Episode 106
Katie Wells:
Becoming Your Own Health Advocate: Insights from Wellness Mama
In today's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Katie Wells, the powerhouse behind wellnessmama.com. We dive deep into Katie's personal wellness journey, the importance of self-care, and the role of mothers in shaping the health and well-being of their families.
First Aired on: Sep 25, 2023
Episode 106
Katie Wells:
Becoming Your Own Health Advocate: Insights from Wellness Mama
In today's episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Katie Wells, the powerhouse behind wellnessmama.com. We dive deep into Katie's personal wellness journey, the importance of self-care, and the role of mothers in shaping the health and well-being of their families.
First Aired on: Sep 25, 2023
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
With a journalism background, Katie has written over 1500 blogs at wellnessmama.com, penned three books, and has been recognized as one of the most influential people in health and wellness.
Katie's Personal Journey
- Unexpected dive into wellness after planning for a career in law or international relations.
- Motivated by postpartum symptoms and a concerning trend for the current generation's life expectancy.
- Utilized her journalism skills to research and provide answers when conventional healthcare failed.
Empowerment Through Knowledge
- Katie's quest to become her own primary healthcare provider.
- Key Insight: Addressing both physical and emotional aspects of health are pivotal.
- Importance of mindset and emotional well-being in healing.
The Power of Inner Peace
- Authentic self-love as a foundation for healthy choices.
- The journey of improving self-talk and revealing hidden traumas.
Balancing Life and Wellness
- The double-edged sword of compulsive motivation.
- Autoimmunity insights: the body's intent to heal and avoiding condition identity.
- Transition to a co-creation mindset involving family and team.
Teaching Children Responsibility
- Encouraging kids' autonomy, like managing kitchen chores.
- Practical Tip: Utilize a structured calendar for family and work tasks for clarity and stress reduction.
Letting Go and Child Development
- The value of allowing kids to take calculated risks.
- Fostering a close bond with teenagers through experiential learning.
Celebrating Children's Abilities
- Katie's son's accomplishment: writing and publishing a cookbook at age 12.
- Takeaway: Joy as the ultimate form of self-care.
Reframing Problems and Choosing Joy
- The concept of repatterning negative thoughts.
- Key Point: Model positive behaviors and let kids prioritize their joy.
Mothers as Pillars of Household Energy
- The ripple effect of mothers' personal growth on their children's well-being.
- Simple Step: Embrace morning outdoor time and focus on joy-filled activities.
Building Healthy Habits
- Recommendations: Morning sunlight, hydration with electrolyte water, and gratitude practices.
- Resource: Visit wellnessmama.com for more on Katie's work and personal care brand.
Other Resources:
Connect with Katie Wells
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson. And today we're joined by Katie Wells, whom you probably know as wellness mama. Katie is the founder and CEO of wellnessmama.com and wellness. She's a mom of six with a background in journalism who took her health into her own hands and started researching to find answers to her health struggles.
Her research turned into a blog and a podcast, [Page//00:01:00] and she now has written over 1500 blogs, three books, and was named one of the hundred most influential people in health and wellness. In today's conversation, Katie shares about her journey with autoimmunity, and we discuss how we can prioritize self care while also raising a family and successfully running a business or businesses.
Katie, welcome to the podcast.
Katie Wells: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you again.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. And I would love to have you share with listeners. If there are any that aren't already familiar with your journey, um, how did you go from, you know, being a writer to all of a sudden a leader in the wellness space?
Katie Wells: Oh, well, I'll try to give the short version, uh, for the sake of time. But the short answer is that this was not at all the path I planned for my life. I was, um, in high school and college, very academically focused and thought about a career in law [Page//00:02:00] or international relations of some sort. And that's kind of the path I was on, um, in a very type a way with taking about 28 hours per semester and really pushing myself hard in a lot of areas.
And, um, In about the end of my college career, I also realized that I for sure wanted to be a mom and to have kids. And as things often do, it happened very quickly and serendipitously for me. And it was the most beautiful way that my life took multiple turns. I think looking back, we can probably all see times in our lives that we at the time thought were very difficult that ended up leading to the most beautiful things.
And that certainly was the case for me. But the short version is that I... Looking back to tell people, if you want to get autoimmune disease, you can do what I did, which is to be really stressed, not eat very much, and when you do, eat really poor food choices, and not sleep enough, and that'll get you a lot of the way there, and that had been most of my high school and college experience, and then, when I got pregnant with my first child, It was sort of that metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back slash last [Page//00:03:00] marble in the bucket, to use the autoimmune analogy, however you want to explain it.
And after he was born, I started having all these strange symptoms, which were of course written off by my doctor as normal for postpartum, and that's just what you're going to experience and everything is fine. And you know, just try to sleep when the baby sleeps, which is probably the least helpful advice you can give a new mom.
My background to that point in my, my college experience had been around journalism, and I ended up not pursuing graduate degrees, but I leaned on my research side to try to figure out my own health answers when I couldn't get answers from doctors. And at the same time, at my six week follow up appointment after having my son.
I read in Time magazine that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of American children would have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. And it was just such a stark contrast to look at this tiny, perfect newborn and read all these statistics about what his generation was going to face.
And I decided in that moment that wasn't good enough for him and it wasn't good enough for anybody's child. And I had no idea how, but I wanted to be at [Page//00:04:00] least a small part of shifting that tide and changing that. So, those two things lined up and I dove head on into PubMed and that was my research and bedtime stories for years, was reading through studies.
And using myself as a test subject, which long term led actually to my philosophy. Now that I say on almost every podcast, which is that at the end of the day, we are each our own primary healthcare provider, and we are each our own healer. And while we can get outside help, and hopefully we do from great partners, which I also eventually found in the form of some incredible doctors at the end of the day, that responsibility lies with us.
And that's awesome news because that means we have the ability to shift things. And so I started. Making these changes in my family and because of my journalism background, just writing about them to help myself process them as much as anything else and realized that there were so many women and families facing similar things, maybe in their own different ways, and this beautiful community formed, and I really realize and I'm so grateful now to realize it.
Moms are one of the most [Page//00:05:00] incredible forces on the planet, and when you have moms on board, that's when society really does shift. I know the running joke is that a concerned mother can do better research than the FBI, and I think it's actually true, because a mom... When a mom trying to take care of her child...
We'll almost stop at nothing and do the research, do the work, make the changes. And I think that's what we're seeing in society now. Certainly not at all just because of me, but because of all these amazing moms across the country and across the world who are taking ownership for their health and for their family's health.
And I think we are starting to see the ripples of those things starting to create change, at least in those families that are really, um, you know, invested in, in doing the work. So it's been an absolutely beautiful journey. That was like the whole health side. And then I realized about 10 years in, I was a slow learner in this, that there was a whole other piece that I had not identified yet.
And so I had done all the physical things. I literally had spreadsheets to track my supplements. I had labs all consolidated into a dashboard. I knew to tiny granular percentages. [Page//00:06:00] What was affecting what and how to tweak those things, but I still wasn't getting all the way better and it wasn't until I addressed the mindset and the inner emotional side that I really saw the big paradigm shifts in my life.
And so now that's also a big part of what I talk about, um, the way that we speak to ourselves, having such a big impact on our health, the way that we feel about ourselves if we have. Like I had really traumatic past experiences that I thought I had let go of and it turns out I had just ignored them and repressed them.
And when I actually stopped resisting them and actually allowed them to be felt and thanked them for keeping me safe and let them go for real, that's when I saw everything that I had been doing for all those years foundationally really pay off. I'm in a place where I no longer have any of those conditions that I was struggling with in the past and I feel like I'm much more in alignment because I finally got all the pieces in place, not just the physical one, which I do think is also important, but I think the others can't be ignored either.
