Firm Foundations For A Holistic Health Journey, with Sarah Gallander of the Wellness Matrix

"Health is a journey; its not a destination". This is a central tenant and principle of holistic health. But what does this idea of holistic health add to our understanding of what it means to show up authentically and resiliently as who God's made us to be. Join Harmonize host Ruth Jefferson and Special Guest Sarah Gallander of the Wellness Matrix as they dive into these questions and more.

Could there be a powerful connection between faith and health? In this stimulating conversation, we uncover the profound influence of Scripture on our health journey. We dive headfirst into challenging themes such as spiritual warfare and community, drawing from the wisdom of passages such as those in Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and 1 Peter. We also take a look at the reality that health can be a difficult subject in certain communities of color due to the lasting effects of historical medical experimentation.

Sarah's story is made even more powerful not just because of her advocacy but also because of her own experience with walking down the challenging path of Lyme Disease while navigating the world of Big Pharma. Today, she shares her personal journey with us, providing insights into the shortcomings of conventional medicine, and the role of nutrition and holistic health in helping to bolster its practice and in helping you to take ownership of your story. Together, we explore how faith can be a pillar of strength in our struggles and how God's promise of renewal carries us through the darkest valleys. 

Lastly, we delve into the pressing issue of mistrust in medicine and the dire need for patient-centered care. Join us for this enlightening conversation that interweaves health, faith, and authenticity.

Transcript

Ruth Jefferson: 0:00

Welcome to the Harmonize Podcast. We're going to try something a bit different with today's meditational thought. Since we're talking about health today, let's connect that with today's Scripture thought. To do that, we're going to do some breathing. So I'm going to introduce the pattern for that and then I'm going to start the reading. Just a note. This will be an abbreviated version, so feel free to stop and rewind as much as you need to. The count for this will be four, four, four. Basically, what this means is that you'll breathe in for four, hold for four and then breathe out for four. This may seem a little weird at first and your thoughts may race a little, but with practice it may get easier. So remember that. Breathe in four, hold four, breathe out four. And, this is an example of what that breathing could look like. Breathe in. He gives strength to the weary. Hold for four. And then breathe out. And increases the power of the weak. Now that we know what that looks like, let's begin.

Ruth Jefferson: 0:57

Today's reading is found in Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 is a chapter written to give hope to God's people. And, it specifically references the Messianic hope, the hope of the Savior, the hope of that Savior to a people who have been under subjugation both in terms of the physical and the spiritual.

Ruth Jefferson: 1:50

We can look back at verse one as evidence of this, and as I think about this, two things stand out. One, there will be times of struggle, of stumbling, of falling. God doesn't promise these things won't happen, but He does promise He will renew us through them. One of the ways He does this is in the context of community, which reminds me of Ecclesiastes 4:12. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. The devil still walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Ruth Jefferson: 2:23

First Peter 5: 8. The spiritual warfare that has existed even before our time here on this earth, but not before God who has existed since before time itself, still wages on. The evils of racism and injustice are the clothes they sometimes wear. And as time goes on and it seems like we're fighting the same battles that have always been fought and having the same conversations we've always had, and all of this starts to wear on us. We have God's promise that he will renew us. As Matthew 5:6 puts it: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. The second thing that stands out to me is that this chapter is written to the Children of Israel, the very people of God. God's people needed to receive comfort. Sound familiar? This thirst for righteousness is blessed by God. The comfort of God in the middle of both physical and spiritual struggle is His calling card. What steps can we take to do likewise? To walk as children of our Father, ambassadors of His kingdom?

