Episode 298: Where Science Meets the Sacred
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Here at TFN, we practice the Intuitive Functional Medicine™ model, meaning we utilize evidence-based practices… AND we also believe that YOU get to be the evidence. Because REAL power comes when we can use research, science and external data points, and allow that to coalesce with the sacred wisdom of our bodies. But what does that look like? And how do we get there? That’s what today’s episode is all about. Erin gets into the deep inner work that is an often overlooked, but very necessary, part of the healing process.
This is another sneak peek into The Funk’tional Nutrition Collective.
In this episode:
The issues with erasing women’s POV [14:09]
Are biohacking gadgets helping us or hurting us? [16:30]
Using the body as a compass [24:02]
How our modern world has become anti-body [28:11]
4 ways your health attempts can be thwarted [30:55]
The difference between discipline and devotion [36:47]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Collective
Ned Natural Remedies (get 15% off your order with code FUNK)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Mind (get $100 off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with code FUNK)
Learn more about Functional Nutrition & Mindset
Related episodes:
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Erin Holt [00:00:02]:
I'm Erin Holt, and this is the functional nutrition podcast, where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions, and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource.
Erin Holt [00:00:18]:
I've got over a decade of clinical experience, and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture, and the healthcare model.
Erin Holt [00:00:26]:
They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be, either. We've got some work to do, and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect. So I founded the Functional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.
Erin Holt [00:00:45]:
This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment.
Erin Holt [00:01:00]:
I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review, and share because you never know whose life you might change. And of course, keep coming back for more. Hello, my friends. We're back with another show. A few weeks ago, I taught a workshop to the functional nutrition collective called where the science meets the sacred, and it was a class that I talked a lot about, and I got a lot of requests for people to join that class. Now, there are a lot of workshops and classes and things that are exclusive just to the people in the functional nutrition collective because I feel that this conversation is so important. I've been talking to a lot of you on Instagram and beyond about this exact subject because I think it's so important. I did want to release this or part of the workshop as a podcast episode.
Erin Holt [00:01:56]:
This is not something that I will be doing. This is kind of a one and done scenario.
Erin Holt [00:02:02]:
Moving forward, all of my workshops will actually remain in the collective, and the reason that I'm bringing that up now is because we are closing enrollment to the functional nutrition collective this Friday, February 9.
Erin Holt [00:02:16]:
So as a way to moderate numbers and moderate the group, we will be closing enrollment. So I really wanted to make that announcement here, let you know that if this is something you've been thinking about doing, now is the time to do it. This is the place to be if you're really looking to do a deep dive on your health.
Erin Holt [00:02:34]:
Of course I teach you about food. I teach you about nutrition. We do a deep dive on blood sugar, regulation and detoxification and gut health and hormones. You get access to Your Hormone Revival. We also take things deeper, deeper than just nutrition, deeper than just the physical body. And today's show will talk a little bit more about that.
Erin Holt [00:02:59]:
So if you're into these types of conversations, we will be having more of them this year in the functional nutrition collective.
Erin Holt [00:03:07]:
And I really, really hope that you join.
Erin Holt [00:03:09]:
We've got a phenomenal group, and we are making some big changes and big waves together. So I hope you enjoyed today's conversation again, it is part of a workshop that I taught for the collective.
Erin Holt [00:03:21]:
The workshop was more involved, included more experiential practices, a guided energy journey, some writing prompts, and if you do join the collective, of course you'll get access to all of that and a lot more.
Erin Holt [00:03:34]:
If you've listened to the podcast for a while, if you've ever thought, gosh, I just resonate with the way Erin teaches, and I would love for Erin to guide me through my health journey, through every step of my health journey.
Erin Holt [00:03:47]:
This is the program for you. That's literally why I created it. And so I would love to see some of your faces on the next live call.
