Behind the Scenes of the making of HEAL

This season, we’ve gotten vulnerable and had the conversations that often get avoided. And we’re wrapping up season 2 in the same way. Dr. Sarah Marshall and I discuss our own healing journeys, the highlights of the season, and the incredible healing power of conversation and connection. This episode is hosted by our producer, Kendra Vicken.

Referenced in the Show:

• Mirror Neurons

• Epstein-Barr Virus

• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• Cytomegalovirus

• Neurologist who had a stroke, Jill Bolte Taylor

• Chef Grant Achatz’s story

• “Food that Grows” by Dr. Sarah Marshall and Dr. Tanda Cook

Sarah’s Bio

Dr. Sarah Marshall is an educator, speaker, and advocate for the holistic healthcare model. She currently resides in Salt Lake City, UT, and, when not practicing medicine, can be found traveling, skiing, hiking, running, sailing, and generally having the adventures of a lifetime. Read Dr. Marshall’s full bio.

Kendra’s Bio

Kendra is a marketing expert and artist based in Salt Lake City, UT. In addition to painting and the work she does for her wonderful clients, Kendra enjoys beekeeping, holding her chickens, cuddling her dogs, and adventuring with her husband and daughter. You can connect with Kendra here.

Full Transcript

Kendra Vicken: Welcome to HEAL.This season, we’ve gotten vulnerable and had the conversations that often get avoided. And we’re wrapping up season 2 in the same way. Dr. Sarah Marshall and I discuss our own healing journeys, the highlights of the season, and the incredible healing power of conversation and connection. I’m normally your producer, but today I’m your host too! I’m Kendra Vicken and this is HEAL. (music)

Kendra Vicken: Sarah it's the end of season two!

Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh my gosh. Here we are. It worked.  (Sarah laughs)

Kendra Vicken: Yeah.

We have two whole seasons. This is episode 26 plus two trailers and we'll be coming out with our third one soon. And man, we've been doing this for, for nine months now on our side,

Sarah Marshall, ND: I know. The audience has only had what? Since May 7th. So it's been about four months, I guess, five months, but, yeah, we started this venture in January, so it feels like a lot longer to nine months give birth to a baby, right?

Kendra Vicken: Yeah, exactly. It's it's here the baby is born. It's been, it's been awesome. And. Man, I love season one, but season two, we've gotten to do this awesome deep dive into some things that aren't really talked about very openly or very vulnerably very often.

I mean, we've talked about endometriosis and childbirth and race, and so many

other topics,

Sarah Marshall, ND: sexuality. Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: Yeah. What for you is like the standout moment of this season?

Sarah Marshall, ND: Oh man. it's I'm one hand I'm like, ah, it's this episode, but then I'm like, no, it's this one.

So like, there's been. There's been many, but like the one that's really hitting right now. And it's been one that we've gotten a lot of feedback about was the interview with Ed Kennedy. We got into healing, men, sex, and each other, and the incredible sharing that Ed did about his own life and his own experience of, you know, being in a court case, being accused of sexual assault and, you know, he was acquitted of that, but the experience of going through that two year process, and then how he's now incorporated that conversation of where he encourages men to confront where they might be the other half of the #metoo movement, like not from an accusatory standpoint, but from being willing to look and try it on such that then we can be whole and complete and that we can end that conversation, like, I didn't know that's where that conversation was going to go. I mean, a lot of these interviews are with people who I know and I know well, and there's a trajectory; there's a way that I have an intention for the interview, but what was really incredible with many of them was where we ended up was unpredictable, you know, Cory3wing Thorell with bliss and joy and you know, his incredible fever or passion of following your happiness and following your bliss and joy and how he challenged me right off the get go with, basically saying I don't like the word heal because it implies that we're broken and there's nothing wrong with us, and that we're perfect and complete and like tossing, you know, here's the whole premise of the podcast. Right. And my guest is like, no, I think we can do better than that. And then, you know, Dr. Wiles, Abrianne sharing her story of, you know, a second trimester miscarriage and the process she went through of grieving and confronting that and choosing to not do a D&C, which is the typical procedure.

And, you know, we just had so many people being so vulnerable and so willing to not just be the experts, but also share their stories and the things they've been through.

Kendra Vicken: Yeah, and

I mean, it's beautiful to see that vulnerability come out to play, because I remember a couple of these episodes, as your editor, I mean, I was kind of, I was almost kind of nervous about launching some of them and like these are touchy topics and people will have such strong opinions, but you being the brave person you are, and the point of the podcast not shying away from those types of conversations. We were able to get to a place of honesty that we don't actually see that often in our culture, people, even within friendships often don't want to talk about race relations or sexual assault or miscarriages.

And it's beautiful to talk about those things in a way that's safe and in a way that is vulnerable. And it's not coming from a place of trying to convince anyone to change their opinion or coming from a place of accusing anyone of anything. It's just from the heart. And as you know, as a listener to this, you know, I'm not a part of the recording of these.

I just edit them and they listen to them in that process. And there's something healing just about having those conversations. It's wild.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. And that's what I think is opening up that. At least we've been hearing from the feedback on the show is people saying what a difference. Whether they agree with the viewpoint or not, listening to it and having the conversation and looking at the things for themselves has made that difference.

Like, and I'll admit for me, I mean, we'll get into this more and more, but like this whole podcast start to finish has already been like massively healing, transformative, joyful, satisfactory, and totally effing confronting for me to do, like, I go into some of these conversations, like. "Okay. Yup! I totally got this!"

Particularly this season, the most challenging one for me was with Tango Towns and venturing into the conversation of the Black Lives Matter movement, which I feel so passionate for. And am also crystal clear. I am an ally and I don't know what it's been like for people. I-- there's no way I can. And, and I am not going to dilute the conversation by making comparatives of where I've dealt with, you know, issues of being a woman where I have, but that's a different subject. This is something in particular. And that conversation to have with Tango and where we got to of, you know, being an American and his commitment to stand for what's possible as an American man. I went through spaces in that interview.

And then how do I put that out there? And what is it going to stir up in the community? And, and like, trusting that, that, that edge of transformation and healing does come from where it's uncomfortable. I mean, I do know that physiologically, like I have a lot of experience and skill guiding my clients through those edges where they're like the, I don't like this, this doesn't feel like it's not even that doesn't feel good because ultimately I think actually when we listened to our wisdom, they know it is the right thing.

Like I'm never going to push somebody to do something that doesn't feel right to them, but it's certainly unfamiliar. And in, in the unfamiliar, it can be very uncomfortable and it pushes new buttons. And, you know, I'm a huge proponent that healing, you have to eventually go into the unknown. You have to leave the known world to really do that work. And these conversations are doing it too.

Kendra Vicken: Well, and imagine too, I mean, there's such a kind of healing that comes from listening to other people's experiences. You can't relate to, but I think about the other side of this too, being the side of people who hear these things and can relate to them  (Sarah: mhm)  and are hearing their story told by someone else, you know, for the first time, and they're really resonating with what someone has to say.

And part of that, like, for me, it's been a really interesting life change through this season. That's been like a wild ride of like how it's helped me with certain things, because before we started recording this season, I was not pregnant. Yeah. And then I got pregnant. And so it was like super interesting to listen to, you know, we had the two episodes that kind of touched on, on, on birth this season.

