Episode 404: From Symptom Obsession to Freedom in Your Body: A Manifest Your Health Case Study
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Burned out, inflamed, doing all the “right” things, and still getting worse? Emily Markham was deep in that loop for years, managing digestive issues, acne, fatigue, and anxiety while trying to out-supplement a life that was running her into the ground.
In this Manifest Your Health client case study, Emily shares what actually changed, and the “secondary gains” and subconscious programming inside this work that helped her get there.
You’ll hear how Emily moved out of obsessive symptom-checking and into freedom in her body after being diagnosed with mold illness, and why healing finally clicked for her when she stopped trying to override her body.
In this episode:
Emily’s strict functional protocols during COVID, including not being able to eat the same food twice in 5 days
How spending 80–90% of your day thinking about symptoms can keep you stuck in a never-ending loop
What “secondary gains” are and why they can override even the most perfect protocol
Erin’s spicy take on nervous system healing, and how it’s about more than quick hacks and breathing exercises
The work inside Manifest Your Health that helped deepen Emily’s trust in her body and a connection to something bigger than herself
Resources mentioned:
The doors for Manifest Your Health officially open on April 27th. Join our neuroscience backed membership that blends systems biology with nervous system regulation, subconscious rewiring and emotional release.
Subscribe to Erin’s Substack for a no-nonsense space about health, entrepreneurship, and manifestation.
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK and get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
OneSkin (Use code FUNK for 15% off your first purchase)
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Emily:
Part of me was a little cocky, I'm not gonna lie. I thought I was doing more than the average person. And I thought that with my background and through college sports, that I felt like I knew what I needed to do to support my body. And then there was another part of me that felt really guilty of, like, everything that I was asking of my body day in and day out. So I fully had the mindset of, like, how can I supplement my way to health without changing my life in any way so I could continue to do everything that I'm doing to overwork, to overextend, to overachieve, like, doc, just tell me what I need to do or take so that I could keep, like, grinding away at my life.
Welcome to the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K, because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt, and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach, creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine™ where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self trust. Your body already knows how to heal and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend because you never know whose life you might change.
Erin:
Okay, my friends, so I know that many of you have been patiently waiting for this announcement since I've basically been teasing it out for months. But I finally, finally have a date for you. Manifest Your Health.
The brand new membership is officially rolling out April 27th. For those of you on our wait list, Manifest Your Health is a neuroscience backed membership that blends systems biology with nervous system regulation, subconscious rewiring and emotional release so you can reconnect with your body's natural ability to heal. My team has been working so hard to design and build out an app for you guys. You are absolutely going to love it. I am so excited for you to have it in your literal hands like inside your phone. So in celebration of that, this whole month is going to be dedicated to the mind body connection. How our bodies are constantly communicating with us. We're gonna talk about neuroscience.
We're gonna talk about using your mind to heal, leveraging the power of your brain to heal your body. Yes, that's real. It's really, really real. I'm gonna show you how and we're gonna talk about the different readiness levels that are required for this to actually happen. So we've got lots of new Stuff coming at you this month on the podcast. Today we're kicking things off with an actual Manifest Your Health client because I want you to hear what it's actually like to go through this process. Sometimes we can talk about this stuff and it might feel so far away from where you are right now. So I want to bring it, I want to ground this for you and really make you understand how possible this is for you.
So today you're going to hear from Emily, where she started with her health journey, where she's at now, and what specific things she did that really helped her bridge that gap. So be sure to head to the link in the show notes to get on the wait list. We're going to open things up with a discounted founders rate on April 27th. So you definitely want to get in early on this one. And I'm just so excited to get started with you guys. Okay. Emily, I am so excited to chat with you. This is something a little bit different because you're going to share your experience.
You're going to talk about what's been going on with you, what has happened over the past few years, your health challenges, where you're at now, and how manifest your health really helped and what you learned along the way. So my goal, my hope, my intention of this show is that people will hear you, they'll listen to your story, and they'll see aspects of you in themselves. And what we are trying to do is story people into possibility. We want people to see what is available to them. We want to put healing potential on the table for more people, especially people who feel like it is not for them, or healing or recovering from a chronic condition is not available to them. So let's start off by you just sharing where you're at now, where you started with your health journey and where you're at now. Just kind of like the TLDR of it all. And then we can get more into your backstory.
Emily:
Yeah, for sure. My health issues started in 2019, so solid six to seven years I've been on this road. I didn't have a formal diagnosis for the majority of that time and then was ultimately diagnosed with something called SIRS at the end of 2023. Stands for chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, also known as mold illness. And to put it as simply as possible, it's something that affects, like every system of the body. It causes so many different symptoms, so it's really hard to diagnose and if left unchecked, can start to do damage to your brain in the form of atrophy or shrinkage, which can lead to all sorts of fun stuff later on like Alzheimer's, dementia, so forth. So what I was experiencing was extreme fatigue, my hair was falling out, really bad acne, extreme digestive issues, bloating. And then it started to play in the like, realm of depression and anxiety.
So really like crossed the gamut of everything. And then so like that's where I was. Today I can confidently say that my chronic health challenges of six to seven years no longer cross my mind, full stop. I no longer spend time thinking, worrying, stressing about my health, which is something that I used to spend 80 to 90% of my day thinking about or actively working on. And I can definitely say that Manifest yout Health helped me get there. And I'm not in remission from a labs perspective yet, but from a lived experience symptom, how I go about my daily life and personal freedom standpoint, I absolutely feel in remission. And I kind of think the term life changing is used so often in our daily vocabulary that it starts to lose its weight. But no longer spending the majority or even actually any part of my day thinking about my health like that is life changing for me.
