Lyme and Autoimmune Triggers: How Trauma and Toxins Shape Chronic Illnesses
with Heather Gray
Dr. Wendy Myers
Hello, I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. Today we’ve got Heather Gray on the show. She’s the renegade boss, and she’s going to be talking about unmasking Lyme and autoimmune triggers. We’re going to mainly talk about trauma and toxins. This is a really good show because I think people don’t realize how many people have Lyme and how many people are dealing with trauma as the root cause of their health issues. Also, we’ll talk about some of the uncommonly talked about autoimmune triggers as well. Just put that all together. So, it’s a really interesting show today.
My guest, Heather Gray is a functional diagnostic nutritionist and a bioenergetic practitioner. We’ll talk a lot about bioenergetics in the show today, and she specializes in supporting clients with chronic and complex illnesses such as Lyme, mold, toxicity, and autoimmune. With over 32 years of personal experience, she understands the struggles of living with these conditions and is dedicated to helping others find relief. Her personalized approach as a practitioner, a podcast host, and an author has helped countless clients reduce inflammation in the body and brain and improve gut health and achieve optimal wellness. Heather, thank you so much for joining the show.
Heather Gray
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Wendy Myers
So, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into health.
Heather Gray
I usually start off the same way by telling people I was just born basically full of shit. How many practitioners and how many parents can resonate with young kids being constipated? I was four years old and sitting on a potty for so long that my feet would fall asleep. That started my ‘let’s throw band-aids at symptoms. Let’s throw nasty thick oils down her throat and give her still fauners.’ But nobody was trying to figure out why this four-year-old couldn’t poop. In hindsight, 2020 was the year my uncle committed suicide, my grandmother died of breast cancer, and I was being raised by alcoholic addicts. So, needless to say, the childhood trauma that ensued around that time, I’m pretty sure, kicked off my celiac genetic autoimmune issue. I was eating a SAD (Standard American Diet) at the time. It was the start of all my stuff. It’s sad because I’m known for Lyme, and so many people think it’s just cause and effect. I got bit by a tick, and I got Lyme disease, and I’m always like, no, no, no, that’s not how it works.
The same thing with a lot of autoimmune and Alzheimer’s. It’s something that’s actually been in play for years, decades, sometimes that they’re setting yourself up to be a good host. I had my stuff at four. Then, being raised by alcoholic addicts, and by the time I was a teenager, my mom divorced my dad for his brother. That’s actually a bit of my comedy. Like, who else out there has sister cousins? Some more trauma. It just made me a perfect host. So, by the time I did get bit by a tick when I was 13 like I said, I was just a perfect storm until I developed symptoms two years later with my first stent in a psych ward for a suicide attempt. That was the whole start of things, but I didn’t get diagnosed for 27 years. The total was undiagnosed Lyme, mold, three autoimmune diseases, and cavitations. It was at 34 when I finally got diagnosed, and then that’s when I became a functional practitioner. So it was obviously a pain-to-purpose story.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I know so many people are in the health field because of their traumas and their health issues, et cetera, and here to serve and help other people. I have a really interesting take on Lyme. I think everyone has Lyme. Everyone has been bitten by bugs, mosquitoes, ticks, and things like that, but it’s just certain people, based on their stressors and traumas or lack of love in their lives, that develop symptoms.
Heather Gray
Oh, absolutely. It’s in their genetics. I have got some of the worst genetics out there. People talk about having a detox bucket. I’ve got a detox thimble. I don’t produce, store, or make vitamin D well at all. So, all three of my pathways for vitamin D suck, which are foundational for so many health things to work in your body. So no, absolutely. I’m a big fan of that, and it’s been around for thousands of years. People have gotten into this weird conspiracy. There might be some conspiracy to it. We might have done something to it to make it more violent, yes. But we also know that this bacteria has been around for thousands of years, and we have coexisted with it for a really long time. If your immune system is doing its job properly, it typically will keep Lyme in its place because it knows how to.
Dr. Wendy Myers
It’s just like cancer. We all have a hundred million cancer cells in our body, and it’s only when traumas or the immune system is overwhelmed that it is allowed to grow. It’s a similar concept.
