321. Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don't with Erin Holt

Twenty years ago, functional medicine changed everything for me. My IBS cleared. My skin cleared. My depression lifted. And for the first time, I understood food as medicine instead of just calories. But somewhere in the last five years, functional medicine started looking a lot like what it was railing against. A supplement for every lab marker. A protocol for every person. A business model that profits from making you feel more broken than when you walked in.

So I stopped talking about it much here. But I still believe in root cause resolution. And I wanted to bring on someone who practices it the way it was meant to be practiced. That's why I brought Erin Holt on the show. Erin is a seasoned clinician, clinic founder, and trainer of other practitioners who has been vocal about what's gone wrong in this industry while still believing fiercely in what it can be. She practices what she calls intuitive functional medicine, a framework that starts with the physical body and refuses to stop there.

In this episode of Truce with Food, Erin and I get into what's actually broken in functional medicine right now, why data can never replace discernment or lived experience, and how her five-phase formula bridges the physical, mental, emotional, and energetic aspects of healing. We also talk about why you can't rewire an inflamed brain with mindset work, and what it really means to self-source your health instead of outsourcing it to someone in a white coat.

2:48 – Introduction to Erin and how she and her trainees help one-on-one clients

7:56 – The shift in functional medicine over the last five years that’s recreating the exact problem it was designed to solve

11:25 – Defining functional medicine and comparing it to more conventional medicine

16:46 – What intuitive functional medicine is and what it looks like in Erin’s practice (and her training of other practitioners)

24:08 – Self-sourcing vs. outsourcing your health and the long, underexamined history of the loss of self-trust in so many people

34:09 – A basic example of how Erin helps her clients rebuild their self-trust (without forcing it)

39:55 – Why too many choices in the name of empowerment can actually cause someone to freeze in response (and what skilled practitioners do differently)

44:11 – The real point of fear-based marketing and how to spot it before it sells you something you don't need

47:00 – Why the nocebo effect, medical hexing, and the labels a practitioner puts on you can quietly become the ceiling on your healing

49:15 – Functional labs that are actually worth it and the very contextual, individualized way Erin administers them as a practitioner

51:43 – Erin’s framework for whole-person healing, why the starting point doesn’t matter, and what needs to happen before you can rewire your brain using mindset work

1:00:42 – The importance and meaning of self-compassion and why you must only work with those who see your potential to heal

Mentioned In Why Intuitive Functional Medicine Works When Protocols Don't with Erin Holt

Manifest Your Health™

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Funk’tional Nutrition Academy (FNA) 

Funk’tional Nutrition: How Belonging, Not Willpower, Shapes Your Eating

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Transcript

Ali Shapiro: Welcome to Truce With Food, the podcast where we stop fighting food and start addressing the deeper story of what you suspect is going on, but can't put your finger on. Because the focus on food is a waste of your precious time, resources and life. 

I always joke that functional medicine loves an axis. So we have the brain-gut axis, we have the liver-gut axis, we have the hormone-gut axis, like axis, axis, axis. But it gets the point across that like, hey, these things are talking to each other. And so what we're looking for, in functional medicine, we're not waiting till something becomes a diagnosable disease state. We're taking more of a preventative approach by saying, okay, systems in the body can break down and can lose communication and can get out of balance long before it becomes a diagnosable disease stage. 

I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health expert with a 19-year proven track record of client success. I'm a 33-year and counting cancer survivor and creator of the research-based Truce with Food framework that came out of my own personal experience from recovering from cancer and yo-yo dieting. Because you name it, I had tried it. I also have a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. I'm affectionately called people's last best resort and a coach's coach, as people come to me when they've tried everything and nothing's worked long term. 

This show is where we quiet the noise so we can go deep to get you the results you deserve. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personal, individual or medical advice. Now onto the show. 

So those of you who have known my work for some time know that functional medicine changed my life, when I found it 20 years ago. And I thought it was amazing and it still is. But what it has become from the original idea that I found 20 years ago, when it helped me reverse my IBS, skin condition, and depression and also fundamentally shifted my relationship to food, because it enabled me, it taught me how to see food as medicine, not just calories. But what it had become really in the last five years is supplements, protocols, standardization, which is not how it originated. And so I've gotten away from talking about it a little bit here on the podcast. We talk about it more in depth in my programs, because I can offer a lot more, you know, nuance in depth to someone's specific question. 

But I still believe in functional medicine or this idea of root/cause resolution. And so I wanted to have someone on, who could speak to the power of functional medicine, but also isn't hyped up in this kind of race to the bottom that at least functional medicine has become online. And that's why I brought Erin Holt, who is our guest on today. Erin is a brilliant practitioner. She's seasoned and she really leads with the highest hope for your healing, instead of fear-based marketing. Again, which is a lot of what functional medicine has become. Not all of it. Of course, we're talking about the nuance and we're going to get into what that really looks like today. So I brought Erin on to talk about that, to define functional medicine, to define and talk about why she has evolved this concept to be intuitive functional medicine and what that means and how that can help you. 

And Erin and I both train other practitioners in different ways. I do it in Stubborn Change and my Truce Coaching Certification. And Erin does it with people with chronic illness and training other practitioners and helping people move through chronic illness. So, we both train other practitioners. And so if you are a practitioner, you're going to get a lot of golden nuggets for yourself to think about. And then if you're just somebody who hires practitioners, you'll get good advice and some golden nuggets around how to choose someone to support you with. Okay. And one of the things that Erin and I talk about today is level of readiness. And if you're curious about your own level of readiness to change, whether it's chronic symptoms or your relationship to food, definitely check out my new find your food stage quiz. That will help you really determine your level of readiness. Because while we're talking about functional medicine today, for functional medicine to be effective and part of why I love Erin's work is you got to eat well consistently, right? 

Before you get into all the fancy tricks and lab work, what's going to help the most is eating well consistently. So if you're curious about that, your level of readiness, what stage you are in really of change, check out my new “Find your food stage”, take that assessment quiz type thing. It's meatier than a quiz, but it's not judgmental like an assessment, just to know where you are. Because until you know where you are, then you can't know where your next step needs to be. So you can check that out in the show notes or you can go to truthwithfood.com/find-your-food-stage. Okay. 

But before we get to the interview, let me tell you a little bit more about Erin. Erin's been doing this work for over a decade. You always want someone who has real clinical practical experience. She leads a team of clinicians who work one-on-one with clients to really unpack symptoms and get to the root cause of symptoms, okay? And what a lot of functional approaches or health approaches have become, are they're zeroing in on one system, like your gut, your hormones, or just your lab work, right? And give you a standard protocol. Erin and her team understand you're not one system, but you're, as she says, a whole ass human being. Erin's got great delivery. And her and her team really offer that root cause clarity for people, who are tired of that piecemeal approach. 