Like period. End of story. All this to say I still work with my naturopathic doctor, but it's so different now. I take my medication, I take my supplements, and it's just something that I do. It's something that operates in the background and I don't think twice about it. I'm not looking for new information or getting like spooked by like God knows who influencers online telling me everything that I'm doing is wrong. I'm not grasping onto these medications and supplements with desperation and panic. Like, I need you to work, I need you to fix me.
I'm not refreshing my email every five seconds to see if my latest lab results have come in. So like all these things I was doing years prior, no judgment if you're in that boat. I think the reason my chronic health challenges no longer cross my mind is because for the most part my symptoms have resolved. So yeah, it's like really easy to not think about your health when you're feeling really good again. It's kind of obvious and also really crazy for me to say that after all these years. That's kind of like where I am now. And there's like so much more that I could speak on about the program.
Erin:
I didn't think I was going to like already start crying four minutes into this, but I like just hearing you talk of where you were. I just relate to it so much. Like, you know, for me, it was like Instagram wasn't as much. Like, it wasn't what it is 10 years ago, but I was like, in a lot of Facebook platforms or like autoimmune communities and stuff. And I would just be like, searching and searching and searching and searching and like, always on the hunt for, like, what is wrong and how can I fix it? What else could be wrong and how can I fix it? And I just, My heart, like, hurts for those former versions of ourselves because it is such a hard way to live. Like, yes, feeling unwell sucks, but the fear of things progressing, or is this gonna be my forever? That, like, really puts you into such a chronic fight or flight activation. And in that panic and urgency sense, one of the only things that can help to calm us down is more information sometimes. And so I just, I relate to that so much.
And I'm also somebody who is in remission, but I have no proof from labs because I don't need proof from lab. That, to me is irrelevant. Not everybody can say that, but I can confidently say that I don't have symptoms. I don't have any symptoms that I used to. I feel so good. So to me, like, the labs, which I used to put as the primary thing, like, test the body. Test the body. What's wrong, Find what's wrong so we can fix it.
That has fallen by the wayside. So it's like, no longer holds such importance to me. So I know people are going to be like, okay, cool, that's a great before and after. How did you do it? How did you get there? And so I know that you're eager to talk about some of your experience with Manifesto, your health as a program, as a system, as a method, but can we actually hit the rewind button a little bit and tell us, like, your story, your journey of actually getting that diagnosis, what happened leading up to it, and maybe we start there.
Emily:
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it was six to seven years, so there's definitely a lot there. But to set the stage a little bit, just like, personality wise, I grew up as a lifelong athlete. Like, if you name a sport, I probably played it. I went to an Ivy League college, was valedictorian of my high school. And I share that not as a brag, but more so because honestly, I think it's a personality trait rather than like intelligence. And I know I was just a person that knew what I was capable of. And I was really uncomfortable with Allowing myself to do less than that full capability.
So just like type A perfectionist, went to an Ivy League, like I said, played D1 lacrosse for all four years. And honestly, like everything was good at this point. I think I had made it to my end goal. So it was like the work was done and I was happy to pass the baton and kind of slip into this student athlete stereotype instead. Instead of being the smarty pants all the time, I went into investment banking straight out of college because that's just what everyone was around me was doing. And two years into that, so the end of 2019, I really started to struggle with my health. That's where my official health story begins. I again had the really bad digestive issues, extreme bloating, and I just started to collect these symptoms.
And at the time I felt like I was doing all the right things. I was cooking all my own food. I grew up with that background. My mom was on the organic wave before organic was cool. She was cooking all of our meals. We did not eat the standard American diet. I was exercising again, doing all the things. But I started work at 6:45am, worked until like 10:00pm and then I was like going to the gym and doing a really hard workout because that's all I knew at the time.
And then like going home and probably sleeping like four to five hours. I had no autonomy at this point in my life and I was just burning the candle at both ends. But again, in my mind, I was doing all the right things that I had control over. What I probably needed at time was like more sleep, maybe to outsource some other things like getting my groceries delivered. But I had a lot of pride in being able to do it all myself. And I think that's something I grew up with a little bit. Like my. My parents grew up fairly humbly.
Their mothers were in charge of making a single paycheck go a long way to care for six or seven people. So like, being thrifty and the energy of doing things ourself was, was something that I grew up in. And then I sought out my first functional health practitioner, functional medicine type provider. I just grew up with that lens. I knew was never really in my mind to go the conventional route because I thought on paper and looking at me like, you would see a healthy person, you would see someone who is accomplishing a lot of things. And that's what I assumed the Western medical system would see too. And I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to address things before they could get worse.
And for anyone Concerned I did go to my PCP and like cross the t's, dotted the I's and, and got the blood work done and he told me I was fine. And so, yeah, like I went into this experience. Part of me was a little cocky. I'm not going to lie. I thought I was doing more than the average person. And I thought that with my background and through college sports that I felt like I knew what I needed to do to support my body. And then there was another part of me that felt really guilty of like everything that I was asking of my body day in and day out. So I really went into this mindset of like, these tests are going to show that I'm healthy, but it's also going to show me that there's like a few markers off.