Julie Michelson: I, I, I love that. [Page//00:07:00] I say this all the time. You can do all of the physical things and not heal if you haven't done the mindset work and the, and even when I was code first coaching the first few years. I started with the physical things, right? Those were the things that started to move the needle for me and that you can learn about and, and it's kind of the low hanging fruit.
And then we would get to mindset. And then one day it was like, wait, I'm doing this backwards. This isn't serving my clients. We're just going to start with mindset so that the rest will just exponentially work faster. Better all the things. Um, and so I love, it's one of my favorite things that you talk about because people may not expect that from the wellness mama, right?
Like,
Katie Wells: Well, and I love, I love that. That's your approach. I think that's so wise and so helpful to your clients because I realized the hard way that you cannot punish your body healthy. You cannot shame your body thin if, but if you start with the inner peace and it comes from a place of actual authentic self love, [Page//00:08:00] it becomes easy to make the good choices because that's what you naturally want to support this, this body that you're living in.
And that was so shifting from like. What I felt like was taking a ton of willpower, those things became essentially effortless and fun and joyful once I worked on that inner piece. So I love that you start there.
Julie Michelson: well, again, it was an evolution. And when I say I start there and I know, you know, this from your own work, you can change diet overnight. We can't change our self talk overnight or find all of those big T, little t hidden traumas that we thought we let go of or maybe we don't even remember, you know, so it's a, it is genuinely a process.
Um, and again, we get to share from our own journeys, which is, is priceless for people. Fast forward, I want to talk a little bit and for if there's is maybe a listener out there who's not familiar. I mean, you've got to check out Katie is just she just puts out [Page//00:09:00] such not only incredible information, but the abundance.
which is going to lead us to where we're going to go today of information between your books, your podcasts, your blogs. I mean, it's, it's incredible. Um, and, and I love, as you said, you're an open book. I love that because I really believe that we can all read a lot of information. We can all do a lot of research, but it's finding those shared pieces of stories.
That really get us a we're not alone. You know, the autoimmunity feels this can be really lonely. And so, um, thank you as somebody who enjoys everything you put out that for just always being really genuine and open. Um, and being willing to do the research and share it right is amazing. So I want to for so for those that aren't familiar.
You mentioned your 1st child, you now have 6 [Page//00:10:00] now. Do you do it because, you know, when you talk about everything that you mentioned to me is a classic. If you don't already have autoimmunity, you're going to get it right that type A for all the things that, you know, put myself last type A perfectionist. Um, so how, but it's not like you decided, okay, I'm not going to make a contribution to society.
I'm just going to sit home and eat the good food and make my cleaning products and take care. I don't know that that's not what you're doing. So how on earth do you manage? And I, I'm trying so hard not to use the word balance because it took me a really long time to realize that balance wasn't this like finding static.
Equal like balances were always shifting. Um, so I'm guessing that's a part of it, but I know that you really prioritize your health and wellness. And I know you really prioritize your [Page//00:11:00] family and you really prioritize your contribution to the world. So, how are you doing that and getting healthier as you go?
Katie Wells: Well, I love it. To your point, I think balance is a moving target. So it's never much like everything in life. It's never a thing we figure out perfectly. And then it just holds. Um, you're right. It's a constant adaptation, which is also a beautiful thing. And I think for me, this also was a journey and a process in that my motivations drastically, or at least my, um.
I guess motivations shifted throughout the course of the last 15 years of running Wellness Mama, in that at first I still had some of that amazing trauma driven compulsion to do things and to do them at the best level possible. And I do think there are always silver linings, of course, to everything, including trauma.
And I'm grateful that for so long I had that sort of compulsive motivation to do that because it really did help me to build Wellness Mama and to connect with all these amazing people. But I also think. That long term that probably contributed to some of the [Page//00:12:00] sources of stress, at least from a health perspective, because you can only run in sympathetic dominance for so long before your body's going to have some struggles.
Um, also, since we've mentioned autoimmunity, I just want to briefly say that I think from the mindset side, an important realization I had there that is helpful, I think, to anyone with autoimmunity is just remembering that your body is still on your side and that just like a scab or a scar. That autoimmunity is serving a purpose in your body at that time to help you.
It's not, like, often I hear in the autoimmune world, you know, my body's attacking itself. And I try to reframe that because our bodies are never trying to kill us. They're never attacking us. They are always on our side and they're always trying to heal. So if we can help support them in that process, the body already knows how to do that and it wants to do that.
Um, I think the trauma piece you mentioned is also a big key here. And like I said, that was Unraveling that was the shift for me from that compulsion to now what feels like a just joyful integration of being able to connect with people and to hopefully help the world in some way. Um, I think in that trauma journey, it can [Page//00:13:00] be tempting or easy to slip into identifying with your trauma just as we can identify with a condition and say, I have Hashimoto's or I have trauma or.
you know, really making that part of our identity. So I try to, as a starting point for, to your point, that journey of changing our self talk, to be very careful about anything that comes after the words, I am, or I have, and just to ship that into saying, my body is healing from Hashimoto's. I am releasing trauma because I do think our body listens so intricately to the thoughts that we feed it.
And so I just always like to throw that in as a caveat. Um, all that to say, I, at the beginning, had that benefit of that compulsiveness to help me get everything done and check all the boxes, but at the expense of my health. Now, that process in my life and that moving target of balance looks much more like taking into account the entire person of everybody involved in that, whether it be my kids at home, my team members with Wellness Mama, and co creating things that allow.
Each of those things to thrive as much as [Page//00:14:00] possible without them all being dependent on me. I learned in my type A ness at the beginning that I was often the bottleneck because I was operating from a place of thinking that I could do it better than anyone else. And while maybe I could have done one piece of it better, I certainly couldn't do all the things better than anyone else could do them all the time.
And that was a kind of unreasonable story I had in
Julie Michelson: well,
Katie Wells: So at home that meant shifting to And of course with little babies it's a little different, but shifting as my kids got older from I do everything for everybody and everything is my responsibility, um, to a much more co creation mindset of that.
And I also realized even just the subtle shifts of how I thought about that made a huge difference. So in the beginning, I would, Assume it was my responsibility to do everything. And if someone else was working with me on that, I would assume they were helping me. And what I realized was, it was much more empowering for me and for my kids when we shifted to a, we're all co creating our family culture together.
They are making actually very valuable contributions to our [Page//00:15:00] family and helping it run smoothly. And it wasn't then strictly an emotional. labor for me. I didn't hold the emotional responsibility for those things either. So on a practical level, one way I do that is that with my kids, I don't do things for them once they're capable of doing it themselves.
Short of ways to connect with them, of course, like they can all braid their own hair. I love still braiding their hair because it's a time to bond with them, but when they can do their own laundry, that is no longer my responsibility to do for them. It's theirs. Or when they're capable of helping in the kitchen or Handling the kitchen entirely and doing the dishes that now becomes their responsibility.
And the beautiful thing is when that energy shifted and I tried to always keep the top of my mind that they were each their own infinite autonomous beings that were incredibly capable. They have exceeded my expectations in every possible way. They even, um, about a year ago. Totally reinvented the kitchen system without me even there.
It was actually on a podcast day. I came home and they had written a charter with all of these guidelines of how they were going to entirely manage the kitchen. And they were like, mom, we got it. You're not [Page//00:16:00] allowed to do dishes anymore. And they have without missing a day for the last year, they all have different meals that they totally handled the kitchen.
