Why We’re Treating Symptoms Instead of People with Dr. Karyn Shanks

What if the way we’ve been taught to think about health is incomplete?

In this conversation, Dr. Karyn Shanks shares a different lens on healing. One that moves beyond symptoms, diagnoses, and quick fixes… and instead looks at the whole person.

We talk about why so many people feel like they’re slipping through the cracks of the medical system, how our stories hold more insight than we’ve been taught to believe, and what it actually looks like to start listening to your body in a meaningful way.

This isn’t about rejecting conventional medicine. It’s about expanding the way we think about health, healing, and what’s actually possible when we zoom out.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

• Why so many people feel unseen in traditional healthcare
• The difference between treating symptoms and understanding the whole person
• The role your personal story plays in your health
• Why healing isn’t just physical
• How to begin building a relationship with your body
• The power of slowing down and actually listening
• Why the future of health may look more collaborative than we think

About Dr. Karyn Shanks

Dr. Karyn Shanks is a physician, speaker, and thought leader who brings together decades of experience in conventional medicine with a whole-person, integrative approach to healing.

She is board-certified in internal medicine and functional medicine, a founding diplomat of the American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine, and trained in trauma-informed psychotherapy.

• Book: Unbroken: Reclaim Your Wholeness
• Website: https://karynshanksmd.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/karynshanksmd

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Transcript

Why We’re Treating Symptoms Instead of People with Dr. Karyn Shanks

A Beautiful Fix

Most of my clients come with chronic complex illness, and they have slipped through the cracks of conventional medicine.

Nobody's looking at them as a whole person.

And most of the time, it's not rocket science. It's just somebody letting them tell their whole story. And it's often really, really simple.

That's how broken the system is. So I should not have a job. I should not have a job.

Welcome to a Beautiful Fix. I'm Tracy Hill. Each week we'll dive into the latest Thought Gem recharging and reconnecting with what lights you up and makes you feel alive. Let's discover your next beautiful fix together.

Hey, real quick before we dive in, you're powerful and sometimes you just need someone to remind you what's already in you. That's what human design does. It's the difference between guessing and knowing so you can stop searching outside yourself and start trusting the answers within. I promise you, they're there.

Grab your free chart@abeautifulfix.com and when you're ready to go deeper, book a one-to-one session with me. Alright, let's get into the episode.

Today I'm really honored to welcome Dr. Karen Shanks to a beautiful fix. Dr. Shanks is a physician, speaker, and thought leader who has spent decades inside the medical system and through that experience, she began asking a deeper question. What if the problem isn't that we're broken? What if the lens we've been given to understand ourselves is she's a graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

She's board certified in both internal medicine and functional medicine, and a founding diplomat of American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine. She's also trained in trauma-informed psychotherapy. Her new book, unbroken Reclaim Your Wholeness Challenges the cultural narrative that says we are fundamentally flawed and need to be fixed.

Instead, she offers a framework that restores agency compassion and connection. Not just treating symptoms, but rethinking the entire story we've been told about suffering. And healing. She's been featured in Forbes, psychology Today and Thrive Global, and she brings this powerful blend of medical training and whole person awareness that so many of us are craving.

Dr. Karen Shanks, welcome to a Beautiful Fix. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I cannot be any more excited for this because I just wanna set the tone for this conversation a little bit. I'm just personally so excited because this conversation, it's going to be about a topic that I ruminate on often.

I, um, I love the medical system, you know, for acute care, for emergencies, for lifesaving intervention. Like I'm, I'm all for it, but when it comes to more like preventative care or lifestyle or diet or stress or nervous system regulation, it just, it often just feels like something is missing and. I love your message about wisdom is within, so I don't, are you familiar with human design?

Yes. Okay. So I worked, yeah, I, a friend who's a very devoted, so I learned about it somewhat from her. And then as I was listening to your podcast, that got me curious, so I did another little look at what it entails. One, do you happen to know what your type is? Um, you know, I did it. I don't remember because I haven't really like Yeah, that's fine.

Do it yet. Yes. Well, well, no, the reason why I bring it up is because when I work with women, human design, it's an energetic. It's an energetic map. It's like a map of your energy. It's how you're uniquely designed to move through the world, interact with others, how you can make decisions that are in alignment with your energy, just so that you flow.

There's you, you move with your energy instead of against it. But one of the things that I'm trying to impress upon women is to trust. The answers are within. Our body is constantly talking to us. We just need to trust it and honor it. But from your lens, I love that you are looking at healing from this perspective as well.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I, I would just, I'd love to just start here. Um, what shifted for you? You were fully trained inside of this system. You practiced medicine. What began to kind of fill off? It really fell off from pretty close to the beginning of my medical training, but I didn't have the words to describe that.

Just gnawing discomfort and huge disappointment that I felt inside my body. Um, and I, and I think that to a certain degree, I was even kind of ashamed of it. It was like, what is wrong with me that I just, I don't fit here. Like, this is not what I expected from medicine. I don't know that I can be this kind of me medical practitioner.

Um, we're, we're not a fit yet. You know, there something like kept me going. Like I, I knew that I needed to complete this training even though I was miserable in it. I did not feel aligned in it. I did not feel it was what I was going to do, but it did, it turned out to be. Fundamental to my evolution because I really needed to immerse myself in this worldview, this medicine that, um, I was being trained in, indoctrinated into, um, in order to eventually understand what it did well and what it wasn't doing well, and why I was uncomfortable with it, and what did, what did I, what was that sense of misalignment really all about?

Um, and once I got into practice, after completing my a residency in internal medicine, I was f really confronted with the mismatch between how I was trained to see not just, not only how to see people, how to categorize their symptoms, how to be a diagnostician, and how to, you know, uh, provide protocols for addressing their symptoms.