And my practitioner is going to give me some supplements, some dietary changes. I'll do those things and I'll be on my way. So I fully had the mindset of like, how can I supplement my way to health without changing my life in any way? So I could continue to do everything that I'm doing to overwork, to overextend, to overachieve, like, doc, just tell me what I need to do or take so that I could keep like grinding away at my life essentially. So, yeah, like came back leaky gut. My immune panel was shot. My inflammation was really high. My fasting glucose levels showed that I was borderline pre diabetic, which to me made no sense based on my diet. I didn't know at the time like the effect high stress has on regulating blood sugar.
But this moment for me was like a holy shit. So was put on elimination rotation diets, things like that, you know that like gluten free, dairy free diet. A lot of that was really difficult for me, like the big Pasadena girl growing up. And I also felt like back then that there was this idea that if you were eating gluten or dairy free that you're on a diet or you were like trying to be skinny. And that didn't feel good to me. I liked to eat to be strong and to nourish my body. It was also Covid had just hit the grocery stores are like having shortages and my practitioner is telling me like with the rotation piece, if you have a carrot on day one, you can't have carrots again until day five.
Erin Holt:
Yo, functional medicine prescription. You got to. I just got to interrupt you because I want to call to. This is my. Obviously you know this but you know, in case somebody is like new landing on this podcast, I do practice functional medicine. We do in our practice, but we do it so differently because this rarely really helps people if it's this prescriptive. If somebody's walking away, being like this feels really hard, really challenging, really limited. And I feel like I have a set of rules that is rarely the entry point in the doorway to true healing.
Like, we might be able to, like, change some labs or to get the gut less leaky, but that is not a sustainable approach. And so if you are a practitioner that happens to be listening to the show, I really want you to listen to Emily's story and, like, take notes and take heart. This is not how we should be practicing root cause medicine. This is template medicine. This is. If that, then this and it doesn't work. And we all have to evolve beyond that approach. Okay, now continue.
I'll get off my soapbox.
Emily:
No, and I will definitely say finding a provider that you trust and, like, really agree with the game plan that they have set forth and who is actually, like, working together with you makes, like, all the difference in the world and helps you not to, like, second guess every single thing that you're doing for yourself. I think that's. That's honestly the hardest part. The diet did help my digestive stuff, but, like, everything else was still happening, and I just felt like I was starting to plateau and get worse. And when I say get worse, like, at this point, like, 50% of my hair had fallen out, my skin was getting worse, I was getting recurring bv, and I was only ever able to register this years later when I was feeling better, like, how badly I was doing, because sometimes when you've felt shitty for so long, you kind of forget what it's like to feel good. So in retrospect, the scariest part was that I developed such extreme brain fog to the point that I was partially numb to my experience. Like, each day was such a slog to get through, and it felt like each day was like a rinse and repeat of the last day, like, Sisyphus style, like, pushing that boulder up the mountain. I was so chronically fatigued and lethargic.
No matter how much I slept, I started to develop really bad insomnia, and I was, like, definitely depressed. But again, I couldn't even register that I was in that place because of how brain fogged and fatigued I felt. But I remember going to sleep at night and feeling so daunted by the fact that I had to do this all again tomorrow. So, yeah, cut ties with this practitioner, went to a naturopathic doctor wasn't really making progress again. I changed jobs and everyone thought that as soon as I left investment banking, everything would go back to normal. News flash, it didn't. But I was remote with this new job, so I ended up going to Austin. In May 2022, I came across a post from the founder of Higher Dose who said something about being impacted by mold spores after her recent move from Miami to Austin, and her skin kind of looked like mine.
So I asked my naturopathic doctor if we could run that test and it came back testing really high for Satratoxin G, which comes from black mold, and then also I think ochratoxin, which comes more from food sources. So again, kind of like, ooh, I might be onto something here, but didn't feel like my provider was like a great fit. So like moved on again.
Erin Holt:
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Erin:
Take us to when you actually got the SIRS diagnosis, what was that experience like?
Emily:
I will say that like the summer before the SIRS diagnosis, I was like in my bag. I like started working with Camille of Camille Marie Nutrition who just finished FNA with you. So shout out to Camille and I got so much better and that's when I started to get into meditation, breath work, journaling and it really started to click. Whereas when I tried these things before, they just didn't. It reminded me of your story of how you attribute things like removing gluten from your diet, lowering your inflammation and like helping you recover from your eating disorder. It was like I physically could not do those things and work on my mental, emotional, spiritual bodies, like with the inflammation and what I was dealing with on the physical plane.
Erin:
I'm so glad that you're bringing this up, Emily, because this is something that really can go overlooked, especially when we start talking about mental healing, emotional healing, spiritual healing, energetic healing, when we start to say, oh, like hey, maybe my nervous system has something to do with this and we start to go into the breath work and all of these tools, which you know, I love and you love. But what is so important for people to understand is that the brain and the body have this incredible capacity to change, to rewire. And that is a superpower that we have. But in order for the brain to be able to do that, it needs, it requires certain physiological inputs in order to do that. So like Emily just said, if there's inflammation in the brain, it's going to be really hard to rewire it. We cannot override the physical body. We can't just be like, oh, oh, I'm not going to put the appropriate stuff in here and I'm just going to jump to breathwork. Usually the success rate of that is going to be pretty low.