Heather Gray
110%, and that’s why I get so frustrated, especially with even Lyme-literate doctors. God bless them that they know a little bit more about the disease, but a lot of them are still just focused on kill, kill, kill, kill. I think that’s why I fell in love with you and your work early on because I was like, detoxing, holy crap, what a difference it made in my life. When I finally got diagnosed at 34 by a Lyme literate doctor who’s an osteopath, I thought I was going to go the more natural route. No, no. He threw so many different antibiotics, and anti-malarial drugs at me. I thought I was going to die. It was horrific. Never once did he ask me if I was pooping. Never once did he ask me how I was sleeping. Never once did he ask me what my diet or my stress level was like. At the time I was in a horrible marriage, married to an alcoholic, and raising a kid with celiac disease. Back then, we didn’t really know a whole lot about that, and there weren’t a whole lot of gluten-free options.
So, there was a lot of stress in my life, and you can’t go to war with somebody’s body like that who’s been sick for decades and expecting to come out of it okay. But when I found detoxing, man, oh, it was like somebody turned the light back on in my brain, my body, like things started working again. It’s incredible.
Dr. Wendy Myers
When I said before that everybody has Lyme, I think maybe not everybody but the majority of people have Lyme. I just wanted to state that. But yeah, I do believe that when it comes to heavy metal detoxification, you need to do that to get rid of Lyme. You’ve got to get rid of all the heavy metals and chemicals that are interfering with your immune system function so it can come back online, but trauma also plays a huge role in draining our energy, draining our resources, causing a lot of physical health issues with our immunity and things like that. So, what’s the role of trauma in Lyme disease and other health issues?
Heather Gray
I think it’s the number one thing people need to focus on first. If it ever gets looked at all, it’s usually last because of emotions. I was one and here I am. I became a functional practitioner after thinking that Western Med was going to kill me. Even the functional way, it’s diet, it’s lifestyle, and it’s all these things. But I took my pills, my supplements and I ate my good diet and I made sure I was in bed by 10. I did all the functional things and never once addressed the suicide of my uncle, the two suicide attempts of myself, being in mold off and on for 10 years, and having a chronic disease. There are so many things that are stuck in my nervous system, constant fight or flight. I had the worst startle reaction of anybody I know. I would be standing upstairs cooking and if my back was turned towards the doorway, my husband comes up the stairs and I would throw what’s ever in my hand, jump 10 feet, scare the crap out of him, and then I cuss at him because now my veins are just coursing with this adrenaline. It’s like poison.
And then I get really angry for a little bit and it makes me sick. He was like, I don’t think that response is normal. I’m like, really? Are you sure? I had to think about it. I don’t see other people getting startled who act that way. So, if you’ve got an exaggerated startle response, that’s a pretty good indicator that your nervous system is dysregulated. You’re stuck in that fight or flight and we can’t heal when we’re in fight or flight. We don’t digest when we’re in fight or flight. We don’t have a sex drive when we’re in fight or flight. We’re just trying to get away from that damn tiger. It’s absolutely, like I said, that little piece of the trauma that I gave you, that was just a little thumbnail, like, ten times worse than that. I’m still shocked at some of the stuff that I’ve made through it, and with a decent, healthy attitude and sense of humor intact, thank God. It’s absolutely crucial.
I kept relapsing. I would clean myself up in a functional way. Three, six months, I’d go by, I’d feel awesome, and then I’d relapse, and then I’d relapse. After about the fourth relapse, it was right around 2020, I finally asked, what am I missing? That’s when I read the book, The Body Keeps Score. It was ridiculously triggering. I’m reading it on my couch and I’m ugly crying. My husband’s like, what the hell are you reading? I’m like, this guy, this little girl and her dad. He’s like, no, no, I don’t want to hear it. But it was the first time I had ever heard that these big T’s, little t’s get stuck in the nervous system. He talked about neurofeedback and plant medicine and all these different things other than talk therapy, because we’re starting to find out now that talk therapy can actually keep somebody triggered and keep somebody stuck in that fight or flight.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Yeah, and it never addresses the underlying root cause. Those frequencies of those traumas in our energy field, it doesn’t touch those or the unconscious. trauma that we’re not even really aware of or how things affected us. You can only talk about what you’re consciously aware of.
Heather Gray
Absolutely. Just like Dr. Joe Dispenza talks quite often about the chemicals that are produced when we’re thinking about some of these stressed states and how addictive they can be. So, sometimes you go into your therapist and you’re talking and you’re getting those nice addictive chemicals again, and then you’re getting validation from your therapist and it’s just a vicious loop. It really didn’t do any much for me, but then like two weeks after reading the book, I’m literally doing an ayahuasca journey in Boulder, Colorado. I just jumped in both feet, like here we go.