We had Abrianne's episode one and we also had

Jen Schwartz, episode, episode five that both talked about the transformative power of birth. And listening to these really impacted my decision to plan for a home birth and work more exclusively with a midwife. And I remember specifically hearing in one of those two episodes about, just the importance of being in touch with your own body and not being like rushed through that process,  (Sarah: yeah) that often happens in the hospital.

And I really remember, I've quoted it a few times, you know, in recent conversations and I won't get it word for word, but like the point was that essentially in the hospital, they want to get patients out. They want to have a baby. Empty the bed, put someone else in that bed, make more money. And so, because of that, you know, they put you on like medications that, that jumpstart labor. And then that's what makes such unbearable contractions that oftentimes then people will use the epidural because of the other medication has made those contractions worse and then the epidural can slow heart rates. And then that's a lot of times, obviously not all the time, but that's a lot of the reason that there are C-sections is because there's a heart rate issue that can be tied to that epidural.

And so listening to 'em, I was like, Hey, you know, I don't want that for myself. I want to be able to trust my body as process. And, and then, I mean, as you know, but no one listening to this will have, then I also had a miscarriage and you know,  (chokes up)  that was really hard for me. I was really excited to be pregnant and there was this weird comfort in hearing somebody else talk about it and. I remember thinking so strongly about her talking about miscarriage and trusting her body in that and honoring that as birth as well, when I was going through my miscarriage and when it was painful and it like physically and emotionally, it was so painful. And yet there's this place of healing that comes from these stories that, I don't know if I could have gotten that at somewhere else because no one's talking about it like that.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: It's a wild ride being a part of this show.  (both laugh)  

Sarah Marshall, ND: Let me tell you

Kendra Vicken: yeah. In a really good way. Yeah.

Sarah Marshall, ND: And I just, I mean, thank you for you. Didn't have to go there and thank you for sharing it and your, this very known entity, but very much in the background of, you know, your literal hands and brain touch every single second of every single minute of this whole podcast. And it's, there's so many things that your background in journalism and your experience with the way you see the world and what's mattered to you shapes. I mean, we have strategy conversations about like, where do we want to go next and who should we be interviewing and where to take the show as a whole. And so you, you know, for those of you guys who don't know, she's a big part of it ended up the way it is. And so it's just really appreciate you also sharing your story.

'Cause I do think it matters the more of us that talk about this and that's, that's a theme and everything we're dealing with right now in. Black Lives Matter in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing and the changes of the Supreme court. And what we don't know is next there for women's rights and more than that, but that's a big one that a lot of people have quite a concern for.

And, you know, even our final episode before this, one of Corrina getting into sharing about the death of her mother, which again, that was not where I. I just really didn't know. I knew of that story. I was really interested in, you know, Corrina has made an incredible life as an artist, and I think like many people that actually succeed at being an artist as you're living and your primary source of income, she interacts with it. Like it's no big deal. And I just, she's a big deal to me. She's always been a big deal to me. And I was really interested in that inquiry of where art is healing and what it does, and yet for her to pour her heart out in such an amazing way about her experience of her mom's passing, that did things to my brain.

I don't know that, I mean, I will be different when my parents pass for having done that interview. Like it altered things in my brain and what's possible for me and honoring that space that I didn't, I didn't have the conversations for until I heard it from her. So I do think sharing these conversations and getting to expand, you know, people, hearing other people's stories for things that they are going through or circumstances that they have is...I'm going to, you know, here we are, but it's how we heal. It really is, you know, and all of the ibuprofen and all of the curcumin and tumeric and all of the, you know, anti-inflammatory diets in the world is really, that's a superficial level to the real, the real deal.

Kendra Vicken: Well, one thing that I find so magical about that, about this podcast is many times we've gone into these conversations where we're planning to talk about one thing and it changes, you know, with Ed Kennedy coming on, where he works in finance, like we initially were like, let's talk about healing our relationship to money.

Sarah Marshall, ND: And business. Yeah.  (Laughs)  

Kendra Vicken: And he touched on that. But man, did that conversation go a different direction.

And then you're saying the same thing happened with Corrina. And I mean, that's happened a few times where it's like, we're going to talk about this one aspect of healing, but all of a sudden you open the door to discussing healing and it's almost like our very beings are longing to talk about it.

And I think, you know, we've talked this episode being a little bit of a behind the scenes.

And so the behind the scenes here is me and you did a rundown of what we were going to talk about, like what particular issues; didn't even think about my own personal experience that I've been dealing with with healing. You know, in this past a few months. but again, it's like that door opened up and it's like, wuh it just like spills out. You know, it's like, here it is. Here's where, here's where the healing really is happening for me. Or here's where I've really experienced this, or here's where I'm really struggling with it. And it just, to me, shows how us as society could maybe improve in that direction of being more open with each other and creating more intentional space to converse about these things. And I'm just so glad that we have a place at least within this podcast to do that.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the, the other episode that comes up, that was an interesting challenge was talking with Wendy Burkhart about her daughter Harmony and, and her, you know, it was, it's not, I didn't want it to be just about, cause there's all, I don't know what exactly it's like for Wendy to be Wendy, but I can imagine that in the, the last eight years of being with Harmony, there's been a lot of like it being all about Harmony. And so I wanted to make sure that it was also that, but. Wendy has gotten to such a powerful--her and her husband and their community around them--a powerful place of not labeling harmony, letting harmony be who she is as a unique, powerful being of love and happiness, which she says in the episode and literally I've had the privilege to spend time around harmony. And that's really who she is. She just oozes love and happiness and joy. And so what was crazy was like, how do I talk about this? Like, do we even put autism in the title, you know, cause I don't want to now be the one that's slapping a label on this.

And so it was this, like, this is a conversation that needs to be had, but how do you have a conversation where what there is to do is not say certain things in order to empower it.

And like, it was so incredible to listen to how Wendy spoke about it. And then I, I had to actually upgrade myself. I had to shift and alter because my normal thrown way of writing the title and writing the, you know, the synopsis we do for every episode would have been to just throw that, you know, like pull for that.

Like, because it's sexier, if we're like, ah, dealing with transforming autism and like, it has a standard conversation. That's the funny thing, even in the, behind the scenes of these damn titles, like I actually think about them very carefully. And I know that that there's a common theme in podcasts to just put the topic in the title and at one level, I want to do that 'cause I want people to like, be able to know what they want to listen to, but there's this challenge, particularly with our subject matter that if I just label it, I've literally potentially condensed down something that we just spent an hour in the podcast ripping apart and opening up.

And so it's been a challenge to like, how do I convey what this topic is actually about without doing the thing that our society does. So often in these circumstances where we put people into boxes and we try and just like make it this summary statement.

Kendra Vicken: It's, it's definitely an interesting challenge for sure.

And I think that it's, it shows a lot about your intention in this podcast to know that you think through those pieces so intentionally. And man we've had some good stories, but we've also had some amazing experts  (Sarah: yeah)  this season, too.  (Sarah: yeah)

You know, we had a Dr. Reed who was phenomenal. Though Dr. Schwartz shared some really interesting personal stories.

Her expertise really shown through, and we had Nancy, you know, or our dietician and we had Suzanne or our relationship coach. We had some people coming from.  (Sarah: Australia)  Place of knowledge and sharing that too.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. And locations! Robin Haack and Chris Neville. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that was what was neat too, to play that balance because I, it does matter to me for people to have really good information too.