What I'm hearing in Emily's story, and what I want you guys to really hear is that she did lay the physical foundations. So she's eating well, she's removing the trigger foods that could potentially be causing inflammation in her body. And then layered on top, she's adding in breathwork. And that is why she wasn't able to see change before, and she started to see more. More benefit from these very same practices.
Emily:
Yeah, for sure. And it was like, as soon as I made the improvements on the physical side, then the mental, emotional, spiritual side could, like, take hold. And then when that happened, then my physical symptoms got better. So it was just this, like, amazing positive feedback loop of, like, one driving the other in, like, the up and right direction. Okay. So then to, like, fast forward, we kind of hit a plateau, but again, like, 80% there. And Camille's like, I suspect you have sirs. She doesn't specialize in it.
So she told me, like, there's someone else out there. So I went through that process, was confirmed with that diagnosis, and, like, definitely experienced that. That rush of validation of, like, I'm not crazy. Finally, after, like, four or five years, like, I have a name to put to everything that I've been feeling. That was great. But then, like, it doesn't matter, but switch providers again. When I started to learn about the diagnosis with my naturopathic doctor, she actually had us do a group program to learn what SIRS is and to learn about the foundations of health through the lens of mold illness. And I totally get why she did it, Totally appreciate why she did those things, because it's a lot.
I'm a really cerebral person. I usually do well with information because it makes me feel like I have options. It makes me feel like I'm not a sitting duck and like, I could do something about my situation. But the more I was learning about this, it was just, like, not good, Not a good time. I was not feeling empowered that I was going to have a life that I wanted to live after this. And so at this time, I was really struggling with accepting my diagnosis because I was having a hard time accepting all of the things, the prognosis that comes along with it, like, the hypervigilance, the constant scanning of my environment, like, not being able to travel, not being able to feel safe, visiting even my friends and family, not being able to go to a grocery store. Like, my life was starting to feel really small, like it was getting smaller. And again, this life sentence, like, feeling.
But I felt like I wasn't allowed to separate the diagnosis from the prognosis. What they told me my life was going to look like, but that's when it was kind of, like, divine timing. Like, the Manifest Your Health podcast series came out, and I was able to, like, tap into something different. And, Erin, like, you told your story about your scleroderma diagnosis and kind of how you're going through the same thing of, like, got it. I see the scans. Like, I see it in black and white. But what you're telling me about how I'm going to feel and how my life is going to end up, like, that's not true for me. And as soon as I heard you say that, I was like, wait, I'm allowed to do that? Like, raise my hand, sign me up.
Like, if she could do that, I could do that. And so that was like, an absolute game changer for me because I was really beating myself up for, like, kind of trying to see another way out. So that's kind of when Manifest yout Health came into play. I had moved back home again. We did see mold when we were fixing it up for me to return. So, like, knew that that was a thing. And, like, once it was taken care of, my doctor wasn't. Was a little nervous just, like, how my.
My environment was. But, I mean, at least what I think, like, there's no place that's 100% free from mold. So you can drive yourself insane trying to, like, feel safe in an environment. So I was in a really interesting spot where I could experiment. Like, let me see what happens if I don't change my living environment and just tap into the Manifest yout Health podcast series instead. Like, there's no lab that exists that says, hey, are my symptoms the result of physical, like, things happening in my life, or is it on the mental, emotional, spiritual plane? Like, there's no way for us to really know. So usually the prescription is, hey, like, do it all. You don't have to do it all at once.
But eventually. But this was kind of a unique opportunity that I could play around with that of, like, gonna put the physical stuff on pause, like, in terms of changing my environment. And I'm gonna tap into this and just see what happens. And just in the podcast series alone, I noticed a reduction in symptoms. At this time, my depression was, like, really bad. Like, lowest I've ever been in my entire life. And since I didn't have the brain fog of the years prior, I was, like, painfully aware of how well I wasn't doing, and I was super anxious. I mean, this was the time where I just felt like there was two camps emerging of, hey, you have the functional Medicine, people saying, like, through diet, lifestyle changes, supplements, you can achieve pure health.
And then you had the, like, nervous system regulators of the world and the, like, trauma stored in the body. And that just needs to release. And, like, to be clear, I believe in both, but it felt like no one was allowing for both to be true at the same time. You had to pick one or the other and, like, choose your fighter. And that was really difficult for me to hear, especially because I had suspected that there was something going on in the mental, emotional, spiritual side. And kind of all I had been doing so far was the physical. And it just kind of felt like they were saying everything that I was doing was for nothing. And when you're already, like, super anxious about everything, like, that's not the message you want to hear.
Erin:
Yeah, I think that is a big thing. When you and I chatted before this podcast, that was a big thing that really stood out to me about your story. One is that you were in this place of which I can so relate to. It's kind of like. Like, there's this beauty in this desperation because you're so open to possibility. I mean, you have to, like, be really primed. Like, the pump needs to be primed for you to listen to some podcasts and to already receive medicine. And by the way, I'm so grateful that that was your experience, because really, all I'm doing in that podcast series is teaching you about your mind.
I'm introducing some concepts of manifestation. I'm introducing some concepts of neurobiology and how we kind of create our own reality in our own body of health. And so I love that you so ready. It's kind of that, like, fuck it, I'll try anything moment. And that is like, you know, where the real magic happens. But also what you're saying right now is that you are feeling like things were being positioned where you had to choose one or the other. Like, either I'm working on my physical health through functional medicine, or I am working on the rest of it. And I laugh at, you know, how you call it the nervous system regulator, but I want to speak into that right now because there's so much rhetoric about the nervous system right now, and sometimes I have to laugh because the nervous system is the most complex thing in our entire bodies, and our bodies are pretty complex.