Ruth Jefferson: 3:44

Hey, Voice of the Middle Ground Fam! We're back, and I'm here today with my friend Sarah Gallander. Holistic Health. The fact of the matter is that this topic is super important as we talk about diversity, community and authenticity. The fact is, if we're not healthy, we can't show up as our authentic selves. You can't live your life according to the call and design God has for you, and that's something that's really important as we look at Voice of the Middle Ground, our mission, values and really that Revelation 7 perspective. Now I wanna go ahead and say some more things about Sarah, because I also want everyone to understand more about her and really her credibility for this conversation. Sarah and I first met when we were both living in the Phoenix Metroplex area and we were going to church together. That's when we first started to get to know each other, and she also started to get to know some of my health challenges, which, for those of you who know me, health is something that I really struggle with. Most people probably wouldn't admit that, but with a topic like this, transparency is super important. One of the things that really stood out to me about Sarah is that she really has this holistic perspective to health that is so refreshing and so different from at least what I've experienced as the norm. And speaking of things I've experienced as the norm, there's another reality we need to confront.

Ruth Jefferson: 4:52

Health is one of those topics that can be controversial in some spaces within communities of color, as it relates to interaction with the traditional medical system. Remembering, of course, that communities of color are not a monolith. And as we look at this, it's also important for us to realize that there are very real circumstances that have led to this environment in such places as it does exist. Think back to the 60s 70s, the Proctor Foundation for Research and Ophthalmology as experimentation on native boarding school students with Trachoma, The Tuskegee experiments and giving syphilis to black men, and even James Marion Sims and his experimentation on enslaved women, who he falsely purported to not experience pain to the same extent as others. One of the things that I heard from Sarah this mistrust of the traditional medical pathway is something that's increased across the board. And we'll get to that in a second. But first let's rewind. It's really important for us to further approach this topic of the effects of the experimentation we mentioned just a second ago Still stretches into today, and that fact is something that I personally can attest to, and I promise that I'll get to Sarah in a second. But I really do wanna make this connection point. I said earlier that I really wanted to be transparent, especially as we're getting into a topic like this, and so here's a bit more of that transparency. With that commitment to transparency, let me just say this for the next couple of minutes this may be something that if you're listening to with your kids, you might not wanna have them in the room just for the next couple of minutes, because this part is not very family friendly.

Ruth Jefferson: 6:23

Several years ago I was in college. At this point I went to the emergency area of the hospital. I have a history of anemia and that has really led me to need, historically, quite a few blood transfusions. Thank you, by the way, to those who give blood, because it really does make a difference. It was late and I was feeling really anemic-y.

Ruth Jefferson: 6:41

If you struggle with anemia like I do, you know what I mean that tiredness, fatigue, coldness, difficulty focusing and numbness in the hands and feet, and for me it really also gets into the area of blacking out, getting dizzy, passing out, that kind of thing, the kind of thing you really don't wanna talk about because you know I can freak people out. But anyway I go in. They decide they wanna do an examination and I don't really know if I was dealing with doctors or nurses at that point. But for whatever reason, they decided they wanted to do a gynecological exam. So I get up on the table. The next thing I know they're trying to insert an instrument. It's really painful and I'm letting them know. It gets even more painful to the point where I'm crying. Next thing, I know all three of the ladies who were taking part in the exam are making fun of me, assuming, based on no information at all, that I was sexually active and that if I can handle being sexually active, I should be able to handle their testing. For a bit more clarity, this happened back in Texas, where I lived before I started my trek northward.

Ruth Jefferson: 7:40

I won't go any further into this, but really what I want to bring out is the fact that the research methods of the past and the brutality of the same those effects can really be seen even today in the way that certain practitioners practice traditional or, as I think probably better describes it, hospital medicine. Parents, if you want, you can invite your kids back into the room to listen with you. You're safe now. And, with that, let's welcome our Special Guest today, Sarah Gallander, Founder of the Wellness Matrix. You can find out more about Sarah when you visit her website at thewellnessmatrix. com. Go ahead and click over to thewellnessmatrix. com. Learn more about Sarah. Engage with her services there and learn how you can take a stronger role in advocating for yourself, taking a more holistic approach to your health and owning your story. Hey, Sarah. Welcome!

Sarah Gallander: 8:26

Thank you, Ruth. It's so good to see you. I have missed you, my friend.

