Building the Best You

Healing Chronic Illness Through Nervous System Regulation with Allie Chandler

• Jeanne Collins • Season 2 • Episode 99

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After a mysterious health collapse while backpacking through Europe, Allie Chandler spent years searching for answers before finally discovering she was battling Lyme disease and multiple co-infections. 

In this inspiring conversation with Jeanne Collins, Allie shares how chronic illness transformed every aspect of her life — from her mindset and relationships to her career and purpose. 

Together, they explore nervous system regulation, trauma healing, functional medicine, energy work, and the importance of community in the healing journey. 

Allie also opens up about how her personal struggles inspired the creation of Upsell Health, an innovative platform designed to connect patients with the right root-cause practitioners. This episode is a powerful reminder that healing is possible, hope matters, and sometimes your greatest challenge becomes the foundation for your life’s mission.

Allie recommended two books during the episode:

  1. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins
  2. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

More about Allie:

Allie Chandler is the founder of Upsell Health, where she helps functional medicine practitioners and wellness brands scale to $2-10M+ through marketing that feels as natural as the healing they provide. Her approach? Data-driven strategies delivered with heart, creating connections that convert without feeling salesy.

Allie’s path into wellness marketing began in the most unexpected way. In 2013, while teaching high school creative writing, she took what was supposed to be a liberating trip to Europe. Instead, she found herself mysteriously ill in Amsterdam, beginning an eight-year journey through chronic Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and the frustrating world of “everything looks normal” test results. Those years of being bedbound, losing 35 pounds in two months, and navigating complex health protocols taught her exactly what patients are looking for—and how to help practitioners reach them.

This personal experience, combined with her Master’s in Writing from California College of the Arts, gave her a unique perspective on wellness marketing. She understood both the science and the human story behind it.

Today, through Upsell Health, Allie offers her Practitioner, Patient, and Brand Archetype Framework and done-for-you marketing services, helping healers build practices that thrive—without sacrificing their health or authenticity in the process.

https://upsellhealth.com/

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https://instagram.com/upsellhealth
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/upsell-health
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https://www.facebook.com/upsellhealth
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https://www.youtube.com/@upsellhealthmarketing
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https://tiktok.com/@upsellhealth
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https://x.com/upsellmarketing
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https://www.pinterest.com/upsellhealth/

🎓 Empowerment Fundamentals Course: Use Code PODCAST15 for a 15% discount
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Introducing Allie Chandler

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Building the Best You, a destination for you to reimagine what is possible in your life and then create it. Hi, everybody, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Gene Collins, and today we have Allie Chandler on the show. We are going to be talking about health, everybody, one of my favorite subjects. Allie has a crazy health journey story, and her journey towards finding wellness is really cool. And it also helped her start her own business, Upsell Health. So we're going to talk about what UpSell Health does. It helps practitioners, it helps people, it helps connect the two. There's so much that Allie and I could talk about. So we're going to try to keep it under an hour here. Allie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you. Absolutely. Your journey is wild. And I love that you were an entrepreneur and you took your journey and really are doing a lot of good with it. So the journey. Can we talk about your health

The Mysterious Illness That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00

journey and what happened to you and how you got to the place of such incredible health that you're in now?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Yeah. So this all goes back to me being a high school teacher. And I was 22 teaching seniors in high school. I decided I didn't want to do it anymore and I wanted to go backpack through Europe. So this is where the health problem started. It was basically overnight. I went there as a healthy, you know, young 20s person, working out all the time, eating really healthy. And in the Swiss Alps, something happened. And the next day I woke up and I was like, something is very wrong with my body. And it was neurological issues, it was cardiac issues, it was digestive, it was anxiety. It was like all my body systems were just going haywire. And it was things I had never experienced before. So in my head, I'm like, okay, well, I'm traveling. Maybe it's just a really weird virus, you know, I'll get over it in a week or two. Well, that didn't happen. And so I, long story short, was trying to fly home in Ireland. I fainted in a bathroom. I was woken up by a just gaggle of Irish women trying to like feed me and give me water and, you know, wake me up. And yeah, I came back to the US. I got hospitalized immediately. They didn't know what was going on. I did so much testing and took me four years to figure out actually what had happened. Um yes, it took a really long time, but that's kind of where the journey started with me.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so four years. That's a really long time. After four years, what did they finally decide was wrong with you?

SPEAKER_01

So, yes, I did probably 15 different doctors, a specialist. I went to allergist, pulmonologists, more traditional conventional medicine, and then I transitioned into functional medicine because nobody could give me an answer. I had so much blood work done. I was like, how do I even have blood left in my body at this point? I had done so many tests and yeah, everything, you know, stuff was slightly off, but nobody could give me a reason why, you know, one of my worst symptoms was that when I was sitting, my resting heart rate was like 55. It was fairly low. And when I stood, it would go up to like 160, 170 for the whole time I was standing, and it would not go down until I sat or laid down. So obviously that's very concerning. And yeah, so cardiologists were like, we don't really know, like you're you're everything looks good. And so I had gone to a actually an energy healer. This is where the the diagnosis began. And she was working with me on just the mindset side and sort of like, how do I get through this? This is awful. And she was like, Has anyone tested you for Lyme? And I said, No, no, it's not been a part of the conversation. So she sent me to one of her friends who's a Lyme practitioner, functional medicine, and he ran two different Lyme tests, and both were positive for not just Lyme, but multiple different co-infections, like Babesia and Bartonella. And when I met with him, he was like, I've been doing this for seven years, and these are the most different co-infections I've ever seen on a test. So he's like, No wonder you

Navigating Chronic Illness and Losing Trust in the Body

SPEAKER_01

feel awful. So that's kind of how I finally got my diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Yeah. You know, and you hear that sometimes about Lyme. Like Lyme is one of those, you know, I live in New England and there are a lot of cases of Lyme.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And so it's like, it is one of those things that people don't naturally test for, especially, I'm guessing this was not exactly like last year. This probably was a while ago because I think this is like a 10-year health journey, right? And so especially back then, they didn't test for it. How did you keep your sanity during this? Like just because I know there are people who are out there who don't feel well and they are where you were and they're going to lots of different doctors. And how do you keep your sanity when everyone keeps saying you're fine, but you know you're not fine?