And then twice a year, she opens up a program called “Funktional Nutrition Academy”, which is for the practitioners of the world, who want to dive deep into functional medicine nutrition concepts, with a heavy emphasis on lab interpretation and clinical application to client care. I'm actually a guest teacher at FNA. So it's a really quality program. And Erin is releasing a new program called “Manifest Your Health”, here, very shortly, in 2026, which is a neuroscience-backed membership that helps rewire your brain and body for lasting wellness. So check Erin out, she's great and enjoy today's episode. Erin, I am so happy to finally have you here. We had been trying to do this interview for a while, but I know you were, you know, your daughter was sick. We all know how that goes. So I'm so glad that you're, oh my gosh, you're here. 

Erin Holt: She got like taken down with the flu this year. She had a fever for seven days and we went to like, oh, it's a whole thing, it was like a whole whole thing. And I'm not really like hypervigilant when it comes to my kids' health. I think I like bend through all of that with my own health and my own body. So I'm not like hovering over her. And I like started hovering over her like, what is going on? But she obviously is totally fine now. But yeah, we had our... I had to reschedule, because I was deep in the throes of navigating her through a flu. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, I'm going to have to have you come back on the podcast to say, how do you not put all your past health issues onto your kid? Because I'm pretty good at it. But then if a fever for seven days, I think I would have been like, like, you know, overreacting. 

Erin Holt: I started to. She was like, why do you keep checking on me in the middle of the night? And I was like, no reason, it's totally fine. So I started to. Day six, I was like, is this kid going to make it? Like, are we all right? So yeah, we can definitely talk about that at a later date. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, yeah. But I'm so happy to have you here, because, you know, I found functional medicine about 20 years ago and it totally changed my life. And I loved it. And then several years ago, it started to get really like, in my opinion, kind of recreating the exact model it was railing against, in terms of it was kind of anti-pharma. It was never anti-pharma, but it was like root cause resolution, right? So it was like not about chronic medication, all that stuff. And then like several years ago, I don't know when it was, all of a sudden I felt like all these functional medicine people came online, influencers, people who didn't have the depth of knowledge that you have and I respect. And it was kind of like recreating like supplements and, you know, let's do this panel and then everyone gets the same protocol. And I was just like, what happened? And so I kind of became like, oh, it's now the same thing. And then I found your work and you were like the moderate middle, the sane middle and made me remember how powerful functional medicine can be. And I know you've expanded upon it. So I want to talk to you about that today, so that people can still have faith in this term, this concept and be able to be a little bit more discerning at what is hype versus what is real. So thank you for being here. 

Erin Holt: I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I love functional medicine, still. And I've also been very vocal about the problems that I've seen in this industry. I would say particularly over the past five years is really when things started to get a little wonky. A couple of the things that you mentioned, you know, we sort of have replaced a pill for every ill, which is a little bit of the tagline of conventional medicine, with a supplement for every imbalanced lab marker. And so it became very lab focused. It became very supplement protocol focused. It would not be uncommon for somebody to walk out of a functional medicine clinic with thousands of dollars in lab testing and a bucket of supplements. And that's really not what root cause resolution is all about. It became more templated. So if that, then this, if I find this imbalanced lab marker, then I'm going to do this. So we started responding to the lab and the data, rather than the human being sitting behind the lab and the data. And to me, that is a fundamental problem because it's no different than, to your point, what we were seeing with conventional medicine. And so maybe that's a place where we could start, because that's the biggest issue that I started seeing. How about you? 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah, exactly. It was kind of like, let's do all these supplements. But to me, if you don't have the foundations of eating well consistently, moving your body so that you can poop and balance your blood sugar, is still all of the foundations of health were just being glossed over in favor of, do this supplement, do this lab. And it was, to me, yeah, it felt like it was kind of taking people's money, taking their time and reconfirming the lack of trust in their body, when they couldn't keep that up. Because I saw more and more people coming to me being like, I tried functional medicine, but it was just like, you know, it was like, I'm swallowing all these pills, like you said, nothing's really moving. And now I feel more broken, in a sense, like, will anything work for me? And I was like, oh, this is not what, like, I thought functional medicine was. So the term, so let's define, you know, let me put my academic hat on here. And like, because now I see functional training, functional foods, but like, how are you defining functional medicine? Let's put that there. 

Erin Holt: I think the way that I think about it, it's kind of like I start with conventional medicine. So what is the conventional medicine model? And what are the problems that we saw there? I mean, and you know, everyone listening can probably write a book about their issues with conventional medicine at this point. And also, do you watch “The Pit”? 

Ali Shapiro: Yes, I'm from Pittsburgh. I live in Pittsburgh. I've only watched the first season though, because you have to be in a certain kind of state of mind, where you want to get round up. Like I… When my nervous system is already at capacity, which is not often. So I have to like pace that show, but I love it. I love it. 

Erin Holt: Okay. I love it. I think it's one of the best shows on TV right now. I also like love Noah Wiley, because I was such an ER buff back in the day. So, so happy he's back on my screen. But when I watch that show, I'm like, thank God for modern medicine. Thank God. It is so necessary. It's so life saving. And so when I talk about conventional medicine and rail against some of the systems within conventional medicine, I'm never saying like, we're not trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm never railing against individuals within the system. I'm not railing against doctors. I firmly believe that if you spend your time going to med school, it's because you truly want to make a huge impact. And so I think that this conversation can get a little wonky. So I want to be very clear with my position. And with that, there's a lot of issues. So conventional medicine is usually great for solving acute trauma, not so great with long-term chronic symptoms and conditions. That's where people usually get a little lost. And it's why we can start to see some of the medical gaslighting that a lot of people, particularly women, particularly women of color, see where we're just not being listened to. We're not being listened to, we're not being responded to and we are trying to figure out what's wrong with us for years, sometimes even decades. And so functional medicine becomes a solve for that. The other issue with conventional medicine is very compartmentalized and fragmented. So we have certain specialists for different parts of the body. So we have a kidney doctor, we have a cardiologist, we have a dermatologist, but there's no one in conventional medicine that's really weaving all of these different pieces and parts together. And we know that the human body is just one super system. It's like one functioning system, where all the pieces and parts are communicating to each other, all of the time. So I do feel that that's where functional medicine slots in and takes more of a systems biology approach, acknowledging and recognize that all of these things are talking to each other, all of the time. I always joke that functional medicine loves an access. So we have the brain gut access, we have the liver gut access, we have the hormone gut access. Like access, access, but it gets the point across that, hey, these things are talking to each other. And so what we're looking for in functional medicine, we're not waiting till something becomes a diagnosable disease state. We're taking more of a preventative approach by saying, OK, systems in the body can break down and can lose communication and can get out of balance long before it becomes a diagnosable disease state. So can we have ways to assess that and to address that head on, so that we can restore balance in the body and hopefully prevent these big scary things from happening. So I do believe that it's a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful system. It's a wonderful philosophy. And it's super, super necessary. And I think when conventional and functional medicine can play nice in the sandbox together, people really get the help that they need so much. So those are the wonderful aspects of functional medicine. 