Ruth Jefferson: 8:30

Yeah, it's awesome to have you on.

Sarah Gallander: 8:34

Thank you. I love this mission that you've embarked upon. I've loved this, I've supported this from day one, and I'm so glad it's still going.

Ruth Jefferson: 8:44

Yeah, you really have. Thank you for that. So I kind of mentioned earlier one of the things that really stands out to me about you, even in relation to my own journey, is your holistic approach to health. Can you tell us a bit more about that holistic perspective and what really helped you to reach more of that holistic standpoint?

Sarah Gallander: 9:05

Yeah, you know it's I love. I love how God comes full circle. He sometimes reveals to us all the things at once and sometimes he never does, and then sometimes it's. It takes, you know, 25 years For me.

Sarah Gallander: 9:19

I was in college and I was actually a pre-med student and planning to go the conventional route. I knew I wanted to help heal people. I knew I wanted to be, you know, in some type of healing modality and I had shadowed a program up in North Texas actually, and I realized that they only had, you know, two, three weeks of nu- well, not even that like a unit on nutrition, and I was a nutrition major at the time and pre-med. So I was baffled. I'm like, wait, the thing that fuels every cell is the things that we eat and the things that we ingest. Yet we're not studying that. It made no sense to me back then, and that was in the late 1990s, which sounds like a long time ago. And that's kind of when I realized, wow, okay, this is a big problem. How do we not, you know, look at this as part of our health story? And then, you know, I was in, I think, for me, I was in my biochemistry class and at that point.

Sarah Gallander: 10:20

I grew up in the church and I grew up knowing who Jesus was. I went to you know stories. I loved Sunday school. I taught Sunday school was an active youth group member throughout my high school years and I went through that. You know, when you're kind of embarking on your own. Is my faith my own? Is it just because my parents told me to do this? And it was at that moment I was sitting in biochemistry, which is the fusion of biology and chemistry and lots of like, really nitty gritty, fun science, like down to the cellular level, and I had this revelation, like I really felt like God was speaking to my heart at that point and saying how can this not be divine? How can this, how can people not believe in me when they see this? And it was page 376 of my and it was CoQ10 is what we were studying, which means nothing to anybody else, but to me it was like this aha moment. And to couple that with you know I was trying to figure out do I go to med school, do I not? I took the MCAT, did not so great, or I thought not so great, because at the time I was, you know, had a lot of perfectionism issues and that ended up like God closed that door. He said, nope, you're not going down that road so fast forward to where I am now.

Sarah Gallander: 11:36

I had to endure a illness that was Lyme Disease. That kind of came about and we realized what it was after, you You know 15 different doctors in the conventional medical system. I worked for Big Pharma. I worked for a pharmaceutical company one of the big ones as a drug rep. So I saw that side of medicine and then I experienced the patient side where I was being and dismissed to ld and. I was crazy that no, there's no Lyme Disease in Texas and I'm like what the ticks see the border and they turn around. Like I don't, I don't get it.

Sarah Gallander: 12:13

But I did grow up in Minnesota so I had, you know, exposure to ticks but that-- it was just this really awful feeling of nobody hearing your story, nobody listening to you, nobody taking all the pieces and putting it together. And my husband at that time he was like fervently praying, researching. I had no like brain, my brain fog. It was awful. It was a really--I had three small children and so that really there was purpose in that pain because I had to go through this. What I knew in conventional medicine that I had been trained in because I'm trained as a dietician. I had been working in that field and I was blown away at it wasn't working, and so then I've always done pro bono nutritional counseling.

Sarah Gallander: 12:59

I think anytime you meet me, we have a conversation. Anytime anyone we have a conversation about your health, it just naturally goes there. I think God gave me that gift and I do believe very firmly that he did call me to what I'm doing today. So pandemic hits and my kids are now in a different space. I was very sick for many years and it was really difficult, but I knew that it served some kind of purpose. I kind of felt like Paul in prison, sometimes finding the joy. Where's the joy? There's joy here somewhere.