SPEAKER_01

I feel like I did the opposite of what everyone was telling me to do, which was, you know, join Facebook groups and find other people who have your same diagnosis and, you know, do all of these things, make a checklist, make sure you're eating all the right foods, doing all these things. And I did that for a while. I did follow those instructions for a while and tried to really be perfect with my health, but I found that that was actually more stressful for my nervous system than letting a little bit of that go. And, you know, the Facebook groups, it's you're seeing all the people in there who are really sick who are dumping all their symptoms and their stress and their, you know, low vibration energy because they're sick and they're not feeling well. And people were very well-intentioned of like, find community, like find other people who have Lyme if nobody understands what you're going through. But I actually had to let all of that go. I had to leave the groups, I had to stop writing all my symptoms down. I was really trying to intellectualize my illness. Like I had this symptom. So let me go back to everything that I did today. What did I do to deserve this symptom? And I had to stop doing that. And I really shifted into learning more about the limbic system and more about the nervous system and everything that goes into your mindset. Because for me, it was easy to be in this victim mindset and be like, I'm 26, I can't walk. All my friends are traveling and they're getting married and they're, you know, having these beautiful lives on social media. But I really, I feel like what I did to maintain my sanity was drop all the ideas of perfectionism. I'm a high achiever. I've always been. And so I'm always like, if I put my mind to something, I'm going to be the best at it. If that wasn't the case with my health. And I had to let that version of me go and be like, how do I create this safety within my own body when I feel like my body is just not interacting with me in like the way that I would expect? I don't know how to expect or predict my symptoms. And so a lot of it was finding gentleness, finding a lot of this like limbic system training and healing in that way rather than trying to like push myself into health.

SPEAKER_00

I love that you said that because you said something that so resonates with me as you were saying it. Being a woman who just went through perimenopause, now in menopause, I spent like two years and I would vocalize and say, I am at war with my body. And I knew rationally that that was not the right energy to be putting out there, that I'm not helping myself. But it's really hard when you really feel so out of control with your body. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Yeah, I had the same thing where I lost all of the trust in my own body because even walking into a grocery store, it was so overstimulating for my nervous system that it was now suddenly, I can't handle bright lights anymore. I can't handle smells, I can't handle crowds. And so you kind of, for me, it was like I almost dissociated from my body because I was like, this is not me. Like, I know my heart, I know my soul, my spirit, and everything inside of me. This I don't want to claim this body. So it was almost like a separation was created between my little soul and like my joy and everything that I knew myself to be. And there's a big disconnect with my body. It felt like an enemy. It does feel like a war. It does feel like let's throw everything at it until we get better. Let's take all the supplements, let's do all the harsh detoxes. But I think you're right and that that's not the right mindset to approach it with. But that's how you feel when you're just in the depths of it and you don't know any better.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you don't know any better. And you do, you throw everything at it. It's like you try everything. If you're someone who is, you try conventional medicine and then you try non-conventional medicine and you keep trying all these things, hoping that like one thing is gonna be this magic clicking. Yeah, which is so hard. Can we talk about energy

Discovering Energy Healing and Functional Medicine

SPEAKER_00

healing for a minute? Yes. So, how did you stumble upon energy healing?

SPEAKER_01

So, this is a funny story. I used to watch a lot of summits, like health summits, because I was trying to still figure out this was pre-Lyme diagnosis, and they were very popular at the time. So it'd be like a functional doctor would interview 50 people on a topic, and you would get to watch them for free for a week, and then you'd pay if you miss it. But I watched this woman, her name was Trina Hammock, on a summit, and I loved her energy. I feel like we just like very aligned with our energy. And so I started following her. And this was when I was back in Michigan before I moved to California. And so, you know, I go to grad school in San Francisco. I'm following Trina for like a couple years, and I end up moving down to Monterey. We'll come to find out her practice is in Monterey, like a mile from where I lived. And I was like, oh my gosh, like I've been, I love this woman. I want to go work with her. So I show up in her office and I just am like so sick at the time. This was like in the midst of all me trying to figure out what was going on. And she was like, I can't even treat you right now. Like your nervous system is so dysregulated that anything I do, you're gonna crash. And I know that like just from looking at me, I was in very rough shape. And so she started me on energy healing. And it was, she used some weird machines, and there was like, you know, all these like fancy technologies that she used. But a part of what she did was just, you know, let's let's do a little bit of talk therapy and then let me ask permission to clear some of these beliefs that you have about yourself that are not useful to you. So that was my experience with energy healing. There was a little bit of the woo side of like, you know, all these machines that are supposed to read my energetic frequencies and then map that to a diagnosis. And, you know, that's interesting. But a lot of it, she was like, Well, what I'm hearing you say is you don't believe you deserve to heal. Do you give me the permission to clear that from your subconscious programming? So she did a lot of stuff like that and a lot of like the saging. And I remember there was one point where she was like, We need to do something extreme here. Like, you're really struggling. So she got a big kitchen pot and she put all these like sage leaves and like crystals and Palo Santo and she lit it on fire. And there is like a kitchen stock pot with a fire. I'm sitting in her office and I'm like, what is happening? I have no idea what we're doing here, but I do know that every time when I go home, I feel a little lighter. So I have to believe that even like this placebo effect or even like reprogramming my beliefs about myself is beneficial. So I had a very interesting experience with energy healing, but she was an amazing woman and I learned a lot from her.

