Episode 181
Andrea Nakayama:What is Deep Listening and Why It Holds The Key To Your Autoimmune Recovery
Andrea Nakayama:
What is Deep Listening and Why It Holds The Key To Your Autoimmune Recovery
If you've been following protocols and taking all the "right" supplements but still aren't seeing the results you want, this episode reveals why. Learn how the overlooked practice of deep listening could be the missing key to unlock your body's natural healing potential and finally make progress in your autoimmune recovery.
First Aired on: Mar 3, 2025
Episode 181
Andrea Nakayama:What is Deep Listening and Why It Holds The Key To Your Autoimmune Recovery
Andrea Nakayama:
What is Deep Listening and Why It Holds The Key To Your Autoimmune Recovery
If you've been following protocols and taking all the "right" supplements but still aren't seeing the results you want, this episode reveals why. Learn how the overlooked practice of deep listening could be the missing key to unlock your body's natural healing potential and finally make progress in your autoimmune recovery.
First Aired on: Mar 3, 2025
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
In this conversation with Andrea Nakayama, we explore how the practice of deep listening - both from healthcare providers and patients themselves - can transform the healing journey. Andrea shares her innovative approach to functional medicine and explains why understanding your personal health story is crucial for lasting recovery.
Introduction
Andrea Nakayama is the founder of the Functional Nutrition Alliance and creator of the Functional Nutrition Matrix. After losing her husband to a brain tumor at a young age, she discovered significant gaps in the conventional medical system and developed her own methodologies for approaching chronic health conditions. She has since trained over 8,500 practitioners in her unique approach that combines functional medicine principles with narrative medicine.
Episode Highlights
The Evolution and Limitations of Current Functional Medicine
Andrea explains how functional medicine has become increasingly protocol-based, similar to conventional medicine, and why this approach often falls short.
- Many practitioners focus on finding a single root cause rather than understanding multiple contributing factors
- Protocol-based approaches often ignore individual differences and personal health journeys
- The pressure to "do it all perfectly" can actually hinder healing progress
Understanding The Functional Nutrition Matrix
Andrea breaks down her innovative approach to functional medicine through three key components that help practitioners and patients better understand their health journey.
- The Story: Understanding what led to current health challenges
- The Soup: Mapping internal terrain and body systems
- The Skills: Implementing practical lifestyle modifications
The Power of Narrative Medicine
Deep listening, a cornerstone of narrative medicine, goes beyond simply hearing symptoms to understanding the complete health story.
- It's about tuning into both obvious and subtle signals from your body
- The practice helps reveal important clues about personal healing
- It builds a stronger therapeutic partnership between practitioner and patient
The Science of Belonging in Healing
Andrea reveals how community and belonging play a crucial role in the healing process, backed by scientific research.
- Belonging has been shown to suppress inflammatory genes
- It supports the gut-brain connection
- Community influences positive hormone production including oxytocin and dopamine
Becoming Your Own Health Expert
Understanding your personal mediators is crucial for taking control of your health journey.
- Create a "yes, no, maybe" list to track what makes you feel better or worse
- Learn to differentiate between signs and symptoms when communicating with providers
- Take responsibility for the time between practitioner visits
Notable Quotes from this Episode
"There are two experts in the room. And one of those experts is you. What are you the expert in? Oh, you're the expert in your body and yourself and your symptoms and your history."
Andrea Nakayama
"If you look at the science of belonging... it actually scientifically is shown to suppress inflammatory genes. It does reduce inflammation, supports gut brain connection, influences oxytocin and dopamine production."
Andrea Nakayama
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Andrea Nakayama
Connect with Andrea Nakayama
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Andrea Nakayama:[00:00:00] Your signs and your symptoms are actually different things. Your signs can be measured and your symptoms are felt, but not measured. So if you're unconscious. They don't know your symptoms. They do know your signs. They can see, they can tell if you have a fever, a rash, but when you say I have a rash and I'm fatigued and I have a headache and those are like two different languages coming at that provider at the same time.
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to [00:01:00] the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and today I'm joined by Andrea Nakayama, the host of the 15 Minute Matrix podcast and the founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance. Andrea is leading thousands of students and practitioners around the globe in a revolution to offer better solutions to the growing chronic illness epidemic.
Julie Michelson: By highlighting the importance of systems biology, root cause methodology and therapeutic partnerships. She helps the historically underserved individuals reclaim ownership of their health. In today's conversation, Andrea shares the major principles of the Functional Nutrition Alliance, as well as the Functional Nutrition Matrix.
Julie Michelson: We discuss the efficacy of incorporating narrative medicine to enhance the partnership between the client or patient and the practitioner. And to tap into the innate healing power [00:02:00] we all have.