Since then I’ve done a lot of different types of plant medicine and neurofeedback and somatic experiencing work, breath work, and bioenergetics constantly. That is my number one thing I focus on besides detox is making sure that my nervous system is calmed because nothing happens in that excited state unless I need to run from a tiger which is never going to happen. So, my creative juices don’t flow. I can’t be a loving mother. I can’t be a loving partner. I can’t be an awesome practitioner. None of that stuff happens if I’m stressed all the time.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I don’t think people realize how stressed they are. Even when you’re really highly aware of your nervous system and your stress levels and this and that, you can still get this regulated. It’s just that we just have so many stressors coming at us from every angle, and even with awareness about it, it’s still challenging to maintain that even keel.
Heather Gray
It was shocking when I did Dr. Amy Apigian’s 22-day course, Biology of Trauma, and she was teaching somatic experiencing work, and one of them was this, gosh, what was it called? It was basically teaching you how to regulate and sense and learn about your own nervous system. Because again, if you’re like a fish in water, you don’t realize you’re in water. It’s the same thing when you’ve been so stressed out for so long. That’s the only state that you know until you get out of it. The first time I was out of it was like whoa, that’s what this is supposed to feel like? Then that started becoming addicting because of the sense of calm, the sense of safety, the sense of things that I’ve never experienced in my life, not with the people who brought me up, not with my ex-husband who was an alcoholic. I’ve never experienced safety in my life.
It wasn’t until going through those courses and learning how my nervous system worked, what I could do, what it feels like to come down a few notches. Acupuncture also helps with that, meditation and breath work. I can tell, and it’s funny cause I had, there was a big stressor that happened a couple of months ago and my startle response came back. It was like, oh, note to self, I need to spend more time relaxing. I need to spend more time with breath work and meditation and all these things. It was amazing how much different my life shifted after I started focusing on that again because we get busy and sometimes it’s hard to do things. As sick as I have been for as long as I’ve been, there’s always this expression that I say that my self-care feels like a part time job and it’s better than being full time sick.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I feel like it’s a fulltime job. I work two jobs. I do this podcast and run my website. My other fulltime job is my health.
Heather Gray
Oh, absolutely. It takes up a lot of time. I didn’t want to discourage people, so that’s why I say part time job, but no, if you’re being real, that’s part of the reason why being an entrepreneur is so awesome for those of us with chronic illnesses because it gives us the flexibility to really take care of ourselves the way that we’re supposed to.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I’m always multitasking. One day I’ve got my feet in my footbath or I’m in the sauna doing social media or I’m doing my rife or I’m on my computer so I’m able to multitask doing a lot of things. So yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people that are really stressed out, they actually get addicted to these stress chemicals, the adrenaline and the epinephrine and the cortisol, et cetera, because that’s how they keep going. That’s how they just get up and get to their day. I think a lot of people, once they calm down, they just feel tired and they don’t like that, I think there’s something to that too. Let’s talk about trauma and autoimmune. Autoimmunity is the fastest subset of diseases growing the fastest. So, what is that connection between trauma and autoimmune disease?
Heather Gray
Yeah, it’s funny. It’s like the chicken or the egg. A lot of people are like, was it the trauma that contributed to the autoimmune, or was it kind of autoimmune that contributed to trauma. They’re both definitely related and autoimmune, if you think about it, it’s the body turning against itself. Trauma just leads to heightened nervous system dysregulation, higher cortisol, dysregulation in your immune system, and so it just sets you up again to be that perfect host for all the different things that come along, whether it churns on your celiac gene or even your non-celiac gluten sensitivity gene. Now you’ve got that churned on because of the trauma, because of the stress and it can be, like I said, anywhere from heavy metals to parasites to early childhood trauma, divorce, or PTSD from the war. Any of those things acts the same in your nervous system. You now have this trigger.
So, like I did, it triggered my autoimmune, turned it on, and now whatever I’m eating is being reactive to, and then now you get that cross reactivity that a lot of times wheat looks like thyroid, and that’s why a lot of people have Hashimoto’s. I’m like, dude, you really shouldn’t be eating wheat and grains because of the cross reactivity. So, it’s this spiral thing, and the sad part is when you’re usually more susceptible for one, then you get another, and then you get another. I’m finding that by the time I was said and done with it, I had like three autoimmune diseases. I was collecting them like training cards.