Ali Shapiro: I love that you said that. First of all, to also just a brief note about Noah Wiley, one of the moms where my son goes to kindergarten, we're both the room parents and she actually ran into Noah Wiley with her car, like did it, but she had no idea who he was. And he like called her, made sure she was okay, like nicest guy. Like he was so like, are you okay? Like I'm just saying, he's like a legit good person. 

Erin Holt: Oh my God. This is not helping my crush, by the way. Not at all.

Ali Shapiro: I was like, you ran into Noah. She was like, I had no idea, he called and my husband's like, do you know who that is? You know what I mean? I was like, oh my God. So that's great. And I, this is part of why I love when people are like good people, right? It's like, I just, that means a lot to me. But I love what… this is part of why I love you is, you have flexible thinking, it's not either or. It's like “and”, here is where functional medicine sits, right? Because I often tell clients like, you know, the medical system can be frustrating in the ways that you talked about, but it also wasn't set up for chronic disease. Right, like, that was not the purpose of the original structure. It was for trauma. It was for acute care. And now we have chronic disease. And so functional medicine fits really well. But I love what you've done with expanding it to intuitive functional medicine. So you're actually working with the person in front of you. So how do you define intuitive functional medicine, which is what you practice in your company, but also the people you train in the Funktional Nutrition Academy? 

Erin Holt: So I just felt, I'm like, I love all the parts of functional medicine that we talked about. I don't think it goes far enough. And I think that's why people can sort of like default back into that template medicine that we were talking about. I think it offers us more insight for a root cause approach than the conventional model. That's a win. Where I think it offers us more insight for a root/cause approach than the conventional model, that’s a win. Where I think it can fall short is when we fail to acknowledge and realize, you know, that the real access, if we want to stick with that language, the real access is you. And like, so you're the line that everything rotates around and you are made up of, yes, a physical body for sure, but also a nervous system, a mental body, an emotional body, an energetic body and maybe even a spiritual one, as well, if we want to go there. Not everybody does, and that's totally cool. And so we have to bridge the physical body with all other aspects of you, not just conceptually, but having tangible ways to do that. Because a root/cause approach doesn't just stop at the physical body. I like to joke, like, what happens when the root/cause is deeper than something a stool test can show us? And by the way, I love a stool test. And sometimes, you know, it's not the Holy Grail. There's deeper things. We know that our, you call them stories, I call them, you know, subconscious beliefs, our inner narratives, the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world can really influence how our nervous system reacts, which can influence our enteric nervous system, the gut's nervous system, which can really influence the symptoms that we're experiencing. So all of it needs to come online, I believe, for true healing. This is how I put autoimmunity into remission. It wasn't just looking at one piece, or one part of me, it was looking at all of me. And so when I talk about intuitive functional medicine, it's really bringing all of these parts of yourself online and making it all available. I think that they're all on ramps. It’s, you know, we were talking before we were recording, you were talking about how food can be the entry point for some people. It's all good. It's all available. They're all on ramps. And I really, you said something earlier about not being either/or. I take a very “and both” approach with everything. It's like we do not need to throw out one whole paradigm, in order to build another, they can coexist together, they can and they should. It's really, really hard for people to hold paradox. Our brains reject against it. Right? Our brains like to categorize and define things and put things in categories and put things in boxes. But if you're going to be in the health field, you can and you must be willing to hold multiple truths at once. If you can't do that, I do not think you should be in the field of health, because I think that that really limits your clients and your patients' ability to heal. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. I love that you said that, because that's actually a developmental milestone to be able to hold paradox. And that's actually what I work on with my clients of like getting out of either/or some people call it black and white thinking all or nothing. But it's actually like developmentally where we start, right? And all adults start there. It's not like anyone can get beyond that, but being able to hold the “and” right, and multiple frames are actually how you get the solutions you need, which is what I love that you call it intuitive, because it's like you're bringing the person online, right, as well, right? Which is so important to say, you have autonomy, you have agency. I remember I used the midwife center to give birth and like, you have to sign this agreement. Like you're an active participant in this, right? Like we are not just like, you just show up and it's like, Oh, I have agency. I have responsibility. And I think that's what you're saying. But often when we have chronic illness, it's almost and maybe this is too abstract, but it's like the obstacle is the path to that holding paradox as a patient too and a practitioner. But it's like, oh, so many clients, you know, they'll say to me, once they realize that food is about safety and not about willpower and discipline, they're like, oh my God, I thought I was broken, but really I was confused. And I was like, yes. And so that agency of knowing that this isn't just about your food, or your gut, but you're that access, I love that you bring that up, because that is containing the gut access, but it's bigger than that, right? I mean, am I making sense or am I like totally in the esoteric now? 

Erin Holt: No. You're totally in the esoteric and you're making sense. See, we can do both even with this. That's something that I often say is like you have to be an active participant in your own healing. And that can be a not so exciting prospect for some people, especially if they feel like they've been fighting for a really, really long time. I just don't see true healing and true resolution happen if you're unwilling to do that. And so there's a certain readiness level that I'm fully aware of that people have to be at, before this type of work can really mesh in gel. And so we're kind of always screening for that. Like, where are you, in your healing journey to assess, like, is this work the best fit for you right now? And I think that you said the word responsibility and that can trip people up a little bit. What I have found is that we have to essentially reframe that word, because some people can misunderstand responsibility for self-blame. And so what we're never trying to do to anybody is say, you are to blame for what happened to you. Yes to agency, yes to power, yes to responsibility. That is not the same thing as saying you have to, you know, you have to take on the ownership of these things that happened to you. You just have the ability to respond from here. You now have choice. You now have agency. How do you want to direct the ship? And I always position everything as an invitation. Like, this is an offer. This is an invitation. You still get to RSVP no. Like, you know, it's all on you. You get to do this, or you get to not do this. You get to say, this is not for me right now. And I think that's really important too, is choice and agency. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh my God, totally. I mean, that's, you know, I train people in my framework and the coaches that come in, they're so used to like fixing and problem solving. And I'm like, we're not telling anyone what to do here. And it's very disorienting. Like, how are people going to be motivated? I'm like, you don't want them to be motivated to get your approval, because that's, they're bringing all past authority baggage to you as the practitioner, right? They're putting all that onto you unconsciously. And often people's motivation, what they call motivation is like fear-based. I don't want to, I need to get rid of these symptoms. I don't want to get that, right? It's like what I'm against. And our job is for them to figure out why do I actually want to do this for myself in my everyday life. But it's very disorienting for practitioners, because I know we're kind of... We have a lot of practitioners that listen to this podcast. But it's very disorienting to be like, wait, I'm not telling people what to do. No, the whole part of the healing is someone choosing to take the next step, right? Them listening to themselves. And I love you call it self-sourcing versus outsourcing, right? So can you tell us a little bit about that? If you're going to say yes to the invitation, what are you really most deeply saying yes to with this self-sourcing versus outsourcing? 