And so the way that people talk about it, like, it's so basic and straightforward and simple. I'm like, I don't think you quite understand the nervous system. Nervous system health is super, super important. Where I find that this has the potential to miss the mark is when we're looking at the nervous system in nervous system health as things you do. And what's interesting is when I polled my audience on Instagram relatively recently and I asked what people wanted, they were like easy hacks for the nervous system hacks. That's their words, not mine. A list of things to do. Simple, fast, realistic tools, easy ways to incorporate nervous system work.
And the funny thing about it is that's actually not how nervous system healing happens or how it works. There are certainly practices that can help us source safety in our bodies or get ourselves into a parasympathetic state. Box breathing, physiological sigh, vagus nerve techniques. You know, go on Instagram, you'll find them all. But if that's all you're doing, your healing is going to say kind of surface level. Because real nervous system regulation work is understanding why your brain and your body keep returning to a dysregulated state. And the nervous system is so intimately tied to the subconscious. Really I can almost think about the nervous system as a physical manifestation of the subconscious.
It's kind of like the brake gas pedal that causes physical reactions, whether it's fight, flight, freeze, depending on the subconscious current programming. And so if we want real change to happen, we have to go a little bit deeper than quote, unquote, nervous system hacks or easy ways to quote, unquote regulate my nervous system. We have to take it a little bit deeper. We have to look at subconscious beliefs, maybe inner child parts, unprocessed experiences. Those are all things that can really keep the nervous system in dysregulation. And so I would love for you to talk about, because manifest your health can feel a little bit intangible, maybe sometimes even esoteric for people that haven't been through it. So can you talk about some of the tools, the practices, the things that you actually did or ideas or concepts that actually gelled for you and helped you, like, you know, you're working on the physical body. How did you continue to work on the physical body while also bringing in some of these tools and practices?
Emily:
For sure. And I definitely didn't like, stop treatment on the physical stuff while I was doing this, which like both can exist at the same time. But one of the biggest concepts for me, like, oof, like I get chills when I think about this one, was the concept of secondary gains. And I love the way you taught it on it. You gave us full permission to tune this out, put it on a shelf Reject the whole thing if we weren't ready to hear it. But again, me being five years into feeling horrible, I was desperate. And again, you're just like, in this beautiful place of being so open to possibility and trying things and being open to seeing things differently. So the prompt here was, is there a part of you that wants to be sick? Is there a part of you that feels safer being sick? Like, yeah, that's a doozy.
Yeah. Everyone's like, of course I don't want to be sick. Like, how could you even say that? How dare you? No one wants this F you. So for me to get past this defensive first layer, I reframed it as if this were true. If it were true, that part of me wants to be sick, what are some reasons why that might be? And I feel like phrasing it this way allowed me to put some distance between it and me and, like, play around with the prompt rather than like, white knuckling and wanting to fight it. And I want to share what came up for me because when you told us how this showed up in your life, it really helped me to connect the dots on where it was playing out in mind. Those real world examples were super impactful for me. So to pay it forward, some of the things that came up for me first, my illness, my health challenges allowed me to change.
You know, in college, I was definitely more of a partier. Like, no regrets, by the way, had a great time. But after I graduated, that environment, alcohol just, like, wasn't as interesting to me as it once was. It just wasn't as fun. And my health decline allowed me to step away from that life. It allowed me to say, like, oh, I'm not drinking because of my health, when really the truth was I wasn't going out because I just wasn't that interested in it anymore. Like, not that I'm sober by any means, but, like, you get what I'm saying? It also allowed me to, like, try more woo woo things that I was interested in, but again, could blame on my health. Another thing I wrote down is that, you know, it's really interesting that my illness took the form of mold illness specifically, which is environment driven.
I'm someone that likes, like a modern clean, and I come from a family that's like, we make do with what we got. We have antiques, we have things passed down from family members. And like, again, we're like, proud of that identity. And I feel like I internalize that as, like, oh, I don't need the shiny environment, the living situation, like, Other people value that, but, like, I don't need that stuff when in reality, like that newer environment is the environment that makes me feel like the most comfortable, the most clear, the most creative. So my mold illness gave me to an excuse to say, let's say like, need that new build apartment. I could blame my illness for needing that because I'd be too embarrassed to say that, like, I valued that type of space so much, like, when it was such a point of pride in my family. And while I'm sure there's truth to both of those things, the biggest one for me was realizing that my illness was protecting me from my biggest fear, that I may never find my purpose or the thing I was put on this earth to do. I grew up with a good kind of conditioning that I was told I could do anything or be anyone and succeed.
Like, well done parents. Thank you. But with this messaging, I started to put a lot of pressure on myself. I felt, and honestly still feel sometimes that I need to find this thing that I'm meant to do. And if I don't, I'll be wasting the gifts that I was fortunate enough to be given and I'll be wasting the positive, supportive family situation that I was lucky enough to be brought into. So being sick gave me an out from that fear. It allowed me to put the fear of never finding my purpose up on a shelf because I had more important things, my health, to focus on. I couldn't think about my next steps because, you know, first I had to get better.