Julie Michelson: Andrea, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Julie. I'm super excited to be here with you. I am so looking forward to our conversation and I would love for you to share kind of in a condensed way, if you can, um, a little bit about your journey. I, I always am inspired by, you know, I know we almost all of us Came to functional medicine, integrative health, whatever you want to call it under whichever umbrella, um, through our own journey or, or the journey of a loved one.
Julie Michelson: So, um, if you would share, you know, not only how you got into this world, but then a little bit of what inspired you to, you know, create a program and train practitioners and really take it to beyond the next level.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, thank you, um, for that invitation, and I will try to condense [00:03:00] it, so in April of 2000, my late husband, Isamu, was diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumor, a glioblastoma multiforme, when I was just seven weeks pregnant.
Andrea Nakayama: And so that experience took my understanding of the conventional medical model to a different level. There were so many amazing things we received from conventional medicine. We were in San Francisco at the time, and that's where one of the best brain tumor centers is. So we had the best care. And at the same time, And at the same time, it was the first time in our early 30s that we were thrust into the quote unquote medical system.
Andrea Nakayama: And I was identifying and recognizing some really significant gaps that I had never encountered before. Those first two gaps were that people are treated like their diagnosis. So he was a glioblastoma [00:04:00] multiforme. You know, we have our diagnoses, but we're treated like we are them. And the second gap at that time that I realized, I've since realized a lot more, was that all people with the same diagnosis are treated the same.
Andrea Nakayama: That is what the conventional model does. It sees the difference. Through that protocol X for Y lens. So that time was what I consider looking back my bootcamp. Isamu, my late husband, was given six months to live. He actually lived two and a half years, which gave him the great opportunity and our son, the great opportunity to have a little imprint, even though, um, our son doesn't remember his dad.
Andrea Nakayama: He's 24 now, but yeah. Yeah, that imprint was there. And it took several years for me to realize that there was something in here that was my calling. I worked in a very different field. I was a production director and book publishing for companies in New York, working on very [00:05:00] high powered books. And I realized I had to put myself back through school.
Andrea Nakayama: So I started scrambling, doing lots of education. Following my passion and it evolved and evolved and evolved. I became a health coach. I recognized that there were differences in the way I was looking at, uh, a case at a health coaching case. And I had a coach of my own that was saying, you know, you're doing something different than anybody else's doing.
Andrea Nakayama: And that's when I started opening my eyes. I found functional medicine. I realized that there was an adjacent way of thinking to what I was doing in nutrition and started to develop my own methodologies, kind of inspired by the Institute for Functional Medicine, but making them my own and through the scope of practice of lifestyle medicine.
Andrea Nakayama: So more of the dietary and lifestyle [00:06:00] modifications. That then led me to having great clinical results, leading more people, practitioners, health coaches. To ask for training, which, you know, I didn't expect to create a school where I've trained over 8, 500 practitioners, but now that is the case. Yeah.
Andrea Nakayama: Amazing. Is that condensed enough?
Julie Michelson: That was actually was, and I want to highlight something you didn't even say because I, and I, I really know this goes back to your approach, um, just You made a choice all those years ago. Yes. Right. So I just want to, I want to commend and express gratitude for that choice, but also for listeners to understand, like, we always have a choice.
Julie Michelson: And if you can't get from your story that life can be really, really hard, yes. [00:07:00] Um, but you made a conscious decision to find the gift or, or turn it into. a gift, and not only for yourself, but for, as you just said, it's not even just the thousands of coaches that you've trained, but all of the, you know, it's that ripple effect, right?
Julie Michelson: All of the people that they touch.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: And, and, you know, I just wanted to highlight that because I think that that's the invitation for anybody listening. Yes. You, I know, are going to share so much other goodness with us in this conversation, but every day we can make a choice. Yes. And, um, need to.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes, and I want to thank you for that reflection and I received that and I think of that as post traumatic post traumatic growth, right?
Andrea Nakayama: That's the way I think about what occurred. And I do feel like and I want to highlight this. That the [00:08:00] true purpose, which was at the heart of everything I was doing was in Isamu's name. And so when we find the purpose, the real why of what we're doing, even in our own everyday lives, I don't mean professionally, I mean personally, when that why is built.
Andrea Nakayama: Bigger than us. We will move mountains. I had to learn things. I still in business have to learn things that I do not want to do or learn. But the purpose of what I'm doing with the actual work is what enables me to do the things that I didn't think I could, would, knew to do, wanted to do. And so again, I, I think.
Andrea Nakayama: We can be hard on ourselves about not doing it right, but I think some of the work is in finding that deep purpose that enables us to do that next thing.
Julie Michelson:[00:09:00] Amen. I mean, that is what keeps us going, right? In the unknown and in the growth, because growth comes from discomfort. And so if you're comfortable.