SPEAKER_00

It's fascinating. And I think one thing that's so fascinating about it, because you kind of mentioned it's like, oh, it's a little woo. I'm not really sure. But I do think that, especially in health, if you have a chronic illness, you get to the point that you really are kind of open to anything. If something's not working, that does something to open you up. So I'm so curious. Do you have any advice to people that haven't gotten to that point of like it's a chronic illness, and therefore I'm at the point that I'm going to be open to anything? Where, you know, how do you encourage people to be more open to other modalities of healing

Becoming Your Own Health Advocate

SPEAKER_00

before you get to the breaking point of I have no choice?

SPEAKER_01

I do think that collectively, especially after COVID, when people were dealing with kind of these long hauler symptoms, people are becoming more open to that functional medicine side of things, which is great. So I think that somebody who's maybe like, maybe I just have fatigue or digestive issues, and I've gone to my primary care doctor and they're saying just part of aging or it's just part of, you know, part of life. I feel like you have to really learn to be your own best advocate because you know your body and you know that, you know, you know yourself in vitality and in energy and like at your best self. And your doctor can't understand that, right? They're gonna look at your labs and they're going to look at like the bare minimum ranges. They're not looking at functional ranges. So they're probably going to send you home unless you have something glaring, or they're like, ooh, we should probably look into that more. So I think one thing that I learned that was really helpful was to do my own research. I had to because I got turned away from so many different doctors. And, you know, they would sometimes try to put me on anti-anxiety medication, which I was like, I'm not anxious. You see my heart, like what it's doing when I'm standing. I can't make that happen out of anxiety. And so there were definitely some cases where I where I had to like speak up. And at the time I grew up as such a people pleaser and such like a, okay, like I respect authority a lot. And I wouldn't say anything. And I would just say, well, they must know best. But, you know, over time I did learn to do research. And I found a lot of the practitioners that I ended up working with because of deep research, and because I could come to them and say, hey, I think there's something with my vagus nerve. I read this article. It sounds like all the symptoms I'm having could be look into this. And I wanted to work with people who were at least open to that. And so I think a lot of it is that, and just knowing that like there's a definitely a time and place for conventional medicine. We need it, especially with traumas or, you know, with very serious conditions. But I think it's okay to have both. It's okay to have a balance. It's okay to use that when you need it, and then also be open to other supportive modalities. There's a ton of research on a lot of these things, like, for example, psychobiotics. This is a sort of relatively new concept, but it's a probiotic that confers a positive benefit to the host in some way, that gut brain access. So you're taking a probiotic, but it's having an impact on your mood or on your anxiety or something like that. And there's countless clinical trials and studies, and there's there's data on it. So even if you're someone that's, you know, I need to see the statistics and the data, look because you're gonna find for a lot of these things, even like something like creatine, which we think of as sort of Jim Bro, you know, supplementation, it's actually there's a ton of research on how it helps support your brain and your cognitive health. So I think just being open-minded to uh doing that research, and even if you need the data, you can look at the data and see like what's you know beneficial to you or what kind of your beliefs are.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, and that is a perfect transition to your business because that is so much of what you do is trying to connect the practitioners with the people so that there's a connection. So, where in this journey did it, did you decide, oh wait,

Turning Personal Healing Into a Business Mission

SPEAKER_00

I can take my health journey and make a business out of this? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01

So it happened in the middle of me being sick, actually. I had just started seeing this Lyme doctor that Trina had recommended, was living in Monterey at the time he was in San Diego. So it was like six hours of a drive. But he was hosting a retreat. And I was married at the time, and my husband was like, We need to go. You need to spend more time with him in person. This was this is great. And I'm like, You're carrying me to the car to go to doctor's appointments. You think I can go do rooftop yoga? Like, are you crazy? But he convinced me, he was like, even just, you know, sitting on the couch there and meeting other people and being in community, it was very lonely. So I show up to this retreat, and I'm everyone is like, to me, they look very healthy, right? Like they're like vibrant, they're laughing, they're joking, they're walking on the beach in the morning. And I'm like, I crawled to get in here. And I overheard this doctor that I was seeing say, like, oh, we really need marketing help. We really need someone who can write. Well, in the midst of my illness, I had still gone to grad school and gotten my master's in writing because I'm stubborn and I'm a perfectionist, and that was what I would plan to do after Europe. And so I'm I'm sitting on this couch and I go up to him at lunch and I'm like, hey, I heard that you need help. I have a degree in writing. I just graduated. Like, would you consider hiring me? He's like, Yeah, just send me, you know, your resume and everything when you get back. And I was like, No, I want an interview tomorrow. Like, I want to talk to you while I'm here. So I went back to my Airbnb that we were staying at and put a whole plan together, a whole business plan for him and a marketing plan and had two interviews the next day, and he hired me. And I had no idea what I was doing. I had never done marketing before ever. I knew that I could write. And I was like, that's a big part of marketing. But I'm just one of those, I'm super scrappy. And I was like, I would love to learn about Lyme and get paid for it and be able to help other people. So that was how I got into the journey and uh worked for him for maybe three or four years. And then he ended up starting a really well-known now supplement company. It's called Cellcore Biosciences. So when that started, I went over as their head of content and, you know, was on their leadership team. And it kind of just happened because I feel like you can't be afraid to ask for what you want in life. And I had no business asking for that job. But I also am so grateful because that's, you know, how I got into this line of work now. And I ended up starting my own business after, you know, having maybe eight years of experience in sort of the supplement industry working with practitioners. But yeah, I'm just, I think, you know, just going up to him and saying, like, no, you'll you'll interview me tomorrow. I'm like, who was I?

