy work all of these things. And I'll go into them a little bit more in detail in a second. But I really felt like there wasn't space in my Western model, clinical practice to bring those in. And so I took sort of a hard left in 2020, and started doing holistic health coaching, and my holistic health coaching, I'm a certified health coach, but it also draws on a lot of data that's coming out of the center for mind body medicine, which is based out of the United States, I did a training with them in 2017, that really kind of blew my mind. So take, that they've got a lot of research that they've been putting out. And I believe, I'll double check this, there's over 200, evidence based clinical reviews of this model that they utilize bringing Mind Body skills groups, eight week skills groups, to patients, these are weekly groups that are about two hours long, that include a community aspect with like a very intense check in and kind of a support process. But then also, each session has a didactic portion where you talk about a different mind body skill. So things again, different types of meditation being one of the week's activities, mind mindful eating, and the importance of nutrition in our right in our mind, body health, our mental health, and that mind body connection, you know, so different kind of themes for each week. But the overarching work, everything that I do, the main point is to re strengthen that connection that we have between the mind and the body. I think in our western world, particularly in our healthcare system. Ironically, we have been taught to completely dissociate and disconnect oftentimes from what's happening in our bodies. And our bodies are unbelievable bases of wisdom. You know, you're asking for a couple of different like, hit key points that I talked about. One thing I talked about all the time is the brain gut connection, or the mind gut connection, the importance of our GI system on our mental health that we produce neurotransmitters that are important for brain development and mood in the gut. You know, and that's a really important thing that a lot of times people are like, Wait, I've got a second brain that exists in my gut, that's just as important right, as the mind brain that we've been taught is kind of the thing running the show. So again, reconnecting and the other big piece, I would say, in my coaching work is helping to reconnect you with your thoughts, feelings, and emotions in real time, and to be able to tag or name or identify or just observe what's happening in your body. So a practice that I love to do with clients is to ask when they're saying, you know, I'm feeling shame about this thing we're talking about, to ask. Shame is something that oftentimes in our culture, we're taught to push away, push down and dissociate and get away from but alternatively, where do you feel that sensation in your body? What does it feel like? Does it have a quality? Is it hot? Is it cold? Does it feel tingly are painful, and doing that kind of work? That's basically what we're doing is we're embodying those emotions, and we're starting to just bring more awareness to what's coming up in the body. So I would say that's kind of the overarching umbrella. Does that answer the question?

Yes, it does. I'm really hearing that all these practices are really allowing an opportunity for us to deeply get to know ourselves. Get to know what our emotions actually feel like to learn to name them. And when we actually are able to process them, by being with them, naming them speaking up from them, they are able to move through us rather than get stuck in us. And from Mind Body research, but also from other health, health care perspectives and practices that I think we've both experienced in Peru South America, for example. It's very that's how disease is formed within the body when we actually keep our emotions stuck, or try to bury them as you're saying shame being an emotion that we by its very nature want to hide want to ignore. And healthcare systems or health systems or health beliefs in other parts of the world very much highlights the destructive nature of actually doing this, you know, ignoring, ignoring the He's difficult emotions. And so I'm really hearing that your work is helping us process our emotions and and the importance of that not only in our mental health, but also the implications of that on our physical health.

Absolutely, you know, I'd say that awareness is the first step to everything right and becoming aware of where we're at. So again, looking at holistic health coaching, if we think of medication as just one tiny slice of the pie, that makes up our entire kind of mental health treatment plan, the different options, we have to bring optimal wellness to our lives. I think the first step in any coaching or integrative health care work, I really do think it's just becoming aware of what the current state of affairs is, right? So what is your diet? Like? What is your stress management? Like? What is your sleep? Like? What are your relationships, like, looking at things, you know, that are maybe in some communities a bit taboo, but I think that are important as well, looking at things like sexual health, looking at your physical health? Are you going to the doctor, are you, you know, getting your annual checkups all of those things? And I think, when we first sit down together, that's really what we do we get kind of a blueprint of where things are at now. And then we look at and we create a roadmap for change, where would we like to go? And that's where guided imagery or visualization comes in. So where is the disconnect between where you are now, and where you'd like to go in terms of your health? Because that's something that I do I love that you tagged on that the different cultures in different places that you and I both have worked. I think in many other cultures, the idea of mindset, and the idea that our mindset directly impacts, the development of dis ease or disease is something that, you know, in the western model, we were so hyper individualistic, we oftentimes don't think that that's that's the case. And so yeah, coming back to this place of tagging, where you are now where you'd like to go in terms of your health goals, and then basically, a lot of the work we do is connecting those two and saying, how do we get from here to here? How do we build you a toolbox of mental health tools that will help you feel supported as you move through creating a life that is more in alignment with where you see yourself, and again, at that's the point that we utilize different skills, you know, guided imagery being one of them, breathwork, being one of them, working through self limiting beliefs and our stories, that's a big thing we do as well is talking about, all of us have these subconscious operating system, I call them stories that sort of are running on autopilot, and our subconscious, and being able to identify those, and work through those because I think, again, working through things that are hard rather than over them or under them, I think that that's where we have these profound breakthroughs. And again, that's where we can promote optimal wellness by moving through these things.