Dr. Wendy Myers
So, what’s the connection to autoimmune and other toxins? We know that heavy metals and chemicals interfere in our immune functioning. So, what’s going on there?
Heather Gray
A big one right now is we’re finding out that a lot of heavy metals are taking the place for insulin receptors and other mineral receptors, which then lead you more towards diabetes or they compete for resources. They cause inflammation. They can turn on the toxicity of it and the stress of it all. Epigenetics can then turn on certain genes. So, it’s absolutely all very connected. I don’t think I’ve met one person with Lyme. It’s never just Lyme. They usually have Lyme, some co-infection, some heavy metals, or autoimmune. By the time I was done, it was endometriosis, Hashimoto’s, celiac disease, Lyme, three co-infections, plus a bunch of heavy metals, mercury I had to get out, cavitations. They’re all intertwined, playing off of each other.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Yeah, there’s a lot of people that have this complex chronic illness and I just might have so much compassion for people that are dealing with this and that are going to their conventional doctor and getting the revolving door or even going to a functional doctor and just really not getting to the root of what’s going on with them or what order they need to be doing things in and it can feel really hopeless. I think that’s why a lot of practitioners, even myself, go into help because you spend so much time researching and so much time on Dr. Google and trying different things. You’re like, well, I might as well tell people what I’m learning.
Heather Gray
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Wendy Myers
That’s really what my case was. It was trying to figure out what this puzzle is. It’s just so crazy to try to figure out.
Heather Gray
I’ve always been drawn to natural types of remedies. After my second stint in the psych ward when I was 18 or 19 and looking up herbs and supplements that help the brain, neurotransmitters, I only had one piece to that puzzle, unfortunately. I would then go take those lovely herbs and then go eat McDonald’s and smoke my cigarettes and stay up too late at night and wonder why those supplements weren’t helping me. That’s a lot of problems. You talked about the root cause with a lot of functional practitioners. Still, I went to an acupuncturist once, 300 for the supplements, there you go. Again, not talking about diet, not talking about sleep or stress or getting more down. Oh, look, you have mercury in your mouth, any of that stuff. So, just because they are functional, sadly, they don’t always have the answers either. If you’ve got somebody who’s trying to just here, buy this bottle of stuff, I would run because you’re just going to end up with really expensive pee if you’re not addressing the whole body.
Dr. Wendy Myers
It’s a lot to unpack all these different issues, but it’s okay. You have time. I think people have spent many years on the revolving door at the doctor’s office and maybe have gotten help here and there and gotten some pieces of the puzzle, but you have time to figure all this stuff out. So, what are your steps? What do you recommend to people if they have Lyme or if they have autoimmune, what is the first step people should take?
Heather Gray
Absolutely, that’s a lot of the FDN way is, what do they call it, the dress for success model, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, supplementation. Notice how supplementation is the last S, because you can’t supplement your way out of a bad diet. You can’t supplement your way out of bad sleep. So, dialing in a lot of those four S’s foundational things. A lot of those things are free too, like making sure you’re getting enough time outdoors and getting your feet on the earth. A lot of the detoxing principles that you teach, because I guess that a lot of folks with a chronic illness have got a lot of the similar genetics that I do, and they’re just not detoxing properly, especially when it comes to mold, I can get no moldy building and my immune system doesn’t tag it for expulsion like it’s supposed to. So it just circulates, recirculates, and recirculates.
Most definitely, and starting with mindset, I have folks, part of the prereq is to read Dr. Doda Spenza’s Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, because it just even says it in the title. They have to hear it from somebody else other than me for some reason. If you hear multiple angles from multiple people, then it starts to sink in, because a lot of this is not new information for folks. A lot of them weren’t taught the cause and effect. What you eat matters. What you think matters. What water you drink matters. Getting enough sleep matters. If they’re hearing it for the first time, sometimes you need reinforcements. That’s why I like having them read certain things like that or do other people’s courses or introduce them to your type of work just to have reinforcements of, see, I’m not crazy. There’s some validity behind this.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I agree with you with the mindset. I don’t think people realize how powerful what you say, what you think, and what you write are. People don’t realize you have to flip the script. If you’re like, I’m sick, I’m never going to get better. The statistics are against me, or Lyme, I’m never gonna get better, or whatever the fear statements are, or I have an anxiety disorder, or whatever the case may be, if you’re constantly telling yourself that, you’re right. But if you flip that script, like, thank you so much God for showing me the way to get better or whatever you say to yourself or could say to yourself. It’s incredibly powerful to change that mindset to a healing mindset or meditate while you’re saying positive statements to yourself. Your body and your cells are listening and receptive.
