16: Mom's Health Care Compass - be the medicine woman of your family

You do not need an MD, a PhD, or a list of certifications to be the medicine woman of your family.

In this episode, I share a tender personal story that shaped my belief in maternal discernment, patient advocacy, and the importance of building a clear, intentional model of care inside your home.

EXPLORE

• why many holistic-minded women still feel disconnected from the medicine piece of holistic living 
• the difference between emergency medicine and long-term healing 
• how difficult it can be to step out of the allopathic cycle once you are in it 
• why being the medicine woman is not only intuition, but also organization, structure, and responsibility 
• how fear can disconnect a mother from her own knowing 
• the importance of household clarity around who leads, what is used first, and how your family responds in a health event 
• how to begin building your own internal compass with more confidence and less panic 

If this episode speaks to you, Mom’s Health Care Compass 📖 was made for you.

It is a guide to help you ask better questions, get more organized, strengthen your discernment, and feel more supported in the care of your children and yourself.

👉  CLICK HERE to get your guide now

When you purchase the Compass, you’ll also receive access to my private support space for women walking this path.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:09

What I have to say may sound radical. You do not need an MD, a DO, a PhD, an ND, a health coaching certification, or any other acronym after your name to become the medicine woman in your family. You can pursue those things if they truly call you. They do have a lot of value. They serve a purpose, but they are not required for you to become discerning, informed, devoted, and deeply responsible in the care of your children and yourself. I believe you likely carry far more wisdom than you have been conditioned to trust. I believe mothers carry innate wisdom, especially birth mothers, who are connected to their children in ways that are still beyond full explanation, and yet science has begun to reveal pieces of it. During pregnancy, there is a two-way exchange between mother and baby. Some of those cells can remain in the mother's body for years, even decades, and maternal cells can remain in offspring too. Science calls this microchimmerism. It does not explain intuition away, but it does remind you that your bond with your child is not imaginary. It is embodied, it is biological, and it is mysterious. So when I say that you may know more than you think you do, I really mean it. There is a connection, there is an intelligence, there is an inner knowing. And when you let yourself slow down enough to feel it and become curious enough to trust it, that is where your medicine begins. This episode is all about that. It is about reclaiming your role as the medicine woman of your family, and not in a performative way or trendy way or in a fantasy version of womanhood. I mean the real, grounded, modern, embodied way. The kind that asks, how do you care for yourself and your children? What do you reach for first? Who do you call? Who takes the lead? What do you trust? And what have you outsourced that maybe was never meant to be outsourced so quickly in the first place? Because this is where I see a major gap for many women who consider themselves holistic. You may shop the farmer's market, read labels, use cleaner products, thrift beautifully, care deeply about what comes into your home. You may even have a cabinet or more full of natural medicines. But when your child spikes a fever, starts vomiting, gets an earache, develops a strange rash, has a deep cough, or something unfamiliar happens, what do you trust first? Do you turn toward your own grounded discernment? Or do you immediately hand your authority over to a portal, a prescription, a lab, a stranger in a white coat, or even your own panic? This is not judgment. This is being said with such tenderness. It's being said by me, a woman who has lived it, who has been scared, who has second-guessed herself, and who has had to grow stronger, clearer, and more anchored because motherhood asked that of her. So I want to tell you why I feel so strongly about this, and I want to begin with a very tender story. My oldest got extremely sick when he was four and a half months old. He is now a strong, healthy, 16-year-old boy, so I want you to know that first. But at the time, I was a depleted new mother. I was under-supported in postpartum. My husband was in an intense season of entrepreneurship. Life was financially stressful. I was overwhelmed. I was likely dealing with undiagnosed postpartum depression. I was barely able to breastfeed, supplementing with formula, and trying to find my footing in a life that had changed faster than I could emotionally keep up with. And then my son got sick. He was not himself. And instead of listening to my own instincts, I was clouded by fear, by confusion, by other voices, by not knowing what to do, feeling alone, and by that awful state, I know so many women know well. When emotion overrides intelligence, we were trying to wait it out, trying to talk ourselves through it, trying to decide what was too much and what was enough and what was fear and what was intuition. But by day three, I knew he needed help fast. We had a homeopathic physician we trusted, and his office sent us immediately to the University of Michigan. When I arrived with my son, they brought us straight through, and I will never forget the sight of that room. So many white coats around his tiny body that I couldn't even see him anymore. That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I went into shock. I remember sitting there and thinking over and over. I cannot believe I am going to be a mother who loses her child. This is going to be my life story. That just kept repeating in me so much, and I didn't know how much time had passed. But then one of the doctors came to me and said something about how calm I was, and I looked at her, surprised, and said, I am in shock right now. I was stunned she didn't realize this either. So they could not get access to a vein. He was so dehydrated they needed to go into his