SPEAKER_00

What was I doing? But I that is so cool though, because that's what makes things happen. It's like, oh, you sort of overheard, you had a thought, you didn't sit on it, you acted on it. And I always tell people, like, those are the pivotal moments in life, especially as an entrepreneur, where it's like you kind of have this gut instinct about something, just go for it. What's the worst thing that the guy's gonna say? Is no. Exactly. But if you don't act on it, there are so many entrepreneurs who have stories just like yours. And I love that you shared it the way you did, where it's like you acted on this gut instinct and it completely changed your life. It did.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. The entire trajectory of my life. I would, if I had not done that, I have no idea what I would be doing. I had gone to grad school thinking maybe I'll just teach in college, you know, maybe I'll teach writing in a college. But yeah, it was, it was very life-changing to me. And he put a lot of faith and trust in me. And, you know, I'm so grateful for the time that I had because I was able to spend so much time researching. Like I did blogs for him, I did his email marketing, I did his high-ticket sales. I was on the phone selling like $16,000 packages for his coaching and making a commission on it. And, you know, it really did help fund a lot of my medical expenses at the time. Because even like for me, I went to a biological dentist because I had read a lot about root canals and how they can be, you know, detrimental to people's health over time and titanium implants. And I got $15,000 worth of dental work done in one sitting. And so it was like I was, you know, using a lot of the money I was making, researching biological dentistry, writing him a blog about it. And then I would go, you know, do the thing that I just learned about. So it did impact my health and also obviously my entire career.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. All right. So how did upsell health form out of that? What does upsell health mean, even?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So it formed because, you know, working at Cellcore, they actually ended up after a few years selling the company. And then it just, you know, mergers and acquisitions and things happened. And I was like, I don't know if this is for me anymore. I think I'm gonna, you know, leave, maybe do my own thing. I wasn't really sure. But as soon as I left, I had two practitioners that I had met through, because they sold supplements to doctors. That was the channel. And so I had helped run events for them and I met a whole lot of doctors through that. And I had a couple of them reach out and say, Hey, like I hear you're not at Cellcore anymore. Do you want to, are you doing marketing? And I was like, I never thought about doing my own marketing. But yes, yes, I am. I'm I severely undercharged. I had no idea how much to charge per month. And at the time, I was like, oh my gosh, I have three clients in in a day. I had to get on and make a quick website. And, you know, I got kind of Scrapped it all together. But yeah, it started because of, I guess, these practitioners approaching me and me just on the fly figuring out what I wanted to do. But, you know, I was thinking about the concept of upselling in marketing and, you know, how we can make more money for people and how, you know, you you make a sale and then there's an upsell, and it'll get you further in that journey. So I was thinking of the concept of upselling with the marketing side, but how do we focus on what we're here to do to help people get better health? Because I never want to be a marketer who's that direct sales, like used car salesman, that sleazy marketing. I know it doesn't work on people who are chronically ill. It's that fake urgency and that, you know, all those tactics don't work. So for me, it's like, how do we make you money, right? We're talking about upsells. How do we make the practitioner money? But what we're selling is this transformation. We're not like out here to just make a quick buck. We're selling the idea that we're here to help people. And that's genuinely what I believe with my business is I have so much gratitude for what I do because I'm able to help the people like me, you know, through these brands and through these practitioners I'm currently working with. I'm helping like younger me. And that's so beautiful because I think about like, what would I need to hear 10, 15 years ago when I was in the middle of all of this? What kind of marketing would make me feel seen and heard and understood? And so for me, I call it empathy-led marketing. I made up this whole phrase of the way that I market, but I think a lot of it has to do with like seeing people for who they are, saying, like, hey, I know you're not feeling well. You know, we're here, we're gonna figure it out with you. We're gonna educate you, we're gonna do what we can to work with you and make you feel seen and understood because I think that's what's lacking, especially in the conventional world. There's not time for doctors to like sit down with you and hear your whole life story. But with the people I work with, we have more of an opportunity for this empathy-led marketing and just like giving content, building trust through this free content.