And you're really getting to the root of what the problems actually are, you know, what is, you know, it is, so often our subconscious self beliefs that are driving our behaviors, so it's going to then drive our habits, and then our habits are going to impact our choices, and our choices are going to impact our, you know, our lifestyle and our, our lifestyle that impacts our physical health. You know, it's it's all interconnected. It's all interlinked. So actually by getting to the root of what's actually driving these decisions, and our behaviors, and our our habits is just so important.

I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Bruce Lipton, but he is a fantastic molecular biologist, who has a couple of good books that I'm reading right now The Biology of Belief. And this idea that for the longest time, we thought of that basically, our genes dictated the environment, and that our genetic blueprint was basically what we were born with, if it wasn't great, that was sort of that was what we got, and that the environment didn't really have an effect on our genes. And in the Biology of Belief really eloquently. And I'm only about halfway through it. But Bruce Lipton talks about how actually there's a bilateral exchange of information in our our environment, profoundly impacts our genetic expression. And through that, that sounds like such like, you know, if you're listening to this, and you're not somebody who's invalid, you're like, so who cares? Like, it doesn't matter. But the implications of that has are profound. Because what it basically says is that the way that we show up in our day to day world, the food we eat, the company that we keep, right our relationships, the place that we live in the amount of environmental exposure to toxins that we are surrounded by, that all of those things have just as much impact if not more than the actual DNA and the genetic kind of makeup that we were born with. And so again, I think it really, it turns the head on a lot of kind of the psychiatric idea that you are just a product of whatever your genetic makeup is. So you know, again, I'll go back to a personal example, because that's the easiest for me to relate to, as someone with anxiety when I got diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, you know, in the 2000s. At that point, it was kind of like, oh, well, you have anxiety, because that's what your genes say. So like, here, it takes a medication, because that will help fix the genetic abnormality, essentially, that is causing this anxiety. And the beautiful part of epigenetics are the idea that our environment has a direct impact on our genes, is that all of the things that I do in my day to day life, I'm not deficient for having anxiety, that those things have a massive component to how my anxiety shows up and how well it's managed. So that by doing things like taking care of my gut, exercising, meditating, doing all of these things that have incredible bodies of evidence, we're just not hearing about them as much, because they're not found funded by drug trials or drug money, that I can profoundly impact my own mental health. And therefore, again, you know, with anxiety, for example, that so many things we can do, that are lifestyle based, will have a profound impact on that diagnosis. So

it's so much more empowering to frame it. That way, not only is it founded, and in some way acknowledged in our training, as I remember reading, you know, I know that I've read in many a medical textbook, the importance of environment, and environmental factors that impact impact our health. However, when it's framed with the importance that it really has, and that we actually have so much more control over the environment, not just because it's not, we're not just talking about our environment being for example, like where we live, and even necessarily the food we eat, but just the environment that we place within our own, almost like I call it sort of an epigenetic soup like so as you say, like, you know, through the relationships, we have the thoughts that we want to invite in, the thoughts that we decide to engage with, and the thoughts that we don't decide to engage with all of these micro decisions that we make are creating internal environment that our genes then respond to. And it's these actually, it's this, which is so key and can be the difference between someone triggering a genetic predisposition predisposition that they may well have been born with just someone that doesn't. And we have a lot more control than I think we've ever been told or perhaps been aware of, over these micro decisions. And it's this sort of thing that holistic health coaches really can support you in discovering, and also feeling empowerment over. And I really love to this is why I have holistic, and also other coaches on the witchy woman platform, for example, because it they really can support you making fundamental decisions, which really have a profound can have a profound impact on your physical, emotional and mental health. I mean, even separating, it frustrates me because it's the whole the whole thing is, you know, it's all on one thing.