Um. But, uh, there, there was just a foundational mismatch, and I had to start all over. I, that was truly the beginning of my training because that's when I, um, was presented with real people, with real problems, with real aspirations, with the totality of their lives and how all that played into what they were really searching for in their health, their, their healing.

And, um, yeah, that, that was the, that was the beginning for me. Retraining, looking at other ways, you know, and, and letting my, my, um, patients sort of guide me in that process about what, what it was I needed to learn, what would best serve them. And I really listened to them. I wanted to be in alignment with, with them.

Um, you know, uh, and I, I, I feel like I intuitively got that that was the most important aspect of entering a relationship. With a client as a physician that I was, I needed to be in alignment with how they defined their health, how they defined their purpose, and let that guide everything, if that makes sense.

And it absolutely does. And I'm just curious, what was it initially that just felt off, like when you were being trained and you were learning about the medical profession, was there something in particular, one thing that was just, or was it as in a, you know, completely the entire thing felt off? When I entered medical school, I had this notion, I had a, uh, my previous experience had been in nursing.

I did a lot of home nursing, hospice, nursing, where I was immersed in people's lives. And it was the relationship and between me and them and their families, that was really, that was the most important part of the healing process. Even if, if people were dying, there was a healing process involved. Sure.

And I went into medical school, school with this very naive notion that that was the, that was the crux of what medicine would be all about. Relationship. And then we'd fill it in with beautiful science, the human sciences, systems, biology, how it all really works. And that there'd be this like alchemy of all this.

And then I, and then I'd be a healer. Yes. But what happened is, you know, the first year of medical school, um, and I think this is largely how it is today, first year of medical school, we immerse ourselves in all those sciences, biology, human biology, physiology, cell biology. So fascinating. So interesting, so miraculous to, to learn how complex and dynamic we are.

But then as soon as we hit second year, it was like, boom. That was all left behind. We started learning diseases. What's the name of the disease? What are the signs and symptoms? What does it look like under the microscope? What are the drugs that we use to address this problem? Um, and, and we never looked back.

We didn't, we didn't like think through, oh, this pa, this person is fatigued. What does that mean? How do we look at that in terms of their systems biology and their unique life? No, we didn't do that. And it was so jarring and confusing, and I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't have the words for it back then.

But now I understand it that medicine is a very particular point of view about what makes a human. And it is a very, it offers a very particular construct of how to look at their problems. And address fixes. So you talk about a cultural lens that sees humans as broken, but what, what does that actually look like in everyday medicine viewing humans as as broken? I think that, um, the li the, the lens is that people are parts and the, the history of medicine, which w was born out of a time in our history that we call the scientific revolution, 16, 17 hundreds.

And because of the politics of that time, the body was, the body went to science and to medicine, and the mind and the spirit went to the church. So there was the. Separation. And a man named Renee Decar, who was a very famous philosopher, mathematician, physicist that most people have at least heard of, said, said that those things are separate and that the body is, um, defined by the laws of physics and behaves according to the laws of physics.

So that's how we have to look at it. Not that it has any connection whatsoever to the intangibles of the human mind and spirit. So they were separated and our medicine today was founded on that basic premise. And, um, medical science evolved from that understanding. And that's how we're still looked at today as parts and problems that need to be fixed rather than this whole dynamic integrated.

Multifaceted system of mind, body, spirit experiences, you know, that we really are, but our culture is, is, uh, framed on this other understanding that we're all these distinct parts, and you can see it in our language. We don't have words really that connect all those parts. We can say, oh, the, there are many parts that are connected, but we use a lot of words to put that idea together.

We don't have a word, you know? Yes, it's maybe self, but you know, everybody has their own idea about what self actually even means. And everyone's a specialist. When you have a medical need, you go to a specialist who focuses on one part of the body and then you go to another specialist for another part.

But we are whole, we're a whole human being. That's right. That's actually, that's exactly right. So even though we focus on the body as a machine and the, uh, the, the body and its, you know, biological, uh, uh, function and its structure, we don't even look at that part as a whole system. You're right. So we go to the cardiologist who looks at just the heart, and we look at, we go to the gastroenterologist who looks at just the GI tract.

But that is a, that's an incredibly, it's a convenient way for the physician and a, and an institution to look at the, the, the person. Because then you know, it, we can have this system of specialists, um, but it really doesn't make sense from the perspective of what people actually are. And you can't, you can't consider the gut and what it needs without considering every, ever, every other part of the human system and what it needs because they're so, they're so interconnected.

Everything is, everything is, and you talk in, in your book a lot about upstream and downstream and you know, when you're focusing on one organ, one part of the body or one thing that's more downstream, but you need to really go upstream and determine, okay, great. So your heart, you're having heart disease.

Right? But if we go upstream, then what caused that? And, and you, in your book, you talk about how you continue to go upstream. You keep winding the lens, you keep zooming out, right. To really get to the point and it. And the one example that you use with, you know, cardiovascular disease is that it comes back to systemic inflammation, which it just seems like everything seems to start there.

Yeah, absolutely. But that's not how it's looked at because now it gets to be a complicated issue. So that's not, uh, that it's no longer time efficient. 'cause we have to spend more time in order to look at people through that more upstream lens, right? Yes. Um, and, uh, yeah, and, and somehow our system's so broken in so many ways and, uh, part of it is that we are now, you know, we started out with this narrative of being many parts missed many problems, but now our system is so complex from a financial perspective, from a, you know, technological perspective.