The Vision Behind Upsell Health and Practitioner Matching

SPEAKER_01

And then the sales always come after that. So that's kind of the concept behind it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And it's so cool. So you said something I want to make sure I reiterate again because I am part of an organization called Brand Builders Group, and Rory Vaden, who runs it, always says you are best positioned to serve the person that you once were. And that makes the most successful entrepreneurs is really finding ways to help past you. And that is exactly what you said. And I think when you want to be an entrepreneur and you want to be in service, that is the greatest no-brainer place to start, especially when you're trying to figure out as an entrepreneur who is my avatar, who am I talking to, what am I doing? But then you took it a whole nother level, which is like you connect, and I want you to explain this because I don't want to explain this the wrong way, but it's almost like you've arc, not even almost, maybe it is archetypes, which I'm not even sure I'm saying that's right, of people and of practitioners and trying to marry the two. So please talk about that because it is such a cool idea.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So I do. I have practitioner archetype, a patient, and a brand. So there's three different ones. And what I did was I was trying to figure out, you know, who's my ideal avatar? And at the time I was only thinking on the practitioner side. So I made the practitioner archetype first. And I made it into a quiz. It's short. I know you took it, one of them. And so I, it's a short quiz that you take, and it's all about like, what are your core motivations, your beliefs around healing? What's important to you as a practitioner? You know, there's so much more than just like, here's my credentials as a doctor, here's the root causes I cover. I feel like most practitioners get stuck there and there's nothing further. This is all about like, you know, what what beliefs do you hold as a healer? What's is data important to you? Is the woo like energy side important to you? Or are you someone that uses your own healing story, which is the Phoenix archetype, to, you know, help other people, which is what I would be if I were a practitioner. But yeah, so I created these quizzes and then I had this idea to create a three-sided marketplace, right? So we're gonna make a patient version, there's a one-to-one match across the practitioners and to the brand. Then there's a couple that are good fits, and then there's a few where it's like, like maybe proceed with caution. You're just not really aligned in your core beliefs. And so I created these quizzes, and then we're actually creating an app that's going to be, I call it like the hinge for doctors and practitioners. So you'll be able to swipe through practitioners and it'll give you a percentage match based on all of those things, your archetype, root causes, location, everything. So you'll have like your practitioners where it's like, hey, this doctor believes the things you believe. They treat the things that you need to be treated. And here's how you reach out to them. Because for me, like you said, my biggest issue was it took me four years to get diagnosed. And I wasted a lot of money and a lot of time and energy. And I almost feel like I missed out on a lot of my life because I had no idea who to work with. So I'm trying to solve that issue that I face of I'm sick and I don't know what to do. And I'm going to waste, you know, two to five years of life just trying to figure it out. So it's been a really fun journey and just kind of studying the practitioners that I knew, testing out like these different archetypes. I assigned, you know, doctors that I knew to each archetype. And I was like, Will you take this quiz? I think I know what you are, but just let me know what you get. And then so there's a lot of like kind of data and uh adjustments made that way, but it's been a really fun process.

SPEAKER_00

It is so cool. And and I just think the concept of it, because you talk about this on your website too, that, you know, it's really important. Not only do you need a practitioner that you think has the skills, the knowledge, the resources to help you with whatever is ailing you, but you know, nothing's worse than going to a practitioner and leaving and being like, oh my goodness, I did not connect with that person. I don't like that person. I don't know that I even want to keep talking to them, but I have to keep working with them because maybe they can help me. Where if you can find someone, just like you said about the energy healer, where you just click immediately with them. As a patient, I think it is so it's such a relief when you can connect and click with a practitioner. That is like an immediate gift that you are giving to people with that ability to do that.

SPEAKER_01

It is. Yeah. And I think it's interesting now because with functional medicine, you have the space and capacity to work with people all over the country or even in some cases the world. So it's great because it opens a lot of doors, but it's also very overwhelming. I think of it as like, I always compare this to dating apps in some ways because, you know, as a woman, I feel like on dating apps, you have so many options. And you, I always talk to my guy friends and they're like, I get no matches. And women are like, I have 15,000 men who like me. Like, how do I sort through all of these? And it's almost the opposite problem where you're like, I'm too overwhelmed that I can't even pick the right doctor because there's thousands and thousands that I could choose. So it's it's giving you the options, but it's also reducing that decision fatigue of being like, well, let me search in every state. Like, how do I even begin to narrow it down? I feel like I sort of fell into it by luck. Granted, it took me a while, but I'm hoping that this is going to, yeah, reduce that time and the space and also brands. I thought it would be fun to have a brand archetype, like what kind of personality does your wellness brand have? Because then we can help brands match with practitioners who could become affiliates. We can have brands do marketing for their, you know, patient matches. So it's really creating this three-sided marketplace on the back end to help the practitioners and brands be seen by the right patients too. And so one kind of cool thing that I have a patent pending on is an inverted lead model where the patient can say, Hey, any match who's say 85% or above, give them my name. Because when you're a patient, you can be exhausted even like doing that. So you can say, any of my high matches, give them my name and email. Let them reach out to me if they want to. So the brands and the doctors can say, like, oh, here's a lead. Let me, you know, you can see, you can actually see the profile. So you can kind of see a little bit about the person. But that's also like helping support the patient because sometimes you're too sick or you're like reaching out to a doctor is exhausting to me. So you can also opt to let them reach out to you, which I think is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I like that a lot. That is very cool. Yeah. And then you feel like, oh, I've been self-selected by this doctor. Exactly. They already know enough about me from my profile and the general thing that they have selected me, which once again, when you're sick and you're talking about, you know, low self-esteem, frustration, exhaustion, all the things, you know, that extra care is really helpful. It's like you kind of need that extra little hug of someone helping you out. And it's

Community, Isolation, and the Power of Nervous System Healing

SPEAKER_00

like, oh, thank goodness somebody gave me some help and made it just a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_01