And once I was aware of this, once I said that out loud, once I made the subconscious conscious and was willing to look it in the face. One, the fear, while it's still daunting and like no part of me has figured out what I want to do with my life. It's just like, not that scary anymore. It doesn't hold as much weight or power over me. And the anxiety that I had over my health was just like, poof, gone. It was so immediate. And it was like, oh, this is what I'm actually scared of. This is actually what needs my attention.
And this doesn't mean that I'm saying my diagnosis or my symptoms and my health challenges are not real or on my head or that like anything I was doing to support my physical body was for nothing. And also I do believe that my mind was a factor that was keeping me from healing all the way from achieving true health and freedom from thinking about my health all the time, because it was trying to protect me and shield me from this bigger fear of never finding my purpose.
Erin:
Wow, that is so major. And I like what you said. Like, with this work, we're never telling anybody their lived experience isn't real. We're not saying, oh no, you don't actually have this diagnosis. That's not real. We're never doing that. We're not gaslighting people. We're not telling you that your lived experience isn't actually happening.
We're just saying that there's other things that you might not be aware of that are influencing what your body is doing right now. And sometimes the body's only way of communicating with us is through illness or through injury or through symptoms. And so it's often, more often than not, a protection mechanism. And I, I want to just talk about this concept of secondary gains. It can also be known as hidden benefits, kind of one and the same. The overall gist of what Emily's talking about, this concept is that your conscious desires, so the things that you know you want, you're aware of the fact that you want them. Like a clean house, a new clean house build, that would be a conscious desire. I'm aware that I want this.
And that has to align with your subconscious beliefs in programs. If they're not congruent, it will be really challenging to call in to receive and to hold that desire. So Emily is saying, you know, I would love like a beautiful, clean, brand new, pristine apartment, but I have these subconscious identities I've locked in this family identity of like, that's not who we are. We don't need to be frivolous like that. We can, we make do with what we've got. You know, we can repurpose and we can reuse. Your body's not never going to outperform your own self image, your own self identity. Never, ever, ever, ever.
It won't. It won't do it. And so that's a kind of a small, silly example, but it's a way that it plays out in real life. So if your conscious desires or goals and your subconscious beliefs and programs are not congruent, we won't be able to call in and hold the things that we want. So we can be doing all the right things, but it might feel like there's a block there. So if you desire one thing consc. But any part of you unconsciously or subconsciously believes that that thing is not safe, or it will create a problem for you or create friction in your life, then your subconscious will pump the brakes in the way that it does that is through the body more often than not. So the subconscious and the nervous system work together like I said earlier.
And this is a real world example of that. So when the subconscious just slamming the brake saying, alert, alert, alert, this isn't safe. This does not align with our current beliefs, programs and identity. What can happen is it can feel like panic, it can feel like urgency, it can feel like freeze, it can feel like shutdown. Like I said, it can be injury or illness or symptoms. But again, it's really just a protection mechanism in your body. And we just have to get super clear of what's going on here. So Emily said, earlier, I took the subconscious and I made it conscious because once we are aware of these things and then we have the opportunity to change, then we have the opportunity to make new decisions or to think about things in new and different ways, to story ourselves into new possibility.
And I'm wondering if this concept helped you to see because I know that you were talking about self trust, like you have more trust in your body and more trust in yourself and is understanding that the body is kind of always working against us, even with these protection mechanisms. Was that helpful for you to step into more self trust?
Emily:
Yeah, for sure. And I think that the compassion piece also came into it. It was like, oh, I see what you're doing here, brain. Thank you so much. I know you're working in my favor. Love you. But we don't need to do that anymore. So yeah, learning that in tandem with the compassion piece, that was kind of unlocked also with Manifest yout Health definitely helped me to just like have more trust in my body.
Definitely.
Erin:
And you said speaking with the self compassion, because you commented on an Instagram post and something that really jumped out to me. You said it's an educational tool to open up a treasure trove of self compassion. But then when you and I were talking, you were like, it also unlocked compassion for everybody else. So I want you to say more on that. When we're doing self help work, when we're working on ourselves, sure, this is work that benefits us. But what I am seeing more and more and more is how this can actually benefit the collective, how this can influence our relationships with other people. I think the goal you had talked about, a small life are. I don't think I'm not going to speak for everybody, but for myself.
My goal was never for my life to get smaller and smaller and smaller and more boundaried. It was to live a bigger, bolder, more beautiful life. And when I do take the time to do this work and work on myself. I can show up bigger, bolder, in more places and spaces for other people and I can tap into that kind of like compassion for the collective. So speak into that because I just thought everything you said here was so beautiful.
Emily:
Yeah, so like you said, unlocked a treasure trove of self compassion. And all of that was just learning the brain science, like how to does the human brain work? So like understanding that everyone is going through life and seeing life through these set of filters, most of which were learned and programmed in us at a really young age. And just like this understanding that we're all watching the same channel but experiencing a completely different movie, I just find it so much more difficult to be critical of myself and of others knowing that we have these programs like like sometimes working against us, sometimes working in our favor, or just like working differently than the next person. And that's maybe why we don't see eye to eye. So for someone who like has always wanted more from themselves their whole life, like this was so impactful for me to learn and then like unlocking that for myself and then unlocking the abundance of compassion for my family, my friends, my loved ones and then that extending beyond them to literally like every single human that I pass on the street. Like it's nothing short of magical. Like to live in that consciousness and to live from that space. It's crazy.