I am on my podcast, I just I have an episode that went out today where there's really great integrative occupational therapists that I have worked with in the past. She calls it Whole Enchilada living. And I love that it's like this idea that it's the whole enchilada. It's that mind body spirit soul, that, again, we're integrating all of this, and I really, I enjoy that term. But yeah, I mean, to your point was what you were saying about that epigenetic soup that we are creating internally, you know, I think, again, there's not a lot of emphasis on the importance and the power that your thoughts have on your biology. And I give the example that when you are thinking about something that's potentially stressful your body starts to prepare about for that. So thinking about, let's say, a deadline or a massive presentation that you have, that oftentimes you can watch your own body having a physiologic response, despite no external cues, right, you're thinking about something that is going to happen and your body starts to respond in pain. So the presentation you have tomorrow is making your palms sweat today. It's raising the cortisol levels that are in your body beforehand. It's that's something that your mind is doing in the absence of external stimulus. And so another example I oftentimes use in guided imagery or in visualization work well do different exercises in my coaching. And one thing that we oftentimes do is just a short exercise we can even do right now on the podcast is closing your eyes and imagining that you're standing in a kitchen with a lemon. And you cut that lemon. And imagine taking a wedge of the lemon and bringing it to your mouth and taking a bite. And imagine biting into the lemon. And can you feel yourself start to salivate more your mouth start to pucker, right, our body is having a physiologic response to an imaginary lemon. And I think that that's just a really kind of silly but profound example of the impact that our thoughts have on our physiology immediately. So just I wanted to tag that because it's kind of a fun, fun example.

It's a really fun example. And I'm just just closing my eyes and like going into and imagine that lemon and I'm just starting to salivate. And it's, it's such a, it's such a quick way to, to just bring attention to that mind body connection that is so immediate, as you say, and just so by the important. Now you have just mentioned that you have launched your own podcast. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? This is so exciting.

Yeah, thank you. I feel so great to have it finally out there. You know, talking about mindset, I actually have no problem sharing this, I, I've been wanting to do this podcast for over here. And I think just I had to have a mindset shift before I actually just put it out there I was, there was a lot of fear around. I speak very candidly on my podcast, it's more conversational style interviews with other integrative health care workers or people who are bringing integrative health care into their practices. And so, you know, in those conversations, sometimes, you know, vulnerable things come up, were very honest. You know, sometimes I swear, like things that bringing that to the table, and to a larger audience was quite frightening. And now once it's out, right, there's been a mindset shift that I'm just so excited to have it out. And I don't know, anyone listening can probably relate to this idea of having this project that sits on the backburner for forever. And then you finally get it out. And you're like, Oh, it feels so nice to be finally doing that. So yeah, so once you see it as a mental health podcast that focuses on looking at integrative healthcare in a balanced light, it started on the from the basis that as a Western trained nurse practitioner, I was constantly having conversations with patients and with clients, in my coaching practice, that we're really looking for providers of care, whether that be coaches, therapists, doctors and your nurses, or what have you, who were open minded in regards to looking at healthcare in that both and model that idea that Western health care is not the end all be all, and neither are just one is one branch of complementary or alternative medicine, really, what we want to do is we want to bring the wisdom that's been accumulated from all of that, and be able to synthesize that and make the best recommendations for our patients. And when I had those conversations with patients and clients, a lot of them were like, I don't know, any doctors or nurses or providers are like, I don't know any other providers who are really open to you know, we talk about on my podcast, things like expanding altered states of consciousness that includes things like plant medicine, or psychedelics or again, breathwork things that can induce these states. And when I would talk about, you know, for example, those things with clients, they're like, I don't know any other providers who are open to that, you know, I talked to my doctor about adding CBD to my regimen. And they told me that I shouldn't do that, even though it's legal, and some that you know, things that we've seen medical benefit. And so I sat on that. And the more and more and more I heard from patients and clients that they were looking to be connected with more integrative providers, the more kind of I started to get this fire to say, let's start building a community of integrative providers and bringing them on the podcast and having these open dialogues and promoting their content, and also just starting to have these discussions. I call them like behind the veil discussions, where we're talking about how to show up better for our clients, because we sort of feel like the model that we were trained in, fell short and being able to give us integrative tools. And so yeah, so that's really the podcast. It's in its first season, I had, again, an episode come out today that talks about mindfulness in our personal and professional lives, but you know, different episodes touch on different topics related to mindset work related to embodiment, and that mind body connection, burnouts. So all sorts of really interesting things we talked about over there.