I yeah. And I really think, like I said in the marketing, the biggest thing is people often feel unseen, unheard, not understood. Like a lot of times, people who are chronically ill, even their families, like for me, my partner, my marriage, we ended up getting a divorce because of my illness, because it just was too much of a gap and he wasn't supportive. And I was like, I'm not gonna heal in this environment. So I need to leave. And so I feel like there's a lot of loneliness and isolation that happens when you're in these chronic illnesses. And I'm sure you've seen there's a ton of research on isolation and loneliness and what it can actually do physically to your body. There's a study that I just read that said it's equivalent to so feeling very isolated is equivalent to smoking like 15 cigarettes in a week or something where it's like that, it has that big of a physical impact on your body. It's not just this like internal emotion or internal feeling. It actually is very detrimental. So, you know, one of the other things I'm hoping to do is create these like community spaces and create places where people can meet in groups and there's like a healing, find a healing buddy feature on the app. So you get you actually get matched with other people who are sick. Ooh, I like that. So, and part of my story, I I don't have anything on my website about this, but I run a nonprofit as just a little side uh project. And it's a social club where I live locally, and I made it about a year and a half ago, and we have 20,000 members, and the whole point of it is just community. And so I opened it up and was like, hey, if you want to do local events, like we'll have all these different subgroups. So we have like a divorced and tired parents subgroup. We have uh like a Gen X women's, they do stuff all the time. So all these different groups. But even that made me realize that people are so hungry for community now and not just people who are chronically ill, but I think in general, we're just becoming more disconnected. We're becoming like it's the illusion of connection because of social media, because of engagement and followers on social media, but actually physically connecting with people and finding your humans. I think that's we're gonna have this like wave, I think, away from all the social media, the AI, all of that stuff. And we're gonna get back to these basics like, how do we find each other in real life? And how do we meet in the wild and how do we do these things together? And so I think people in the chronic illness space and out of it are now looking for more of that community basis.

SPEAKER_00

Couldn't agree more. And I also think people who are into wellness in any capacity, whether you're, you know, super woo-woo or maybe not really, maybe think a little woo-woo. But anyone who's into wellness, functional medicine, alternative healing, any of the things, crystals, energy, whatever it is, meditating, you want to be able to build a tribe of people who are interested in some of the similar things that you are interested in. And sometimes for a lot of people, that isn't your immediate friend group because you have your friend group for one reason. You have your friend group either because you met them at work or you met them because they're parents of your, you know, child's friend, or you know, you've known them since college, but they aren't necessarily in your friend group because you have similar health and wellness views. And I think there's a huge need for that, for people to be able to find like-minded people in the health and wellness space right now.

SPEAKER_01

Huge needs. Yeah, there is. And I don't know how people are doing it right now. I mean, of course, we talked about Facebook groups being a way that people can connect, but I think the the I guess the struggle with that is the negativity. And then you're surrounded by, you know, all of these complaints and all of these worst-case scenarios, like, here are all my horrible symptoms. Am I okay? And that's also not good for healing, right? Like it's you just don't want to surround yourself with that sort of energy. So yeah, the more that we can connect people in this, like, yes, we understand we're we're all sick, but we're doing our best. But how do we remain in this like magnetic, like high vibration, high frequency mindset? Because I think that's important for healing too, is believing that you can heal, not fixating on all the negative things. You know, you have your reticular activating system in your brain, which is what filters what your brain is looking for. So if you're constantly writing down symptoms or seeing these negative things, that's what you're going to notice. You're training your brain to notice all of the threats, all of the bad things. So, how do we find communities where we're sharing our gratitudes or our small wins? And like, yes, our struggles too. I don't want to like totally disregard. I think all of the feelings and emotions are important to share, but maybe not fixating as much on all the dooms, like, you know, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. Like, how do we have these challenges and also say, hey, like I know I'm going to heal. I know we're going to get through this. Like, let's share something really good that happened to us now. Like, let's share a win. Like maybe you couldn't stand to make a meal and now you just made a whole dinner. Like, that's great. Let's celebrate that, right? Like, what are the ways that we can bring that into healing? Because I think that was really important for me. I really struggled with feeling negative and feeling like down on myself and my emotions. And, you know, how do we elevate? Because all emotions have a frequency, I believe. And so when you're down in this like low frequency, you know, guilt, shame, fear, emotions, you feel heavier. And when you can kind of elevate yourself up this scale, you start to feel more possibility. You feel hope, you feel lighter, you feel more gratitude. So that's something I'm also thinking through is like, how do we help people understand that that's also healing just as much as the supplement protocols on the physical side of things?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, I think it's so important, if not almost one of the most important things. And you talk a lot about nervous system regulation. For someone who might be listening who has absolutely no idea

Understanding Nervous System Regulation and Neuroplasticity

SPEAKER_00

what that is, how would you explain that to someone?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so I think most people have heard you have your sympathetic side of the nervous system, which is your fight or flight, that's that like stress anxiety that a lot of us are in. And then you have your parasympathetic, which we call rest and digest. And that's really where a lot of the healing can happen. So if you think about like if you have chronic stress even at work, or if you have chronic infections or health issues going on, you're going to be more on that fight or flight, that sympathetic side of things. And that's just naturally something that happens. I think a lot of us aren't conscious of it. We're just like, oh, you know, I go about my day with all of this anxiety. This is just how it is. And I don't know that there's a better way out there. So I think the first part of it is the conscious awareness of it that you actually can do things to impact your nervous system and to push yourself into that parasympathetic state. There's also an interesting concept, which is a little bit newer, which is the freeze response, which is this dorsal vagal like shutdown. So there's like the hypo arousal, which is that, and hyper-arousal. And then there's that like safe spot of, you know, how your nervous system can be when you're calm and you're regulated. So I think for me, I learned about this. I think I had mentioned this because I saw an article on the vagus nerve. And it was a very new concept. Nobody knew anything about it. No one was talking about it. And my mom had sent it to me in the middle of my healing and was like, you know, dizziness on standing, heart racing, blood pressure not regulated. She's like, This is you. Like, how do we figure out how to support your vagus nerve? And I was like, I've never even heard of this. I don't even know what that is. And so we started doing a lot of in uh research into that. And it was a pretty new concept at the time, but just understanding that you there are easy ways that you can impact and vagal toning is one part of it. There's so many more parts to the nervous system. But for example, with vagal toning, you can splash your face with cold water and that will activate your vagus nerve and that will actually calm your body down, or you can hum or you can gargle. I mean, there's very free simple ways that you can have an impact on that, which does then impact your nervous system. And so one thing that I started looking into is two things. How do I get in that rest or digest mode? There's really basic things you can do, like meditations and affirmations and everything like that. But I dove into like the heavy research of neuroscience and like how does my body actually work? Because I can't do things half-heartedly. I'm like, if I'm gonna learn about this, I'm gonna be able to write a book on it when I'm done. And so I did so much research on it and kind of put that into practice. But it's really amazing the lack of, I guess, like a knowledge on the nervous system and how that impacts not only healing, but how we show up in the world as humans. Like it was so interesting to me when I learned that our nervous systems can sense each other. So if you ever like enter a room and you're able to say, like, ooh, this person gives me like a really bad gut feeling, a lot of times that's your nervous system sensing theirs and there's something off and they're dysregulated, and you're just like, oh, I don't like, I don't vibe with that person or something's wrong, or this person makes me feel anxious. So yeah, there's a lot of nervous system support. The other thing I looked into was limbic system retraining and just the neuroplasticity of the brain. And I feel like in combination, if you can focus on your nervous system and also retraining your brain, creating these neural pathways that are for abundance and for growth and for healing rather than staying in these like victim mindset and you know, scarcity mindset, uh, neural pathways. Like, I think the main lesson is you have a lot more agency over your health than you think. Even if you've been stuck or if you feel like you were dealt some pretty bad cards with your health, you can do a lot to change it, to change your mindset, to change your nervous system. It's a lot more possible than I think people understand.