Julie Michelson: You're probably not growing, you know, if, if you're seeking comfort. Um, and, and so I don't know how one could create sustainable change without being in touch with their true purpose.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes. And break it down, break it down. We expect so much of ourselves. And this is where I love functional medicine and I'm in service to functional medicine.
Andrea Nakayama: Um, but if I may, I'm going to say that it's gone the way of conventional medicine and that it's very protocol based. And so I do feel like we're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves as people, especially women, especially type a women with chronic health. Concerns to do it. All right, or not do it alone at all.
Andrea Nakayama: And [00:10:00] what I see is that people are frustrated. They feel like it didn't work. They took all the supplements. They quote unquote healed their gut. And I just want to say, we can break it down and stack and learn. Someone like you does a beautiful job of helping people to make sure it's right for them and then next and then next and then next.
Andrea Nakayama: I just want to take the pressure away from this idea of doing it all right, going on this protocol, taking all these things that has become the norm in our field that I think is a disservice.
Julie Michelson: I, I so agree. I think functional medicine has become, you know, that umbrella that's gotten just totally washed down and there are amazing functional medicine providers and there are people who shouldn't be allowed to say their functional medicine, you know, it's, it's just become, you know, You know, a marketing tool really.
Julie Michelson: So I love, I love [00:11:00] that, that you say that. And, and I want to highlight, this is not where I thought we were going to go. Um, the perfectionism, you know, somebody asked me once when they were interviewing me, if I found that many of my clients were perfectionists and I literally giggled and was like, Every single one, they may not all present as type A, but that perfectionism is, is part of, it is one of the ingredients to, to, you know, struggle with chronic illness to begin with.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Um, and I'll take a, what I learned in business is this beautiful tool for life, which is that done is better than perfect. Yes. Yes. Right. And, and like, why did they teach me that when I was a kid? Like, why was that?
Andrea Nakayama: You know, I'm just going to go here for a moment. I know we have so many things to cover, but I think that this is a really important point because people will often think I'm a perfectionist because [00:12:00] I have very high standards.
Andrea Nakayama: Standards, high standards of excellence, but I'm not afraid to make a mistake and make it progressive. So really understanding that persistence and perseverance are better than perfection. And I think what trained that into me is that my undergraduate degree is in art and design. And in art and design, you put your work on the wall.
Andrea Nakayama: outside of you for people to critique. And you then go back and you rework it and you learn and you keep going. And I think that that exercise for me, which we'll come back to some of our conversations if we get into narrative medicine, are not about perfection. It's not about creating something or doing something in a way that's there.
Andrea Nakayama: It's about Do and then do and then do nobody climbs Mount Everest in a day. It takes years [00:13:00] and we have to think about our base camps and know sometimes we're going up and down and up and down just to go forward and learn more along the way. And I think that applies to our health journey in such a profound way that we've lost sight of with everything that's fed to us.
Andrea Nakayama: Social media and media media.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And I, I think that, that we, especially, you know, for listeners that are somewhere in an autoimmune journey, um, so often we just want someone to tell us what to do to fix it. Right. It's, we're still stuck a little bit in that historic Western medical model of somebody else has our answers.
Julie Michelson: And if they tell me what to do and I do it, problem solved. And not the case. We have the answer. So it is not the case. Um, so I want to talk a little bit about, because your approach, you didn't just [00:14:00] say, okay, IFM is great Institute of Functional Medicine. I'm going to open my own version, right? And, and because you're, you're bringing you and your approach.
Julie Michelson: So let's talk a little bit about, you know, what makes the Functional Nutrition Alliance different. Um, you have, you know, You're very systems thinking oriented, which I'm not saying if I'm doesn't have it. Right. That's not true. Um, but share with us a little bit about, I mean, your, your podcast is the 15 minute matrix, right?
Julie Michelson: So let's talk about the matrix.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, let's talk about the matrix. So I'm going to go back to the three primary tenants that the Institute for Functional Medicine, the Founding Fathers, and they were, so I'm going to call them Founding Fathers, really anchored on, and for me, that is The premise I'm continuing to work with and [00:15:00] again, I was already practicing and teaching before I even found functional medicine.
Andrea Nakayama: It just gave it a different way of I was like, Oh, this is related. So those three founding principles are a therapeutic partnership. Looking for the root causes and a systems based approach. So a therapeutic partnership goes back to what you just said, Julie, you already know, and I see it as my job to elevate the understanding of a patient.
Andrea Nakayama: To be a true partner in their relationship with any provider, including their medical provider. So I always like to remind patients, there are two experts in the room. And one of those experts is you, what are you the expert in? Oh, you're the expert in your body and yourself and your symptoms and your history.