You know, that initial grain that was there for me was this inquiry into what does it mean to heal? What does it take to heal? And that I knew from my own personal experiences, sharing our own personal stories, ultimately are the thing that makes the biggest difference.

Like I can get up and talk to people about our glutathione pathways, and the way that our liver converts antioxidants and why that makes a difference in healing inflammatory disorders. Might be interesting or fascinating, but I don't typically have people be like that conversation change my life. Like it just doesn't. It doesn't!

So the stories really matter. And. There's a point though, and we've talked about, you know, people can chime in, if you want to send me messages or comment on the website, that there is a point where they're like, great, this is awesome.

I'm inspired. Now what the hell do I do about it? You know, so there was a great balance with, you know, Dr. Reed with the seven laws of healing. I mean, he has condensed down into a very readable way in his book, the serpent and the butterfly, essentially the core principles of naturopathic medicine that, you know, took me six years to master and he makes it so accessible for people to really get.

It's it's, it's a paradigm shift. It's an entire other way of looking at what our bodies need. I mean, you know, and I said, I was looking for the blueprint of healing, and then I discovered Ben in the process of doing this podcast, his book got published, you know, over the summer when I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to have this guy.

And he was one of the guests. I actually met him because I asked to do the interview. So we got to become friends and, you know, I'm like, well, we're done here, folks. He wrote the blueprint. I mean, we're not done, but it was pretty cool to have that. And yeah. And then like, Suzanne getting into, you know, she's got, I'm going to misquote this.

I think, I think she's got 15 plus maybe more years of being a relationship coach and the work she's done on helping people heal their past and heal what's happened for them and relationships up til now and unwind those patterns so that they have access to joyful love and relationships that are truly healthy and, and light them up.

And they're exciting for them. And you know, that was another episode where. I try to just interview these people, but I can't help, but fall into the episode. Like I'm getting my own coaching. And that episode was really challenging for me personally, just because I've known Suzanne a long time and it's, you know, me and relationships and partnership has been one of those areas that hasn't come together the way that my brain tells me it should. And. That one was like, by the end of the episode, I kept trying to not turn it into a coaching session of me, but you guys should, you can definitely get like a whole experience areas of my background, but you know, that there's been several where I know that the episode is going in a good place.

If I'm starting to feel like I'm getting the work done on myself, I'm like, all right, well, here we are. And that was definitely how several of those went.

Kendra Vicken: Well, one thing that's interesting about that too, is even the ones that don't directly apply to, at least me as a listener, I don't want to speak for like everyone else who's kind of being a third party to this. But there's a lot of things I don't like particularly struggle with, you know, like I don't, have a child that has, you know, we use the term like dis-ease. And I'm not Black and I'm not a man, and I'm not somebody who struggles with an eating disorder.

And I'm somebody who is, you know, like married and like I have that, you know, kind of checked off. The crazy thing about this though, is that I have found personally that that doesn't mean there's nothing for me. You know, like we talk about with Tango Towns about race and his experience as a Black man. And then how he leads that into like, I'm just an American, you know, and there was a lot for me that I had to confront in that episode about how I relate to the actual people a part of the Black Lives Matter movement as an ally. You know, I don't, I realize there's some things he was saying that I was making my stances on those things a lot more about like how I felt or what made me feel good or made me feel like a social justice warrior. And talking with Ed Kennedy, you know, about his experience as a man on that side of the #metoo  movement, which obviously I can't really relate to that side.

But then I had to confront like, The things that have happened to me in my past, where I felt like I was on this other side of it and that giving that context to that other side was a really interesting experience. And even with Suzanne's episode, and this is what originally made me think of this is she talks about like, you know, they have to meet the 80% of your, of your list of your check boxes before she like, gives her permission to like go on dating them. And it really made me survey like. Not necessarily, you know, there's nothing like wrong with my marriage. I don't want to ever say that, but it didn't make me think about things in a way that I hadn't thought about them and more for me, because I am already very in love and married more about like, where do we have room to grow and to become more united and to talk about these things.

And even the one where we talked with Nancy King about disordered eating and eating disorders. I had to confront the fact that I don't really necessarily have a healthy relationship to food either. Like my eating experience is I'm hungry. I'm gonna eat something as quick as I can, so I can get back to work or I can like move on with my night.

And so I had to confront like why I eat that way rather than taking the time to make something for myself, it's going to be more enjoyable and more nourishing and really enjoy the process. I treat it like something that's just like on my to do list and not something that I can enjoy and be good for me three times a day.

And there's, there's just a wild world in this podcast of of experience where you're saying, Oh, I, you know, I have to not turn into a coaching session, but on the listening end for me, it feels like group therapy or like a coaching session.  (Sarah laughs)

Sarah Marshall, ND: Totally.

Kendra Vicken: Like we're all confronting stuff here.

Sarah Marshall, ND: I know. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, in many of these things are places I've been through myself or, you know, have worked with coaches through, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I totally did that already. And then I'm like in the middle of this conversation, interviewing them getting impacted by the very subject matter that they're sharing about because it's, I think, I dunno. I mean, I, we could probably look up what the specific neurology, but I know in the world of like mirror neurons in our biochemistry and the way that we interact with each other, we, we, that is how we connect to fall into those spaces together. And, and, Yeah, they just, I I'm right there with you.

Like, as I'm even doing the interviews, I go through the process and then, you know, I think we've gotten some feedback, both from you and from other listeners that that's a lot of their experience going through it too.

Kendra Vicken: Which is very healing and that's the point. So it feels, you know, successful in that right in and of itself.

So, you know, I. I love this season. I love what it's, it's brought for both of us and what it's confronted for each of us and how it's advised each of us. But I also kind of want to talk about something else. I know you've been dealing with healing in your own way, and I asked you last season what healing meant for you?

And so I mostly want to ask that question again and see if you'll share a little bit about what you're going through.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Now what does it look like? Yeah. yeah. So be careful what you wish for. No, I mean, yes, but I, I don't know if this is everybody's experience, but this has been my whole life. I, when I do something, I do it 110%. I completely, I mean, I eat, sleep and breathe this podcast. And like I said, there's. There's the picking of the people and the choosing and creating the conversations and what I think would be interesting, but there's a whole world of how we craft each season. The inquiry, you know, this season two was, was like, what are we not saying?

What, what do we, what are the conversations that we don't have? And that's where I started and went deeper and deeper. And, you know, season one was just the launch of like, even getting to talk about this whole subject of what does it mean to heal and is it what we really thought and, and what are people's experiences on the court in their own lives?

And how can we kind of tease out that process? You know, and when this whole thing started, I said, I want to go through an inquiry. I want to discover something new. I want to have this actually not be the world according to dr. Marshall, I want. The podcast to start at my top level of knowledge and expertise and understanding, and then take me somewhere new that I discover new things and I become a better clinician and, and expand all of that and said, I want to explore what does it really like on the court?

Like literally on the ground to heal and be healed. And what does it take? And the universe said, great, here you go. So, it was two months ago that I formally got diagnosed with a high level of Epstein-Barr virus, which is correlative to chronic fatigue syndrome. And chronic fatigue syndrome is a challenging thing to diagnose in that there's no one pathological condition that says, yes, this is it. There's no specific blood test. Even having a high antibody titer to Epstein-Barr virus is somewhat in question. Some people say, well that doesn't tell you anything. About your active viral load. It just tells you that you had Epstein-Barr, which I did.