It's really hard to, to step back and creatively redesign things. So that we can look at people through a, that wider lens, through that deeper understanding that would help them the most and the most efficiently, the most cost effectively. Right. If we looked at people as whole in the first place, that upfront investment of time and resources and understanding would pay dividends.

Right. It would absolutely pay dividends. It's just not, it's not how, you know, corporate America, whether it's in medicine or anywhere else operates, right? No. We have to, we have to show, we gotta show some kind of positive bottom line to the investors right now. And what does that do to a person? Oh, I'm sorry.

Can you, I, I was just gonna say, we need to breathe. We need to breathe. What, what is that? Looking through that lens due to a person? Gosh, it, it diminishes them. It frustrates them, it gaslights them. They know there's more, people know there's more to the story. They know they walk away and still suffer and are still vulnerable.

They know it, yet they're told this is the way, the way, right. Yeah. This is, this is the glorious fix. And so one of the things that you do now, is it functional medicine that you offer? Uh, I, yeah. Functional medicine is the basis of what I do, which is basically a whole person approach. Okay. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was gonna ask if you could explain that a little bit for listeners who maybe haven't even heard of that term.

'cause I started hearing about functional medicine maybe like five years ago. I'd never really heard of it. It was extremely interested in learning more, was ex extremely interested in finding a functional doctor. So I would love it if you could just kind of walk us through what, what does that mean exactly?

Yeah. So I call it whole person medicine. Um, a functional medicine pro. Maybe in retrospect it's not the best like phraseology that to capture what it actually is, but it looks at people as whole. So starting with the systems biology, um, 'cause most usually people come to us because there is something going on with their health, something that is out of balance.

Um, there's, uh, they're, they have, you know, distressing signs and symptoms that something's off, something's going wrong. Um. And we sort of set the diagnosis aside, which is an artificial kind of category construct that we use to organize signs and symptoms. But then we forget that that's what we're using it for and the person becomes the disease.

So we wanna set that aside and look at the very unique systems, biology of that particular human being, who's suffering. And then we wanna look at how that systems biology is by being influenced by everything else around it. Um, the environment, um, lifestyle factors, you know, sleep and nutrition and, and so on.

Relationships, um, stories they might be telling themselves that are, that are limiting or are you're not adaptive in some way. Um, negative energy that's affecting them. Um, uh. Everything. There's a huge, what I call terrain of what it is to be a human. All the human experiences, um, they all affect us on a biological level.

They shift our genetic expression. They, they really make us who we are. So everything needs to be looked at and not everything all at once. Um, that can be overwhelming, but usually when working with a client, we can kind of figure out where the hot spots are, where the high priority spots are, where, where are some of those most upstream factors that we, if we address them up here, we'll trickle down to solve a multitude of, of problems.

So that in a nutshell is what functional medicine is supposed to be. And with functional medicine, do you always start with like, um, a battery of tests where you do blood work so you can understand kind of what's going on with the individual? Yeah. Well, uh, we really start with the story. Okay, so we start with the story because, and as, as the client is telling in their own words, because it there, that's where the gold is.

That's, they say, and I think this has actually been shown in some scientific studies that we can find the key components that answer the question of what is, what's wrong in the story. Without any fancy tests, without any lab tests, without any technology, the vast majority of the time, it's in the story.

That said, lab tests are fantastic. So yeah, I, I usually, I begin with the story, an initial encounter. We, we talk for sometimes several hours. I look, I dig through all their, uh, medical records, and then we order a battery of tests. To give us more information about this unique human and what may be uniquely going on in their biology that gives us clues about what's going on today.

So Karen, let's go back to the story, because the story is a big part of what you talk about in your book. And I would love for you to, you know, kind of explain to people what do you mean by the story? Because you mentioned in the book that, um, which, you know, we have stories, but disease is a story, a diagnosis is a story.

So can you, um, help us understand a little bit more about what do you mean by you start with their story? Well, first of all with stories. I mean, that's how the brain kind of packages information, right? It tells, it tells a story about it. We learn, we learn stories from our parents and our communities as we're growing up.

Here's how, what it is to be a human being. And you know, it defines everything. And then, you know, everything we think we understand and what we believe and how we've put together our, all of our experiences involves some kind of story that we tell about them. When I'm talking about telling the story as a client, as somebody who suffers, who we wanna begin this process of unraveling what's going on and what does this person need.

It's the telling of the story of that personal experience in one's own words as one has experienced it. And also telling the story of, you know, where they wanna go, what their goals are, what, how they, um, how they understand, um, uh, human healing and where they want to end up. Because one that gives us so much information about.

What supports them and, and helps them feel safe, but also what might not be working, what might be limiting them, the way they understand and have been taught to think about things. Um, so it gives us all kinds of, um, potential inroads to them and their lived experience and what we can do to help them feel better and help them reach whatever state of health they're interested in.

And I say it that way because it really is about how the individual defines their own healing, which I can't do for them. And I, I may have, I can come into a encounter with a client and have my own aspirations for where I'd like to see them go. You know, like, oh, your potential's so unlimited, and we can, the people really need, I think, to it's part of staying safe.

They need to define like the next goal. Which may lead to a further goal, but there's, it's like we can only take on so much, especially when we're suffering and we're vulnerable and we're learning, you know, maybe, maybe radical new ideas about what healing can be. Um, it can be very unsettling, it can be scary.

Um, and I think it's really important for people to chart their own course and set their own pace in the, in the healing process. Yes. So do you also believe that there's a lot of power to that story? I know it's informational. Someone comes in and they tell you their story and it gives you a lot of insight into who they are.

But is there also just power behind those words that they're telling themselves, that they're hearing from their own mind or from their doctors or their family? Is that part of it as well? Just understanding the power behind our thoughts and our words and what we believe and what we're telling ourselves.