There's a schedule. They have it done by a certain time. They help cook dinner and they enjoy it because now it was their problem and they solved it. And so they feel ownership for it. And the same thing with Wellness Mom, I have an incredible small but incredible team that are each amazing in the areas that they work on.
So I, for me, it's been a process of letting go of the things that I didn't need to be in charge of so that I could focus my creative energy both at home and at work on the things that really did matter. I think for moms, the other piece of that that can be really difficult, even if we understand its importance, is on the health side, prioritizing self care and not just in the way we think.
Get told in the media of self care with bubble baths and spa days. But what are the things that really bring you energy and give you joy and putting those things on the schedule first? And so we do operate with.
Julie Michelson: that again.
Katie Wells: Like find, I, for women, I say, find your top three to five things [Page//00:17:00] that light you up and that give you joy and that you would do like all the time if you could, and they give you more energy when you're done with them than you had before you started them.
And then put those things on your schedule every week. And they're not negotiable. They're less negotiable than a meeting at your kid's school. They're less negotiable than a work call. They, those are the things that feed. the energy for everything else. And so that might be going for a walk. That might be for me, it's often spending time in the sun and either reading or meditating or whatever it is.
Um, it's things like morning sunlight with my kids, those things become non negotiable. Um, and then that helps provide energy for everywhere else. And that also then. Builds into that both family and for me work calendar where everything has a time and a place and we know who's going to do the thing at the different time.
So there's not those open loops that I feel like are often the source of stress for women, especially. It's not the getting the things done. We're actually amazing at that. It's. Trying to manage all of that in our head at the same time, like we are thinking of what am I going to defrost and cook for dinner, [Page//00:18:00] the kids need to get to all these places, when is the laundry going to get done, I've got three work calls, all those things are in our mind taking up bandwidth.
So instead of solving for the variable of doing less things, solve for the variable of doing them with less stress and having no open loop so that you don't have to give mental energy to something when it's not it's time to be focused on.
Julie Michelson: Oh my gosh. That was such gold. And I love just hearing it from you. Um, you know, these are the things that I, I work on with. My, my busy women, right, my motivated women who really do want to make a contribution, whatever that looks like. And so I love, I think, somehow hearing it from somebody who has 6 kids at home and is doing all the things, um, versus, you know, I'm sure.
Not that my clients don't listen because we continue to work on it. So they, they get it eventually, but you know, my kids are grown. My kids are, you know, the youngest just graduated grad school. So, um, I, I know there's a part because I was [Page//00:19:00] that person who was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say your kids are grown, you know?
So I, I love the, and I have to highlight, I know, you know, this, cause you, you mentioned it already, but yeah. What a gift that you have given your children by allowing them, I mean, that's what people are like, Oh, you make your kids cook dinner, clean, you know, you're allowing them to be powerful human beings.
And so what, when you think of that kind of, you know, I know you want to shift this. You know, lifespan should be getting longer, right? But not only that, those six humans, when they go out in the world, the impact that they're going to have is amazing. Um, so I just want to highlight that and that, and I know you, you see the same thing with your team.
Um, and, but I do want to ask, it couldn't have been easy in the beginning. Like there had to be discomfort with letting go. With [Page//00:20:00] stuff.
Katie Wells: Absolutely. And a little bit more into the kind of like esoteric side of that, a book that was helpful to me was called letting go the pathway to surrender, which just helped me kind of have a mental framework for realizing when I was having trouble letting go, and then having a more clear path to let go.
I do think you're right, especially for moms, it's often hard to let go of what feels like control of our kids, even though it is an illusion of control, especially if we're worried about them. Safety and of course, I'm not letting my kids run in traffic or there's things that often get quoted as cliches,
Julie Michelson: also they know not to.
Katie Wells: Exactly.
And it's because they've gotten to learn little lessons in less risk areas so that they understand risk evaluation and risk tolerance, and they understand their own capabilities. It's like on a purely practical level, there's been so much research done into how kids being able to take calculated risk, even when they could get minorly hurt when they're little really helps develop like their vestibular system, their limbic system, and their ability to [Page//00:21:00] correctly analyze risk, which becomes much more high stakes when they're on their own in the world.
And I feel like In some ways, for me and I see for many adults, we are learning on the fly as adults how to actually both manage the practical elements of our adult lives and to manage risk and we see young adults all the time that maybe get in some sticky situations because they've had to learn that in a pretty high stakes environment.
So I wanted my kids to climb the trees, even if there was a chance they could break their arm, and I wanted them. To, you know, run so fast that they fall and scrape their knees or whatever it is, because that's helping both their physical and their mental frameworks develop for that. Um, I do often think it's more difficult for us as moms than for the kids.
They're naturally wired to be curious and to explore. But the beauty is that then when they're teenagers, they have those skills and They, in my experience, make really good choices. Like, I know there's so many cliches about the teenage years, and so far, in our house, they've been so joyful. And I really am enjoying having what feels like a little bit more adult relationships with my kids now, where I'm not [Page//00:22:00] parenting them.
They come to me for advice. We have great open communication. And when they want to do something, I almost always let it be their decision, because I know and I can trust. Their ability to evaluate that. And that started when they were little and just learning how to walk and how to crawl, and it paid off so much.
I also think when we honor in them, their infinite capabilities, they lean into it. And like I said, they surpass our expectations and surprise us all the time. Even your example with. Oh, you make your kids cook dinner. They love that. They love having a chip of it. And my oldest ended up writing a cookbook with his friends called chef jr.
That is all real food recipes. It got published. It's my cookbook and it's amazing. And
Julie Michelson: my gosh.
Katie Wells: love the experience of that. And he did it entirely on his own. It wasn't me helping him through that process. He talked to an agent, he talked to a publisher, they got a contract, all these things because so capable. Uh, 12.
Julie Michelson: I just wanted people to know your oldest is an 18 or 20 year. Yeah.
Katie Wells: he was [Page//00:23:00] 12 when he wrote it. He's, uh, 16 now.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And now he knows he can, he can do things right. And he can make a contribution, um, which I love. And I, I just, yeah, and I was joking about the, Oh, they have to make dinner. It is empowering. And you get to see to, you know, when the kids make friends, like you can tell.
What kids had some autonomy and what kids didn't and you're right. Those are the kids that go off to college and do crazy stuff because they just have no idea or think about a baby that's always carried is not going to learn to crawl or walk. So, um, it's so important and I apologize. I have something in my eye for people watching video.
Katie Wells: Oh,
Julie Michelson: Um, so, so incredible and, and so valuable, I think for people to hear from your perspective, Of and thank you for the book recommendation because I'm sure that'll be helpful for everybody. [Page//00:24:00] Um, like you said, it's the same thing with the self talk, right? Anything that can help you notice like, oh, I'm holding on to tightly or I'm, I'm, you know, thinking about things.
This isn't the time for that. The other thing I wanted to maybe you just always innately. I'm not sure if anyone knew this, but I want to touch on, you said something that is, again, something I really have come to prioritize with my clients, which is joy as self care. Um, and you mentioned meditation and sunlight and you know, again, there's, I look at.
Self care or stress management as this balance of the two, right? These, you know, scientific, we know we need to touch the earth and we know, you know, meditation, breathing, sunlight, nature, all those things. But joy, especially for moms becomes totally put on the back burner. You'd be amazed at how many clients, when I ask them what brings them joy, I get this [Page//00:25:00] blank deer in the headlight stare.