Sarah Gallander: 13:37

And in 2020, my husband, John, who's amazing and he's my best friend and my biggest supporter. He was like Sarah, you have a gift. You need to be helping educate people on how they can really be stewards of their body like really understand how their body works better, and it's okay. If you start a practice and monetize that, it's okay to do that. Giving me permission and I really have a.

Sarah Gallander: 14:06

My mom purpose was shifting and I love educating and teaching people how to be better stewards of their bodies, the temples that we've been given, and using it as an act of worship. It is something that is divine and I love how every single person, we have all the same parts and pieces, but we're all different and that is just a beautiful testament to the deity of who God is. And that's my practice started and the fun thing is, as I was in this small little town in Texas when I graduated from Stephen F Austin State University in 1999. And I had written out like my mission statement to my med school applications and my dietetic intern applications, and I really you know that, like I said, god closed that door, went on this really winding path, and when we actually moved back to Nacogdoches in 2021, not because we were seeking it out, but again I feel like God was calling us here for a bigger purpose. And I found this box when you're unpacking.

Sarah Gallander: 15:07

You know you find boxes when you're unpacking and it was my old applications and I'm reading this statement and it's exactly like, almost word for word, what my mission and values are now in my own practice. And that was like God saying see, I got you, this is where I need you to be, and this and it was in the same small town. It was just kind of that whole full circle moment as I'm sitting out on my porch with the quiet, looking, you know, in my trees, going what are we doing here? And he was like I called you here.

Sarah Gallander: 15:38

So holistic health, I believe, has been a journey for me, but it's such a mission and of mine, to help people own their story, and what I mean by that is we got to understand how God made us, how he created us with intention and purpose, and then how we live that out is an act of worship towards our response to him.

Sarah Gallander: 15:59

And you can't do that in silos, you have to look at it as the whole picture. We can't just look at oh, you have a high cholesterol, okay, well, why? It always goes back to okay, but why? And I've always been the but why, girl. So holistic health, I feel, has three components and I feel like nutrition in of itself is three components. It's your spiritual nutrition, your physical nutrition and your emotional nutrition, and all three of those feed off of one another and that's kind of where my holistic health I always had it in me, I think, because God planted it in me, because that was, you know, that was what his desire was, that I latch onto, and it just, you know, 25 years later I figured it out.

Ruth Jefferson: 16:43

Awesome. So it sounds like the holistic perspective that you have comes from, really like a holistic experience with your own life.

Sarah Gallander: 16:50

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think you know, once we, you know, kind of gain some spiritual maturity too, we can really step back and look and see how God's plan for all of that really feeds into that view. And again, you know, I love that science is so precise, right, like we can do studies, and we can, we can get everything really precise. But if it were and I think of this, you know, going back to my bio-chem class if everything was so replicable and precise and you know, every single thing happened and it has to happen every single time, every day, and the trillions of cells, all of these things have to happen simultaneously. And if you don't, if there's a mutation, if there's a shift, if there's a cell death, you end up with disease or you end up with death.

Sarah Gallander: 17:35

And for all of that to happen in every person but we all have unique qualities. That's the part that says that there is, you know, because otherwise we'd all be robots and we'd all look the same and we'd, all you know, be the same. But that individual soul piece is what sets us apart, and I think that's where just the beauty of God's sovereignty is visible in His creation of His people.

Ruth Jefferson: 17:56

That's awesome. So kind of rewinding for a second. I mentioned a couple of like instances earlier. Had you heard of any of those before?

Sarah Gallander: 18:04

You know I had to look up a couple of them. I did know about the Tuskegee Experiment, which is, again, I hate how things get used in the "for science. Well, that's just. That's a terrible reason why. But the James, mary and Sims the gynecological one was new to me. I hadn't heard of the enslaved women, and you know all of those have that common denominator of, you know, taking advantage of a population that should never. Whenever a population is taken advantage of in the name of science, we have to question why, and we have to. Well, what is it really for science, or was it a different? Was there a different motivator? And that's where, you know, I hate seeing any of God's people taken advantage of, because we all serve a purpose in His kingdom, and this is when human sin collides with being of the world rather than being in it.