Absolutely. One, the power that those. Uh, that the story can have to both support us and limit us, but also putting all the elements of the story together. Like they'll, they tell their story and then one of the thing, the first thing I do is I tell that story back and I tell that story back first in as I directly heard it, to make sure I heard it correctly.

And then I tell the story back in terms of how I see all the elements of the story they've told, how I see that coming together and connecting as perhaps an even like hi, uh, not higher as in better, but a more sort of cohesive story about what may be going on. Like connecting dots that they may not have thought to connect, like they do a timeline for me.

Birth to present all major life events and health events. And in that process, they begin to see how health experiences often followed right. On the heels of something devastating or some major stress. And they begin to kind of connect those dots, that those are all connected. And then that gives us insight into directions we can go that they may have never thought of before.

So it is power. It's very, it's, it's that kind of knowledge is incredibly powerful for people and empowering. It helps them like they feel hopeful for the first time in a long time. Yes. And that, yeah, that's incredibly powerful. And I'm curious, how is functional medicine perceived within the medical industry?

Is it embraced or are you guys a little bit of an outlier to the, to the rest of the medical industry? I. We are outliers. I've heard outright, um, criticism and condemnation, um, from like well-known influencer con, uh, physicians in the more conventional space. Um, I've heard them say things about functional medicine that shows me how they, how, how they misunderstand it.

Um, conventional medicine is, it is, um, the narratives within it are so tightly held to by the institution and the individuals within the institution. It's a hard nut to crack. I think it's growing though, I think, and I've, I, you know, I've never received backlash from any of my conventional colleagues. If anything, what I've, what I've heard is how grateful they are that I take the time.

To do what they don't have the time to do and what they often don't have the interest to do. Okay, good. Someone's looking at the whole person here. Um, so I think there are doors that are opening and I think, um, people on both sides are beginning to see how we can come, we can merge, we can come together.

More hospitals have functional medicine departments. So the more complex people or the people who are really only interested in preventive care, they wanna, they wanna learn how they can really optimize their health and not just respond to, um, to problems as they come along. Um, so we we're seeing a growth.

We're definitely seeing a growth and functional medicine in terms of the practitioners who train in it, um, become certified in it has, has been growing since its inception 25 years ago. And my insurance friends are, are they starting to open up to the concept of functional medicine? It the, for the hospitals that I, well, you know, that's a really good question, and I don't have like the most up-to-date answer.

I would say for the most part, no, because they don't understand the necessity for spending time with people. They don't get that and they're not gonna pay for it. But there are, like, Cleveland Clinic has a, um, functional medicine department. Okay. I have no doubt they've worked out something with, but I don't know the detail with insurance.

I don't know the details of that, but, but I expect, I suspect that most people who use that department are coming in and, and they're, and there's either, um. A membership or there's, you know, it's fee for service, cash payments. Okay. Yeah. And so is the relationship like an either or relationship or is it an an and can someone be interested in learning more about the whole picture of their health and come to you and continue working with their doctor?

Or if someone receives a diagnosis that is very serious, can they, can this be complimentary to, you know, them working with their specialist? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, we need our specialists and we need this, we need a conventional Western medicine too is respond to our life threatening acute problems a hundred percent.

That it's a genius system for that. Yes, it's not good at everything. It's not good at the rest. So we're really a perfect fit and it should be a beautiful, harmonious, uh, fit. What has to change for this to become more mainstream? Where someone like me who would love to have a functional doctor and learn about preventative measures for health could go to them and it's covered by my insurance and my doctor.

You know, you guys are partnering together. Will we see that in my lifetime? Will we, do we think that the industry is moving in that direction? I feel so cynical when it comes to insurance companies really running the show. And about the bottom line, there are mul, their profits are in the multi trillions of dollars and they are largely unregulated.

It is the most bizarre. I mean, when you have billionaires in charge of things, the power and the influence and the connections there to maintain that structure so that they stay rich. It's, it's, it feels impossible. I know it's not, and I also hate to put all, all the responsibility on the shoulders of people.

Who want that kind of care, because so often they're sick and vulnerable and exhausted. And why should they be in charge of telling the gr a gr the great system of medicine, how it should be behaving. But I, but in, in fact, that may be the most powerful thing that can happen is that people do, they bring in, they create their team, they've got their specialists that they need, and they've got their functional medicine docs and other types of supportive healers.

And they do that because that's what they need. And they're, they're expressing their sense of agency about getting their needs met. Um, and over time, you know, it will be a, a undeniable force to be reckoned with, that there are all these people demanding this kind of care and that it will be profitable, particularly as it saves God probably billions of dollars long term if people are treated in this more preventative, uh, uh, way.

Uh, you know, but, uh, uh, we need corporations with financial models that are that insightful to look 10, 20, 30 years down the line. It's not how they operate. No. Which is unbelievable to me. It's like, I don't get, I really don't get that. So, Karen, why would someone come to you? Like, if someone's listening to this and thinking, this is interesting, I hadn't really heard about functional medicine.

I would like to look into it. Can anyone come to you, um, regardless of their health, or do you have to be primarily, well, to start with a functional doctor or maybe you have a little, uh, health issue. Could you come to someone, could someone who has a major diagnosis? Um, yes. That's, most of my clients come with chronic complex illness, often very serious illness, and they have slipped through the cracks of conventional medicine because of the way they're viewed.

Um. And because of the model in which that care is practiced, when there's, you know, not enough time and it's, there's all the specialists and they, nobody's looking at them as a whole person. No one's addressing, you know, their nutrition. Nobody's looking at their lifestyle factors that place so profoundly into why they're sick in the first place.