I had Mono when I was 14 years old. So in conventional speak, that would be meaningless. As my mentor. Dr. Tom said to me, and I also hold as true as the body doesn't do anything by accident. It doesn't waste energy. Like that would be a really poor, evolutionary way- strategy for moving forward in life. And so nature and the body itself, there's no wasted energy.

So if, if my body is producing 534 nanograms per milliliter of antibodies to this one virus, which is incredibly high compared to a typical titer, that's probably because there's active virus in my system. And so I also tested positive to cytomegalovirus. And then I had a slew of clinical symptoms that were adding up to the standard presentation of chronic fatigu:, emotional stress, work stress. I've had multiple family members with COVID-19, I've treated, you know, eight clients with COVID and just being a clinician. As one of my friends said to me, she was like, Sarah, you're on the front lines. It doesn't occur to me that way, because I'm not in a hospital and I, and I'm. I have so much respect and reverence for the people who are like literally dealing with hundreds and thousands of patients with COVID and the life and death choices that I was.

And this is something that I tend to do in my life. I was playing the like, yeah, whatever, but what I'm doing, isn't that big a deal. So I wasn't really taking that into account. And then, you know, we don't really know exactly what might've tipped this off, but somewhere along the lines, my immune system got overwhelmed and the result was fatigue.

Which is a very odd symptom. And I've had clients that have been through this. I have treated this. I have people that we dance around this, and there's kind of a couple of different diagnoses that all fall in a similar category. It's chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Lymes disease. Now they have very specific differences, but there's a nebulousness to them and a hard to pin down newness.

That does two things. One, many people in the outside world say they don't really exist. They're not real diagnoses. And the other is inside of our own heads. We think we're nuts and we're making it up and we should just get off of it and stop being so lazy or whatever version that is. And that was a lot of what I was dealing with the three months leading up to the diagnosis was like, this is all just normal. I've just been traveling a lot. My routine has been off. I just need a couple extra days of sleep, like blah-di-blah. Well, I haven't been eating that. Great. It was so easy, but then one specific thing happened for me, which was: it was a Thursday and I had seen half of my clients for the day. And I literally couldn't imagine sitting down with one more client, I couldn't even bring enough presence of mind to know that I'd be able to be responsible for any of their questions they'd ask me. And that's, that's never happened to me before. That was very unusual. Like I've seen clients through a migraine, I've had all kinds of physical stuff where I can still set it aside be present and do a good job. And I actually knew I wouldn't be able to deliver in that conversation. And so I canceled my afternoon and I moved it forward into the next week.  (laughs)

And then the next week, and I had now double stacked and piled myself, and then I got to the next Thursday and it happened all over again, but about three hours earlier in the day. And that week I'd been dealing with nausea all week, which I never have as a symptom. And I, again, chalked it up to. Well, because I wasn't feeling good, I started taking my supplements more regimented, only zinc can cause nausea, B vitamins can cause nausea. I'm probably taking something at the wrong time without enough food, blah, blah. Did an experiment, stopped my supplements for two days, made absolutely no difference. And this was like nausea to the point of dry heaving in the middle of the day for no reason.

And so I knew enough that I'm like, this is what my fibromyalgia patients complain about. This is what my I'm like. Oh. And it was, you know, supportive family and people around me that were like, dude, you gotta stop. So I started to investigate, you know, and I can get into more of the details of that, you know, what that looked like.

But what I really want to share is like, it's been a huge ego check for me in all kinds of spaces of my brain still really wants to tell me this isn't really happening. That like I'm being dramatic. That was the first round I'm being overly dramatic. I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. And, and then the common conversation that I even heard from some people, which is like, "Oh yeah, me too. I'm exhausted."

It's such a bizarre, you know, and. I hope this lands for people and, and it's not an actually chronic fatigue is rated as one of the most underdiagnosed diseases. And there's a reality to viral-instigated chronic fatigue, viruses are often involved and we've written off, medically in the, in the general diagnostic world, we've written off the validity of chronic viruses. We mostly have it. It's acute it's over with, even if it runs late, I mean, we have shingles, right? Like chicken pox is a virus. It sits in your nervous system. And then under really serious times of stress or other factors. The virus comes back in a shingles that we can see it it's this concrete thing.

So we're okay with it. Right? We actually have a fair amount of evidence to show that this happens with lots of viruses. There's an acute version of it. And then there's a latent chronic version that other circumstances in the body can change. And the immune system can't keep up and the viral load increases.

And often all you deal with is generic aches and pains that move around your body. A sense of like bone crippling, fatigue, and brain fog. Well, lots of people are going, that sounds like me and everybody I know. And, and like it, you know, it, isn't always chronic fatigue, but there's a lot of people where it is and it's, and it's not diagnosed, cause this is just so not a common thing that we look at, but really I've been going through my own, like, and then not wanting to confront, you Google it. And Medscape tells you it's a four to seven year recovery period. And less than 4% of people diagnosed with chronic fatigue ever get better, like completely resolved

Kendra Vicken: that doesn't feel great to hear that.

Sarah Marshall, ND: And I'm like, no way. I'm 15 years into a naturopathic practice and I have all this knowledge and I've quote, unquote, done so many things right. And I have, and. I've also been guilty of working, you know, an average 80-hour work week, upwards of 120 hours some weeks. And because of my lifestyle choices without husband and kids at home, for whatever reason, like that's just left me to like, I just work.

Like, I, I don't think anything about a 12-hour day. Like, that's pretty typical for me, you know, just hammering through whatever I'm up to now. That's been different in the last year. Things have slowed down for various reasons, but still. I just packed it in with other things. And, I'm not accepting the four to seven years prognosis at all, but I really am having a hard time confronting, it probably will be two years. My brain's still like, yeah, by Christmas, this'll be a thing of the past, like. AHHHH

I'll let you ask me questions. Cause I don't want this to just be a monologue, but there's, there is an interesting thing about being the expert. Having studied this, treated, it, watched how it happens in other people, literally knowing so much about it and then being on the inside of it. And there's this constant, I don't know where I ever got this phrase, but it's a foot in two canoes.

Which is a very uncomfortable imagine being on a river. And you're literally like, and that's what it feels like, where I just go back and forth between the knowledge and the wisdom that I should have a standard routine. And I should go to bed by nine 30 and I need nine and a half hours of sleep. And I should never read another piece of pasta or grilled cheese sandwich or sugar or anything ever again.

And, and the reality that that's not how this is, it's been going the last two months. I mean, I've cleaned a lot of stuff up, I'm working on restructuring. I've had big conversations with all my clients. I'm reworking my, my schedule and I'm still open for business. Like I'm not, nobody needs to freak out, but it's had me actually confront what hasn't been working and where I have been skating over the top of things.

Kendra Vicken: Yeah. I mean, I like my biggest question and it's the one you just left  touching on. But the whole time I was thinking about it is you've mentioned you've treated patients with this before and now you're treating yourself.

And I know you work with other people as well. You're not necessarily in a silo. But how is that experience different for you when you're looking at somebody else's information? And I dunno if this is the right word, but like essentially prescribing them like a change in their routine or their diet or their supplements or whatever.

How has that process differ when you do that for someone else versus when you're having to do that with yourself?