Erin Holt: Yeah, so I define intuition. If we're calling it intuitive functional medicine, what does that mean? I personally define intuition as an innate knowing. So there's something that I know inside of me. And I hold the belief and I offer this up to other people, that your body knows how to heal. It actually does know how to heal itself, how to restore balance, how to regulate. We have things in our body happening all of the time that we're not even aware of. The one example that I always use if people don't believe me, I'm like, the lining of your gut regenerates itself every few days. And people can grasp onto that. They're like, OK, I know that to be true. And I'm like, cool. OK, that is the entry point to tiptoe our way into the fact that your body actually does know how to heal itself. It's doing it right now. Have you ever seen a cut? Have you seen that cut heal itself? Okay, cool. We're in. You're not consciously directing it. So all of this is happening below the level of conscious awareness, subconsciously. These are the little gateway drugs that I lure people in with, okay? To be like, all right, what I'm saying isn't so esoteric that we can't get behind it. It's real. So self-source, I'm always saying that we are attempting to self-source over outsource. That's always my goal for our clients is that we can get them to self-source just as much and eventually even more so than they're outsourcing. Because really in the conventional medicine model, we are taught to trust external authority figures over us, over our own intuition. I mean, we can go way back thousands of years to talk about how intuition was like, you know, beat out of us, particularly as women. We don't have the time to get into that today, but it's real and it happened, you know, the burning times were real. So that's something that we carry with us, in our like genetic coding. So it's a little scary to be like, there's like messages coming from within. So we receive all of these messages like counter to that saying, don't listen to yourself. You're actually not to be trusted. These cycles that are going on, these feelings that are going on within you, are to be silenced, not to be explored. So we're getting like a lot of these messages and then medicine in and of itself really reinforces and kind of doubles down on that. There's this like parentification. I know better than you. I have all the answers, not you. So it really creates this idea that the solution is always outside of us. So that is why we have a tendency to outsource answers, to reach outside of ourselves. And we can see this in a lot of different places and spaces. I have a little bit of a, I like a CGM, continuous glucose monitor, I like a, like a HRV tracker. You know, I think those are cool, but I think people can get like really hyper fixated on the external data points. I mean we can even do this with lab testing. We get so fixated on the external data points that we sort of like lose the ability to listen to ourselves. I'm also seeing this a lot on social media. This is like something that I wanted to bring up. I haven't talked about this publicly yet, because I'm just witnessing it and exploring it and trying to figure out my perspective on it. But there's this ramp up of conventional-minded practitioners, doctors, kind of creating the ERDs, creating this content that's like... The one that I'm seeing right now is like, Oh, you can help people balance their hormones. Okay, then name every hormone in the body, name every pathway in the body. And so it's kind of like razzing wellness influencers that like, unless you have these credentials, unless you have these degrees, you shouldn't be teaching people about how to balance their hormones. And to some of that, I'm like, yeah, totally. You know, like I've seen some wellness influencers say some like insane stuff where I'm like, Oh, you can't even pronounce that word. Why are you talking about it? So I like get that. And I think if you're running labs on people and you're creating protocols, based on those labs and you don't understand like hormone pathways, then you're probably punching above your weight. You're probably like, you know, doing something you're not supposed to be doing, but teaching people how to eat to balance their hormones. Do we really need a credential for that to teach people how to exist in the same cycles that nature exists in? Like teaching people about moon cycles and teaching people to get outside and teaching people to get sun on their face, teaching people to meditate. Like, do we really need credentialing for that? Or are these just things that we should be able to like know how to do as humans? So that creates a little bit of a rub in conflict, because I think it reinforces the idea that unless you are going to somebody to ask permission for what to do with your body, you're doing it wrong. I have to go to somebody with a white coat and a stethoscope to tell me how to interface with my own body. That is a little problematic to me. Like, that I really can't get behind super, super much. And also, the reason that people are going to social media for answers and support on their health is because they're not getting it from the white coats. They're going to their doctors for years, sometimes decades, being like, what's going on? These are my symptoms, they're not getting any answers. So where else are people supposed to go? At the very least, they're getting some resources, some support, some education, some understanding on social media. I'm off on a tear. 

Ali Shapiro: No, I love this, because I wonder if doctors themselves even understand how, you know, actually like a hundred years ago, medicine was so less standardized, right? And Andrew Carnegie, who's from hugely influential here in Pittsburgh, he commissioned this like Flexner report, right? Which was essentially like going around and they wanted to essentially scale medicine. And what they did is they shut down all of the indigenous women work, who were, you know, even Hahnemann in Philly was a homeopath, like railing against homeopathy, but they standardized medicine. And like the only people who could afford it at the time, they made, you know, conventional medicine, they made it longer, they standardized. And it was like, the only people who could afford that at the time were like, you know, probably a certain class of white men. Right. And so not only did you like made it inaccessible for so many people, but you demonized the people, who were working with people's real lived experience and more nature and had this more innate like understanding. And so I think I'm just sharing that, because we have to look at history to look at, to your point, like doesn't mean you don't want people who have expertise, right? I always say there's a difference between authority and expertise, but also the people who are experts should look a little bit more at like the background of, their own training and how it came to be. And what was normal 100 years ago is not what is normal now, because of the shifts in medicine and trying to standardize it, versus like, we didn't have people telling us what to eat 100 years ago. People ate according to the land, to your point, right, to the seasons. You don't need a degree for that. I think it's also this gets to discounting people's lived experiences, right? 

Erin Holt: Yes. 

Ali Shapiro: Which is like… You know and that's why I love that you and your practice teach, like you meet the human being and they're the axis, because this is a real life human being. This is the same thing in grad school. I learned all the coaching theories, all the change theories. And it's like, that's all great in theory, but when you sit in front of like a beautiful, messy, complicated human being, right? I always say like my favorite people and again, I feel like you're one of them, is like, they know the rules, but they know how to break them too. Instead of just trying to break the rules. 