And most of the time, I call them chronic complex illness, but most of the time it's not rocket science. Most 99.9% of the time, it's just somebody letting them tell their whole story. Looking through all the, you know, the, the tests and such that have been amassed over the years and putting it together in a cohesive way.

And it's often really, really simple.

That's how bad, that's how broken the system is. So I should not have a job. I should not have a job. I also get an, uh, uh, I get folks though who they want. They just wanna thrive. Uh, they wanna optimize their health. They don't, they may have some, you know, vague issues. Um, everybody needs help with nervous system regulation these days.

Everybody's burnt out and exhausted and overwhelmed, you know, in some way. And, you know, and, and it hurts. And we all need help with that. I feel like that's the number one part of my job, is to be a container of safety and help people become that for themselves. 'cause that's where healing starts. Karen, I'm, I'm just smiling because I just was on a call about a week ago and I said.

And I'm not trained with nervous system regulation or any of that, but I said I feel like one of the number one things that people need to focus on is regulating their nervous system. Like I, I'm gonna hang my hat on it. I think yes, most of us, and you talk about a lot in your book, just need to feel safe.

And I think we think of like someone lurking outside of our house kind of safe. Like it's not necessarily that there's so many different layers of what that might show up in your life when you don't feel safe. It could be procrastination, it could be, um, you know, not doing the thing that you need to do or, or, but I feel like if we could, we started our podcast today with just breathing exactly.

Just for, it just centers you, it makes you just present. It tells your body that you are safe. It's, it's amazing. So I that I just. I agree, but I did wanna ask you, going back to what if someone is on just a ton of medication, like they have been doing the traditional, conventional, you know, um, system, and they now have 10 to 20 different drugs that they take.

How does that work when they come to someone like you? Do you, can you wean them off of that? Do you work with them? I work with them and my, and my first, uh, strategy isn't to just rip people off their medications. So as medications are in place. For some kind of reason. Um, they may be providing protection, they may be providing some kind of symptom relief, which has been important to the person.

If there are medications that are just absolutely unnecessary, are causing more harm than good, that would be more of a priority to get off of those. But, you know, slowly as we address root causes and upstream causes, um, people don't, don't need a lot of their medications anymore. And it doesn't mean they won't be on any, I mean, sometimes when somebody's had, for instance, uh, uh, thyroid autoimmune thyroid disorder for a long period of time, they really don't have a lot of viable thyroid left.

So they're gonna need to be on thyroid hormone. Likewise women, women and perimenopause and menopause benefit hugely from hormone replacement therapy. And we could say those are drugs, or we could just say that's, those are hormones and this is hormone replacement therapy. And this is really supporting every part of us.

It is. And it's part of our, part of our, the safe, our safety wisdom has to do with hormones in the interplay of hormones, in our, our neurological biological safety, um, impulses. So, um, I, those are example, those are just a few examples of when long-term medications are really powerful and supportive. Can you talk about in your book the Beauty in Illness that, um, you know.

It, it could be a calling in life. It's not necessarily this time. It's gonna be a quick fix, but it, it ends up creating a change in your life that is more lasting. Can you talk a little bit about that? It's such a common experience, and it's not something I would ever say to somebody upfront when they're suffering because nobody wants to hear that this is purposeful when they're hurting.

Um, but in the process of healing, of learning, of making the connections between life experiences and past traumas with present illness and dysfunction, and gradually learning what one needs to heal and then really be beginning to experience that in their lives, I, I just, I seldom have anyone that who doesn't say, this has been the best thing that ever happened to me.

This was. So horrifying and painful. It caused me so much suffering, whether it was cancer or an autoimmune illness or, or whatever. But I have learned so much, and I am in a place now that I never imagined was even possible. Um, I'm a completely different person. I have a different perspective. Um, I hear that all the time, and I can say that myself.

Same. Same with me. I have four sons, three of them, uh, were born with life-threatening food allergies, uh, which the doctor said We'll turn into asthma, which, you know, eczema, like the whole thing. And that was really tough for me because. I used to, you know, as a little girl, something would be wrong. I'd go, they'd give me the pink bottle of, of medicine that tasted like candy.

I loved it. In 10 days it was all gone, right? And when my sons were diagnosed with these things, I was like, great, well where's the pink bottle of stuff that will take this away? And they're like, oh, no, no. This is chronic. They will have this forever for the rest of their life. You know? And it just, that story was, was put on us.

But I will say, going through that journey of all of their different allergies, I, the way I ate, the way I was used to, to food had to completely shift. I didn't know how can you cook without milk, without cows milk? Back then it just seemed so foreign. And now I'm in this world of, you know, all these alternatives.

So there, there can be, when you step back a little bit of a gift to these things. But I know it can be hard to hear when you're first getting that diagnosis. Absolutely. And sometime the gift is profound. You know, you, 'cause you, you know, you have to learn things like. I need to pay more attention to myself.

I need to create more space. I need to, I need more quiet, I need more rest. I need to sleep more. And those are really hard things to try to fit into a life, right? They're hard things. Yes. It's, it's hard to be at rest and be quiet when we're trained that what we do is what gives us our value. So it's wildly uncomfortable sometimes to, it just feels so antithetical to how we were trained.

Um, but once we get comfortable with that, we realize that it opens up the whole world to us and hope opens up our, our own wisdom. Uh, uh, those are miraculous things to, to learn about. Yes. And how do we, how do we restore personal agency without slipping into self-blame? You know, on one spectrum, it's wonderful to think that you can heal yourself and that the wisdom's within, and you have a say in this and you're in control.