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. Well, the first thing is I'm definitely not doing it with myself. Like one of the symptoms early on was my brain just stopped. Like I couldn't make decisions. I couldn't, that was actually why I knew I needed to change how I was practicing because I make a lot of decisions and I, I stand for really big deal consequences in people's lives. And so when, when I wasn't reliable for that, I was like, Oh shit. And I literally went to my chiropractor, who this might sound funny for a lot of people, but go back to season one and listen to Robert Ciprian about applied kinesiology, my chiropractor practices an incredibly holistic model of chiropractic.

He was actually the first one to identify the Epstein-Barr virus through muscle testing. And then we backed it up with blood work, but that was the first person who said you've got active Epstein-Barr virus, which he identified through muscle testing. And so he laid out and he was the first one to say to me, you have to reduce everything about your life by two-thirds.  (Kendra: that'd be intimidating)

Social life, your business travel like, like literally all of your life has to slow down by two thirds. And I fought that for a while. I was like, you gotta be... whatever. Like, I mean, yeah, but what if I just do this? And if I really do that, and then I go to my naturopath, Dr. Tom, who I've been working with since.

2008. So, you know, we've got a pretty long relationship. He's seen me through lots of things. He's who I initially healed all my childhood chronic illness issues and rebalanced my whole body. And he goes, yeah, no, I agree with Dr. Brennan about two thirds and I was like ughh, punch in the gut and that threw me into. You know, when you're sick, which is been another thing I've really not wanted to create that I'm sick, or I have an illness, not out of denial, but out of a place of empowerment, like just didn't work for me to go there, but we, we have a limited vocabulary. So I haven't come up with what the word is when I'm metabolically challenged in my mitochondrial production of ATP.

Like I'm like, what do I say, call that? You know? But. When you're dealing with a wellbeing issue, it throws you into a state of survival, no matter what. So my brain started to look at my life. My life has not changed in the last four months. I mean, other than the diagnosis, but like, I still make the same amount of money.

I still live in the same house. I still have the same clients, nothing else had altered. And my brain was certain everything was crashing down that my practice was going to come to a clanking halt that like, I mean, and I, one of the symptoms was I wouldn't be able to sleep through the night I had. In the beginning, I was pushing so hard unknowingly.

I had ramped my cortisol levels up incredibly high. So I was like running off of adrenaline all the time and drinking more and more caffeine to compensate for the exhaustion and justifying it lots of ways. And so what happened was I was wired and tired, so I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep. And then when I would sleep, everything would wake me up.

The tiniest noise, a fan clicking on, a fan clicking off, it was too hot or too cold within a very small range of temperature at night and like humidity. Like it was just really hard to get a good night's sleep. And for the first time in my life ever, I've actually been routinely taking an herbal sleep support.

You know, I realize isn't ambient, but even for me, I'm like, I've never taken anything for sleep before. but I'd wake up at 2 in the morning with my head, just cranking full of anxiety. And nothing had changed. So that's part of the challenge is like, and actually for a little while, I have very loving people in my life, but I swear to God for a while.

I was like, if I have one more effin' person, tell me a that they know a really great doctor who treats chronic fatigue syndrome, that they could refer me to, referring to myself, or B. If you were your own patient, what would you tell your patient to do? Like, I wanted to knock their heads off their shoulders because.

I mean, it is like the oncologist getting cancer, right? It's like, I mean, there's actually a brilliant book that we'll have to look up and put in the show notes of a woman. Who's a neuroscientist. And of like 20 years and she had a major, like entire side of her hemisphere of her brain stroked out and major brain damage.

And she wrote this brilliant book about the experience of knowing so much about the brain and how we learned. She actually learned a lot of things. It's like Helen Keller, like level of understanding how the brain works because. She knew it. And then she went through it herself. so I'm not the only one.

There's one of my favorite chefs is this Chef Grant. Again, I'm going to forget his last name. Of Alinea in Chicago. And he is a Michelin star chef and he had mouth, tongue cancer and lost his sense of taste, but then it grew back. And when it came back, he got to rediscover what it is to like taste food as a baby and a toddler and a child, because it came back the same way it does developmentally.

And it strengthened who he was as a chef in the long run. So like very much, these are people that I look up to in this process. And like, that's the flip part, which is what, I've what I usually end up saying to all my patients dealing with this is: you're okay and this is going to take a lot longer than you think.

That's the part I'm resisting. I just, I mean, I'm getting over it already in this conversation, but that's what I've been resisting is like how long of a change this really is. But then that leads me right into the other thing, which is January. I was talking, talking to my coach cause I have a team of people around me, naturopaths, coaches, all kinds.

And I said, I would give anything for a sabbatical. I've been asking for that.  (laughing)

Kendra Vicken: There's the, again, careful what you wish for. I mean, if you're not going to take one, sometimes the universe is like, here you go.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yep. And you know, I actually don't want to fully stop my practice and it was interesting to watch every time, even as exhausted as I'd been the last couple of months, every time I would do another interview and I'd touch the podcast, like genuinely lit me up and brought me joy. And I was like, okay, well, this we're holding on to, for sure. But what, the first thing I had to do was just take all the inefficiencies out of my life.

Like it was a giant sorting machine of what just didn't matter or wasn't critical, you know? And so that came off that cleared out a third of my schedule right there. And then it was, you know, I know everyone, but like for me in particular, like, I mean every single one of my clients, I have a very.

Intimate relationship with. And like, and many of them are in a critical point in their journey. And so there was just no way I was going to drop these people and reduce my client load. So it was like, okay, well, what do I have to do? So. Shifting the way my schedule runs, finding ways to be more efficient. Some people making a request to go from an hour to a half an hour, because actually that really would still produce the result and it would work with our agreements and where we were at. And so there was a, there was a real willingness to have unusual conversations with people, like my clients who pay me, to get them on board. And then that's the, like one of my first big healing moments is recognizing....  you know, to me, it's like, I I'll say this the way it feels. I owe them. Like, they're paying me a lot of money for me to make a difference in their health. And I owe them these results. And I take that incredibly seriously. So there was this concern for watering down what I do.

And yet if you've got anybody in your life, one of the greatest joys is to get to contribute to them, especially somebody who's made a really big difference for you. So what I've already had to grow into is sharing what I'm dealing with and letting people that I literally have a business relationship to contribute to them, contribute back to me. And it's, it's been awesome and incredible, and like moves me to tears to even think about like that, how joyful it was. And then the funny thing was a whole bunch of clients were like, I can take a break. No, it's totally fine. And I'm like, whoa whoa whoa hold on. Like, you're my income. We have to think this through strategically, you know, in order to like balance all that out. But, you know, and there have been some shifts that have been made, but that's already been one. Clearly this dis-ease, this illness, is already teaching me about a degree of, I pour a lot of myself out into the world and where I have not been available for the world to pour into me.

Kendra Vicken: You described a little bit of the physical components and, you know, just checking in on that side of things too, how are you doing emotionally with this?

Sarah Marshall, ND: Whoa nelly, well, it's again, it's this is one of those.

And I think this is true in a lot of major illnesses is like, there is a not absolutely quantifiable impact on your emotions, but it's even... when it's happening. I'm certain that it's me. Right? Like, it's hard to differentiate. So one of the things I'm just currently dealing with is it just occurs like it's been a really long time since I've been authentically happy and it's not that I don't love my life and I still do, but like, just that like middle of the day, laughter giggles, joyful, the ease. It's literally not there.

And so. Thank God my mother's a Buddhist and I've spent much of the last eight years studying meditation and being with being with uncomfortable things is I do the best when I don't make it wrong that I don't feel that awesome. And there are things that bring my heart joy in that soulful spiritual way, but that sense of just lightness and ease.