Erin Holt: For sure. And like that is like, that's like me too. I love that. I've never heard you, like somebody say that before, but that's like, cause I'm a little bit of a rule follower, for sure, but I'm also a wicked rebel. And it's like, it's such a paradox in and of itself. It's like I talk about evidence-based medicine and it's so important and it's like lived experience gets to be evidence as well. Somebody who said to me like, I'm sorry that happened to you, but anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. I'm like, yes, it fucking is. Excuse my language, but you know it is. So I, you know, and I also think medicine has, I want to talk about this. I want to back up, because when we're talking about self sourcing and when we're talking about trusting yourself, it's all good. It's all fun. It's all fine in theory. And then to your point, if you're sitting across from somebody that doesn't know how to trust themselves, like we need to kind of build a bridge. And I want to speak into this, in case somebody's listening and they're like, that sounds great, how do I do that? And really understanding, you know, medicine has a long history of telling women that their lived experience isn't valid, it's not real and it doesn't matter. And that might be your experience. And if that is real for you, like, that is real for you. And I want you to understand that when your point of view is erased or invalidated, you do learn to silence your own internal point of view. And when we do that, we do lose trust with ourselves. If we're constantly being told that our experience isn't real and it doesn't matter, it creates or even reinforces lack of trust in ourselves. So to just have somebody be like, Oh, you just need to trust yourself. You just need to self-source more answers than outsource. You're like, cool. How do I do that? It reminds me of a Janine Roth quote that I always think about, which is like, that's like throwing women to the wolves. Just being like, you just have to trust yourself. It's like, like that's throwing them to like the wild unknown. So there is, I want to speak into that, in case that is true for you, dear listener. And also there is like a path back to that. There is a path back to self trust when, because there's a lot of clinicians that are listening to this or practitioners that are listening to this. One of the ways that I think about this in practice is we can't just show people or tell, excuse me, tell people that they need to trust themselves. We have to show them and we have to model that behavior. I always think about this like as a parent too, I can't just be like, oh, you can go out and do whatever you want to do and be whoever you want to be. And you know, like express yourself without modeling that behavior to her, to my kid. So one of the ways that we'll do this in practice and here's just like a really basic example. Let's say we're looking at somebody's stool test and there's really two paths forward with how we want to address imbalance in the gut. If I'm like, okay, we could go either way. I will showcase those two of like, these are two paths. This is this, and this is this. What do you think about this? Like which one feels the best to you? Which one looks or sounds the best to you? Is there one that like feels a little bit more like you'd like to do it? And they might just be like, no, I don't know. Okay, cool. But there's like a titration process that comes online, where I'm like modeling to them like, I trust you. Your body knows more than I do. Like what do we want to do? And so there's little ways that you can weave this into how you're practicing with somebody to begin to build that inner trust muscle and those inner resources and teaching people how to self source. Or even just saying and I'm sure you do this all the time with food, it's like, okay, if you ate that food, like how did that feel? If somebody is telling you, you have to avoid dairy, because it came up on like a random sensitivity test, but you really enjoy dairy, why don't we explore eating dairy and then you can let your body tell you and communicate to you. And just getting really curious. I think curiosity has to come online so much, even back to the doctors that you were talking about. Like get curious. If somebody is going to talk about how wellness influencers are so terrible and so harmful, we have to also get curious, like, why are people going to wellness influencers in the first place? Like, curiosity just needs to come online, like, period. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. I love what you said about what feels good. Because, you know, so for people listening or clients listening, this is the developmental journey that I've often referenced as socialized versus self-authoring. To become self-authoring, you're sourcing internally. And the key thing you said there, I think, is that it feels good. And that's often what I'm working on with clients. Not what you told... Like, you know, I work with a lot of women over 40. It's like, Oh, no carbs. And it's like, Well, you're also not sleeping. So let's actually connect it to feeling better, right? Not what you heard looks good. And I think that's an important distinction that people have to… when they're trying to come back from outsourcing, you're going to have to unlearn this. A client just said this in my TRUCE WITH FOOD consistency group. She's like, Oh my God, I'm going to have to unlearn a lot of these rules that I didn't even realize I was living by. And I was like, yes. And the other thing I want to emphasize and I would love to hear how you think of this, a lot of my clients are over functioners. And I imagine many of the patients and clients that you have as well, right? Because you work with a lot of autoimmune, right, these are people who are like high achieving, right. And often we have to talk about feeling good does not mean striving. When you're trying to make that decision, feeling good, like, which way do you think should go? It doesn't mean, how do I gear up, build it up this more? Feeling good is almost like, that feels doable. That feels like it would feel good to do and experience as an outcome. So bringing process online of like, the process has to feel good instead of like, I'm just going to get through this and that feels good. And then hopefully I'll get my end result. Do you have any comments on that or? 

Erin Holt: Yeah. Well, let me just stick with this, like this example that with the gut…

Ali Shapiro: Yeah.

Erin Holt: … the gut stuff, like if we find imbalance on the gut test sometimes. So there's this marker that I will look at to be like, how slowly do we need to take this thing? Secretory IGA, which is an immune marker. And if that thing is in the tank, like if it's low, usually it's a little bit more of a rebuild phase that has to come online. But some people's symptoms are so extreme that they're like, I just need to hammer this thing and get this thing done now. And so I will present those two options, or one of my clinicians will present those two options to see which one feels the best. But sometimes people can loop in their same pattern. So if they're more of an overfunction or pattern, they're just like, just let's do it now. Let's get it done. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Like time is money, people. Let's go. Let's go. You know what I mean? It's like Evie from “Friends”, in like the alternative reality when she was like the lawyer and she kept having heart attacks. That's like what it reminds me of. I don't know why that just came into my head, but it's like… And then we have to, like that becomes an entry point for like, okay, so that is the patterning that actually got you into this situation. Is the patterning that got you here going to be the same patterning that gets you out? It's kind of like that well-referenced Einstein quote, the same level of consciousness that created the problem, is it also going to create the solution. And so that becomes another opportunity for curiosity. And it's like, OK, that's where your gut wants to go, pun intended. That's where your gut wants to go, like do we think that that's the best path forward, too. So that might feel the best. But that might feel the best right now, because it's the most familiar. And we know that familiarity feels safe. But if we want to change, we might need to get a little bit outside the old familiar and try something new. 

Ali Shapiro: Ugh, I love that, because that's the thing and I love that you said it's like throwing women to the wolves from quoting Janine Roth, because then it becomes another thing. I don't know how to, you know, self-source, or it becomes something to like beat ourselves up against, instead of saying like, no, work with practitioners who will teach you how to do this, right? Like it is a process, but you can do it and I think that's what you offer that a lot of people don't. Like they want you to be… almost become dependent. 