But the other side of that, when you're first being diagnosed or you're going through an illness, it can feel almost like weight and pressure. You know, I, I have to figure this out. Versus just going to someone and saying, listen, fix me, help me. So what would you say to that? That is really, that is like.

Such an interesting thing to think about. 'cause that's so true. It's like, yeah, a agency sounds great. Right? We, I, we acknowledge our own needs. We identify our needs. We honor them, we value them, and then we go out into the world and we ask for what we need. That sounds so simple, so great, so empowered. But you, you're right.

When, when we're sick, when we're vulnerable, we're so much more apt to, like, that just feels like total freaking pressure. Totally. Or, or we become so vigilant, so hypervigilant. Like we, we create this space of like danger within our own bodies because we're always awake, always on the alert, always trying to control everything.

Right. So there, those are the dangers. So it, it's, I think like when I'm working with people. I'm so, well, I'm well aware. I, me, I mess this up all the time, but I am very aware of how important this is. But it's to sort of just gently, um, I was gonna say gently coax agency, but it's more like gently suggesting agency or waiting until they come up with it on their own and it just like, wow, look what you just look what you just did.

'cause people will get there without being hit over the head with it. So that, that is such a good point. You know, and I think the ideal situation is a partnership because when I was that young mom with four boys, three of them with these allergies, my whole world turned upside down. I was so stressed, I, um, accepted, you know, the diagnosis and I understood that it was gonna be chronic, but I just dove into every book I could read.

Um, I had ointments and tinctures and tea baths and, you know, it was stressful and I felt very alone because when I would go to the doctor, they would only talk to me about their world from their point of view, their perspective. And anything that I was bringing in about natural remedies or diets, it was just like me.

So I would go home and felt so alone. So to me, the perfect situation is a partnership where I can partner with my doctor, respect what they're telling me. They know way more than me, but then I'm bringing a piece of it that, you know, I have learned or that I'm curious about, or here's what I have been finding from my lived experience and we work together versus it being an extreme of one or the other.

100%. And that's a really good example of what I call medical gas lighting, where they, where the doctor who's practicing evidence-based medicine, meaning. It's been, it's based on a question that was asked in a, in a scientific way and has become a part of the scientific literature. The outcome, uh, has been, become part of the scientific literature.

Well, we haven't asked all the questions yet, and, and so science is limited based on what it's actually looked at, the questions that have been asked and not asked. But as you say, you're the expert on you and your little boys, a hundred percent. So to be told, or, or even just to have it dismissed or just have no response, when you bring up the things you've learned, um, that's gaslighting and that's the arrogance of me of medicine.

That's the arrogance of many lots of institutions who think they have the kind of the corner on their, uh, particular type of expertise. And to some degree I understand it, they go to school for such a long time. They're these brilliant minds. I understand that I'm this mom who comes in and this has been my world for 10 minutes.

Um, so I, so I get that. But then when you understand that, you know, nutrition is something that they maybe take one course in, you know, you can start to see the limitations. And I'm surprised at this point that they don't even see the limitations in their own industry. Um, correct. But may maybe we'll get there.

You're right. Nutrition is still, if, if there's a course, which, yes, if nutrition is the, literally the building blocks of all the infinitesimal number of chemical reactions going on in our body at all times, it should be like, we should spend years studying nutrition. Right. But we don't. When my mother-in-law who passed, it'll be two years in March from cancer, I was taking her to her appointments, um, at the University of Chicago.

And toward the end I was taking her to her appointments and I would get so frustrated listening to her doctors, but I held my mouth because I didn't, I was there for her and I wanted to be her support and she had this wonderful relationship with her doctors and they were this amazing staff and I would just sit there.

But I remember at one point asking them about diet. You know, is there just anything She was, you know, she had lung cancer. Is there anything that is really supportive of the lungs where while she's going through these treatments, maybe it's helping them, it's just good food to bring them back? Or the reverse, is there anything that she should not be eating that, you know, cancer loves?

Like we've always heard about sugar, this doctor. Looked at me with so much irritation and anger and disgust and because I said, you know, should she be starving the sugar? And she turned to my, my mother-in-law and said, don't you starve yourself. You need nutrition. And that's not what I was saying. Of course, I wasn't suggesting to starve herself.

I was saying, should she create an environment in her body that is not conducive to cancer? That's all I was trying to get. But she was like, you eat what you want. And she shut me down and moved on. I know. I'm sorry that I hear those stories all the time and it never fails to just make me sigh. You know?

It's like, that's just pure arrogance, you know? And it's, there's no justification for it. Um, it may not be in her skillset, but you know what? She could admit that, oh, you know, those are really good questions. That's not in my skillset, but here's. You know, here's someone who might be able to help you with that.

Absolutely. So, so how does someone tap into their inner healer? Who knows what to do? What does that look like? Good. Yeah, that's a really beautiful question. And it, it's somehow creating the space for listening, creating the space, for feeling for, you know, what does my body do when I'm faced with this question?

Um, if one's pondering a question, for instance, how does it feel in my body? Is it, does it feel like a yes or a no? Or I, one person I heard, uh, a, a life coach, uh, frame it as do I feel a, a warmth? Do I feel cold? Do I feel a little spark? Do I feel a little shut down? The body speaks in really, um. Sometimes in really subtle ways, or maybe they're not so subtle, but we're just su we're, we're not trained, we're not taught in our culture to pay attention to what our body is saying.

We're not taught our, our body has a language at all. Right? That's right. We, our, our brains have language, our brain, so this is where we're focused up here, but we're not taught about the body and its gut feelings, its instincts, its intuitions, and just the, the sensations that it's having all the time.