Andrea Nakayama: Let's figure out how to bring that forward. So you can be a partner looking for the roots. And I'm going to underscore the S because I think that functional medicine has become very [00:16:00] root cause focused and, uh, always plural. Yeah. And this sympathetic dominant, let me find that root. And I'm going to say it is not root.
Andrea Nakayama: It is roots. Yes. And that root, that, that quest for the root is not. is not going to lead to a, a, um, healing journey. It is a fixation that something's broken. You'll find the one thing like you were saying, and it all get better. So looking for the roots, which means we say, why is this happening? Not just what do I do about it?
Andrea Nakayama: And a systems based approach embraces systems biology, of course. So we're recognizing the gut and the brain connection, the hormone and the liver and the gut. We're seeing. Seeing the connections inside, but I also have created systems that allow us to simplify what it is we're trying to look at to think about it more [00:17:00] clearly.
Andrea Nakayama: So those three premises, I am very much in service to, but the scope of practice is very different. So functional medicine docs, for the most part, and I'm not talking about all of them, but they recognize that diet and lifestyle modification matter. How they actually double click and focus on the physiological impacts and implications of diet and lifestyle modification is still lacking for many of them due to time, scope of practice.
Andrea Nakayama: I, and the people I train, depending on their scope of practice, because doctors come through the program too, do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat. Instead, we assess, recommend, track, repeat. And we're understanding that deep physiological connection between what I call the right side of the matrix coming back to the matrix.
Andrea Nakayama: And [00:18:00] that physiological terrain. So in my version of the matrix, I'm just going to pause there, and then I'll go matrix. Any, any thoughts or questions with that kind of setting? You
Julie Michelson: know, I'm just cheering you along at this point, right? Of the, Yeah. Like minded. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just sitting here nodding like, uh huh.
Julie Michelson: Uh huh.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and I love that you and people not like, they're amazing positions, they're amazing coaches. Like it, it doesn't. Matter. We, we joke all the time. I mean, if listeners are regular, they know, you know, my partner in life is a physician. He's been practicing functional medicine since before it had a name like you.
Julie Michelson: Right. And then all of a sudden there was like, Oh, there's a name for this. And now it's kind of gotten a little washed out depending. Um, but, but we, I, even with us working, when we [00:19:00] work together, it's like, okay, you know, the, the, how. Yes. It's still missing. Yes. His appointments with patients, he spends two hours.
Julie Michelson: Yes. And it's still not enough time to, there's just too many things. Um, and so I do think this, this deeper level of, you know, why, you can't always answer why. Yes.
Andrea Nakayama: But you
Julie Michelson: track and you
Andrea Nakayama: look and you discover through the lived experience, not through a scale or a piece of paper. I call it the qualitative measures versus the quantitative measures.
Andrea Nakayama: And I also like the quantitative measures. I love
Julie Michelson: both. You know, the quantitative measures, it's like, yes, you know, but ultimately I want people to feel well. Exactly. And so that's the measure, right? Yes. What are the goals and are, are things shifting in the right direction? Exactly. [00:20:00] How do you feel? Yes.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea Nakayama: So let me just talk about this through the matrix. Yeah. The way I've redesigned the functional medicine matrix with their permission. So the functional nutrition matrix has three sections that I call the story, the soup, And the skill So the soup is the internal terrain that body systems area where we're constantly focused on our signs, our symptoms, and our diagnoses and we can kind of map them on a, um, on a chart.
Andrea Nakayama: a center wheel that has different physiological areas and start to see connections there, or at least take them out of our head and put them down on paper. But the right side and the left side of the matrix that flank that center wheel influence the expression of that internal terrain. So of course the skills section are all the things we're trying [00:21:00] to do.
Andrea Nakayama: Sleep and relaxation, exercise and movement, nutrition and hydration, stress and resilience, relationships and networks. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And there's no perfect, we need to find out where you are at this moment and make each next Step forward. I will always say the non negotiable trifecta is sleep, poop, and blood sugar balance, and I know you've spoken about all, but what I realized that was that we were really skipping past the extreme influence of the story story.
Andrea Nakayama: The story, the patient's story. So when we talk about that, I want to understand and I want us to understand that the, um, what we're exposed to again in media and in our healthcare system is a, uh, hyper focus on what's going on and what do I do about it. And [00:22:00] we've forgotten what got me here? How do I better understand how I got to this point in time?
Andrea Nakayama: And so that story, which in functional medicine we call the ATMs, the antecedents, the triggers, and the mediators, is what led me on a quest to uncover how we can more acutely bring attention and awareness as patients to what brought us to this point in time. So that we can be better partners in our health care journey.