Erin Holt: You know, there are people that will go more into, this is not me, but luckily for my own learning, my best friend is like this. So I've had a lot of experience with this, but there's some people that will go more into like a freeze response and they will just completely shut down and get very overwhelmed. And you can watch their physiology shift too, like, the shoulders will round forward, they will collapse in on themselves. I like joke, like, oh, the black curtain just came up. Like, it's like, she pulled the curtain in front of her and she's like, I'm out. I'm checked out. Like, she'll go a little dead behind the eyes. I'm like, okay, we've lost her. She has tipped into overwhelm. And we have to be really mindful if we're going to take this approach to helping somebody self-source their answers. If we're like, well, what do you think? If we're like every single decision that we're trying to help them make, we're like lobbying it back to them. We still have to be the guide too. We still have to… That's a process from outsourcing to self-sourcing and it's a titration process. So we're not just all of a sudden flipping the script and being like, but what do you think about this? But what do you think about this? These are all of the options, because that can also pitch somebody into an overwhelm, or a freeze response. And I just want to speak into that, because that is something that we've also seen. In an effort to really help somebody self-source, we can actually just throw them into freeze and collapse and then nothing can happen from that. state. There's no growth potential from that state. So we want to always be like tracking our client as we're doing this process. So we're not throwing them to the actual wolves. You know what I mean? 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's part of, we were talking before we came online, like I've actually, my programs. I have three programs and like you have to start with Truce With Food consistency so that you aren't overwhelmed. Right. When you go into Truce With Food for good, which is six months and then, you know, there's another program after that. That's Truce With Food for Life, because at that point, it's not about people really understanding it's not about the food and they've often cleared their food stuff up. But it's titrating people through... Again, I call it like it's developmental lens, but it's self-authoring. Like, okay, I can hear myself. But I also can now still want guides or experts. I just don't think that they're going to have like the magic answer for me. I am this collaborator. So I'm glad you brought that up. You do have to go slow and steady wins the race, that like, you know, boring but true phrase. So, I'm glad that you brought that up. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. 

Erin Holt: I think collaborator is a really good word. It's like we're co-pilots on this thing, you know, together. Like you're an active participant in your own healing, but I'm an active participant as the clinician and the practitioner too, or the guide or the coach or whatever it is. Like we're doing this together. And I think that that's a very different dynamic than many of us have experienced in the past, which is like, I'm just going to tell you what to do. And then I'm also going to tell you when you're not doing the right thing to like, Oh, do this. No, not like that. You know? And it's like, that can also keep us like paralyzed in a little bit of a shame spiral. And that's like another place where no growth or healing happens. So working on things together, feeling like you have, I think that's the hallmark of a really great practitioner is that somebody that's willing to co-pilot with you to like sort of, yeah, fly the plane with you. 

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. And if you're, you know, listeners, think about how good it feels, when you have a practitioner and you're like, they really listened to me. Right? Like, you know, that feels good. Like when it's like they listened, we talked about it, right? It just feels different. And you know, it's so much appealing is about the relationship that you have with your practitioner. So all this other stuff matters. But the foundation is, do I feel seen and heard? Do I trust this person? Do they care about me? I mean, that is like so much of it. Not all of it.

Erin Holt: Well, let's stick with that thread, too, because kind of going back to some of the issues with functional medicine. I'm curious if you see this, too, particularly online, but then also in practice, is there's this fear mongering that can go alongside it. And the reason that's made me think of it is when you said the relationship, right? We have to be really, really mindful of the relationship. Is the relationship that you have with your practitioner instilling hope? Or is it reinforcing ideas that you are this broken thing? Because I can see functional medicine do that a lot. And you know, by the way, the fear mongering thing is a very effective strategy for social media account growth. So the likelihood that you're seeing this type of content is extremely, extremely high, because it speaks right to the lizard brain, right? It's the amygdala hijack, it gets you into reaction mode by design. My social media manager came over from another functional medicine account that she had helped grow to almost a million people. And it was through clickbait and fear mongering. And I'm like, oh, yeah, we don't do that here. Sorry. We're not going to have this explosive growth, because I'm 100 percent unwilling to feed into people's fear. It's like, homie, don't play that. We're not doing that here. No, thank you. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh my God.

Erin Holt: And I recognize what I could do to get more likes, clicks, visibility, shares, all that stuff. I'm unwilling to play that game, because that game is caustic. So we're not doing that. Can you see my color shift as I talk? I'm getting so heated. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, first of all…

Erin Holt: For those who can't see me, my face is beet red. 

Ali Shapiro: Well, I just…

Erin Holt: It's a thing for me. 

Ali Shapiro: I don't know if I'm more excited about the point you made or that you have referenced in Living Color, as that was about our family show. Growing up, my friend across the street grew up in a very traditional conservative home. And she's like, we weren't allowed to watch that show. And I'm like, oh really? That was like our Sunday night family show. I was like, we're still besties, but it was just growing up very differently. But I think that's an interesting point, because, you know, we were talking about this, before we got online, about marketing and everything. Because I think I don't lead with fear-based marketing either, because then once people get into your practice, right, they're expecting, like the minute their fear kicks up again, right, they're like out the door, because someone else has promised to alleviate the fear. But I think so. That's a really important point for listeners is like, is someone leading with fear base? Like, are they promising you, like, are they creating the fear and then their solution alleviates the fear? And is it overly simplified? Right, part of this is becoming more mature media consumers, I think. But I am glad you brought that up, because… 

Erin Holt: And when you get into practice assessing for this too, because here's the truth and I love functional lab testing, to be clear. But the more tests you run, the more labs you run, the more things you will find wrong. And as a clinician, you have to be so adept at understanding what is relevant information and what is not relevant information, based on the client's health history, their context, their symptoms, because you can do a lot of damage. The more things you can find wrong, the more labels that you're able to give somebody. And that's like another little like caustic underpinning of functional medicine, is that we also love to give people labels. Mold illness, spurs, like leaking, whatever it is, like there's so many labels. And once you put a label on somebody, they can attach their identity to that and it becomes really hard for them to break themselves out of that. So we have to be really, really mindful at how we are delivering this information as well. And are we presenting it in a hopeful way, one that stories them into possibility? Or are we presenting this in a very like detrimental way that locks them into the identity of I am a problem to be fixed and nothing is ever going to get better. Because there's really two paths you can go down. And so you want to be really mindful of that. Have you ever heard the term or heard as diagnoses described as a medical hexing? 

Ali Shapiro: Yes. In fact, that's what I was thinking, as you were saying that. 

Erin Holt: Yeah. So we have to be careful that we're not moving into that territory. But do understand that that territory sells a lot of stuff. That territory is pretty big business. So you're going to see it a lot. But it's like we all know about the placebo effect, but the nocebo effect is just as real. And what you believe, what you're told, about something, your ability to heal can really impact your actual ability to heal. So you really always want to, my opinion, my opinion is such that you really always want to work with a clinician that's putting healing potential on the table for you versus taking it away. 

Ali Shapiro: I love that you brought up the nocebo effect. So we talked about labs. What functional labs are actually worth it here then? Because we're in the wild, wild west.  

Erin Holt: Yeah, I think we are… I think that can be a bit of a loaded question and it's very contextual and it's very individualized. 