I haven't had. Since before this started, really, which the best I can tell there often is like, a moment people can point to. I was fine. And then I wasn't, and that's why some people say there probably was literally like the viral load just goes up in 72 hours or something.

And it was sometime in late may where it was like, I just, the first time I started saying like, God, I'm just exhausted. This feels funny. And when I look back like early may fine late may. Nope. So emotionally, you know, it's, it's hard, like. Mondays are awesome days for me. Cause I just come off of two days of complete rest and it does make a difference.

There's a clinical symptom of chronic fatigue syndrome is exhaustion that's not alleviated by rest. Like you can sleep and you're not less exhausted, but there's sort of a balancing act because if I can get nine and a half hours of sleep at night and I basically do nothing, but garden and cook or wander around my house and tinker on things and watch some Netflix and whatever, I'm basically fine, 'cause they don't have the brain fatigue that comes from the thinking that I do at work. So this morning I wake up Monday morning and I'm like, I'm feelin'-- and you get, this is, this is a condition that shows that I'm not that deep into the disease compared to some people that I've worked with. Some people don't experience this for one to two years after treatment started, but where I've already gotten to is I'll have hours or a half a day of feeling just about normal.

And then you get almost seduced by it. And then one o'clock this afternoon rolled around and I still had one more client call and I could feel the fatigue setting in where I really, my body was done. Like, I'd run out. Like there was no gas in the gas tank anymore, but I wasn't done yet. And I pushed because this is where I have some more work to do on my schedule and how to manage things. Like I. I should be. I've found it's about five hours a day. That's what I've got. And then the tank's empty and I've been often working seven. So I keep doing that. I'm going to have to work through that, right. Whatever that is. And I got to the fifth hour and I was just toast and it's like this, in my case, it's not a full blown thunderstorm, dark cloud.

It's sort of this like gray haze of nebulous meh that comes in and is like, Oh God, yup. Not out of that one yet. You know? And it just, it's, it's a bit of the disappointment and  like dread of like, oh yeah, no, not, not that good.

You know, so it's been a, it's been a challenge. And I think, you know, when I look at the timeline really, August 4th was essentially the first time somebody said this when dr. Brendon said, you know, Epstein-Barr, we're still fairly early in it and I can already feel there's a tipping point of, okay. Well, I got to just be with what's what's really happening in reality and not let that determine the quality of my life.

And that I think is another part of what there is for me to learn about this is to discover my happiness is because I say so. Not because of how I feel. Not because of how much energy is there. Not because whatever else is going on, even in my life, you know, that it's really not circumstantial. And I'm pretty clear from at least this position that that's going to be a practice.

Not a like once I re Oh yeah, I get that. And then it's handled, like, that's going to be a day to day thing.

Kendra Vicken: There's so many things in there that I don't want to too much off the topic of like this healing process for you.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: But there's a couple of things you've said that just really resonate with, with me and with the like recent, emotional healing things.

I've been... and physical healing things I've been having to  go through with my miscarriage. And there's the first thing you said was like having to learn to not make it wrong. Like how you feel or how your body is responding. And then just saying, now that you're happiness this can be because you choose and not because of how you feel.

And I have found in the light of my miscarriage, that one of the weirdest questions for me is how are you doing?

Sarah Marshall, ND: Gahhh  (laughs) .

Kendra Vicken: I don't know how to answer that. Like I treat most of the time, I feel fine, but there's this like undercurrent of like sadness. And I don't, it's not something I really even know how to encapsulate, 'cause I imagine it's nothing like losing like a child or a spouse or a parent or somebody you've spent a lot of time with. It's more like the loss of what I was. thinking like, even like my Halloween, like I was supposed to have a bump by then. So it's like, I was planning my Halloween costume around that.

And then obviously the light planning too. You know, like in April, which was supposed to be my due date, like knowing that that's not going to be that way. Like, so there's this undercurrent of like that sadness, but I don't feel sad.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: You know, it's like, it's, it's this underlying thing. And sometimes it comese to me like in moments of solitude or like, if I'm trying to fall asleep, I'll kind of like, remember about it, but like, I do feel like I've chosen happiness and sometimes I really wrestle with, is it the second thing where I'm just choosing happiness or is it the first thing where I'm making it not okay to be sad.  (Sarah: totally) And it's really hard for me to discern, like, am I not feeling my emotions because I want to like, You know, push past them and you know, I, and I would never say this to anyone else going through a miscarriage, but the way I talked to myself, maybe, I guess I'm realizing isn't always super healthy because I remember being really upset and being grateful I was in physical pain because I knew if I wasn't in physical pain, I would have forced myself to have gone to work. Like the day of, and day after it happened, you know?

And so I remember weirdly feeling like grateful for the physical pain, because it like gave me permission to cry and be sad.  (Sarah: yeah) And, I just, you know, my rhetoric in my own brain was like, well, at least it wasn't further along.

And at least it wasn't like. You lost a child and at least like, at least, at least, at least in that I was trying to like reason myself out of just allowing myself to feel how I felt. And now that it's, you know, three weeks have passed, I do feel like that initial shock and the initial disappointment has worn off.

And I really struggle with am I creating that space for myself now that I'm not in physical pain anymore to allow myself to continue acknowledging and healing emotionally, or am I feeling better because I've kind of done that? And it's those two dichotomies of like, you have to say, it's okay, it's not wrong to feel the way your body feels.

And then also separating. It's just like blowing my mind that those things can coexist and that it's okay for me to be sad and happy.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Exactly. It is all of it. And you know, it depends on who's asking and it depends on what conversation I want to have. And it depends on what I need to create in that moment.

Like, do I need to share the interior guts of what I'm dealing with. So I can actually like, get it out of my mouth? I often refer to myself as being emotionally constipated because I just know I've just, I've pushed it down and set it aside and set it aside and set it aside so much, you know? And, and there's so, I mean, this is like, there's no answer one way or another, like.

When, what there is to do is perform when what there is to do is go to work. And what there is to do is feed the family. When what there is to do is, you know, get Eden to school in the morning, you do set it aside and, and you generate. I will generate who I am. And sometimes it is a fake it till you make it and I generated myself right out of the upset and it's just like, not worth it, you know? And then there are other times where with my sister, with a close friend, with my mom, I even with some of my clients where it's like, they asked me how I am and I really look and take a moment to share in that same way we were talking about earlier with the episodes.

The sharing of her story, the sharing of her vulnerability, it's healing for us, it's healing for the other person. It's a connection point. It's, it's a lot of things, you know, and one of my great coaches once said to me, yes, set it aside when you have to, to perform. And anything, you've set aside three times.

You have to go back and actually deal with it.

Kendra Vicken: Oh, that's uh-- that's convicting. Huh?

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. And I was like only three? I could do that in an hour, you know, but he's like, that was his point was we do have that capacity to do it. And that is a useful skill set. And there are times when that's absolutely the best, most healthy thing to do.

And if you notice, you keep having to set the same thing aside and it keeps resurfacing, it's literally, you know... another thing is emotion is energy in motion. And when we don't let our emotions move, they do get stuck in our body. And I am of the belief that it creates density in your system, and that will eventually go into different organs.

And when I do detoxes with people, it's very physical, all these emotions pour out of them. And so. You know, my clinical brain does this fun game of like, is the virus depressed? And that's where it's coming from? Like, is it actually a biochemical thing or is this like, the virus is allowing me to peel a layer off to release that's me.