SPEAKER_00

It definitely is. And I've had guests come on the show. We had a woman come on with us who had MS and had been on medication her entire life, and she's used nervous system regulation to completely heal her MS and get off all the medicine, and she lives a completely different life. Um It's amazing. And it is, it's it's a true testament. And so I love when people come on and talk about that because I think it does give a great sense of hope to people that you can get healthier and that I think a lot of times people who are sick feel like they have no control and that they don't have the knowledge, they don't have the control, they don't have control over their body, they lose hope very quickly. And I think talking about it like you just did is really empowering for people to know, wait a minute, there yes, I might need outside help, but there is a lot that I can do every single day to help myself and help my body start to heal in various different ways. So I thank you for describing it so well because you did a beautiful job describing it. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, of course. There's a lot you can do. And I think a message of hope is what I'm always hoping to portray because as I said, I couldn't walk for two years and now I'm at the gym for two hours, six days a week. And, you know, going from that to like I couldn't walk to my mailbox when I was married. I I had to sit on a curb in order to get my heart rate to calm down to keep going. And now it's like I can do a leg day and I can leg press, you know, eight plates, nine plates, ten plates, and I'm fine. And and you know, it was a long road to get there. But I do think like giving people that story of hope and like whatever's going on with you, you know, you're seen, you're held, you're it's real. Your body's having this like real reaction to something internally. And if you're still looking for that root cause, don't give up hope. But also, like, I needed stories of transformation when I was sick. I didn't have a lot of those. I didn't have a lot of hope. And so I think that's one beautiful thing about the work I'm doing now is just offering all of this hope. And what works for me might not work for everyone. Everyone's so such a bio individual and so unique. But I think just seeing people who are going from like, here's where you were and here's where you are now, and that's amazing. Like, I couldn't fly for many years because of my heart conditions. And now, like, I just went on a trip three places in Florida. I went from Miami to Vegas. I flew to Nashville and like I'm just all over the place now. And I'm I'm so grateful for it. But also. So I'm hoping that we can offer that message to people that you know there's there's more that you can change than you think, and there's more hope than you probably feel at some times.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, which is so powerful. Thank you for that. Okay, before we run out of time, I do have one more question. Can you explain to people what type of practitioners are part of your system? So if someone is, they want to go onto your website as a patient and do the quiz like I did, which was super cool. Mine came back, what did mine come back? As I'm an intuitive explorer. And I read about it and I was like, oh, that actually sound like it was actually pretty spot on with me, which is pretty cool. So, like people can go, we're gonna put it in the show notes and everything. People can go out to your website, they can take the quiz. But in terms of matching a patient to practitioners, can you just talk about what types of practitioners like to participate in this? Sure.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So usually they're all functional medicine. We do have some allopathic and conventional doctors who have found us, but typically they're like a chiropractor or a DO or an RDN. Sometimes they're health coaches, acupuncturists will take it. But a lot of times they're just someone who, you know, um, they have their own practice, they have their own clinic, they're accepting patients virtually for the most part. There will be a filter for location based if you do want to see someone in person, and that's very important to you. But yeah, typically they're um, I would say the majority, probably 80% of them are root cause or integrative medicine focused. So they're not just going to treat your symptoms, they're actually going to sit down with you and do the work and say, like, okay, I hear you're having these symptoms, but why? Why are you having them? That's not something that conventional medicine really has time to do in a lot of cases. So yeah, if you're very fatigued, could it be mold? You have mold in your house. Do you have parasites? Do you have heavy metals? Like, let's actually sit down, take the test, do the work to figure out what your root cause is. So it's really those people who are in that integrative functional medicine space who will take the time. And a lot of times their intakes are like two-hour meetings, right? Because they'll go through like, let's talk childhood trauma, or let's talk, were you a C-section baby? Where like they go very deep into understanding like, where could all these, you know, accumulations of root causes be, you know, because it's it's usually not just one thing. If you're someone who's pretty sick, you may have some genetic predisposition, you may have childhood trauma, you may also have mold in your home. I mean, there's usually multiple things. So it's those type of practitioners who are taking the quiz. And then for the app, when that launches, I will have some very trusted practitioners that I personally have worked with as sort of like the the main people at first, and then we'll we'll be able to filter and kind of grow from there. But yeah, root cause practitioners is probably the best way to say it. Which is perfect.