They're like, I, I don't know. I haven't thought about that for my, you know, other beyond their children and their family or, but I'm like, yeah, but what do you, what, what, what is it that you do that brings you joy? I don't know. I, I totally have lost touch with that. So how did you get to know that that was a priority for healing and for your wellness?
Katie Wells: I love this question, and I definitely did not do it intuitively since the beginning. Um, I think often it's easy to get lost, especially in the early years of motherhood, in your children. Which, of course, we're very focused on them, especially when they're entirely dependent on us for everything. But we can forget.
ourselves a little bit in that process and certainly forget or feel selfish if we do the things that bring us joy. And I think it's two part. I think as we do the inner work and our mindset shifts over time, joy can become the default software, but it can take a little work because if we're in that stress cycle, the default [Page//00:26:00] software is not necessarily going to be joy.
Um, I also think it's helpful to just also step back and reframe because they've done interesting studies that looked at the way that we. reframe problems or consider problems in our world and how we can, I'm sure everyone's had this experience, be at the airport and be so annoyed if the flight is late or if there's a line or security took forever or whatever it may be, and forget about the fact that it's entirely amazing that we can just fly across
Julie Michelson: let's just get on a plane and
Katie Wells: Yeah. And what they realized was humans will essentially perceive and focus on the same number of problems. And if we don't have big problems, we're going to find little problems and make them big problems unless we consciously learn to unpattern that. And so I think when, for one thing, when we focus on things like gratitude and joy intentionally at first, over time, they become the default.
And for me, for a couple of years, I actually kept a journal that's now sort of encyclopedic where every day I would write down 20 things I was grateful for. And I
Julie Michelson: I tell people three. There's that type a.
Katie Wells: But because it [Page//00:27:00] like, it does help you to then start throughout the day, even without intending to notice the things you're grateful for.
And then that starts to become the default programming. And I realized the same with joy and I know it's well talked about, but our kids percentage wise pay attention much more to what we model than what we say. They hopefully listen when we talk to, but I realized if we don't as moms. Find the things that bring us joy and model making them priorities.
We aren't giving our kids permission to do that. And we're modeling for our kids that you lose yourself when you become a parent. And that, that wasn't what I wanted to model for them. And it certainly wasn't an overnight process to change that. But I've noticed when I do things like I feel great when I lift heavy weights.
And when I put that on the schedule and they hear me say I'm going to the gym and I'll be back in 45 minutes or whatever it is. Hopefully that models it in a way that gives them permission that even when life gets busy and even when they have kids that they can find those things and do them or they see me go outside in the morning and meditate in the grass and get sunlight.
Hopefully that gives them at least [Page//00:28:00] the permission to explore and figure out what their things like that are going to be. Um, and I think that's, it is a journey and it is a slow shift sometimes, but experiment and find the things that after you just feel so excited and have more energy than when you started and As much as possible, just make those priorities because it really will pay dividends in your attention and your focus and your motivation in all the other areas.
Julie Michelson: It just makes you a better human and, and your kids enjoy their time with you more when you're in that place of joy and gratitude and you've taken care of yourself. So it does become but again, that's it's such a difficult shift. Um, but I, I wanted a little real life wellness mama take on here's how I did it.
And here are the things I think about, uh, you know, and, and I think that. As a coach, it's almost unfair for my clients that do have children. That's the tool I get to use is, you know, do you, do you want your kids to, [Page//00:29:00] you know, talk this way to themselves to feel, you know, to not do the things that bring them joy, that, that, that's always a really good, because it's, it's like, no, it's like, well.
I wouldn't smoke when I was pregnant, but I smoked when I was young, you know, like those, those kinds of things. It's like, we can use those as great motivators. And like you're saying, there's also, it's, it's, it just gives them the permission to. Again, my goal is very similar to yours. I don't want my kids to have to undo, I'm older than you, but in their forties and fifties, like I did all of those bad patterns, it's like, Hey, let's just give them an opportunity to, to at least the things I know, you know, they, they don't have to go through that.
So I love, I love that perspective.
Katie Wells: And the beauty of it is too, that I feel like a mom's. kind of energy level sets the tone for the whole house in some ways. And so when we do that work, it also ripples [Page//00:30:00] into them in ways that they may not feel for years. But like you, I had to unpattern many of these things in my thirties. And my hope is that they hear me now even speak externally differently.
They hopefully see that different relationship with my body. And so maybe they won't have a steep of a path of figuring those things out for themselves, or they won't have to undo so many things. And Do all of as hard of work. I'm sure they'll have their own journeys that have their own difficulties, and I don't want to shield them from that either, but that just by being raised with that, hopefully they have a good foundation for that, even if it's in small things like when they have big emotions or a crisis.
I don't just tell them like, Oh, it's okay. Stop crying. We talk about it. And I walk them through like what you resist persist. And what are you feeling? And where are you feeling it? And I don't push them to let go of it. But we talk about it because I don't want those things to become repressed Emotions that then get much bigger and you get to deal with in a decade instead.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they, and they do, I mean, they live, you talked about yourselves listening to what you say, or, you know, it's that, that stuff that we don't deal with just [Page//00:31:00] gets stuck in the body. It absolutely gets stuck. It's amazing. Well, I would love to have you back because part of me, I'm like, I really, really, really also want to talk about wellness because, um, it's so, so important and.
Um, your book, you're the wellness mama, five step, uh, lifestyle detox guide is so incredible. And I was somebody, and I'm going to try some of the things in it because I was someone, I tell people all the time, like, you don't have to make your own stuff. To have, because I had tried at one point and failed and was like, no, I'm not, I'm not making my, although now I know there's some, there's some cleaning things in there that I do want to try, um, now that I've evolved and, and it is just so packed with information.
Um, but I, I really want to dig into, you know, clean [Page//00:32:00] personal care products. And, um, what people can be looking for. And I know that that's a whole nother again, honoring schedules. That's a whole nother conversation. So if you would be willing, when you can find the time to come back and talk to us about that, I would really, I know it would be of huge value for listeners.
Katie Wells: I would love that.
Julie Michelson: That would be great. Oh, my gosh. Any last thoughts for what one step? And I know that's so hard, but I know you can do it. What is one step listeners can take today? Just get started to improve their health.
Katie Wells: Yeah. Oh, I guess to maybe have it stack a couple of the things we've talked about into one step. Um, I think
Julie Michelson: Is that cheating? No, that's great.
Katie Wells: well, often it's the simplest things that get overlooked because they are so simple that they can often also be the most profound. So I would say maybe if you can find time as soon as possible after waking up before you touch a screen [Page//00:33:00] before you look at artificial light to just go outside and Write down three things you're grateful for and maybe use that also time to explore within yourself the things that bring you joy and then let that ripple into your whole day.
I think not only will that help your circadian rhythm with getting morning sunlight, there's so much research and data to support that being an incredibly. beneficial and free habit that we can all do. Um, but if you can stack in there, some kind of ritual that then gets triggered where you're focusing on gratitude or joy, or maybe you're just hydrating with some electrolyte water or whatever it is.
Um, I think it will help the habits stick. And that's another big thing. I know it's been talked about with books like atomic habits lately, but anytime we can add a habit to something we're already going to do in a routine, it helps it stick a lot better and then use the energy from that to build into other areas.
I think it gets. somewhat more personalized beyond that. And we all have our own things that we're figuring out our own solutions that will work. But there are those universal things like morning sunlight, like getting quality sleep, like choosing joy and gratitude that will have ripples into whatever other [Page//00:34:00] path you're going to take.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And I'm going to actually circle back to the beginning of your one step and it's not find the time. It's make the time because everybody says they can't find the time. Um, and I say that all the time, anything, any of these things that you do outside in nature, so in sunlight and either sit on the ground or do it barefoot.