Andrea Nakayama: And I just want to focus because you said, um, that you want people to feel better. And I love, like, we want that qualitative feel in functional medicine. If we think about the antecedents, what got me here? The triggers, what's this life that I've lived? When I say antecedents, I mean, what did I just come in with?
Andrea Nakayama: What was a given [00:23:00] triggers what happened through my life journey. The mediators are the gold. I see my job as helping people expand their pocket of mediators. So they are Back in control, more control of their health and control is a slippery word, but you have more influence by saying, this makes me feel better.
Andrea Nakayama: This makes me feel worse. If I'm going to do something that I know makes me feel worse, I'm in a risk reward situation. I get to make that decision in the moment, but I know. And so I see my job as expanding people's understanding of their own personal mediators, and that gives us back so much more influence.
Julie Michelson: It's the power. It is. I joke and I say, you know, in three years, you're not [00:24:00] going to Avoid gluten. I'll pick on that one because everybody knows how I feel about that for the autoimmune population specifically. Yes. Um, but just because Julie said or Andrea said or you read, you know, oh, gluten's not good for, you know, it's part of the problem, doesn't matter.
Julie Michelson: It does not, is not going to matter. It's how you feel when we get you feel, you know, that is the, that's the gold. And I love it. You say pocket. I say toolbox, right? It's not, it's like when you watch people roll their eyes, when you mentioned stress management, right? And they think I'm saying avoid all your stressors.
Julie Michelson: Right? No, that's not possible. Let's give you create resilience by, you know, the, these. tools. Yes. Having that, that big expanded pocket.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: And [00:25:00] so I, I love, which I knew I would, I love your approach. Um, and I can hear the, the direct connect to your story. I mean, it just makes so much. This goes back to, again, the what's the problem and tell me what to do to fix it is the same diagnosis pill.
Julie Michelson: Correct. That we've spent decades, you know, and so we took that same model and we just put different things in those boxes. Yes. And it doesn't work. Correct. Yeah,
Andrea Nakayama: correct. And it's a hard reframe, right? It's not sexy because we really just want the fix. And I'm often reminding people, you are not broken. I mean, this is one thing I love about regular old serum labs.
Andrea Nakayama: I will create a chart for people with the trend of their labs and make everything green and focus first. Trend is important. Um, look first and foremost at [00:26:00] like, let's look at what's working in your body, right? Let's focus for a minute on all the green we see on this spreadsheet in front of us. Like, can we just applaud that for a moment?
Andrea Nakayama: Because we're so eager to look for what's broken in us. And we forget that our body has infinite healing potential. And we actually have a pharmacy within that through narrative medicine, I'm starting to anchor on more that I think we've left behind. Things like belonging. And feeling included and love and joy and being moved.
Andrea Nakayama: Like there are things we can access that we don't need. anybody else to prescribe to us that we can tap into that are not just our story like, oh, and then this happened to me and then this happened to me and [00:27:00] then, but, oh, when I go to dance class, I notice that my heart rate variability that night goes up in a positive way because I'm exercising, but I'm part of a community and I feel joy.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, like. Little things that I think we've left behind in our incessant quest for this affirmation that we are broken and have to be fixed.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Absolutely. And I love that you use the word joy. I do feel like it is a missing ingredient for so many people in wellness. And people look at me like it, that is always the saddest part for me.
Julie Michelson: When I ask a client, what, what brings you joy? And they give me the deer in the headlights. Yes.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: You know, they're, they're, they're driven. They're, you know, all the things and they haven't, [00:28:00] Um, but it's also really healing and it's never too late to, to reconnect with joy with community, with all these things that I always say, you know, there's all this talk now about blue zones and everyone, again, what do they focus on?
Julie Michelson: What are they eating? You know? Exactly. Right. Well, how about the fact that it's there, these are communities, these are tight knit communities with, you talked about it before, purpose. Yes. The 80 year old woman who's still teaching and walking up the hill and yes, they're eating good food and they're, they're moving, you know, and exercise is just a daily part of life, but it's that community and connection and joy that We have just kind of negated as like, Oh, you know, I'll get to that later.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes. Yeah. And I think that we are actually tapping into it, but we're looking for the big ways, right? [00:29:00] So first of all, you're singing my language because my focus in the narrative medicine, functional medicine intersection I'm doing is longevity for women, 50s, 60s, and beyond. Because I think our ages.
Andrea Nakayama: We've lost a sense of purpose that was, um, ubiquitous for our generation for the first time in history as women, if we had children, they're not only out of the house, but they may be launched enough that like we aren't even parents in the same way we've had careers that we no longer have the Purpose or that purpose is shifting, that significance is shifting in life and longevity, as you're saying, isn't just about what we eat, what we take, what blue light we're, uh, exposed to.