SPEAKER_00

And I know I see a functional medicine doctor and I do it all virtually, and it has changed my life. Changed my life. And I at least got to a functional medicine doctor a little bit faster than most people would have. But even that, it did take me some traditional medicine and traditional conventional doctors and a lot of work with that and a lot of testing. And people are like, your bloods are fine. And I'm like, I don't feel such a kind story. It's it's like common. I was like, how many doctors are gonna tell me like your blood work came back and it's fine? But it is interesting because the also in the functional medicine space and the integrative medicine space, they do look at blood work a little bit differently. And I've had the doctor be like, Yeah, I know it says that it's green and therefore you're fine, but actually, no, you know what? Like that number plus this number down here, I actually that's I don't like that for you based on what's happening with you, you know, like so it's digging into some of the tests in a very different light, which I think when people experience that, it's so enlightening. And you can learn so much about your body and how your body works from a doctor like that because they do, to your point, take the time with you, where conventional medicine doctors just do not. I mean, they are, you know, how many patients can you see in 15 minutes? You know, it's like it's terrible. And so they just want to move on to the next person. So it's such a different level of care. So I love that you're doing that because I think also finding a doctor is incredibly overwhelming for people, especially when you're sick. So providing a resource for people to do that. I thank you for that. That's amazing. I love what you're doing. It is so cool. So cool. You were so inspiring. All right. So before we

Trauma Healing, EMDR, and the Final Steps Toward Recovery

SPEAKER_00

run out of time, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you think is really important to touch on for people?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I guess the only thing I would say, which we didn't dig into, is another thing that was very transformational for me was actually trauma work. So learning about EMDR and things like internal family systems and polyvagal theory. Like there's a whole separate world that for me I needed to access because I think chronic illness in itself is a trauma. But I think people think of trauma as this like we call it capital T trauma versus lowercase tea. They think of it as this like huge thing, like somebody close to me died or I got divorced, or it has to, you know, be this massive trauma, but it doesn't. And I think you can also have accumulations of these little tea traumas throughout your life. And so, you know, I felt like I was pretty, pretty close to saying I'm, you know, 90% healed, maybe 85%. And then I dug into the trauma work and it was exhausting and it was hard. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I feel like that's what got me to the last, you know, I would say I'm like 99% better now. But I do think that's another thing to look into is seeing a therapist, you know, looking into PTSD or anything like that with somebody who is a clinician that can support you there. That is, that was like the last little percent to me. And I know if you're still like in the midst of your illness, you're not ready to probably go that deep. I had to wait until physically I felt better before I really tackled some of the like intense trauma. But yeah, if you're looking, if you're like almost better and you're on this healing journey and you're like, how do I get the

Favorite Books and Inspirations Featuring: Can't Hurt Me and The Body Keeps the Score

SPEAKER_01

rest of the, you know, 15%? I think that's that's also a really helpful thing to look into.

SPEAKER_00

Great advice. Thank you for that. All right. I love to ask my guests if there's a book or books that they have read that has impacted them personally, professionally, that they would recommend. I think books change lives in addition to podcast guests. So, what book or book would you like to recommend?

SPEAKER_01

So I have two, and I'll I'll speak quickly about them. But one of them, and this is like my personality to a T, they're the two sides to my personality. So one of them is actually Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins. And that's my very like high achiever, like, keep going, you know, don't let suffering be the end of your story. He has an amazing story too, that he he talks about in there. And, you know, I think that's been inspirational for me to like not lay down and let life happen to you, is very much like get up and take what you want. And then so, and that's my like, like I said, my high achiever side of me. But then the other side, which is this like softer, you know, emotional, like nervous system side, I love the body keeps the score. Um, Bessel Vanderkoelk. I'm sure a lot of people have heard of that. But I think that's something where it's like if you're interested in the nervous system side or the mindset or the emotional side and what it means if your nervous system is still in threat mode. And like, it's like everything that happens to us, our body tallies and it holds on to, and there's an impact of that. So those two together, I feel like they summarize my whole healing journey of like, I had to be stubborn. I had to not give up. I had to push myself to get through this really traumatic illness, but I also was cognizant of that softer mental and emotional healing. So, like, put those together, and I feel like that's my whole story.

SPEAKER_00

So they're they're both great in very, very different ways. Yes. And those are great recommendations. Thank you so much. I do have I have the one, the Body Keep Score, but I've never read

Closing Thoughts and Final Reflections

SPEAKER_00

the other one. So I thank you. And I'm a total type A type of person too. You'll like it. I probably will love it. You will. And I do try to read most of the books that my guests recommend also so that I can learn too. So, Ali, I thank you. Upsell Health, we'll put everything in the show notes for everybody. They can go to your website, they can learn more when your app comes out. Can't wait to see that. When do you think that's coming out? October. Okay, perfect. Wonderful. Great. That is so fantastic. I thank you. I thank you for all that you were doing, for the health space. You are so inspiring. Your story's cool. You've been such a fun guest. You're great to talk to. You are into all the things that I love, all the woo-woo, and then also all the science. So, and you spoke so eloquently. So, thank you so much for your time being a guest, and we will definitely stay connected. I can't wait to see what else you build. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. It's been great. Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Building the Best You. If you are ready to take a deeper dive into transforming your life, check out my Empowerment Fundamentals course on my website, houseofgermar.com. Thank you, and I will see you next week with another inspiring guest.