I mean, it's just exponential and it's not taking any extra time. So I love that before you touch screens, go get some sunlight being gratitude. I love how you add it and maybe drink some electrolyte water, all the things, but, but you're so right. It's and you and I both love biohacking and all the fun stuff.
The basics are often overlooked and they are so important. Um, so amazing, amazing advice for listeners. For anybody who doesn't already know, and we'll, we'll have everything in the show notes, but [Page//00:35:00] where is the best place to find you?
Katie Wells: Everything is housed at wellnessmama.com. There's links to find the podcast there as well and information on wellness, which you mentioned, which is my personal care company. Um, that's all there as well. And then there's links to lots of other things that I have felt are important. So people can find everything at wellnessmama.com.
Julie Michelson: An amazing, incredible depth of, of just valuable articles you've written. So go check out Katie's website. Thank you so much for giving us your time and your wisdom today.
Katie Wells: Thank you so much for having me. This was such a fun conversation.
Julie Michelson: For everybody listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspiredliving. show.
I hope you liked this episode as much as I did. I will see you next week. [Page//00:36:00]
Her research turned into a blog and a podcast, [Page//00:01:00] and she now has written over 1500 blogs, three books, and was named one of the hundred most influential people in health and wellness. In today's conversation, Katie shares about her journey with autoimmunity, and we discuss how we can prioritize self care while also raising a family and successfully running a business or businesses.
Katie, welcome to the podcast.
Katie Wells: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you again.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. And I would love to have you share with listeners. If there are any that aren't already familiar with your journey, um, how did you go from, you know, being a writer to all of a sudden a leader in the wellness space?
Katie Wells: Oh, well, I'll try to give the short version, uh, for the sake of time. But the short answer is that this was not at all the path I planned for my life. I was, um, in high school and college, very academically focused and thought about a career in law [Page//00:02:00] or international relations of some sort. And that's kind of the path I was on, um, in a very type a way with taking about 28 hours per semester and really pushing myself hard in a lot of areas.
And, um, In about the end of my college career, I also realized that I for sure wanted to be a mom and to have kids. And as things often do, it happened very quickly and serendipitously for me. And it was the most beautiful way that my life took multiple turns. I think looking back, we can probably all see times in our lives that we at the time thought were very difficult that ended up leading to the most beautiful things.
And that certainly was the case for me. But the short version is that I... Looking back to tell people, if you want to get autoimmune disease, you can do what I did, which is to be really stressed, not eat very much, and when you do, eat really poor food choices, and not sleep enough, and that'll get you a lot of the way there, and that had been most of my high school and college experience, and then, when I got pregnant with my first child, It was sort of that metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back slash last [Page//00:03:00] marble in the bucket, to use the autoimmune analogy, however you want to explain it.
And after he was born, I started having all these strange symptoms, which were of course written off by my doctor as normal for postpartum, and that's just what you're going to experience and everything is fine. And you know, just try to sleep when the baby sleeps, which is probably the least helpful advice you can give a new mom.
My background to that point in my, my college experience had been around journalism, and I ended up not pursuing graduate degrees, but I leaned on my research side to try to figure out my own health answers when I couldn't get answers from doctors. And at the same time, at my six week follow up appointment after having my son.
I read in Time magazine that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of American children would have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. And it was just such a stark contrast to look at this tiny, perfect newborn and read all these statistics about what his generation was going to face.
And I decided in that moment that wasn't good enough for him and it wasn't good enough for anybody's child. And I had no idea how, but I wanted to be at [Page//00:04:00] least a small part of shifting that tide and changing that. So, those two things lined up and I dove head on into PubMed and that was my research and bedtime stories for years, was reading through studies.
And using myself as a test subject, which long term led actually to my philosophy. Now that I say on almost every podcast, which is that at the end of the day, we are each our own primary healthcare provider, and we are each our own healer. And while we can get outside help, and hopefully we do from great partners, which I also eventually found in the form of some incredible doctors at the end of the day, that responsibility lies with us.
And that's awesome news because that means we have the ability to shift things. And so I started. Making these changes in my family and because of my journalism background, just writing about them to help myself process them as much as anything else and realized that there were so many women and families facing similar things, maybe in their own different ways, and this beautiful community formed, and I really realize and I'm so grateful now to realize it.
Moms are one of the most [Page//00:05:00] incredible forces on the planet, and when you have moms on board, that's when society really does shift. I know the running joke is that a concerned mother can do better research than the FBI, and I think it's actually true, because a mom... When a mom trying to take care of her child...
We'll almost stop at nothing and do the research, do the work, make the changes. And I think that's what we're seeing in society now. Certainly not at all just because of me, but because of all these amazing moms across the country and across the world who are taking ownership for their health and for their family's health.
And I think we are starting to see the ripples of those things starting to create change, at least in those families that are really, um, you know, invested in, in doing the work. So it's been an absolutely beautiful journey. That was like the whole health side. And then I realized about 10 years in, I was a slow learner in this, that there was a whole other piece that I had not identified yet.
And so I had done all the physical things. I literally had spreadsheets to track my supplements. I had labs all consolidated into a dashboard. I knew to tiny granular percentages. [Page//00:06:00] What was affecting what and how to tweak those things, but I still wasn't getting all the way better and it wasn't until I addressed the mindset and the inner emotional side that I really saw the big paradigm shifts in my life.
And so now that's also a big part of what I talk about, um, the way that we speak to ourselves, having such a big impact on our health, the way that we feel about ourselves if we have. Like I had really traumatic past experiences that I thought I had let go of and it turns out I had just ignored them and repressed them.
And when I actually stopped resisting them and actually allowed them to be felt and thanked them for keeping me safe and let them go for real, that's when I saw everything that I had been doing for all those years foundationally really pay off. I'm in a place where I no longer have any of those conditions that I was struggling with in the past and I feel like I'm much more in alignment because I finally got all the pieces in place, not just the physical one, which I do think is also important, but I think the others can't be ignored either.
Julie Michelson: I, I, I love that. [Page//00:07:00] I say this all the time. You can do all of the physical things and not heal if you haven't done the mindset work and the, and even when I was code first coaching the first few years. I started with the physical things, right? Those were the things that started to move the needle for me and that you can learn about and, and it's kind of the low hanging fruit.
And then we would get to mindset. And then one day it was like, wait, I'm doing this backwards. This isn't serving my clients. We're just going to start with mindset so that the rest will just exponentially work faster. Better all the things. Um, and so I love, it's one of my favorite things that you talk about because people may not expect that from the wellness mama, right?
Like,
Katie Wells: Well, and I love, I love that. That's your approach. I think that's so wise and so helpful to your clients because I realized the hard way that you cannot punish your body healthy. You cannot shame your body thin if, but if you start with the inner peace and it comes from a place of actual authentic self love, [Page//00:08:00] it becomes easy to make the good choices because that's what you naturally want to support this, this body that you're living in.
And that was so shifting from like. What I felt like was taking a ton of willpower, those things became essentially effortless and fun and joyful once I worked on that inner piece. So I love that you start there.
Julie Michelson: well, again, it was an evolution. And when I say I start there and I know, you know, this from your own work, you can change diet overnight. We can't change our self talk overnight or find all of those big T, little t hidden traumas that we thought we let go of or maybe we don't even remember, you know, so it's a, it is genuinely a process.