That's so exciting and also just so exciting to hear people talk but in a way that just feels so resonant to my own experience, and also sort of speaks to wanting to integrate both like, you know, the western approach with other approaches, you know, and it's bringing, it's been all together. So I love I love hearing that there's people like you in the world, and you're connecting with even more people who are feeling the same way. And I think that there is does seem to be a movement at the moment, both in terms of what patients are hoping to receive, and both from practitioners who are wanting to offer more to their, to their patients. So it's really lovely to hear that and well done. And is there any, is there any other projects that you have that you would like our listeners to know about today? Because I know Charlotte, you work with clients on a one to one basis with your holistic health care practice? Do you have anything coming up that you would like us to know about?

Yeah, definitely. So my current offerings apart from the podcast, so I do offer one on one corporate or group mind body connection coaching. So again, coaching utilizes techniques like breathwork, guided imagery, belief work, exploring elevated states of consciousness, etc, etc, we've got a whole menu of things that we choose from. And basically, we use concepts that are drawn from neuroscience, from epi genetics, from traditional healing practices, to again, do that assessment of where you're at now, and where you'd like to go in one on one coaching that shows up as a very personalized, tailored plan. In corporate coaching, oftentimes, what I've done is I brought one skill or one set of skills to a group to help with productivity help with burnout prevention. I'm currently working with a group of Social Work, students who are practice, they're doing boards preparation. And so I partnered with a boards preparation company to provide supplementary Mind Body coaching. So again, if you're feeling like you get a lot of test, taking anxiety, you know, things of that nature, that we can work together to help with belief, work and mindset work ahead of your board exam, so that you can walk in feeling kind of, again, that holistic care as you move forward. And then also I do group coaching, my main offering and group coaching are these Mind Body skills groups that I briefly alluded to earlier. So again, these groups have over 20 years of evidence supporting their use to do things like reduce stress, anxiety, they're oftentimes utilized in major hospital systems in the US as ways to prevent burnout for clinicians, actually. So that was I got trained through the VA hospital, it was a funded training, because we then brought these groups to employees at the VA to help reduce burnout and help improve job satisfaction. So again, the evidence for these groups spans everything from job satisfaction improvement, to reducing stress and anxiety, there eight week group, I am currently recruiting for a group that's going to start sometime in probably early November. And these are small groups, no more than eight people Max, I like to keep about six to eight. And they're really supportive. I've done a lot of group work in my own personal healing, as well as as a clinician facilitating groups. And I've got to be honest, these are my favorite to lead because they do they foster such a connection. And in every group I've ever led, the group has stayed together, we've done reunions, they've the new friends have been made, there's been a lot of like, beautiful connecting. And I think that connection and community is something that every single toolbox that we discuss in coaching doesn't matter who you are that community and connection. That is one of the main things that we want to put into that toolbox and foster because community and connection help reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, burnout, there's a lot of research there. So really liked the groups for that communal aspect. And then the other thing that I do, and again, there's some questions around the legality of this. So right now I do plant medicine, integration coaching, so not working with people during plant medicine ceremonies, but working with before and after to do coaching around before doing plant medicine, ceremonies and things of that nature, doing journaling, reflection, work and coaching on what the intention is moving into that ceremony. And then afterwards, providing post integration coaching to help unpack what you learned during your experience. And by kind of bolstering or kind of book ending your plant medicine ceremony with coaching, I think it's been I've seen really positive outcomes and it's something that that's recommended that we offer additional support around those types of ceremonies. So those are the four types of coaching I offer right now. And you know, if you're interested in working together and none of those sound exactly what's up your alley, I'm also a super flexible and open to whatever so. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now with my coaching

I love hearing all of that, Charlotte. And just for the listeners to know, I'll put all the details of Charlotte's website and her Instagram, on the show notes so that you can get in touch with her really easily just through a little click. So I would fully recommend check checking her out. And thank you so much, Charlotte, for your time for your wisdom for your hard work getting to you to a point where you're now sharing this and supporting so many people in the practice that you are now building. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much, dude. And I'm just I'm so excited to see what witchy women is doing and Dr. Mind Body Soul, I think that the work you're doing is, you know, obviously very resonant, as we said, and I just I'm excited to see what happens next. So thank you.