Andrea Nakayama: There are a lot, which exactly, exactly. It's so much more. And I think there's opportunity for us to reframe longevity and find something [00:30:00] different with. But I also want to say, like, joy doesn't have to be, I live my life in joy every day. I do think there are these moments. I don't know that anybody does.
Andrea Nakayama: Exactly. But I think that's what we're looking for. And I also just want to say, one of the things I'm loving about this intersection in my own work, in my own writing, is where the science comes in. If you look at the science of belonging and, and I just want to anchor on that because we'll be like, Oh yeah, whatever belonging community doesn't matter.
Andrea Nakayama: But it actually scientifically is shown to suppress inflammatory genes. It does reduce inflammation supports gut brain connection. Influences oxytocin and dopamine production. Like we forget that there's other ways to access the internal pharmacy that aren't about taking, acting, doing more and more and more, which for my type A [00:31:00] sisters, I just want to say like, hold on, you got something more to work with here.
Andrea Nakayama: It's cheap. It's easy. And you can find it. Everybody has it. Yes.
Julie Michelson: It is, it is part of the, how we are designed and created. Um, I want to back, uh, because I was so excited for this conversation that I'm like, you know, more, more, more, tell us more. Um, let's talk, just share with listeners. What is narrative medicine?
Julie Michelson: No, I'm using this
Andrea Nakayama: term and it's like,
Julie Michelson: it's,
Andrea Nakayama: it's a fairly young and very pedagogical, so academic. practice. It was, it's really only in like it's 20 or so years. Um, Dr. Rita Chiron is one of its founders and the, uh, creator of the program at Columbia University. And it really is in its most basic form, a practice for teaching [00:32:00] providers empathy.
Andrea Nakayama: That's how I'm going to Really make it like condensed and I did write an article on my personal website about what narrative medicine means to me, if anyone wants to lead read a little bit more. Ultimately, it's about deep listening. So, for a provider, how is it that we activate our deep listening to hear what's in the synapses of the story we're being told.
Andrea Nakayama: I believe, and this is where the work is for me, that as patients, we can engage in these same practices to activate our deep listening with ourselves. And this is where we are tuning in. And again, it's not necessarily to the minutiae of this happened to me, and then this happened all. Though the beauty of the timeline is important too, but there's more.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes, it sometimes might just be [00:33:00] engaging with a poem or a piece of art or a movie and feeling what comes up. in us and allowing time to savor that emotion, that response, which starts to reveal other clues about ourselves that we can more actively tap into to unlock that internal pharmacy. So narrative medicine is deep listening.
Andrea Nakayama: Deep listening is something I think we've lost. as patients in relationship with our bodies, which is its own therapeutic partnership in favor of doing what you said, farming it out, giving our agency away, asking for somebody to just tell us what to do and how to do it, to make it all better now, please.
Julie Michelson: So well, well put in a way that we can all understand. And again, it's for the, it's for the practitioner and the patient, [00:34:00] most importantly for the patient. But yes, this is where the magic comes in. I heard one doctor refer to it as listening radically with compassion. And I, I, I, that stuck with me because it's an extra level, right?
Julie Michelson: Like we can all say, Oh, I'm a good listener. Of course I'm a good listener. I'm
Andrea Nakayama: empathetic. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Um, but that rad, it is radical. It used to just be listening. I truly believe, you know, 2000 years ago. That was just correct.
Andrea Nakayama: How
Julie Michelson: we listened
Andrea Nakayama: thousand percent. Yeah. And in narrative medicine, we might engage the humanities to exercise that muscle.
Andrea Nakayama: And when I say that we engage in the humanities, that is where the human condition is being shown. And so we don't exercise the muscle only in clinical care. And as patients, we don't only [00:35:00] exercise the muscle in like, what's every little thing about my navel going on. We might engage with another human expression and then allow ourselves to think, sink into that experience and we start to build a radical listening muscle.
Julie Michelson: I love that a radical listening muscle and I, I want to highlight, because I believe in really, really simple terms back to that empathetic piece. It's the feeling it's the, and, and as a protective mechanism, most people struggling with chronic illness. Have disengaged from feeling. Yes. And the feeling is where the healing is.
Julie Michelson: Yes. And so I love, I, you know, I got so excited that I'm like, wow, you know, it doesn't get better than Columbia University. [00:36:00] Right. Like, and to me, this is just another, you know, new thing. academic area that is studying something that's been there all along. Yes. We're finding a new approach and a way to train people to help heal others, you know, themselves and others.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example. I was at a workshop that's part of my program in the spring and, uh, it's a, it's a very room of people coming from all different backgrounds. But there was a young woman, the same age as my son, who's applying to medical school. And we were in a small group, and we were reading a poem and talking about the poem.