Like is the depression or the sadness me releasing or is it cause you can have both, you mean it's, COVID even, they've actually found that there are part of the inflammatory cytokines that come from the virus literally cause a sense of doom and many people report after most of their physical symptoms have resolved there's a month of like, serious like some people get down to like, I don't know if it's worth it to live kind of experience of their emotions. And it's a actual now categorized symptom of COVID that we know it has to do with the way that the virus inflames our brain. So there's that, is that happening? Or is it, the virus is allowing my body to go through a healing process, like a purge or a detox.

That's surfacing this and. At one level, all that matters is what I do with it. What I get from it, what I learned from it, you know, and that's kind of what I pointed to before of, and I'm not one of those, like Pollyanna, every, every difficult situation is an opportunity to learn something. But there's this reality for me that.

I've been asking for a different way to live. I've been staring, you know, I'm, I'm in, in Florida, my clinical practice that I've, I've made it, it's working. My practice is full. I basically operate off of word of mouth. I'm able to do a project like this that's above and beyond, you know, and at this point, you know, advertisers are not knocking down our door.

This is a passion project and I'm funding it completely out of my commitment to have this conversation be an existence in the world. And that's amazing. And I looked at my future of another 20, 30 years of, of doing it the same way. I'm like, no, that doesn't no. So this is challenging me. Not yet. I still have to continue to do the two thirds.

Not doing anything else game for a while, but there'll be come a point where I will have recovered enough probably sometime next winter. Spring-ish that? New endeavors will be really possible. And, and it's like, this illness has been, I'm going to say it really cliche, like an angel who's come down and said, Sarah, you can't keep going in the direction you're going.

And we're going to kind of put bumpers on your life and force you to sort some things out that I wanted, but I, they probably wouldn't have prioritized without this, about. how do we reach more people and make a bigger difference without it only right being one-on-one clients? How do I ensure my student loans are paid off and my retirement is taken care of, and I have a great life, you know, like there have been challenges.

I've known are on the horizon that I want, but now I kind of have to sort out new ways of doing things and being efficient and having consulting opportunities and things that I would have seen in a far off future are actually starting to show up much like sooner.

Kendra Vicken: And that's, I mean, that's awesome. It is kind of weird.

The sentiment of be careful what you wish for, because it manifests in a lot of different ways and. And I think you're absolutely right that everything can be a learning opportunity. I have a hard time, at least, especially recently with the phrase that everything happens for a reason.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: Because that can feel cruel, but if you point out that there's opportunity for growth and everything, that doesn't.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah.

Kendra Vicken: And I think that that's a really beautiful way to look at it and a really beautiful part of the healing process that, works in so many different ways and that doesn't ever, mean it's not painful or difficult and it doesn't ever invalidate those experiences. And I would not, I don't necessarily know that like, that's the advice I would even give someone if they were like, Oh, this bad things happening to me. But personally, I feel like that's a little bit game changing for me that I can say, okay, well, what, what can I learn from this? And my certain circumstances of healing are very, obviously different. Like we're going through very different things, but it's weird how that truth still rings true.

And one of the big things for me, and I imagine this is probably true for you as a doctor, too. Is that going through something has opened up my eyes to be much more compassionate for people going through the same thing. Cause I knew, I mean, no one would be like, Oh yeah, miscarriage, easy business, or, Oh yeah. Chronic fatigue syndrome, easy business. But you have a different sense of compassion and empathy when you have been in those shoes. And I think that that, at least for me, is a really beautiful thing to have come out of this. I have learned how to talk to people who are going through things. In a way that I didn't realize what was most helpful until I needed it.

And then I could discern what was helpful and what wasn't helpful. And now I'm able to respond from a greater place of empathy and, and kindness and support than I would've been able to prior to this. And I'm, I'm sure you see some of that and like, You know, now that you know what this is like for you, I'm sure that the next time you have a patient struggling with it, you'll have a renewed sense of empathy for the struggle.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah. I have three, three clients who, are all years deep into varying versions of Lymes or chronic fatigue syndrome. And, and they, it's kind of adorable. They're enjoying being the teacher on the other side after like, cause I mean, you know, one, I treated for four and a half years and other one five, you know, like we've had a long journey together.

So at one level like. I'm very connected to the experience of chronic fatigue syndrome, because I've had so many in depth conversations with people. So those aspects are not new to me. And, it's, I, I'm going to go ahead and say it this way from my experiences, it's unusual to have the doctor to allow themselves to be vulnerable in that way.

And so it's been a cool dance with them as they've also reminded me of things. I told them frequently.  (Sarah laughs)  They're like, wow. And, but it's been really cool. And, and to speak to what you said earlier about that question of, you know, how are you? Like my sister has started asking how's my cat. She just doesn't ask me how I am.

It gives me a different, you know, cause it's such a reflexive, it's, it's one of our initial connector, you know, questions in a conversation to get connected before you go into the rest of the conversation. It's a typical way we open up dialogue as us Western American human beings do. And so, you know, that was a fun one.

And then one that I, like you said to recognize now more what's needed that you didn't know until you've been through it. Like one of the questions I like to ask people when they share that they're dealing with something, I even had this when I went through a divorce and other circumstances, you know, people tracked where you'd be like, Oh, that's so awful for you.

And you're like, well, is it, you know? So my favorite is to actually say, well, how is that for you? Not put them in a box of what it is or isn't, you know, and so like, similarly is like, not that many people does it come up with me altogether, but it would make a difference for me if people were like, you know, instead of just, how are you or how are you feeling that, you know, I'm like tired brain fog, slight headache behind my left orbital. My knee started hurting for no apparent reason. Oh, that was another fun one where I started to spin out over the weekend. I started to have. Those like deep achy pains, like when the weather changes. And then I had this weird spot in my left wrist, I had one behind a finger. And then I had this thing in my left knee and my brain started to spin out about what if this gets worse?

Like, what if this is going to become fibromyalgia? What if this is only the beginning? Like it's going to keep unfolding. Like that was a whole lot of fun to sit at two o'clock in the morning and think about for awhile. All of those things have since resolved. And I don't know what that was exactly, but I'm not going that way.

But yeah, but that way that we talk to each other about whatever we're going through, whatever's happening is really noticing, are we projecting our own thinking, our own assumptions about what it's like for them. Especially like when people tell me they ended a relationship that could be a thousand different spaces for somebody, you know?

And so I just like to ask, well, and how are you about that?  (Sarah laughs) And then they get to tell me the truth, you know, or whatever they want to share about it. And so, yeah, but my favorite though is my sister asked me how my cat is doing today. And I'm like, he's great. He's fluffy. He's laying in the sunshine.

He's enjoying a nap right now. It's fantastic. And then we just move on. I don't have to talk about me.  (laughs)

Kendra Vicken: That is awesome. Yeah. That's that's great. I

actually recently. On Instagram came across a post that was talking about this specific issue. And I'll pull it up really quick here and just read it.   Five ways to reach out to someone without asking how are you? And so the first one was just send them a photo.

You love of the two of you. Tell them a specific reason why you're grateful for them, congratulate them on some seriously dreamy, recent work or something else that that person is excited about. Ask them about something they are super excited about or simply tell them how much you love them.

Sarah Marshall, ND: That's awesome.