Ruth Jefferson: 18:58

Kind of following up on that. When we spoke before, one of the things that you brought up was the way that that mistrust is growing between patients and medical providers. Can you tell us a bit more about what you believe is leading to that?

Sarah Gallander: 19:11

Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about this question, I have a bias personally because of what I experienced and what you know, even being trained in, you know, conventional medicine and I believe that there is a purpose for it. I don't believe that there is. I think God gives gifts to people to be. You know, have we not discovered certain things? You know, if there's a, if I have a broken arm or if my arm is severed and I need to have like surgery, I want a surgeon, like I want conventional medicine. You know there's places, but I feel like it's almost like tipped, the scale has tipped way in the other direction and I really feel like the mistrust is because we're not heard. We're being. It's almost like it's a game that's being played at this point and you go into your doctor asking questions and you don't even and it's not. It's not because they don't want to answer, it's because they're held under this you know insurance game that they can only see you for 15 minutes. They only can do certain things according to a diagnostic code. And it's really kind of changed how providers and conventional medicine are allowed to even practice. They're not even really allowed to ask you more than a couple of deep questions that come from you know, an intake, and then there's no teaching, it's just here. Okay, you have X problem. It's like an X for Y. So here's your problem.

Sarah Gallander: 20:35

Medicine has become transactional, is what I feel, rather than the ownership of education of okay. Well, does this make sense? What makes sense for me? What am I feeling? What am I experiencing? What are the symptoms? I always tell my patients and clients like your body has a conversation with you and if you don't listen to it, you're going to just like communication solves 90% of the most problems. If you don't listen to the communication that your body is telling you, you're going to miss a lot of pieces that may be revealing something deeper that's going on.

Sarah Gallander: 21:07

So I think the mistrust is coming from not because it's intentional on the physicians or the nurse practitioners or the PAs. It's their kind of collateral damage from a system of how they're trained. I think most people get into medicine because they want to help people. They genuinely have an innate desire to help people be better, and then the way that they get trained is what kind of destroys that. In my opinion and again, this is Sarah's opinion on this and from what I've experienced and I have a lot of physician friends.

Sarah Gallander: 21:43

I've worked in a lot in healthcare for 15, 16 years and the mistrust is because I think we've made like I said, medicine has become transactional. You go in, you get a prescription and there's no further education. There's no. Or my favorite is, oh, you're overweight, or oh you have fatty liver, or oh, you have type 2 diabetes. Well, just eat better and exercise more. And how do I do that? How do I do that according to my body, like they're not to their defense, they're not trained to do that, which is great job security for me, but I think we've just become a product of greed honestly.

Sarah Gallander: 22:22

In a system that is broken, medical care has become a big business rather than advocate for healing, and that's why I always encourage people to like, if I'm working with someone and they are going to a conventional physician which I partner with a lot of physicians and we've got a great working relationship and so I'll help them, hey, maybe ask a few of these questions. Here's how you can understand how your body works and how you can then make the best decisions for your environmental factors. Your how does your blood work? What is your blood work telling you? That's one of my favorite things to do is help people understand their blood work, not from a diagnostic perspective, not from you have this disease, but how you actually what your body is telling you through your actual blood work. So I think the mistrust is becoming because people aren't being heard and they're being shoved and run through like like almost like a factory and nobody's willing to sit and listen, or they may be willing but they're not being allowed. Maybe that may be a better phrase and the mistrust that's just leading to. You know, there's all kinds of misinformation out there too. There's a lot of chaos and a lot of noise. And then and some people just don't know how to decipher all of that so what it means for them, because it's not a one size fits all, it's not just eat more and exercise or eat less and exercise more, like that's terrible advice.