Heather Gray
Yeah, it was funny. I still didn’t even realize how badly, like I said, I grew up. Not a nice thing said to me. And so, it took a lot of time to learn how to speak nicely to myself. I will put it out the best. I was saying something about myself and my husband now goes, stop talking to my wife that way. He stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh shit, I was talking to myself in a way that I wouldn’t talk to him, like my worst enemy. A lot of these things that you can do to start healing are free and you can put them into practice today. It starts with awareness, catching those thoughts and shifting it. And it takes time. Oh my gosh, that was probably one of the hardest things to change I think was my language around how I spoke about myself and even others. I felt like I had to police almost every single thought in my head at one point. But it does get easier and then now it’s second nature.
I hear other people when they say things about themselves and it makes me cringe because it’s just like, no, no, no, no. Don’t talk about yourself like that. Don’t talk to my friend that way. It’s huge and then it is sad. People with Lyme, if you look up the word gaslit in the dictionary, I think it really should have a picture of a Lyme patient because I think originally, we’re the original gas, people who have been gaslit. When they finally get their diagnosis and they get that validation that there is something wrong with me. Sadly, I find they start to wear that cloak of honor. You can’t heal if you are identifying with your disease in that way
Dr. Wendy Myers
I agree with you that it does take a long time to learn to be kind to yourself and speak to yourself better. For me, it’s having a spiritual practice and surrendering to that also really helped and this living in gratitude and constantly telling myself how thankful I am for whatever it is that I have, just being so thankful for everything. You can create a practice of gratitude and a practice of kindness to yourself and words of affirmation to yourself and it’s just incredibly powerful doing that. So, let’s talk about any other things that you recommend to people. We talk about foundational things, the things that everyone’s trying when they first start improving their health, their diet, their supplements, and their sleep. What are some other things, maybe that next level that people need to work on when they have Lyme?
Heather Gray
One, not focusing on treatment is like number one A. Two, staying away from a lot of the Facebook groups and the Lyme groups that are just staying sick is another one. I walked into one in the very beginning of my journey and I felt so dirty when I left there because it was just so toxic and everybody was just feeding off of that toxicity. Don’t go there. Focus on something that you can focus on the good stuff in life instead of everything that’s wrong, something like breath work. I remember when I first found breathwork a couple years ago, sarcasm was another one that I had to really work on getting rid of. I prided myself on being the queen of sarcasm. Sarcasm is another low form, not a loving language. A couple years ago and I was like, breath work, shit, I breathe every day. If it works, why am I not better? Like breath work, you freaking hippies. The first time I actually sat in on the ceremony I was blown away at the power of different types of breath work.
Like I said, most folks that I work with are stuck in fight or flight, and their digestion is not working. So, one of the easy little low hanging fruits that I have them do is before a meal, I want them to do box breathing, four sets of a box breathing because that’ll help get them out of fight or flight and into rest and digest and it helps set their body up for better digestion. Typically, that is easy to remember, oh, before I eat, I do some breath work. For three times a day, now you’re doing breath work for a minute. That’s literally all it takes. You just got to get started and these small little habits start feeding on another one, on another one, on another one. And the next thing you know, like I said, you’ve got quite the healthy habit stack going on.
Also, taking things in stride. Sometimes people can get so wickedly overwhelmed, especially when we’re talking about toxins. I’m like, you need to take it out of your personal care products and out of the fragrance blah, blah, blah. They’re like, no, no. Do one thing once a month, and then by the time that year is done, your whole house will be changed. Your whole regimen will be changed. Don’t try to take it all at once. The little type A personality that I am recovering is, rip the band aid off, let’s do everything all at once! And then that short circuited my nervous system again and also led to another relapse. So small steps add up to big wins.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I have this software that’s really amazing. It’s called Qi Fractal Software, and it tests your heart rate variability. I was super surprised when I tested a baseline test and saw my heart rate and whatnot, my heart rate variability, and then did a bunch of breathing exercises by a breathing master, Jibin Chi, and then tested afterwards, and it was incredible how much my HRV had improved in such a short period of time and how my chakras improved on all these different parameters. This software tests 34 different parameters, the majority of which were improved after deep breathing for 15 minutes. I was completely shocked because I knew that breathing, it’s obviously good for you. Deep breathing is great and feels great after yoga and other breathing exercises, but I didn’t realize how much of an impact it could really have. I was shocked and I know a lot about breathing and different healing modalities, but it really blew me away. It’s really important to add that.