And it's like wonderful. And it was really cool that normally like the information plus the integration as you say, is what makes the change. And like this was one of those times where just the information alone like unlocked that for me.
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Erin:
I'm gonna throw a little bit of a curveball at you. You mentioned the word spiritual, like quite a few times. And then I started saying it too.
So, like, let's just lean into that because. So you know, one of the concepts of Manifest Your Health is Intuitive Functional Medicine™. Just how I see health in the human body is that we have a self and it's made up of multiple parts. So we have the physical self, which is the body. We have the nervous system, which is kind of like our personal surveillance system. We have the mental health, which are our thoughts and beliefs. We've kind of been talking about this, like, with the subconscious. We have the emotional self, which is our feelings.
We have the energetic self, which are energy networks within the body and then also our energy field that surrounds us. And all of this we talk about in Manifest your Health. But we also have the spiritual self. And I used to teach the energy body and the spiritual body as one and the same. That's how it was taught to me. But I've really been thinking about it differently a lot lately. And I want to say here, speak into the microphone for everybody to hear. I am not here to tell anybody what to believe.
Like, I'm not trying to be any type of spiritual guru or anything like that. I always kind of think is like anything that we talk about on like, the spiritual plane. It's just like a little bit of a choose your own adventure. It's like kind of like sliding scale. Like, you get to control the drip. You get to do whatever you want. Some people are like, I don't want it at all. Like, cool, totally fine.
Like, you can still get some great medicine out of this. I always think about, like, everything as an invitation. And then you just get the opportunity to RSVP no. Like, no big deal. Take what you need, leave the rest. But what I've been pretty fascinated with lately is more of the research and especially the work of Dr. Lisa Miller, who really is showcasing that high spiritual brains are healthier. So we all have a natural capacity to perceive a greater reality and consciously connect to the life force that Moves in, through and around us.
So you were kind of alluding to that when you were talking about kind of like, plugging into, like, collective consciousness. And even if we don't identify as being religious or being spiritual, our brain, all of our brains, have a natural inclination, like, toward spiritual awareness. And when we engage in these capabilities, our brains become healthier. And so I just think that's really cool. Again, I'm not trying to force any belief systems on anybody, but I would be so curious to hear your thoughts just in regards to spirituality and how, you know, using the body almost as an entry point to access, like, a deeper understanding. I don't even know how I would define spirituality. I think it's kind of like a feeling of interconnectedness, a feeling of awe, like, moments of synchronicity, feeling connected to something bigger than yourself. Like, that's probably how I would define it, but I would love for you to speak into that if you so choose to.
Emily:
Yeah, for sure. And, like, I grew up with a religion, but I see it completely separate from that and honestly end up finding myself more attracted to the word spiritual and what that means to me. And it's kind of like you said, for me, it's just like connecting to something bigger than myself. Honestly, for no reason other than it feels better for me. I'm like, oh, there's something out there that's bigger and maybe knows more than I do, so I don't have to be doing it all myself. There's something that's looking out for me or has the answers when I don't. And so for me, like, I interchangeably use, like, universe. Like, I know God is a touchy one, but, like, God, like, higher power source.
Like, it's all kind of the same to me. I'm just kind of like, whatever that is. Like, that's kind of how I view spirituality. You could find it in the woods. Like, doesn't need to be in a church. Like, that's how I see. I like to not really put guardrails around it. For me, it's.
It's kind of this, like, moving. Moving piece.
Erin Holt:
Can you see? I'm, like, tearing up. I. Like, I'm not sad. It's just like, I'm, like, awestruck. I just. Yes, exactly. And I'm like, it feels good. It feels good to even have this conversation with you.
Like, it feels good in my body. And I oftentimes I'm like, okay, so our bodies have these, like, subconscious programs, and it just. Just means that we're not consciously aware of them. Right. That are running the show. Like how we breathe, how, you know, we create new cells. Like, we're not like consciously directing any of that. And our bodies know how to heal.
And if you don't believe that, like, trust me on this one, you know, like our gut lining is regenerating every few days. Like it's all happening. And what's the consciousness that's directing that? It's bigger than just us. Like there's something bigger. I kind of feel like when I can plug into that, whatever it is, it's almost like a feeling that's being created right now as we're having this conversation. When I can plug into that, that is when I align with my sense of purpose. And so I think that there's like a real. I think we're living in these bodies and to kind of pull it back full circle.
I don't think we should choose body over, like energy body or body over mind. It's all connected. And I think our souls, like our bodies are a space for our souls and we get to live our life. We get to, to eat a peach, you know, we get to like, smell a flower. We get to engage our human senses. I don't think healing is to transcend the body and pretend that nothing is happening on the physical plane. It's all happening on the physical plane. Right.
And I think that when we can use the body as an entry point into like these like, layers of ourselves and when we can really connect with something greater or a higher self or a soul or whatever word resonates with you, I think that that's when our sense of purpose can click in. Research does say that a higher purpose is linked with lower levels of anxiety and depression, better resiliency in coping, better health, better psychological well being. So it's all connected all the time. And I just wanted to speak into that because I think it's. It's such a fascinating thing that your illness really gave you in your diagnosis and the fear associated with it. Because it's not just the diagnosis that sends us on our path. Right. Or sends us on this, like, big, long journey.