Sarah Gallander: 23:40

And that comes into that holistic piece. Like how do we take the overview of your spiritual nutrition, your, and think about that. In conventional medicine you're not really allowed to talk about spiritual nutrition. Really. I mean, that to me is-- I always talk to people about hey, let's talk about what spiritual battle you're facing, because that usually is what feeds the soil, and your soil is like your emotional nutrition, and then your roots of your trees are your physical nutrition. So when we have an emotional and spiritual storm that are colliding, you're going to manifest physically, you're going to have symptoms that come about, and it's you know.

Sarah Gallander: 24:17

It's really important to look at all three. You know, where am I not, where is the spiritual battle coming from? Even in people who don't, you know, who aren't believers? I mean, we're both, you know, Biblically- based believers. So I, you know, I love being able to be a witness to that too, of helping people. You know, from a spiritual standpoint, to really, hey, what does God say about this? Let's go to, let's go to His Word. Where, where, where can we, where can we see? I mean, there's tons of examples of, you know, the mind- body connection.

Ruth Jefferson: 24:43

Yeah. Al right, I want to pause for a second here for those of you who are listening. Do you have any questions or anything about anything that's said in this episode? You can go ahead and text us at 612-470-5419, or you can message us on Facebook. The link to Voice of the Middle Ground Facebook Page is also in the description. So kind of moving forward. Moving forward with this overall central concept of holistic health. What is the role of holistic health and helping people to be able to show up as their authentic selves? Or, on the other side of things, how does not taking this approach prevent or block that authentic expression?

Sarah Gallander: 25:22

Yeah, I love that. I love this question because I'm huge on authenticity and I think it goes back to that spiritual connection component. Who are you in Christ? What is your identity? What idols are you worshiping outside of the one true God? I think it goes back to the very first commandment of the Ten Commandments, and even further than that.

Sarah Gallander: 25:43

One of the first commandments that Jesus gave us was love your neighbor as yourself. He didn't say in spite of yourself, go out of obligation, go love other people and ignore yourself. He doesn't, and that's not a selfish component. It is sit in God's goodness and love for you. Be overwhelmed and over- consumed with the love that he has for you that you're so filled up and know who you are in Him. That's what spills out and people see Him through you.

Sarah Gallander: 26:10

You know, I think of one of our favorite songs, Ruth, that we would sing when we were worshiping together at CrossWalk was Goodness of God. It's one of my favorites, you know we picked that one a lot, but it's like His goodness is running after, it's running after me, you know, and it's like just sit, sit in His goodness. Be filled up so you can love your neighbor and you don't love them as yourself, as a selfish love, as a, as a worldly self- care, you know, not, not that kind of love, but the love that is filled up with knowing who you are in Jesus, who you are in Christ, that identity, I think. I think this role of holistic health is is really helping people understand how their body was made, the way that God designed it, and that it was designed to function well and designed to heal, and it was designed to. And when we, when we don't do that, on the flip side of that, you know, if we don't take this approach and we just go after the high cholesterol or the, in your case, you know, like a low ferritin and a low iron, if we just focus on that, we miss all of the parts that are really contributing to that problem. So we can silo things, sure, but it's like putting, it's like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. If we don't understand how the wound happened in the first place, which is usually multi- factorial, it's usually, you know, more than one reason.

Sarah Gallander: 27:29

And when you look at a root system. It's a big buzzword right now as root cause. When you look at a root system, it's never just one thing A root system that sits in soil is there's a, there's a big, massive system under there. So, by being able to really address all of the pieces that are contributing to your symptom cycle you can't just silo that, you can't. You can't just and that's why I think conventional medicine has, you know, gotten stuck is that we just look at the silo, we just look at the one thing, we're just focusing on the symptom rather than the system. And the system includes a big spiritual component.