Heather Gray
Oh, absolutely. It’s funny because in my human design, which is like astrology, personality profiling on steroids, there’s a certain gate that’s not connected for me. A way to move emotions and to move energy is actually through breath of fire. It’s this really intense fast way of breathing that you normally typically would never breathe that way. But when I started, oh my God, the lights came back on in the brain. I had energy, my creative juices started flowing things. I wasn’t as reactive because I was moving through stuff in my body. Breath is so ridiculously powerful. Like I said, I’m such a geek now. I went to Dave Asprey’s last biohacking conference and got invited to this four-hour breathwork meditation dance party. I was like, yeah, no drugs, no alcohol, and you get blasted off to some amazing places. You get back to your heart, you get back in connection with other human beings, and that’s really where a lot of the magic lies of healing. We’ve this whole lifestyle that is just not conducive to human health and so if you are on a healing journey and you feel isolated and it feels hard, it’s because you’re going against the grain. So, pat yourself on the back. You’re doing the right thing for yourself and continue to look for your tribe. It’s out there. You’ll find it. But, do not give up because it’s definitely worth it.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Yeah, connection is so important. I think that our society is really set up for separation, and so many people are just addicted to their social media and porn and they’re not motivated to go out and find relationships or mates and on Tinder, just hooking up culture. Its politics and all of these different things just made us separated and polarized us and whatnot. You really have to fight against that to really discover the love and the connection and the gratitude and the things. It’s ever present, but you have to tap into that. You have to work and tap into that.
Heather Gray
Absolutely. A hundred percent because it’s not the norm. It’s not what we’ve been taught. So, if this all feels like work, it’s because if nothing changes, nothing changes. You’ve got to change
Dr. Wendy Myers
So, talk to us about your course called the Foundations of Health. Tell us about that because you obviously know there’s a lot of different facets of our health. There’s a lot of different rabbit holes to go down. There’s certainly a lot of mistakes that people make along the way. So, tell us how you focus people on what they’re supposed to be doing for their health.
Heather Gray
It is that whole dress-for-success model. Each little module, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and there’s some breath work and somatic experiencing exercises in each one. An explanation of why. I have a bonus video on toxins. I have eight video cooking series, real cooking for real life because I found that was a huge problem when I tell people, you need to start eating real food. And they’re like, you mean in the kitchen? I’ve never stepped foot in a kitchen. They don’t know how to cook. I was like, oh crap. Here we go. So, I made these very simple cooking series, not just how, what to cook, but why, so talking a lot about the toxins in forever chemicals of fricking Teflon and why you shouldn’t cook with Teflon. Why you shouldn’t store stuff in Ziploc baggies. Why you should eat brass fed beef over confinement beef, all the different things. It’s so much more than just cooking and cooking for flavor and don’t get me wrong, you can cook amazing, healthy stuff that tastes good and delicious. I tell people that I’m paleo for the most part and they’re like, oh my God, no grains, no dairy, no wheat, no corn. What do you eat? I’m like, let me show you. I eat awesome food all the time.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I’m paleo with Parmesan.
Heather Gray
I wish I could write a diary. Oh my God. Do I wish I could do dairy? Even raw dairy. I’ve tried, it’s my genetics. I can’t process it. Me and my husband, we were out somewhere and they had some raw dairy and we just thought we would try it out. Oh my God. The gas was horrific. Both of us. And I was like, okay, that just tells me that no, we’re still not meant to have dairy. No matter how common something may be, it is never normal. It is always your body’s check engine light coming on saying, hey, dummy, there’s something going on here. That’s one of them. Stinky, flatulent gas. Gas is a normal part of the human being, but stinky flatulence is not. That’s a sign that you’ve got some issues going on in your gut. So, instead of grabbing a gas X.
I literally used to have a package of Gasex in my purse, in the locker at school, and in my car. I was never two feet away from a Gasex because I was undiagnosed celiac and constipated for so long. I didn’t know. I thought that was normal and you see commercials of all these people. So, you just assume that that’s how you’re supposed to be. No, it’s not how you’re supposed to be. Sometimes I still try to tell myself, “Oh, isn’t that my gut bacteria feeding on these nutrients and oligosaccharides and they just produce gas as a by-product?” I still try to rationalize to myself that I’m just feeding my gut.