Um, and again, we get to share from our own journeys, which is, is priceless for people. Fast forward, I want to talk a little bit and for if there's is maybe a listener out there who's not familiar. I mean, you've got to check out Katie is just she just puts out [Page//00:09:00] such not only incredible information, but the abundance.
which is going to lead us to where we're going to go today of information between your books, your podcasts, your blogs. I mean, it's, it's incredible. Um, and, and I love, as you said, you're an open book. I love that because I really believe that we can all read a lot of information. We can all do a lot of research, but it's finding those shared pieces of stories.
That really get us a we're not alone. You know, the autoimmunity feels this can be really lonely. And so, um, thank you as somebody who enjoys everything you put out that for just always being really genuine and open. Um, and being willing to do the research and share it right is amazing. So I want to for so for those that aren't familiar.
You mentioned your 1st child, you now have 6 [Page//00:10:00] now. Do you do it because, you know, when you talk about everything that you mentioned to me is a classic. If you don't already have autoimmunity, you're going to get it right that type A for all the things that, you know, put myself last type A perfectionist. Um, so how, but it's not like you decided, okay, I'm not going to make a contribution to society.
I'm just going to sit home and eat the good food and make my cleaning products and take care. I don't know that that's not what you're doing. So how on earth do you manage? And I, I'm trying so hard not to use the word balance because it took me a really long time to realize that balance wasn't this like finding static.
Equal like balances were always shifting. Um, so I'm guessing that's a part of it, but I know that you really prioritize your health and wellness. And I know you really prioritize your [Page//00:11:00] family and you really prioritize your contribution to the world. So, how are you doing that and getting healthier as you go?
Katie Wells: Well, I love it. To your point, I think balance is a moving target. So it's never much like everything in life. It's never a thing we figure out perfectly. And then it just holds. Um, you're right. It's a constant adaptation, which is also a beautiful thing. And I think for me, this also was a journey and a process in that my motivations drastically, or at least my, um.
I guess motivations shifted throughout the course of the last 15 years of running Wellness Mama, in that at first I still had some of that amazing trauma driven compulsion to do things and to do them at the best level possible. And I do think there are always silver linings, of course, to everything, including trauma.
And I'm grateful that for so long I had that sort of compulsive motivation to do that because it really did help me to build Wellness Mama and to connect with all these amazing people. But I also think. That long term that probably contributed to some of the [Page//00:12:00] sources of stress, at least from a health perspective, because you can only run in sympathetic dominance for so long before your body's going to have some struggles.
Um, also, since we've mentioned autoimmunity, I just want to briefly say that I think from the mindset side, an important realization I had there that is helpful, I think, to anyone with autoimmunity is just remembering that your body is still on your side and that just like a scab or a scar. That autoimmunity is serving a purpose in your body at that time to help you.
It's not, like, often I hear in the autoimmune world, you know, my body's attacking itself. And I try to reframe that because our bodies are never trying to kill us. They're never attacking us. They are always on our side and they're always trying to heal. So if we can help support them in that process, the body already knows how to do that and it wants to do that.
Um, I think the trauma piece you mentioned is also a big key here. And like I said, that was Unraveling that was the shift for me from that compulsion to now what feels like a just joyful integration of being able to connect with people and to hopefully help the world in some way. Um, I think in that trauma journey, it can [Page//00:13:00] be tempting or easy to slip into identifying with your trauma just as we can identify with a condition and say, I have Hashimoto's or I have trauma or.
you know, really making that part of our identity. So I try to, as a starting point for, to your point, that journey of changing our self talk, to be very careful about anything that comes after the words, I am, or I have, and just to ship that into saying, my body is healing from Hashimoto's. I am releasing trauma because I do think our body listens so intricately to the thoughts that we feed it.
And so I just always like to throw that in as a caveat. Um, all that to say, I, at the beginning, had that benefit of that compulsiveness to help me get everything done and check all the boxes, but at the expense of my health. Now, that process in my life and that moving target of balance looks much more like taking into account the entire person of everybody involved in that, whether it be my kids at home, my team members with Wellness Mama, and co creating things that allow.
Each of those things to thrive as much as [Page//00:14:00] possible without them all being dependent on me. I learned in my type A ness at the beginning that I was often the bottleneck because I was operating from a place of thinking that I could do it better than anyone else. And while maybe I could have done one piece of it better, I certainly couldn't do all the things better than anyone else could do them all the time.
And that was a kind of unreasonable story I had in
Julie Michelson: well,
Katie Wells: So at home that meant shifting to And of course with little babies it's a little different, but shifting as my kids got older from I do everything for everybody and everything is my responsibility, um, to a much more co creation mindset of that.
And I also realized even just the subtle shifts of how I thought about that made a huge difference. So in the beginning, I would, Assume it was my responsibility to do everything. And if someone else was working with me on that, I would assume they were helping me. And what I realized was, it was much more empowering for me and for my kids when we shifted to a, we're all co creating our family culture together.
They are making actually very valuable contributions to our [Page//00:15:00] family and helping it run smoothly. And it wasn't then strictly an emotional. labor for me. I didn't hold the emotional responsibility for those things either. So on a practical level, one way I do that is that with my kids, I don't do things for them once they're capable of doing it themselves.
Short of ways to connect with them, of course, like they can all braid their own hair. I love still braiding their hair because it's a time to bond with them, but when they can do their own laundry, that is no longer my responsibility to do for them. It's theirs. Or when they're capable of helping in the kitchen or Handling the kitchen entirely and doing the dishes that now becomes their responsibility.
And the beautiful thing is when that energy shifted and I tried to always keep the top of my mind that they were each their own infinite autonomous beings that were incredibly capable. They have exceeded my expectations in every possible way. They even, um, about a year ago. Totally reinvented the kitchen system without me even there.
It was actually on a podcast day. I came home and they had written a charter with all of these guidelines of how they were going to entirely manage the kitchen. And they were like, mom, we got it. You're not [Page//00:16:00] allowed to do dishes anymore. And they have without missing a day for the last year, they all have different meals that they totally handled the kitchen.
There's a schedule. They have it done by a certain time. They help cook dinner and they enjoy it because now it was their problem and they solved it. And so they feel ownership for it. And the same thing with Wellness Mom, I have an incredible small but incredible team that are each amazing in the areas that they work on.
So I, for me, it's been a process of letting go of the things that I didn't need to be in charge of so that I could focus my creative energy both at home and at work on the things that really did matter. I think for moms, the other piece of that that can be really difficult, even if we understand its importance, is on the health side, prioritizing self care and not just in the way we think.
Get told in the media of self care with bubble baths and spa days. But what are the things that really bring you energy and give you joy and putting those things on the schedule first? And so we do operate with.
Julie Michelson: that again.
Katie Wells: Like find, I, for women, I say, find your top three to five things [Page//00:17:00] that light you up and that give you joy and that you would do like all the time if you could, and they give you more energy when you're done with them than you had before you started them.
And then put those things on your schedule every week. And they're not negotiable. They're less negotiable than a meeting at your kid's school. They're less negotiable than a work call. They, those are the things that feed. the energy for everything else. And so that might be going for a walk. That might be for me, it's often spending time in the sun and either reading or meditating or whatever it is.
Um, it's things like morning sunlight with my kids, those things become non negotiable. Um, and then that helps provide energy for everywhere else. And that also then. Builds into that both family and for me work calendar where everything has a time and a place and we know who's going to do the thing at the different time.
So there's not those open loops that I feel like are often the source of stress for women, especially. It's not the getting the things done. We're actually amazing at that. It's. Trying to manage all of that in our head at the same time, like we are thinking of what am I going to defrost and cook for dinner, [Page//00:18:00] the kids need to get to all these places, when is the laundry going to get done, I've got three work calls, all those things are in our mind taking up bandwidth.