Sarah Gallander: 28:05

Where's your identity? Are you chasing after a diagnosis? If you're chasing a diagnosis, you're, you're, kind of worshiping a false idol. You know. You're worshiping an idol of what's trying to define you. I, you know, am I? I am Lyme Disease. I am, you know, Anemic. I am, you know. Think about the words that we tell ourselves when we've been given a diagnosis oh my gosh, I have Parkinson's, I have MS. I am rather than no. You are a baptized and redeemed child of God who has been afflicted with these things, and our strength lies in Christ and it'll help us deal with these external components that we have. So I feel like we, if we don't recognize the holistic components, we'll get caught in a spiritual trap and we'll also get caught in a physical trap that won't go away if we don't identify our identity in Christ and be filled up with God's love, so that that's what can spill out.

Ruth Jefferson: 28:57

So just to kind of rephrase what you were saying and correct me if I'm wrong, but basically it seems like when it comes to like the diagnosis, like, for example, Parkinson's or any of those things, the important thing is the way that, the way that we approach them.

Sarah Gallander: 29:15

Yeah, absolutely it, because illness is going to happen. We live in a fallen world. In fact, if we, if every illness was healed here on Earth, we would never long for Heaven, we would never have that longing to cling and cleave to him. And it's how we respond to the afflictions that we've been given. And we have a perfect example of that, you know, throughout the whole New Testament. You know, Paul's entire existence was constant struggle and suffer, and yet he found his purpose and calling, because he was rooted in the identity of. Okay, Lord, show me how to tackle this and show me how to show me where You are in this.

Sarah Gallander: 29:50

And we get caught up in the diagnosis of, you know, the and I'm not saying I'm not trying to minimize that certain diagnoses are, you know they're, they're, they're heavy, they weigh on you.

Sarah Gallander: 29:59

But your approach from a spiritual and an emotional standpoint can help understand the physical piece of it and can help it's not going to totally relieve it. Probably, and you know at, spiritual healing is God's ultimate goal for us, because we will be physically healed when we get to heaven. But in this earth we, He told us, going to be afflicted. So it's kind of like well, we already know that. So how do we respond in that crisis or in that trial, in that, you know, tumultuous, terrible disease that we've been hit with, and sometimes we're relieved of that and sometimes we're not, and we wait until we win the race and get to heaven. But how we respond to that here on Earth is like God saying I just keep trusting me. You know, keep being obedient, keep trusting me, keep clinging to me and I will give you that. You know that hope and hope and joy don't always necessarily mean happy and whole. It it's a, it's a state of being, and that requires our approach and response.

Ruth Jefferson: 30:56

So something that you alluded to earlier when we were talking about the topic of trust and the medical system was like the problem of like the pressures with insurance and some of the training there. Do you think there's anything else that kind of lends itself to a lack of trust within the medical system or that there are other major contributing factors?

Sarah Gallander: 31:13

I think without without getting into a political discussion there's there's lots of things that do contribute to that, and I think a lot of it has to do with your personal experience too. You know, it's kind of like there's, you know, there's there's lots of, you know, bad doctors, but that doesn't paint the brush for all of them. There's a lot of people working within the medical system that are really trying, like I, I know a lot of them and they really want to do, they want to help heal, and so then they partner with people like me and are like, okay, if you could just teach them. And like, okay, yeah, let me be an extension of you outside of our, outside of your office, like let me be the one that sits with them every week for an hour, because you're not allowed to do that. And I really, you know, I think we talk about healthcare reform and I promise I won't go deep in that, but I think it comes to insurance reform and how, how are we structuring this? How are we providing access? That's a big thing. Like, I feel like we should spend most of our money on education of how to prevent rather than be reactive, because reactive medicine is expensive medicine proactive and prevention kind of, is a little bit less expensive than when we have to spend all the money on the medicines and all the money on the hospitals and all the money, you know and again I'm not saying that it doesn't serve a purpose and a place.