Dr. Wendy Myers
If everyone wants to try out Heather’s foundations of Health course, you can get 200 off by using the code Wendy. Tell us what your website is and where people can learn more about you and how they can work with you as well.
Heather Gray
I’m not taking a whole lot of one on one clients right now. That’s why I have the course. I’m doing a lot more speaking and comedy. I’m trying to bring awareness anyway people will listen. I found out people weren’t just listening to me, lecturing, lecturing, lecturing. I thought, well, let’s make fun of it and people are now listening and I’m dropping seeds and I’m talking about coffee enemas and my comments are always funny. Oh my God. They’re hilarious. Renegade health boss everywhere, all the social media, the website, email me [email protected]
Dr. Wendy Myers
So, renegadehealthboss.com go there. I liked that better than your old website that you wrote.
Heather Gray
That’s nice because then we can talk about everything healthy that’s going to get everybody better instead of just focusing so much on Lyme. There’s still a huge Lyme component to it. Trust me, I’m never going to leave my Lymies behind. That’s a huge part of my story, but also is autoimmune and mental health and addictions and toxins. I want to be able to talk about it all
Dr. Wendy Myers
Tell us about bioenergetics. You’re into bioenergetics and you talk about that a lot. So, tell us about that and bioenergetics’ role in addressing trauma.
Heather Gray
Oh my gosh. Sometimes I feel like it is one of the easy ways to sneak in through the back door to help regulate the nervous system because like you said, a lot of times people don’t even realize how dysregulated they are and to take those steps to get regulated can seem daunting and confusing. We are bio energetic machines. We are electricity. We can measure our magnetic field from our heart with an EKG. We can measure the brain with an EEG and if these two things aren’t talking to each other symbiotically, things are going to be disrupted. So a lot of times, if a person’s bioenergetic field is off, the supplements they’re taking aren’t gonna have the right effect. It’s gonna affect their sleep. It’s gonna affect a lot of those foundational things.
That’s what I love about bioenergetics, especially around the mental, emotional, and most bioenergetics machines out there, whether it’s NES or Zito or you fill in the blank, most of them have a mental emotion component to it because they realize how important that is to the nervous system, to healing and it sometimes can be just that gentle way of tipping the scales enough to where somebody then can be healthy enough to then start doing these other things. Sometimes people, especially with mast cell stuff, they’re just so triggered by everything. They can’t eat anything. So it’s really great at getting in there gently, cooling things down so then that way you can start building up again.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Yeah, and that’s why they work so well. It’s because they’re working on part of the reason they’re working on the emotional trauma component.
Heather Gray
Well, it cracks me up because when we went from Western Med to Functional Med, woohoo, awesome. Functional Med’s, we get to the root cause. Like we said earlier, I’m finding there’s a next step below, and that’s bioenergetics. I really feel that, and the mental and emotional components are more the root cause, and that’s really the ground level that people should be focusing on for sure
Dr. Wendy Myers
Yeah, because we put thousands of people through NES Health, which is a bioenergetic program, and yes, it gets your body working so much better, especially if you tried a lot of different things and you can’t take supplements, or you can’t eat a lot of foods, or you react to everything, or you have chemical sensitivities or EMF sensitivity or you just can’t function. What do you do? Bioenergetics is the answer to that, to get you that foundational relief and get your body functioning again, just at a normal baseline level, so you can do the things you need to do to get better.
Heather Gray
Absolutely.
Dr. Wendy Myers
So, tell us about your website again.
Heather Gray
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay, fantastic. Everyone, go check out Heather’s work. You have a podcast too, correct?
Heather Gray
I do. Renegade Health Boss.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay. Great. Fantastic. Go check out her work and her social media. Everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to the Myers Detox Podcast. I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Thanks for tuning in every week. I love bringing experts from around the world to help give you those missing pieces, those last pieces of the puzzle that you need. Hopefully, you have some light bulb moments on this podcast because I want you to live your best life healthy and because you deserve to feel good. That’s why I’m doing this show. Thanks so much for tuning in.
Disclaimer
The Myers Detox Podcast is created and hosted by Wendy Myers. This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Wendy Myers and the producers, disclaims responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of the information contained herein. The opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.