bone marrow to get fluids into him. He then needed a blood transfusion. Later, while we were still in the hospital, I noticed one of his legs swelling. I kept bringing it up, and eventually they did an ultrasound and found a DVT, a deep vein thrombosis. And I want to pause here because this is one of the reasons I care so deeply about patient advocacy. I was the one who kept naming that something was off. This is not to say no one cared. It is to say gaps happen. And when you are the mother in crisis, you are not always in your clearest mind, which is exactly why advocacy matters. You need someone watching, noticing, and willing to keep asking. We stayed with him constantly. Then we were discharged with steroids and blood thinner injections to continue at home, and I had never done anything like that before. I was not familiar with injections, I was not steeped in allopathic protocols. I had to learn quickly because my child needed me to, and when we got home, I knew in my bones that emergency medicine had served its purpose, but that it was my job now to help guide what came next. I got him in with our nutrition response testing practitioner. I checked in with our homeopathic physician. I kept asking over and over, how do we get him off these medications? And what I kept hearing in different forms was, follow protocol. But the protocol was six months. Six months of injections for a baby who was only four and a half months old. And something in me could not settle into that. This is where I want to be very clear. I am not telling you to do what I did. I am telling you the truth of what I lived. I had to become more discerning, more responsible. I had to stop waiting for someone else to tell me exactly what to do. Because often they will not, not because they are evil, but because they have protocols, liability, training, systems, in a completely different framework than the mother standing in front of them. And I also want to name something that I think you may feel but may not have language for. Once anyone is fully engaged in the allopathic cycle of medicine and intervention, it can be very difficult, sometimes even feeling nearly impossible to get out of it with clarity, confidence, and peace. Because once you are in it, there is often another appointment, another prescription, another follow-up, another specialist, another lab, another layer of monitoring, another reason to stay in the cycle. And sometimes that cycle is necessary. It can be lifesaving. Other times, what begins as emergency support becomes a long tail of intervention that no one is helping you step back from? And that is where I believe you have to stay awake. That is where you have to keep asking, is this still helping? Is it still necessary? What is this treating? What is this disrupting? What are the side effects of staying on this path longer than necessary? Who is helping me look at the whole picture? Because if you do not ask, the system will often just keep going. That was one of the biggest turning points for me, realizing that no one was going to come crown me with confidence. No one was going to officially anoint me and say, now you may trust yourself, now you may lead, now you may ask better questions, now you may refuse what does not sit right. Now you may build a different model. I had to step over the threshold into it. So I began weaning him off the medications, and by day 10 he was done. I brought him to be checked every other day to our nutrition response testing practitioner. I watched him closely. I stayed deeply engaged. At the one-month mark, I insisted on another ultrasound. They did not want to do it at all, and I insisted anyway, and the ultrasound showed there was no DVT. None. It was gone. In less than four weeks, his DVT was gone, and they wanted him on injections and steroids for six months before they would even consider another ultrasound. That moment changed me forever. Not because it made me anti-doctor or arrogant or made me believe I know everything. It made me understand that you cannot abandon yourself inside a system. That experience became one of the reasons I so deeply believe you can shape how your family lives, how your family heals, what your family prioritizes, and what role medicine actually plays in your home. Because medicine is a huge part of holistic living, and I think many holistic-minded families are missing that piece. Natural medicine is not meant to be your last resort. It was designed to be used early, thoughtfully, and consistently, not only for after everything else has failed. That is one of the biggest flips in thinking I want to offer you. And this is why I created Mom's Healthcare Compass. I created it because I wanted you to have a guide, a framework, a way to think, to organize, to ask questions, to build confidence, and to stop outsourcing every ounce of your authority. Not so you never use conventional medicine, but so you know how to work in relationship with it. I do not believe these worlds have to be enemies. I believe modern health care and holistic care can complement one another beautifully when you know what each one is for and when you stop expecting one system to be everything. Emergency medicine has a place. Lifestyle medicine has a place. Nervous system regulation has a place, nutrition has a place, touch, prayer, rest, discernment, all have a place, and so do you. And I want to name something else before I go further, because if you're listening to this in a hard season, I want you to hear me. You are the chosen mother for your child. You are fully capable of handling whatever comes your way, even when you do not feel capable, even when you are in the why. Why my child? Why us? Why this story? Why now? I want to hold space for that. Let's welcome a pause. Breathe. Feel your body in the position you are in. Feel where your legs are landing on support or your feet on the ground. Breathe. Sometimes motherhood is not only nurturing. Sometimes it is initiation. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes it is research. Sometimes it is learning a whole new language. Sometimes it is becoming the advocate you never knew you would have to become. Sometimes it is shedding the version of yourself that thought life would look one way, and becoming the woman who can meet what is actually here. That is not failure. You are becoming. Our children often reorder our priorities. Your child interrupts the image, interrupts the plan, interrupts the illusion of control. And sometimes that disruption is sacred, not easy, not welcome at first, but sacred. Because anything can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time. No one is immune to accidents, no one is immune from illness, no one is immune from the reality that bodies are vulnerable and life is unpredictable. So the question becomes: how will you meet what comes? Will you collapse? Will you numb out? Will you blame yourself for others? Will you abandon yourself? Will you hand over your discernment too quickly? Or will you become the woman this chapter is asking you to be? This is where I feel so strongly that you do not need a wall of credentials to become wise in your family's care. You may choose credentials, you may love formal training, you may go deep into study, but you do not need those things to begin. Because what makes you the medicine woman of your family is not a title. It is that you observe, you pay attention, you track patterns, you know what is normal for your child. You ask questions, you prepare your home, you build trusted relationships intentionally. You stay calm enough to think when things get hard, and you do not hand over your authority too quickly. That is Medicine Woman energy in real life. Not aesthetic, not performance, practice. And I also want to name the cost of self-abandonment. Every time you override your own inner knowing without pausing to check it, you become a little more confused, a little less trusting of yourself, a little more dependent on outside noises. And I'm not saying your instinct is always right in every single moment. I'm saying your instinct deserves to be included. You deserve to stay in relationship with yourself, because fear makes women easier to control. A scared mother is more likely to hand over her power quickly. A grounded mother can listen, ask, discern, and choose. That is a very different energy. Now I want to tell you another story because it revealed something else that deeply matters. A few years ago, my family was on a flight, and the family behind us had two children, and the older child began having an allergic reaction. The father asked the flight attendants for an EpiPen, and they were scrambling. And as this was unfolding, the father began laying into the mother, blaming her. Why didn't you bring it? Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? What struck me was not only how painful it was to witness a woman being blamed in the middle of her child's medical moment in a quiet airplane in public, what struck me was this. The father was an ER physician, and yet in that moment, with all of his training, all of his credentials, all of his emergency medicine knowledge, he was not the calmest person on the plane. He was dysregulated, projecting, blaming, disconnected from what his wife and child needed most at that moment. And that story has stayed with me because it showed so clearly that medical training does not automatically equal family leadership, nervous system steadiness, relational intelligence, or preparedness inside of your own home. Those are different things. And this is where a guide like Mom's Healthcare Compass becomes so useful because every family needs clarity around care. Who takes the lead? Who knows where the emergency items are? Who knows what gets used first? Who knows the value of the household? Who communicates with providers? Who keeps track of what happened and what is next? And before I go any further, I just want you to know that that little boy was okay and he was getting the treatment that he needed. The father calmed down once we had landed. So returning to finding clarity in your family around care, I'm going to share about in my family, I take the lead. Not because my husband doesn't care, not because we do not talk, not because he is absent, but because from the beginning, he has trusted me in this area and we have made that explicit. He knows I have a method. He knows I research and think things through. He knows I am not flailing around on trends or fear. He asks questions. We talk, we align, but I hold the reins. And when I am unavailable, he takes the lead. If another trusted adult is with our children, then they have clear instructions and clear support, and they take the lead. Because being the medicine woman of your family is not only intuition, it is also structure. It is knowing where things are, what your plan is, who does what, and knowing how your household responds when something happens. Clarity is compassion, and blame has no place in emergencies. Blame weakens the field, it erodes trust, blame harms marriages, blame confuses children, and it keeps people stuck in resentment instead of moving into response. Preparation is different. Clarity is different. Responsibility is different. This is why I tell mothers write it down. Write down what you do when fever comes. Write down what you use first. Write down what is in your emergency kit, who to call, what your values are, what your co parent needs to know. Write down what a grandparent or sitter needs to know. Because when adrenaline rises, people forget. Even me, I will forget and be in the moment, and having things written down. Helps me remember too. And one of the simplest, strongest things you can do is get organized before the crisis. And now I want to share how my family actually operates because I think real examples help paint a picture. Today, with my teenagers, I do not use a traditional primary care physician for them. In fact, they haven't had a PCP since my daughter was born. Once a year, I use a local urgent care I trust for school and camp physical forms. It works beautifully for that purpose. They see a chiropractor regularly, and when they were younger, it was more frequent, like monthly. Now it's more maintenance and then it as needed. They know their bodies well enough to say when something feels off physically or emotionally and they are ready for an adjustment. They also see a nutrition response testing practitioner a few times a year, and more often if something acute is going