We're disconnected from that, and that's a huge part of how we're disconnected from ourselves, which I think in part relates back to that whole cultural narrative of here's the body over here in the mind spirit. All the intangibles of being a human are over here and the body's more important. And what's physically true is more important.

What can be proved by science is more important. Which is I think, the bias in our culture. Um, and we lose touch with our body. So it's beginning to tap in, beginning to just be present with the body. Um, and I think it's, we can do that in a variety of different ways. For some people it might be sitting in meditation and just being quiet.

It might be journaling and exploring the thoughts and kind of putting words to those sensations and feelings. For others, it's, uh, walking or, you know, working out or puttering, being creative, creating something. Um, I love to like decorate my house and like even little ways, like rearranging plants and things.

Mm-hmm. And it, it gets me in my flow. So whatever can get people in their flow, especially if it's kind of a, if it's a joyful flow, I think as a way words can pop out, answers can pop out. Uh, clarity around, you know, what one is feeling and experiencing can pop out. So there's no like. Single recipe for exploring that.

But you do have to create some kind of container to and, and intention to receive those messages of wisdom. Yes. And it might help to have guidance, like have a coach or a therapist who, you know, helps you with that. Yes. It's like learning a whole new language. It it, it, and that's what I, when I guide women through their human design, that's what I tell them, that this is a whole new way of looking at your world.

We have not been taught to think about ourselves. We know that we're energy, everything's energy, but we don't think about our energy. So I, I always ask them to explore and experiment with it. 'cause it's not gonna be instant. Our bodies are always talking to us, but we have to get still and honor that because a lot of times we'll dismiss it.

Like I had this gut reaction, but we don't give it the same weight as what our mind is telling us. Right. And I'm saying, lead with your body. Right. Let's drop out of this mind thing and lead from your body. Yes, I agree with you. And, and it may also take a lot of time to Yes. Cultivate that relationship.

That's okay. I I, I'm gonna give it all the time it needs because that's what I trust. This is who I am. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Well, before we go into our speed, Ron, I'm just curious, is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to share? Or is there one message that you really want our friends listening to hear today?

What would I like you all to know that we haven't directly talked about yet? Oh, just, you know, if you're struggling, struggling, and you have the slightest inkling or impulse or understanding that there's more to be had to support you, I just want you to trust that and ask, ask your body. What your one, Nick, what, what do I need to know?

What do I need to do? I like to write that down in my journal, put a period next to it, and then close the book, set it so it gets, it's been dropped in the question and I set it aside. Um, sometimes the answer comes fairly, very quickly. Sometimes it pops up, pops up at unexpected times. I love that advice.

So, um, I do remember that reading in your book that you were saying when you asked those questions. Um, to give it time. It, it might answer you immediately, but probably it won't. But give it time and see what shows up, what kind of answers you do receive. You know, I think that's so important for us to start thinking of, of having this relationship with ourselves, with our body in this way.

And why would our body trust us to give an answer if we've never paid attention to it for crying out loud. Yes. So keep asking and build that trust. 'cause I, that is a real tangible thing. I've experienced it in myself, you know, so just keep building that relationship. Come in and ask, and ask, what do you need?

You know, what do you need? What can I do? What can I do for you? Absolutely. It's almost like we have to start dating ourselves again. You know, we've been mistreating ourselves a little bit, you know? Hundred percent. It's. It's been talking to us. We've been ignoring it. We have some making up to do. We have to let them know, listen, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna start listening to you now.

And what I love to, to tell women is ex again, experiment with it. If your body lights up over something and tells you that this is what it needs or this is right for you, go do it and see how that turned out. Do your own little scientific study, did that work out well? What about if your body tells you, no, I don't.

And you do it anyway. Did that work out for you? Like start seeing it for yourself? How does it work? Right? That's right. Look at everything as a, as an experiment. Life school, I like to call it, it's all life stuff. Yeah. And sometimes we fall flat and we're wrong. We did the wrong thing and we knew it. Yes.

How did that work out? That's right. And learn and and make a different choice. Yes. Yeah. So what makes you come alive? Everything. I mean. Thinking and talking about what we're been talking about here. Um, yes, being out in nature, watching the changes of the seasons, which is just starting to trickle in.

Right now I'm in Wisconsin. Um, so it's like the earliest little signs, the birds, a few little birds are coming in that aren't here during the winter. Um, uh, connecting with people on a real level, on a real genuine level, even if it's like the, the, the grocery clerk or you know what, whoever, and we have like maybe a two second few sentences of, but it's so authentic and real and it just, it feels so connecting.

Um, yeah, it's really the simple things like that, that make me come blind. It's the simple. What about a song that instantly shifts your energy? I. You know, I thought about that and I, uh, 'cause I, you asked that on your, you asked that on your previous podcast and I like, you know, it can, there are so many. I know.

And you know, like, uh, uh, Kendrick Lamar comes on in the gym out and he's like so authentic, right? His vibe. Yes. So authentic. And I like God, I love this guy and his poetry. It could be the oldies, like, you know, uh, journey Heart Foreigner. Oh God. You know, all the goodies, right? So, yes. Yeah. I mean, I can't, I cannot even pick out one song.

I get it. It music is so powerful. Yes. It's what what about a book that cracked you open? Um, right now I'm reading the Jean Keys. Stop it. It's so powerful. And I'd like, I just read like one chapter at a time. Usually at the end of my meditation I feel like I'm downloading something and, and I am, and sometimes I don't understand what he is saying, but I, the frequency of it is so powerful that I just let the words walk over me and I know I'll read it again, but I, okay, so now, now you're just flirting with me, Karen, this?