Ali Shapiro: Great answer. 

Erin Holt: The most annoying answer, it depends. But when somebody comes to us, there's not like a set of labs that we're running on every single person. We're doing a deep dive, a super long health history to understand what data do we actually need to move this forward? Because if the lab results won't change the intervention, why do we need to spend the money to do the lab testing? So we're really pretty discerning with what we run. We'll do basic blood work. I think that that's like, it's not sexy, it's not glamorous, so functional medicine doesn't love it as much. It's like, what about the $600 stool test instead? We're like, what about the basic blood work? So we can look at like inflammatory markers. You know, like, let's look at your white blood cells, you know, like, let's look at the basic stuff first. So love a good, like, CMP, Comprehensive Metabolic Panel. Love a good thyroid panel. These are all just regular, run-of-the-mill blood tests. We do a lot of stool testing. We find that to be really, really effective in guiding treatment strategies. We will look at hormones. We do like a Dutch test for that. But this is really based on the person that is coming to us. We will run organic acid tests. We do a hair tissue mineral analysis, an HTMA test. We're asking for your pee. We're asking for your poop. We're asking for your blood. We're asking for your hair. It's like a wild time. But usually, we're not running all of those labs on every single person, or all at once. We're really trying to like take like budget, where we're trying to be budget conscientious, but we're really, we're being very discerning with what data do we actually need to help the person sitting in front of us. 

Ali Shapiro: That's so important. And how do you meet people where they are in terms of, you know, if they are the access, I love that, right, and someone comes to you and it's like, they have all this stuff, right? Like you can see based on results, right, they're going to need to like change their food, but they're also stressed out from their job. And so their nervous system is dysregulated. Like how do you meet people where they are, in terms of what to change or where to start? 

Erin Holt: So one of the, we will do this in practice through conversation, but to get really into the nitty gritty, I have a program called “Manifest Your Health”. And this is kind of the how, because I feel like I've spent a lot of years talking through, teaching people that other aspects of self can be impacting their physical body and their ability to heal. And people are like, OK, I understand that now. I get that, but how, right? Like that's the next question. It's like once we've got the buy-in, then they're like, okay, cool. How do I actually do this? So I created a five phase formula to walk people through it. And the way that I think about this, like what we were talking about earlier, I see, this is what I view is you have five aspects or parts to self. You have the physical body, the nervous system, the mental body, the emotional body, the energetic body. And so this five phase formula, this framework, basically maps over exactly that. So we're looking at physical aspects of health. We're not, here's the thing that, okay, another little soapbox moment, another little like rub that I have, is that it's not an either or. So some people, when they start talking about mindset, or they start talking about manifestation, or they start talking about nervous system stuff, it's like, nevermind the physical body. We don't have to worry about that anymore. We just need to focus on what's going on in the mind. And it's like, no, it's and both, still for this too. I had a client say that she was like doing a lot of functional medicine work and it was helpful. And then she started like listening to more of what she called the nervous system regulators. And she felt like it was very much so like a pick your lane, like which one do you want? Which approach do you want to do? And she felt that the messages she was getting from that camp were like, it's not what you're doing for the physical body that's going to help. It's like everything that you need to focus on the mind. So she was like, well, I've been working really hard and now I'm feeling like I shouldn't be doing any of this. And she was like all spun out. And she was like, you were the first person that I heard say like, both can come online. So here's what I like to say. We can talk about brain rewiring all day. Good luck rewiring a brain that is inflamed due to gut inflammation. If you have dysbiosis in the gut with a leaky gut and you have LPS entering your bloodstream and going up and passing the blood-brain barrier and causing actual inflammation in the brain, have fun with your mindset. Good luck rewiring that brain. 

Ali Shapiro: It's like a boulder in the brain, it's like pushing a boulder. 

Erin Holt: Yeah, it's like Sisyphus forever. Yeah, for sure. So it's like, we need to eat well. We need to go outside. We need to move our bodies. We need to drink water. Your body requires real physiological inputs, in order for all the other stuff to work. So we start there with those actual physical inputs. Like, are you eating broccoli? Like you just like the basic stuff. 

Ali Shapiro: Are you eating enough? 

Erin Holt: And then from there, right. Are you eating enough? Right. Do you have the actual, like you want to rewire your brain? Cool. That's going to require nutrients. So like, let's make sure we're getting those in your pie hole first and foremost. And then from there we can talk about the nervous system, because to your point, how are you going to regulate a nervous system, if you're completely underfed and in an active stress response, because you're not getting enough nutrients, or you're under-slept, right? So we have to establish the physical inputs and then we can start talking about nervous system regulation. But I think that's sometimes the missing link, when people want to like jump into the deep end of the pool. Like, let's go dig up your trauma. Let's uncover the shadow aspects of yourself. And then people are like, like thrown into the ocean without a life raft, being like, I don't even know how to swim here. So we have to figure out how to self-source safety within the body and have little like anchor points for ourselves, before we go like spelunking into the subconscious. And then from there, once we've established that, then we can look at mental root causes of health stuff, the repetitive thought patterns. You call them stories, our subconscious loops, the internalized beliefs, the inner narratives that we have ourselves. These mental patterns can show up in the body as real physical symptoms. So we do need to address that. And then we also want to look at emotional root causes, feelings, trauma, unprocessed experiences, suppressed expression, that all can play out through the landscape of the body as well. And then I always like to bring in energetic concepts, you know, even like looking at the energy centers of the body, or the chakra system within the body, because everything is energy and that includes you too. And you know, the energy field that surrounds your body needs to be tended to, like energy hygiene tools need to be taught. Differentiating self from non-self needs to be like understood on an energetic level as well. So long answer to a short question, but essentially this is part of how we are helping people get there, is through this membership. 

Ali Shapiro: And I love that you... Again, I'm biased, because I came in through this kind of going through that elevator that you described through food, because I found that I had to build my emotional capacity to look at why I was emotionally eating and binging. When I reversed my IBS and my skin and my depression, it was almost like, oh, I have more safety in my system that now I can actually look at the harder stuff, right? 

Erin Holt: Yes. 

Ali Shapiro: And it's so, it's not either or, but it's like part of prioritizing yourself is learning that you can have needs. You have physical needs and that then fortifies you for like the next level. It's almost like a video game. I mean, I'm not a gamer, but it's like, okay, you reached, you know, Super Mario Brothers, like you got round one. And I think so many people want to bypass… They're not, not only do people call spirituality often, which is spirituality bypassing, but they don't understand the spirituality or the… that comes from taking care of your physical body. It would be so much easier just to kind of focus on the mind and think. And I see that a lot with my clients. A lot of them are very spiritual. And I think that's really important. But then it's like, we got it. The body will teach you spiritual lessons. Right? A lot of them. So I kind of got off. So it's, I always just think of it as like infinity loop. Like I'm like, your physiology is informing your psychology. It's just a constant infinity loop. But food is something that enables people to, when you really start to nourish yourself, right? And orienting around that, instead of restriction of your emotions, instead of restricting food, right? It's such a great like foundational piece. So I love that you start there, because that's also, we were talking about this before we were recording, like, that's the pain that we'll pay attention to in the beginning, right? Because it's hard to ignore, right? If you're having anxiety, or you're having chronic skin rashes, or sweating a lot, you know? I mean, all of these things, it's like, that's the entry point. 