Andrea Nakayama: And a lot of the people from my cohort were there, and we kind of know how practice this. You know, you, you learn the muscle. Somebody newer doesn't have the muscle and that's the fun I have in the workshops I'm teaching is helping people to start to [00:37:00] exercise that muscle. But she said, I just don't understand poetry.
Andrea Nakayama: And I said, this is the beauty of narrative medicine because the human condition is messy. It's not linear. It's not given to us in a very, uh, thought through, this is what it is, like a test, prescriptive, and when we encounter something like poetry, it's messy, it's confusing, but our experience Time to sit with that and go, what's really in here is that radical listening muscle because a patient is likely not telling us the story in that linear way, or necessarily even in what needs to be told, and we have to listen again in those synapses.
Andrea Nakayama: And I just want to come back to the patient because I work in both. Right. Realms. Yeah. [00:38:00] Um, we can be doing that with ourselves in such a beautiful, compassionate way that allows us to tap into so much more of our healing potential that I really do believe we're leaving on the shelf.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, because.
Julie Michelson: I don't know that you could have true lasting healing without that piece.
Andrea Nakayama: No,
Julie Michelson: you could feel better. Yes. You know, but, but true healing. And then if you think of again, back to the ripple effect of, and you, you mentioned this already, but you know, then it's once somebody has that skill, And you think of the interactions that person has, you know, as a possibly a parent, a partner, a coworker, I mean, just in general, Oh my gosh, then the world becomes a better place again.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes. Wow. I [00:39:00] know. It feels very wow to me. But again, like. It's not necessarily the sexiest thing. Like it is, you know, I teach thousands of providers, right?
Julie Michelson: Yeah. In the beginning, you talked about like exercising the muscle,
Andrea Nakayama: you
Julie Michelson: know, and, and I know from, even from experience as somebody who always liked that methodical, you know, um, that when we start to exercise that muscle, we just have to step into that discomfort.
Andrea Nakayama: Correct.
Julie Michelson: Um, because. That's not most of us haven't been exercising that muscle all along.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And it's really just a, I find it an incredibly beautiful and incredibly healing practice and Again, I know it's hard to access and it's why I'm offering quarterly narrative medicine free narrative medicine workshops just for people to get in touch with it [00:40:00] like I want to bring it out of the academic world that it sits in and, you know, Bring it into the everyday in some way.
Andrea Nakayama: Give people that tool and that question. Yes, for me, it definitely is. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. And I love that. And I think again, back to empowerment. And responsibility, right? Like as a patient, as a human, but as, you know, to sit on the patient side of, you know, with the power to create the good change and, and, you know, comes well, then guess what?
Julie Michelson: I'm also responsible, right? To weigh the risks of, you know, what consequences am I going to have if, yes. Um, how, how is there a way? Is it, you know, through you, like, how does somebody find, okay, you know, they're, they're really intrigued about [00:41:00] this, but how do they find providers? Cause it's almost like a secret tool.
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, I
Julie Michelson: think it's, yes,
Andrea Nakayama: it definitely is a secret tool and I don't know that there's like any, I don't know that there's any like, um, you know, a place you can go and say this person's trained in, I find that the people who are most interested, I mean, palliative care doctors, Pediatricians, like people who are really questioning what's the current in medicine.
Andrea Nakayama: And I do feel like, you know, if you're a patient looking to tap into this for yourself. That hopefully what I'm starting to offer more of, whether it's through the writing, I mean my blogs aren't blogs, they're chapters of my book, like they're, it's really diving in and asking the question and maybe doing a prompt and how do we sit with these opportunities that exist within us.
Andrea Nakayama: I [00:42:00] also think we have very high expectations of our physicians these days to be the be all and end all, to be the radical listener, to understand diet and lifestyle modification. We're not asking our doctors to tell us which sheets to buy, or toilet paper, or toothpaste, or jeans, but we're expecting a lot of our doctors.
Andrea Nakayama: So I really. Do you feel like there was a point in time in my own professional journey that I was like, I have to train more providers to be thinking differently about care. And I'm still doing that very actively every day. But at the same time, I'm starting to realize, wait a minute, I got to train patients.
Andrea Nakayama: So we're not only looking to, where do I find the doctor who can do all the things?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, at our clinic, we actually have as part of the [00:43:00] intake, you know, our, I like to call them clients, patients, whatever you want to call them, literally to sign that they will be active participants in their care.
Julie Michelson: Otherwise. We're not the right fit. Exactly. Then our hands are tied.
Andrea Nakayama: Exactly. And I think that there, besides the interventions that we do need help with from a knowledgeable provider, we also need to, or can, tap into some of the knowledge that exists within to help ourselves along the way as well. So there's a real interest for me in that next evolution of my own work, which when I say pocket, I feel like in many ways it's putting functional medicine into the pocket of of the patient, but within their scope, our scope of practice.