Yes. Oh yeah. The gene keys. The gene keys is the, like the cousin to human design. I was wondering, they're one in the same. So in human design we have what we call gates, but they are called gene keys. And he goes much, much deeper into those gene keys. And yes, when you read the gene keys, it can be very heavy and, but that's why he has something called contemplation.

He believes in just sitting with this and contemplating and thinking about it because it tells you about. What the beauty of the Jean Keys is, is they're levels to us. There are shadows. When I first learned about my human design or my jean keys, I was in the shadow of my chart completely. I was completely out of alignment with my energy, and I could see that's me.

I'm living there. But the beauty of that is then I can see where if I just get an alignment and work with my energy, I can go to the gift. And then you can see what the gift is. And then they have the city level, which is like, almost like enlightenment, but it shows you the potentiality to your life of where you can go.

You can go from your shadows to, you know, to your gift to, to that the ultimate. So, and we, oh gosh. Back and forth, right. Where you can move back and forth. Yes. 'cause we're human. Um, we're human, but his language is so exquisitely beautiful. Yes. And sometimes I'll, I'll read a passage and I'll be like, oh my God, that is exactly what I'm working on right now.

Or this is my life, you know? Um, and other of others of them, I don't relate to quite as strongly though. My body never rejects any of it. It's like all beautiful. So that's, I love. And, and, and, and there's no good or bad in any of this. It's just all information. It's, that's right. Well, it's human evolution.

Yeah. We, we, later on, you're gonna have to let me know what your human design is. I'm just gonna ha I just have to know at this point. You know, I actually, I I, well, I was on your website and I, and it gave me the info and did I take a screenshot of it? I'd love to know. I, it's killing me. I thought I took a screenshot, but you know what?

I'll send it to you. How about that? Yes, it'll be interesting. Can you guess what, what I am? Is that something, you know, like an astrology You can say, I think they're a, a Leo's sun with a Pisces Rising or something. Yes. Sometimes I can, sometimes I will ask for someone short 'cause I kind of fill it. I don't know if I, um, would know for sure the, the type.

Um, but. It, it'll, it'll, it'll be interesting for you. I will definitely circle back with you. Um, yeah. I can't get you to, I can't get you to guess or, that's all right. If I had one, if there was something that was coming to me. You know what though, I will say this. You're probably a generator of some sort, because 70% of the population are generators.

So most people that I do sessions with, they're either a generator or in generator. Um, but we'll see. What about your favorite indulgence? Indulgence? Yes. Wow. I think my favorite indulgence that I indulge in regularly is I just sit, like I, I have a little meditation chair sitting by these big windows, looking out over the prairie and a, uh, old oak trees.

And I, I, uh, I kind of let go of the structure that I thought my meditation would take, and I just stare. I had my dog in my lap who I'm just petting and he's purring, and I, um, I just. I just, yeah. I just lose myself over the prairie. I see the hawks flying. Yes. We see the deer go by. Yes. That is a, that is like an indul, a beautiful indulgence that I need.

I love that. What's one thing that always reminds you how beautiful life really is? Well, again, I, I that, I think that brings me back to nature. I could also say my children. I could say my dogs, but nature is so perfect. Yes. And this morning, it's the end of February. It should be like still the, like, so wintry at my bird bath fountain, which is flowing.

I try to keep it flowing through the winter Hard work. Uh, yeah. Um, there were blue birds then came in a big flock of robins. Started, started bathing. Like six robins are in there bathing. Then the, um, cedar wax wings. And I'm like, what are you guys doing here? What are you, I'm so glad you're here. Yes. Well, the weather's been so odd that they're probably all thrown off.

I, I'm telling you, birds are incredibly underrated. I became a bird person back in 2020 when I left my corporate career. I just would sit in my backyard and stare at them and really get to know which ones are there and showing up. And I did the whole bird bath. I didn't know you could do it. Uh, I'm in northwest Indiana, so I'm, we're kind of the same climate.

Yeah. I didn't know you could do that. Uh, over the winter, this is a bird bath fountain, so it's moving. Yeah. But there, when it gets below, you know, if it gets into single digits, would it ha Yes. We have to like, add hot water to keep that, keep a, a, uh, space open for it. It's a lot, kind of a lot of work, but the birds come.

It's worth it. Yeah. Well, Karen, before we wrap. Where can people find you and follow your work and grab a copy of Unbroken. Unbroken is available at all the major retailers. It's in print, audio, and uh, ebook formats. I narrated the audio. That was a lot of work. Um, and my website is my hub, karen shanks md.com.

Perfect. We'll put that in the show notes. And, uh, the last thing is, this year I've started something new. It's a passing it forward, love chain. And so off air, I've started asking each guest to leave a love note for a future woman coming on the show. Just a little permission slip, a reminder, a piece of wisdom.

And the last guest that I interviewed, uh, Carrie Fabrice, who is a leadership coach, speaker and author who helps high achieving women rethink what's possible in both work and life. She wanted to share this. You have all of the answers within you. So trust your beautiful soul and the path it is wanting to put you on.

Beautiful. Perfect. I just, I was like, it's so perfect. That's beautiful. We've, we've been talking about trusting ourselves in the wisdom within, and she didn't even know who she was sharing that with. Yeah. I love it, but it seems very, mm-hmm. So, to everyone listening, before you leave today, just consider this, what story have you accepted as fact and what might change if you asked a better question, if you believed a better story, or if you invited in some, some space for new answers to appear.

And, until next time, keep getting high on life one beautiful fix at a time. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to a Beautiful Fix. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a quick review to help others find us. And if you'd like to share your own beautiful fix or join me as a guest, reach out anytime at tracy@abeautifulfix.com. Looking forward to next time.