Oftentimes it's the fear that we associate with the diagnosis that is kind of like leading you to your higher purpose. You know, I think that's what the secondary gain, like, helped you to see. So I think it's just. It's all wild.
Emily:
Yeah, no, absolutely. And another podcast I was listening to introduced me to David Guillaume, who spreads the work of Kabbalah and the person he was talking to also struggled with their health. And what he said was, God or the light or, like, whatever word you choose, that was kind of a way to pivot you, like, to, like, force you in another direction. Like, maybe you're going down one path. And, like, it was like, nope, I need you here. And again, that doesn't technically have to be true, but if it makes you feel better, I'm like, why not believe it? And so at the same time, I was listening to Manifest Your Health podcast. I was tuning into his little master class because it just felt better. There was no rhyme or reason, but I was like, I'm plugging into things that feel better because I want to drown out all the things that.
That don't make me feel good.
Erin Holt:
And sometimes we can just let our gauge be that simple. Does it feel good? Cool. Do more of that. Engage in more of that. Does it feel bad? Yeah, do less of that. I mean, it gets to be that simple. And that's why, like, you know, I just feel as though so many of my paths have, like, revealed themselves to me because I just keep following what I'm called to do with what feels good, what excites me, what feels engaging, and just, like, let the path kind of reveal itself. Before we close out, I just want to see if you have any final thoughts or there's any aspects of the program itself or your experience that I haven't covered, that we haven't talked about here that you think people should really know and understand.
Emily:
We did touch on, like, how Manifest Your Health helped me restore the trust I had in my body. And, like, like, definitely gave me a more positive outlook on my health. And I just wanted to give, like, a concrete example of that. As part of the SIRS diagnostic criteria, they look at your HLDR genes. Basically. Some genes are increase your susceptibility to having this. And I've got those genes. I got the bad genes.
And, like, learning about the genetics really rocked me. I think prior to that, because of my time in sports, because of the background and how I grew up, I. I had or I held the identity of, like, I am someone who is healthy. I am someone who is strong. I am someone who can bounce back from anything when it comes to my body. Like, I got injured in college, and it was never a matter of, like, if I would heal. It was just when it was automatic. But the genetics piece really started to break down that identity.
And I am a healthy person transformed into. I am someone who is compromised. I am someone who Will have this forever. And so that life sentence again, it's just so hard to overcome, Especially to your point of, like, it kind of sometimes feels like we're not allowed to believe in the things that feel good. Like, we have to believe in what the doctor or the authority says or, like, what everyone is saying about this condition. And, like, I'm not allowed to believe something differently. And I instead started to poke holes in the diagnosis because it just made me feel better. Like, how many people in my family have these genes and are, like, just fine? Like, how many people are, like, actively in this world have these genes and are living in probably moldy houses and are, like, completely fine? Like, we don't know about them because, like, they don't have symptoms, so we're not testing them.
And you show didn't Manifest Your Health. Like, people who had slipped discs and weren't experiencing back pain. So just, like, this idea that there can be physical deformities and, like, you can still not experience pain, it's not the end all, be all. And, yeah, I just felt like, once again, I couldn't fully let myself believe that until I, like, went through Manifest yout Health and was like, oh, this is okay. I am allowed to do that.
Erin Holt:
You know, we talk about diagnoses as medical hexing sometime, like the nocebo effect. What people are told about their condition and their potential to heal can really dramatically influence that. And so sometimes we have to look at that and say, is that the path for me? Like Emily has said a couple of times, we can accept the diagnosis. We can say, okay, I see the labs. I totally see the data that supports that. But the rest of it, the story that is attached to this does not need to be my story. I have a manifestation teacher who says that everything that doesn't feel good is a lie. If the story doesn't feel good, you get to reject it.
If you have the power. You have the agency. That is up to you. And you can do that, because that doesn't have to be my story. And then what we can start to do, which is what Emily did, is start to look for evidence of the contrary. Because your subconscious mind does need marching orders. It does need to see evidence that what you want in the story that you want to create actually exists out there. And so that's a really, really important thing.
I know you said you have a closing statement that you want to make.
Emily:
Yes. It's quick. And Erin didn't pay me to say this, but throughout the program, I kept thinking like, this should be required reading for all humans. Like, put Manifest Your Health on the syllabus for things you must know as a human being living and breathing in 2026. Like, not just those who have health challenges. Because it works on so much more than health. Like, literally every aspect of your life. Like, I'm still uncovering and challenging old beliefs.
Like, the compassion piece was huge. Like, it's really hard to put into words all the ripple effects that this program has.
Erin Holt:
Thank you so much for trying to do it for us because it is really, really hard to put into words what we're doing here. And I'm just so proud of you and everything that you've done and what your body has been able to do. And I'm so grateful that you, you found the, you know, podcast doing God's work out there. I'm so grateful that you stumbled across the podcast and found the program. And I just really appreciate you coming on the show. I know it's not always easy to talk about your health journey and all of that, all the warts and bumps along the way, but I know that you, this story is going to help people and it's going to. You're going to act as an expander for somebody. And I think that's just, you know, thank you for being part of the ripple effect.
Erin Holt:
So we really appreciate you being here. Emily.
Emily:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Like, you've been in my ears for so many years. So honestly, it's super crazy and surreal to be doing this with you.
Erin Holt:
Now I'm in your face. Okay. All right, bye, everybody. We will check you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.