on. They see an Ayurvedic physician annually as another layer of support and perspective on lifestyle, constitution, and ongoing well-being. That is what works for us right now, and it may not be your exact model, and that is okay. The point is not to copy me. The point is to become more conscious, more organized, more radically responsible, more deeply connected to your own household's way, because there is no one perfect formula. You may wonder how we are able to invest in this kind of healthcare. In the beginning of your journey to prioritize holistic medicine, there is an unlearning and relearning of where money is being invested to, and also a deconditioning of believing insurance or government funding is the only way. The purpose of this episode and my guide of support is to show ways of being you may not have been exposed to yet. In the 80s and 90s, my parents led by example of figuring it out for themselves. They carved the path for me to learn. I am letting you know it's possible if you want it, because I believe anything is possible if you truly believe you want it and feel you deserve it. Unlearning and releasing old patterns that no longer fit the life you currently live or long to live is part of all of our stories as we age, as we gain new information, and learn from others who have the insider scoop of doing things differently than what we were exposed to. So, yes, you may walk through a threshold of viewing what you have been taught to believe is the only truth or only way to making your own pathway. There is only the question, are you building your family's health care model on purpose? Or are you running whatever default the culture, our society, or system that you're involved in has handed to you? That is a very different life. And I want to say something especially to you if you have been hurt, if you feel angry at the medical system, if you feel betrayed, if you feel like your child was not listened to or properly cared for, if you feel like you were gaslit, if you feel like you have had to become the researcher, the detective, the advocate, the one pulling together all the pieces no one else had time to put together, I see you. And that anger makes sense, that grief makes sense, that heartbreak makes sense, but do not let it calcify you. Do not let it become your whole identity. Use it, harness it, let it sharpen your discernment, let it refine your standards, let it deepen your clarity, let it turn into functional support for your child and your family. Because healing is not always the absence of problems. Healing can also mean living with great love, great peace, and great agency inside a life you did not plan. Healing can mean adapting. It can mean grieving honestly, reorganizing your whole world. And healing can mean becoming the woman who no longer needs to rage at every door because she has built another pathway. That is power, that is medicine, and that is what I want for you. I also want to say something briefly about medical autonomy. It is valuable for your nervous system, your mental health, and your clarity to understand what is legal, what your rights are, and what the requirements are in the state you live. Not because you need to agree with everyone, not because everyone will make the same decisions, but because clear information matters. You do not need more noise, you need grounded knowledge. And really, that is the heart of this whole episode. Not to panic, not rebellion for rebellion's sake, you don't need to stick it to them. No outsourcing, not blinding trust, not blind distrust either, but informed, embodied, practical authority. That is what I want more women to have, which is why I created Mom's Healthcare Compass. I created it to help you establish a stronger internal compass. I have lived a whole life going against the grain of what is socially acceptable in modern society. This guide is to help you ask better questions, to help you get clear about what you are facing, to help you become more confident in your own home with your own children, to help you focus on one thing at a time instead of spiraling into overwhelm, to help you become the kind of woman who can be both tender and strong, both open-minded and discerning, both respectful of medicine and not ruled by it. And when you purchase the compass, you also enter into my private support space, not on social media, a more secure place where the women there have already chosen this conversation, where you can ask questions, you can think out loud, you can say, I need advice, you can say, I just need to vent. A place where you can be with women who are also learning how to hold this role. Because you were never meant to do this completely alone. And I want to leave you with this. You are the chosen mother for your child. You are not behind, you are not disqualified, you have not wasted your life. Nothing you have lived is wasted. Everything you have lived has prepared you to meet this moment right now. You may still need support. You may still need practitioners, mentors, you may still need medicine, labs, intervention at times, but none of that cancels your role. You are still the mother. You are still the one in relationship with your child. You are still the one called to pay attention. You are still the one capable of leading in ways you may not fully realize yet. You do not need to know everything to begin. You need to become the kind of woman who stays present enough to keep listening, learning, and discerning. You do not need perfect confidence. All you need is willingness. And your first step is not to overhaul your whole life overnight. Please don't. Your first step is to choose one area of your family's health care and become more organized, more informed, and more confident there. One area, one shift, one deeper breath, one stronger question, one decision that brings you back to yourself. You are the medicine woman of your family. Whether you have named that yet or not, I believe in you deeply. It is the guide I wish more women had in their hands before the crisis, before the panic, before the confusion, before the blame, before the feeling that everyone else knows better than they do. You do not have to build this from scratch. You can begin here, and I will walk you through it.