Andrea Nakayama: We all have different [00:44:00] scopes, a health coach, a nutritionist, a physician, those are different scopes. And a patient has a scope too. And there's a lot of time between the visits and recommendations that you get from any of your providers. And there's more we can tap into that's within our scope during that time.
Andrea Nakayama: I love that. Amazing.
Julie Michelson: And, and that's what I always said that, um, in this day and age, you know, a healthcare team.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Um, and the most important person on the team is the patient.
Andrea Nakayama: Center of the matrix.
Julie Michelson: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. I promised I was going to let you go on time. So I'm going to do my best to keep my word. Um, I want to ask, you know, listeners are leaning in now because they know what's coming. What is, from your perspective, one step that listeners can take starting today to move the needle and improve their health?
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, I'm going to [00:45:00] give us a step that is bring us back to that self empowerment. I'm actually thinking of two steps if I can. Of course. So step number one is spend a little time with what you know makes you feel better and makes you feel worse. Those mediators, as we call them in functional medicine.
Andrea Nakayama: Just spend a little time. I sometimes call it a yes, no, maybe list. Like, what do you know makes you feel good? What do you know doesn't make you feel good? And what are you not sure that you've done along the way? And just taking the time to gather that information is really, really helpful and will set you up to be a better partner with whoever you're looking to, to get support.
Andrea Nakayama: So that's one thing I want to invite people to do. A yes, no, maybe list. You can do it just about food. Everything, whatever you want to do, yes, no, maybe the second thing I just want to say, because I think this is really important for us as patients to [00:46:00] understand is that we tend to overload our provider.
Andrea Nakayama: With our signs and our symptoms in the same sentence and to a medical provider, your signs and your symptoms are actually different things. Your signs can be measured and your symptoms are felt, but not measured. So if you're unconscious. They don't know your symptoms. They do know your signs. They can see, they can tell if you have a fever, a rash, but when you say I have a rash and I'm fatigued and I have a headache and those are like two different languages coming at that provider at the same time.
Andrea Nakayama: So another preparation step I like to invite patients to do before they see their provider is separate the things that you know can be measured. versus those that can't. So you can say my ferritin's been low for seven years, but you can also say I [00:47:00] feel fatigued all the time. I get up and I have a cup of coffee and I feel like I can get right back in bed.
Andrea Nakayama: Like those are two separate things. So I just like to give people that nugget so that we're building the bridge to the person we're asking to be our guide. I love
Julie Michelson: that. Building the bridge to the person we're asking to be our guide. And that is, again, back to responsibility of, um, I love, it's taking the time and taking the time has, can take the time to feel, take the time to notice, take the time to record, to prepare.
Andrea Nakayama: Yes.
Julie Michelson: Um, and, and so, because yeah, when we're just spitting out this bucket. Um, it's sometimes going to take even longer to get underneath and figure out what's really driving things. Yes. You know, how, how many root causes there are going on. Yes. [00:48:00] Um, uh, so amazing for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check the show notes.
Julie Michelson: Where is the best place to find you?
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah, if you head over to Andrea Nakayama on the web, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, Andrea Nakayama is going to lead you back to the Functional Nutrition Alliance, to any podcast, this podcast, all the blogs that I'm talking about. Yeah. So Andrea Nakayama is the one place to go that will Lead you to the matrix of other opportunities of the matrix.
Andrea Nakayama: There
Julie Michelson: it is again. I love it. It's a she's not done ladies and gentlemen I so i'm so grateful. I know I called you andrea andrea I really appreciate you just the way you show up, you know, I, I won't drool again about the, the contribution you're making to, to everyone who is willing to lean in and, and [00:49:00] risk a little discomfort.
Julie Michelson: Um, but really appreciate just the way you showed up today for us and the amount of amazing things you've given all of us to, to really ponder and perhaps feel.
Andrea Nakayama: Yeah. Same, same. You're such a gift to your community and, um, such a joy to speak with. Thank you for having me.
Julie Michelson: Truly my pleasure. For everyone listening, remember you can get those show notes and transcripts by visiting inspiredliving.
Julie Michelson: show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Maybe give it a second listen and you'll get even more things out of it. I hope you all have a great week.
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Andrea Nakayama
As the host of the 15-Minute Matrix Podcast and the founder of Functional Nutrition Alliance, Andrea is leading thousands of students and practitioners around the globe in a revolution to offer better solutions to the growing chronic illness epidemic. By highlighting the importance of systems biology, root cause methodology, and therapeutic partnerships, she helps historically underserved individuals reclaim ownership of their health.
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