Kendra Vicken: When I saw that I shared it because. It really resonated with me because as I said, that that question has been uncomfortable for me because it's such a greeting in our culture that I can't tell if people are doing it as, Oh, Hey, hi. How are ya? And just expecting a typical "good" and move on. Or if they want my honest answer and.

Good. Doesn't feel like super authentic for me right now. And I feel like it's more good than it is bad, but I mean, obviously I'm not going to do that to like the cashier at the grocery store. But, like when I saw my inlaws this weekend, they just were like, Oh, how are you? And I just was like, kind bad, you know, but it's getting better.

And then I realized that I don't, I think they ask that question without even thinking about it and like totally tailspin things in a different direction while we're like, trying to have family time, which, I mean, isn't bad either to talk about that with people who love you. But I just thought about, you know, when I saw that I was like, Oh yeah, that would be nice to just know that people are thinking about me and I've had some people in my life who've been really good at that.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Absolutely. And that's, you know, one of the other things that has made a difference for me are the people where they can be with me in this wherever I am.

And it's another reflex to say, Oh, you're going to be better soon, or you've got this or, you know, the encouraging, we just do that, you know, but I, and this is Brené Brown is the one that comes to mind her work of, you know, wholehearted living and how critical and actually more difference-making it is to be able to sit with somebody in the midst of what they're dealing with and witness it with them, not make it wrong that they have the feelings that they're having.

And there's actually psychology and neurology that shows things will actually shift and open up faster for somebody because it's literally, you're keeping the flow going versus getting met with the resistance and we quickly learn who we have to hide our true feelings from who we can tell the truth to and who we can't.

When we get met with that, even the tiniest most well-meaning shutdowns, our brain just makes a decision unconsciously, like, Oh, not going there and it dams the river a little bit and then that's got to go get somewhere else. And so. You know, both to ourselves in the not making it wrong, what's happening and allowing things to move.

And also when we're being with others, going through stuff like this, you know, that's been something that's been, it's like, I will get to that point where I'm like, Emotionally constipated. And one of the things I've seen in my life is, given the work that I do, there's a lot of people talking to me about their life and what they're dealing with.

And, you know, right now it's five hours a day. There was a time where it was seven, eight, nine hours a day. That that would be coming into me. And I might have a 10, 15 minute conversation, some point during the day about what's my day was like, or what was going on for me. And there's just a visceral image balance, energetically that I need to find other outlets for, which might be talking to other people, or it might be the way I move my body, deep breathing meditation.

I'm discovering that now that's one of the things I've been feeling in my body is just like, while I pour myself out energetically, I don't tend to share myself so much in my day in that same sense. And how do I bring more balance? I've also just been sharing more with my clients and not, you know, I remember we took an ethics class in med school and one of the conversations was literally like, leave your stuff at the door.

Do not bring your personal life or who you are into the clinical room. And that's an old patriarchal way of practicing medicine. That's a relic. And I think that it's fortunately coming out of even conventional medicine, because we kn building relationships of trust and vulnerability and compassion actually lead to better outcomes for like 99,000 reasons not to mention your patients will actually tell you the truth of what they're dealing with and how many cigarettes they actually smoked instead of lying to you about it.

So, you know what you're dealing with, but like, but that's even been a new thing for me to allow. Like breaking the third wall. Right? It's like, it's like coming out of that space and being willing to do that more and more. And, and it's the nourishing for me and confronting. Cause it's easy to stay in the expert.

I'm the answer. I've got it together. Here's my boundary. It's more comfortable, but it has been to a detriment in some ways in my, my physiology.

Kendra Vicken: Well, and how beautiful for them to, like, I feel like I'd trust a doctor more if I had that kind of insight into their life. I would trust the doctor more, if I felt like they were really, really honest with me and I knew they were human and I knew that they had been through the shit too. You know, I, I think that it actually creates not only a great thing for your physiology to be able to talk about that, but probably if I were to guess, builds a lot of wonderful trust and openness with the people who need that with you.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yeah, well, and now it's like, cat's out of the bag. Cause I publish this podcast and I share myself like crazy here. So yeah.

I've had some clients that are like, I know you so much better now in a month. Here we are. Yeah, no, it's good. Yes. And we've season three coming up. The next frontier and I'm even like, I'm still crafting it.

I think it's it's. It's interesting. This conversation in particular about these nuances of healing. I mean, we've, I'm, I'm, I've already ahead on some getting into, you know, there's a big conversation about Lymes disease. That's going to be had in season three and then money. We actually now are getting the money, you know, and that parallel between money and wellbeing.

And, and then I got to interview Tanda Cook, which is a super big deal for me. She and I actually went to med school together and published uh "Food that Grows" together, which is our cookbook. And she's gone off and built a freaking sensational career around food and nutrition and farming, and particularly getting back to the earth and the parallels and direct connection between our health of our bodies, the health of the soil, how we farm, how we produce our food, all of that. And we had a really extraordinary conversation about fulfilling like who you really are. She says this cool thing where she says, if you cut me open, farmer would fall out. And so like, if we cut you open, what would be the thing that's who you really are? Your dream yourself, your authentic self, you know, what would fall out? And, yeah, so there's some incredible conversations happening and, and I'm also challenging myself and I'm going to say it now so I have to do it to push, to really seek out some of my, my big heroes that are not in my immediate circle of contacts, but are going to be a little bit of a stretch for me to see if they'll come participate in this conversation. So lots of exciting things coming down the pipeline to just keep going deeper and expand out.

Kendra Vicken: Yeah, and I can't wait. I mean, as we've been talking about this whole time, this podcast is not only about healing in so many ways, it is healing and it is such a beautiful community we're seeing unfold around these conversations and that can only get better. I mean, community is only get better with time and more stories and more trust and more vulnerability and it's going to be good. And so by the time this episode comes out, Yeah, season three, we'll be launching next week.  (Sarah: yes!)

And man, it's, it's going to be good.

Sarah Marshall, ND: I actually want to put a plug in here. We've never done this before, but I think it's time and we will, you can absolutely send me a message directly through SarahMarshallND.com. We'll open up ways to communicate, but if. If you're one of those people and you're like, I want to be on the show.

I want to be interviewed. I have, I have a story to tell. I have expertise you want to contribute. If this is resonating with you. And you'd like to be a guest we'd love to hear from you because I, you know, it's time to expand out into a greater world than the people I can see in front of me. And so I'm certain that some of our best conversations yet to come will be from people that I didn't even know were out there.

So reach out to us. It'd be awesome.

Kendra Vicken: Yeah, we would love to hear from you and definitely reach out if you want to speak or participate in the show. But I also want to encourage anybody to reach out if they do have a question, if we've missed a show note, and you're really wanting a certain reference, or if you just want to share your thoughts with us, we want to hear them.

We do want this to be a community and so come be in community with us. And, we'll see you in season 3.

Sarah Marshall, ND: Yes, we will.

Kendra Vicken: Awesome. Thanks Sarah. (music)

A big huge thank you to our host Dr. Sarah Marshall for sharing her heart with us week after week and creating a platform for communal healing. We love you. For a full transcript and all the resources for today's show, visit SarahMarshallND.com/podcast. You can learn more about finding your own healing by going to SarahMarshallND.com or following Dr. Marshall on Instagram at @SarahMarshallND. Thanks to our music composer, Roddy Nikpour, and once again to our lovely host Sarah Marshall. We'll see you next time.