Sarah Gallander: 32:36

I think and this is where I love I'm like I think there's a middle ground that we can come to. You know, there's massive extremes and I don't feel like we should completely abandon. You know, like I'm going to stand in the middle of the you know the grass and and and and chant something and ask God to heal me, like that's the. For other extreme, you know, versus the extreme of conventional medicine. There's an extreme of holistic medicine too, where it's that you know I'm going to abandon all conventional pieces. I'm like, huh, where can we coexist of taking the best pieces of each one? And I think that's where Jesus is, just like your whole point. Jesus is in the middle, He's, He doesn't live on extremes. I mean, in the middle is in alignment to God and he is the extreme. I'm like He is it. And I think with medicine we've we've just made too many extremes on both sides of the coin on, you know, natural medicine versus conventional medicine, and I think the holistic approach is somewhere in the middle. So it yeah, there.

Sarah Gallander: 33:34

There's a lot of things that contribute to that and it's going to take. I don't know that it's something that's ever going to be solved, because we live in a simple world, I just I think. I believe that more than anything, because it becomes people's idols. It's a really great tactic by the enemy to divide and destroy, and until we can all, until Jesus comes again, I don't think we're going to see something.

Sarah Gallander: 33:56

So that's why, teaching and educating people of their own personal temple, how does you know what works for me, what? How can I, how can I own and know my story? I'm really big about that, and what I mean by that is how do you understand how your history played into, how your parents history, generational history, plays into effect, how that plays into your emotional component, how it plays into your physical piece, owning what you know about you, not what someone tells you of. Oh well, again, you have high cholesterol, so you need to be on XY drug. Well, what are the contributors, the factors to that? And I, and again, I think if we could shift more of the monetary focus being towards education and understanding of prevention. I think have a great middle ground.

Ruth Jefferson: 34:45

That makes a lot of sense. So you saying said your journey kind of started in the late 90s with something else that came out in the 90s was the Matrix movies, Sarah Gallander: that's funny, I get this question a lot.

Sarah Gallander: 35:03

That wasn't the genesis of the reason.

Ruth Jefferson: 35:06

Yeah, Matrix movies are not what we're talking about. Sarah Gallander: Oh no. Ruth Jefferson: So how did you come across, like, how did you identify and come up with like what the name of your business, the Wellness, Wellness Matrix, would be?

Sarah Gallander: 35:20

Yeah, it's so funny that you asked, because there really was a lot of intention behind this and I'm like I won- people are going to think I'm talking about like Red Pill and Blue Pill, like that's not what I'm talking about. It honestly it's. It's kind of like a math nerd origination. If you think of a Matrix. So there's two components. There's the cellular matrix, which is very complex and intricate, and and then you have a math matrix where you shift one little number and it changes the entire outcome of that. Same thing with the cellular matrix. You shift one little thing in the cellular matrix, you can manipulate the entire cellular process.

Sarah Gallander: 36:02

What I love about this is everyone has their own makeup. A matrix is a makeup of multi-factorial components. It's a lot of pieces of makeup. A matrix. It's not just one column in one row. It's all the things, and all of those things we have.

Sarah Gallander: 36:20

One of my favorite sayings is because people like to talk about their genes and how their genes dictate their health, like, oh, my dad had heart disease, I'm going to die of a heart attack. Or my mom had a thyroid problem, I'm going to have a thyroid problem. When really genes load the gun for lack of a better term and environment pulls the trigger. In your matrix you have a makeup, already predetermined makeup, but you also have all these external factors that can really shift the outcome of what you experience from a symptom, an emotional and a spiritual effect. The matrix itself has to do with knowing what your matrix is comprised of is different for every person.

Sarah Gallander: 37:03

I'm big on little, tiny shifts. I hate restrictions. I think rules are rigid and frameworks are flexible, and shifting tiny making like parking your car at the far end of the parking lot and walking that little shift. Do it enough times, you're going to have a positive outcome. You're going to shift something. So it really has to do with the fact that a matrix is very complex, just like our bodies are very complex and every single one is unique. So Ruth is different than Sarah, it's different than John and Kira and all the people that we can see. But you have a lot of power through intention and through intuition.

Ruth Jefferson: 37:48

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