So instead of solving for the variable of doing less things, solve for the variable of doing them with less stress and having no open loop so that you don't have to give mental energy to something when it's not it's time to be focused on.
Julie Michelson: Oh my gosh. That was such gold. And I love just hearing it from you. Um, you know, these are the things that I, I work on with. My, my busy women, right, my motivated women who really do want to make a contribution, whatever that looks like. And so I love, I think, somehow hearing it from somebody who has 6 kids at home and is doing all the things, um, versus, you know, I'm sure.
Not that my clients don't listen because we continue to work on it. So they, they get it eventually, but you know, my kids are grown. My kids are, you know, the youngest just graduated grad school. So, um, I, I know there's a part because I was [Page//00:19:00] that person who was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say your kids are grown, you know?
So I, I love the, and I have to highlight, I know, you know, this, cause you, you mentioned it already, but yeah. What a gift that you have given your children by allowing them, I mean, that's what people are like, Oh, you make your kids cook dinner, clean, you know, you're allowing them to be powerful human beings.
And so what, when you think of that kind of, you know, I know you want to shift this. You know, lifespan should be getting longer, right? But not only that, those six humans, when they go out in the world, the impact that they're going to have is amazing. Um, so I just want to highlight that and that, and I know you, you see the same thing with your team.
Um, and, but I do want to ask, it couldn't have been easy in the beginning. Like there had to be discomfort with letting go. With [Page//00:20:00] stuff.
Katie Wells: Absolutely. And a little bit more into the kind of like esoteric side of that, a book that was helpful to me was called letting go the pathway to surrender, which just helped me kind of have a mental framework for realizing when I was having trouble letting go, and then having a more clear path to let go.
I do think you're right, especially for moms, it's often hard to let go of what feels like control of our kids, even though it is an illusion of control, especially if we're worried about them. Safety and of course, I'm not letting my kids run in traffic or there's things that often get quoted as cliches,
Julie Michelson: also they know not to.
Katie Wells: Exactly.
And it's because they've gotten to learn little lessons in less risk areas so that they understand risk evaluation and risk tolerance, and they understand their own capabilities. It's like on a purely practical level, there's been so much research done into how kids being able to take calculated risk, even when they could get minorly hurt when they're little really helps develop like their vestibular system, their limbic system, and their ability to [Page//00:21:00] correctly analyze risk, which becomes much more high stakes when they're on their own in the world.
And I feel like In some ways, for me and I see for many adults, we are learning on the fly as adults how to actually both manage the practical elements of our adult lives and to manage risk and we see young adults all the time that maybe get in some sticky situations because they've had to learn that in a pretty high stakes environment.
So I wanted my kids to climb the trees, even if there was a chance they could break their arm, and I wanted them. To, you know, run so fast that they fall and scrape their knees or whatever it is, because that's helping both their physical and their mental frameworks develop for that. Um, I do often think it's more difficult for us as moms than for the kids.
They're naturally wired to be curious and to explore. But the beauty is that then when they're teenagers, they have those skills and They, in my experience, make really good choices. Like, I know there's so many cliches about the teenage years, and so far, in our house, they've been so joyful. And I really am enjoying having what feels like a little bit more adult relationships with my kids now, where I'm not [Page//00:22:00] parenting them.
They come to me for advice. We have great open communication. And when they want to do something, I almost always let it be their decision, because I know and I can trust. Their ability to evaluate that. And that started when they were little and just learning how to walk and how to crawl, and it paid off so much.
I also think when we honor in them, their infinite capabilities, they lean into it. And like I said, they surpass our expectations and surprise us all the time. Even your example with. Oh, you make your kids cook dinner. They love that. They love having a chip of it. And my oldest ended up writing a cookbook with his friends called chef jr.
That is all real food recipes. It got published. It's my cookbook and it's amazing. And
Julie Michelson: my gosh.
Katie Wells: love the experience of that. And he did it entirely on his own. It wasn't me helping him through that process. He talked to an agent, he talked to a publisher, they got a contract, all these things because so capable. Uh, 12.
Julie Michelson: I just wanted people to know your oldest is an 18 or 20 year. Yeah.
Katie Wells: he was [Page//00:23:00] 12 when he wrote it. He's, uh, 16 now.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And now he knows he can, he can do things right. And he can make a contribution, um, which I love. And I, I just, yeah, and I was joking about the, Oh, they have to make dinner. It is empowering. And you get to see to, you know, when the kids make friends, like you can tell.
What kids had some autonomy and what kids didn't and you're right. Those are the kids that go off to college and do crazy stuff because they just have no idea or think about a baby that's always carried is not going to learn to crawl or walk. So, um, it's so important and I apologize. I have something in my eye for people watching video.
Katie Wells: Oh,
Julie Michelson: Um, so, so incredible and, and so valuable, I think for people to hear from your perspective, Of and thank you for the book recommendation because I'm sure that'll be helpful for everybody. [Page//00:24:00] Um, like you said, it's the same thing with the self talk, right? Anything that can help you notice like, oh, I'm holding on to tightly or I'm, I'm, you know, thinking about things.
This isn't the time for that. The other thing I wanted to maybe you just always innately. I'm not sure if anyone knew this, but I want to touch on, you said something that is, again, something I really have come to prioritize with my clients, which is joy as self care. Um, and you mentioned meditation and sunlight and you know, again, there's, I look at.
Self care or stress management as this balance of the two, right? These, you know, scientific, we know we need to touch the earth and we know, you know, meditation, breathing, sunlight, nature, all those things. But joy, especially for moms becomes totally put on the back burner. You'd be amazed at how many clients, when I ask them what brings them joy, I get this [Page//00:25:00] blank deer in the headlight stare.
They're like, I, I don't know. I haven't thought about that for my, you know, other beyond their children and their family or, but I'm like, yeah, but what do you, what, what, what is it that you do that brings you joy? I don't know. I, I totally have lost touch with that. So how did you get to know that that was a priority for healing and for your wellness?
Katie Wells: I love this question, and I definitely did not do it intuitively since the beginning. Um, I think often it's easy to get lost, especially in the early years of motherhood, in your children. Which, of course, we're very focused on them, especially when they're entirely dependent on us for everything. But we can forget.
ourselves a little bit in that process and certainly forget or feel selfish if we do the things that bring us joy. And I think it's two part. I think as we do the inner work and our mindset shifts over time, joy can become the default software, but it can take a little work because if we're in that stress cycle, the default [Page//00:26:00] software is not necessarily going to be joy.
Um, I also think it's helpful to just also step back and reframe because they've done interesting studies that looked at the way that we. reframe problems or consider problems in our world and how we can, I'm sure everyone's had this experience, be at the airport and be so annoyed if the flight is late or if there's a line or security took forever or whatever it may be, and forget about the fact that it's entirely amazing that we can just fly across
Julie Michelson: let's just get on a plane and
Katie Wells: Yeah. And what they realized was humans will essentially perceive and focus on the same number of problems. And if we don't have big problems, we're going to find little problems and make them big problems unless we consciously learn to unpattern that. And so I think when, for one thing, when we focus on things like gratitude and joy intentionally at first, over time, they become the default.
And for me, for a couple of years, I actually kept a journal that's now sort of encyclopedic where every day I would write down 20 things I was grateful for. And I
Julie Michelson: I tell people three. There's that type a.
Katie Wells: But because it [Page//00:27:00] like, it does help you to then start throughout the day, even without intending to notice the things you're grateful for.