Erin Holt: It can be, it can be an entry point. Because you know, like maybe somebody's entry point is actually through like the mental body, or the emotional body. Maybe somebody's having like rip roaring panic attacks and that's their entry point. Like I got to get this figured out. And then they're like, Oh, that becomes like the on ramp into like looking at the physical body. Maybe they've never even looked at that before. And like their pain point is more of the emotional thing. So that's why I look at them as like all on ramps. It's all on the table, all healing potential, or all healing on ramps are available to you at all times. Like it doesn't matter what your starting point is. Like just come on, jump in, the water's warm, like jump in wherever you need to. And then that infinity loop is going to be infinity looping. So like catch a ride, you know, like let it be a magical mystery tour. You know, that is okay for myself to say now, but like we were talking earlier, before we started recording, is that some people need a little bit more framework. You know, some people's brains need to be like, no, no, no, what's step one? And in that case we can be like, okay, here's step one, you know, and then there's step two and then there's step three. But like, you don't, it doesn't have to look like that either. You could start with step five. You know, I always like think about this, like we want to build from where we are, not from where we think we should be. You know, start from where you are. That's it. That's all you got to do, you know, that's healing 101. Just start from where you are. It's cool.  

Ali Shapiro: Yes. But it needs to be said again, because I've often said that to clients. So many people, they're trying to change their food, or their emotional eating. They try to go from zero to 100. Here's where I want to be. Right. And then it's like, and then the perfectionism and all that and then it causes more issues, but it's like, start where you are slow and steady. Yes. That's a key distinction, because most people are trying to not be where they are. They're trying to be where they want to be. Like they're trying to be at the end point. 

Erin Holt: Yeah, because being where we are is like really uncomfortable. 

Ali Shapiro: Yes. 

Erin Holt: But the definition of compassion is being willing to sit with suffering. And therefore, the definition of self-compassion is being willing to sit with your own suffering. And we want to jump out of it so much, because it's hard. And it's our tendency to move away from pain. So of course we want to move away from our own pain. So we want to be 10 steps ahead of where we are, because we think we can run away from where we are. We can't, it's always going to catch up to us, that's the trick, you know. That's the kick in the head, is that it’s… Like I remember I literally moved to California. I live in New Hampshire, so I flew across the country when I was 20, because I'm like, maybe you could just fly away from our problems. But hey, guess what? The same problems were in California as they were in New Hampshire. You cannot outrun them. They will find you. So just be willing to sit with yourself. Be willing to meet the parts of yourself that you haven't met yet. Stop going dark on yourself. Stop abandoning yourself in the time of your greatest need. Be with you. And if you don't feel like you have the tools and the resources for that, that's OK. You can enlist support. You can join a membership, like Manifest Your Health, or you could hire somebody like Alie. You can hire a coach. You can hire a support. It's fine. Nobody's saying you have to do this by yourself, but we are inviting you to actually do this.  

Ali Shapiro: Yeah. Well, and I was going to say, find practitioners, like the people that you train and whatnot, because you want to sit with someone, who knows that you're not broken, that that pain, the more you sit with it, right? Like the Tao Te Ching, the book of paradox says, what we resist persists, what we embrace dissolves. So you want a practitioner though, that is also skilled in and allowing you to be with that discomfort rather than trying to rush you through it, I think as well. And that's what, it's what you train people to do, in both, the Funktional Nutrition Academy and at the Functional Nutritionist. It should be nutritionists, right? 

Erin Holt: Yeah, I know that we're coming up on time. So this is the last thing that I'll say here. And this is how I train clinicians. But this is also how I ran my own practice, which is if I do not believe in my heart of hearts, like in my core, that someone can heal, that someone can transcend what they're experiencing, I won't take them on as a client. Because I know that the belief that I hold about their ability to heal is going to influence their ability to heal and what a disservice I would be doing that person to hold that belief in my body and sit across from them. So that's just something that I will say, like you need to work with somebody that sees your potential, because they're going to be the one to hold the horizon, eyes on the prize, to hold the horizon, when your eyesight gets a little shaky. You need a coach. You need a guide. You need a support system that is willing to hold the line for you, hold the highest version of yourself, hold the highest frequency of yourself, when you can't do that for yourself. That's another hallmark of a really, really, really good coach, because I want people to walk away from this feeling like, okay, how do I, okay, we know that there's some problems with functional medicine. I don't… we… but we know that there's some really great things about it. So I don't want to go into the territory of like, you know, like the not so great side of functional medicine. These are, I think we've like planted a lot of little like Easter eggs for people throughout this podcast to be like, okay, these are things that I can look for and screen for and ask about, before I embark on a journey with another… with a practitioner. 

Ali Shapiro: I love that. Yes. Yes. There is so much hope. That's why, again, I wanted to have you on, because you reminded me of the optimism that when I found functional medicine 20 years ago and had those results and I had gotten so down on it, not because of how I practice, because I know the roots of it. But because of what I saw it becoming and you have brought, I think you bring the best of what it offers and you also have elevated what it kind of misses sometimes, which is meeting the person where they're at. And so where can people find out more about your practice? And if people are listening and want to be trained in the Funktional Nutrition Academy, where can people find more about you? And we'll have all the links in the show notes as well. 

Erin Holt: Yeah, I was just going to be like, just go to the show notes, man. So I am just kidding. Because we have a lot of places and spaces to find us. So my website is thefunktionalnutritionist.com, it's spelled with a K. I am on Instagram as the.funktional.nutritionist, also spelled with a K. And then we have the Funktional Nutrition Academy. We call it FNA, which is our school for training clinicians in intuitive functional medicine. Those are all the places you can find me. 

Ali Shapiro: Thank you so much. Everyone, check Erin out. It's one of the few other podcasts I listen to and learn things from. Not that I know it all. But you, I just love your flexible thinking. I mean, I call it flexible thinking. Nuance depends and your attitude. I mean, we both love two pockets. 

Erin Holt: You guys, I wish you guys could see us right now. We're wearing like the same outfit, red lipstick, like it's the same makeup. Like we came as an energy match for each other today, for sure. 

Ali Shapiro: Oh, Erin, you're so funny. Thank you so much for being here. 

Erin Holt: Thank you so much for having me. It was great.