And then that starts to become the default programming. And I realized the same with joy and I know it's well talked about, but our kids percentage wise pay attention much more to what we model than what we say. They hopefully listen when we talk to, but I realized if we don't as moms. Find the things that bring us joy and model making them priorities.
We aren't giving our kids permission to do that. And we're modeling for our kids that you lose yourself when you become a parent. And that, that wasn't what I wanted to model for them. And it certainly wasn't an overnight process to change that. But I've noticed when I do things like I feel great when I lift heavy weights.
And when I put that on the schedule and they hear me say I'm going to the gym and I'll be back in 45 minutes or whatever it is. Hopefully that models it in a way that gives them permission that even when life gets busy and even when they have kids that they can find those things and do them or they see me go outside in the morning and meditate in the grass and get sunlight.
Hopefully that gives them at least [Page//00:28:00] the permission to explore and figure out what their things like that are going to be. Um, and I think that's, it is a journey and it is a slow shift sometimes, but experiment and find the things that after you just feel so excited and have more energy than when you started and As much as possible, just make those priorities because it really will pay dividends in your attention and your focus and your motivation in all the other areas.
Julie Michelson: It just makes you a better human and, and your kids enjoy their time with you more when you're in that place of joy and gratitude and you've taken care of yourself. So it does become but again, that's it's such a difficult shift. Um, but I, I wanted a little real life wellness mama take on here's how I did it.
And here are the things I think about, uh, you know, and, and I think that. As a coach, it's almost unfair for my clients that do have children. That's the tool I get to use is, you know, do you, do you want your kids to, [Page//00:29:00] you know, talk this way to themselves to feel, you know, to not do the things that bring them joy, that, that, that's always a really good, because it's, it's like, no, it's like, well.
I wouldn't smoke when I was pregnant, but I smoked when I was young, you know, like those, those kinds of things. It's like, we can use those as great motivators. And like you're saying, there's also, it's, it's, it just gives them the permission to. Again, my goal is very similar to yours. I don't want my kids to have to undo, I'm older than you, but in their forties and fifties, like I did all of those bad patterns, it's like, Hey, let's just give them an opportunity to, to at least the things I know, you know, they, they don't have to go through that.
So I love, I love that perspective.
Katie Wells: And the beauty of it is too, that I feel like a mom's. kind of energy level sets the tone for the whole house in some ways. And so when we do that work, it also ripples [Page//00:30:00] into them in ways that they may not feel for years. But like you, I had to unpattern many of these things in my thirties. And my hope is that they hear me now even speak externally differently.
They hopefully see that different relationship with my body. And so maybe they won't have a steep of a path of figuring those things out for themselves, or they won't have to undo so many things. And Do all of as hard of work. I'm sure they'll have their own journeys that have their own difficulties, and I don't want to shield them from that either, but that just by being raised with that, hopefully they have a good foundation for that, even if it's in small things like when they have big emotions or a crisis.
I don't just tell them like, Oh, it's okay. Stop crying. We talk about it. And I walk them through like what you resist persist. And what are you feeling? And where are you feeling it? And I don't push them to let go of it. But we talk about it because I don't want those things to become repressed Emotions that then get much bigger and you get to deal with in a decade instead.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And they, and they do, I mean, they live, you talked about yourselves listening to what you say, or, you know, it's that, that stuff that we don't deal with just [Page//00:31:00] gets stuck in the body. It absolutely gets stuck. It's amazing. Well, I would love to have you back because part of me, I'm like, I really, really, really also want to talk about wellness because, um, it's so, so important and.
Um, your book, you're the wellness mama, five step, uh, lifestyle detox guide is so incredible. And I was somebody, and I'm going to try some of the things in it because I was someone, I tell people all the time, like, you don't have to make your own stuff. To have, because I had tried at one point and failed and was like, no, I'm not, I'm not making my, although now I know there's some, there's some cleaning things in there that I do want to try, um, now that I've evolved and, and it is just so packed with information.
Um, but I, I really want to dig into, you know, clean [Page//00:32:00] personal care products. And, um, what people can be looking for. And I know that that's a whole nother again, honoring schedules. That's a whole nother conversation. So if you would be willing, when you can find the time to come back and talk to us about that, I would really, I know it would be of huge value for listeners.
Katie Wells: I would love that.
Julie Michelson: That would be great. Oh, my gosh. Any last thoughts for what one step? And I know that's so hard, but I know you can do it. What is one step listeners can take today? Just get started to improve their health.
Katie Wells: Yeah. Oh, I guess to maybe have it stack a couple of the things we've talked about into one step. Um, I think
Julie Michelson: Is that cheating? No, that's great.
Katie Wells: well, often it's the simplest things that get overlooked because they are so simple that they can often also be the most profound. So I would say maybe if you can find time as soon as possible after waking up before you touch a screen [Page//00:33:00] before you look at artificial light to just go outside and Write down three things you're grateful for and maybe use that also time to explore within yourself the things that bring you joy and then let that ripple into your whole day.
I think not only will that help your circadian rhythm with getting morning sunlight, there's so much research and data to support that being an incredibly. beneficial and free habit that we can all do. Um, but if you can stack in there, some kind of ritual that then gets triggered where you're focusing on gratitude or joy, or maybe you're just hydrating with some electrolyte water or whatever it is.
Um, I think it will help the habits stick. And that's another big thing. I know it's been talked about with books like atomic habits lately, but anytime we can add a habit to something we're already going to do in a routine, it helps it stick a lot better and then use the energy from that to build into other areas.
I think it gets. somewhat more personalized beyond that. And we all have our own things that we're figuring out our own solutions that will work. But there are those universal things like morning sunlight, like getting quality sleep, like choosing joy and gratitude that will have ripples into whatever other [Page//00:34:00] path you're going to take.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And I'm going to actually circle back to the beginning of your one step and it's not find the time. It's make the time because everybody says they can't find the time. Um, and I say that all the time, anything, any of these things that you do outside in nature, so in sunlight and either sit on the ground or do it barefoot.
I mean, it's just exponential and it's not taking any extra time. So I love that before you touch screens, go get some sunlight being gratitude. I love how you add it and maybe drink some electrolyte water, all the things, but, but you're so right. It's and you and I both love biohacking and all the fun stuff.
The basics are often overlooked and they are so important. Um, so amazing, amazing advice for listeners. For anybody who doesn't already know, and we'll, we'll have everything in the show notes, but [Page//00:35:00] where is the best place to find you?
Katie Wells: Everything is housed at wellnessmama.com. There's links to find the podcast there as well and information on wellness, which you mentioned, which is my personal care company. Um, that's all there as well. And then there's links to lots of other things that I have felt are important. So people can find everything at wellnessmama.com.
Julie Michelson: An amazing, incredible depth of, of just valuable articles you've written. So go check out Katie's website. Thank you so much for giving us your time and your wisdom today.
Katie Wells: Thank you so much for having me. This was such a fun conversation.
Julie Michelson: For everybody listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspiredliving. show.
I hope you liked this episode as much as I did. I will see you next week. [Page//00:36:00]
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Katie Wells
Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder and CEO of WellnessMama.com and Wellnesse.com. A mom of six with a background in journalism, she took health into her own hands and started researching to find answers to her health struggles. Her research turned into a blog and podcast, and she’s now written over 1,500 blog posts, three books, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in health and wellness. When she’s not reading medical journals, creating new recipes, or recording podcasts, you can find her somewhere outside in the sun with her kids or undertaking some DIY remodeling project.
Obligatory additional unrelated randomness: doula, speed-reader, hates bananas, loves baseball, scuba-diver, INTJ, highly experienced in answering the question, “why.”
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