Erin Holt [00:03:58]:
Today is where the science meets the sacred, and I practice what I have labeled as intuitive functional medicine. And we're not going to talk too, too much about that today, but I did an entire podcast on it, episode 276, the what and the whys of intuitive functional medicine. If you're like, what are you talking about? But it is a trademarked model, because I see the way that I approach health, even functional medicine and functional nutrition, as pretty different. I practice and I teach evidence based practices, and also I believe that you get to be the evidence. And this is sometimes where my philosophy diverges from others. But this is really based on what I've seen. This is based on what I've seen not just in my own body and my own lived experience, but also in hundreds of other bodies, too, I think. And I see that the real power comes when we can use evidence and research and science and external data points like the things that we learn outside of ourselves, and allow all of that to coalesce with the wisdom that we can derive from inside the sacred wisdom of our bodies.
Erin Holt [00:05:23]:
And so when I talk about taking outside information and running it through our own filters, this is what I'm referencing. But what does that actually look like? How do we actually get there? That's what today's class is going to be about. So I'm going to talk for a little while. Oh, thank you for sharing that, Angela. I'm going to talk for a little while, and as I do, as I have a tendency to do, and when I'm talking, I'm kind of speaking to your conscious mind, right? We're all here. We're all aware that I'm talking and that you're listening, but there might be parts of this conversation that just kind of lands a little bit deeper. Like they just hit different. And I really want you to watch for that.
Erin Holt [00:06:06]:
Sometimes things that I will say will almost feel like a remembering. Like, oh, yeah, I had that information at one point. I just forgot. I just lost the way, I lost the plot a little bit. And just pay attention to those moments, because there's something beyond the conscious mind that's receiving that. It might be the subconscious mind, it might be the body, but there's deeper aspects of you that are calling out to you to be like, remember this. This is the truth. And if there's any moment in today's class where you feel that, just type something into the chat.
Erin Holt [00:06:36]:
You can just type an emoji or something, a word or a phrase, just to be like, I'm acknowledging this. Like, this feels right. This feels true. Even if I'm not living my life as a testament to that truth right now, somewhere in me, I know that this is real. I'm going to give you some writing prompts also today. We might not get to all of the writing prompts today in class, but I want to give them to you so you can work on them for the next month or so, you have something to do until we meet again, and then we will most definitely get into an experiential practice. I'm going to guide you through an energy journey, and this is so important. It's kind of like learning how to ice skate.
Erin Holt [00:07:22]:
So we recently purchased a lake home, and there's a lake, and it's frozen, and my husband and my daughter know how to ice skate. I haven't been on skates since I was, like, eight years old. And I'm like, you know what? I really want to learn how to ice so I can do this fun activity with my family. And I could read every single book there is to read about how to ice skate. I could watch YouTube videos on how to do it. But the reality is I'm never going to have the experience of knowing what it feels like to ice skate until I sit down, lace up my skates, and go for it, give it a whirl. We have to actually practice what we're learning in order to truly embody it, to truly experience it, we know that in the beginning we're probably going to fail. So if we're expecting perfection right out of the gate, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Erin Holt [00:08:07]:
And that is why I really encourage you to create a daily devotional practice. And you can use today's practice as exactly that. We need to practice this stuff. One of the main questions that I get is, how do I listen to my intuition? How do I trust myself? How do I come back to myself? It's practice. If you're expecting a one and done, you're going to disappoint yourself. People will be like, oh, I tried to meditate once and I can't do it. It's like, well, you got to keep returning back to yourself and the word devotion, because it can have some, maybe some religious undertones, and that might not feel appropriate for people. But devotion is really just a dedicated and a loyal practice.
Erin Holt [00:08:52]:
That's what I see a devotional practice is. That's like the actual definition of the word. And a devotional practice can be a way to show, I am dedicated to this thing, I am loyal to this thing. And in this case, that thing is you. We want to show ourselves that we are devoted to ourselves. We're not ghosting ourselves, we're not abandoning ourselves. And in fact, just the opposite. We're showing up time and time and time again, right? So again, if the question is, how do I learn to trust my intuition? This is the answer.
Erin Holt [00:09:28]:
Show yourself, you can trust yourself. Show yourself, you have your own back. Show yourself, you can be a pillar in your own life. This takes repetition. It takes returning to yourself time and time and time and time again. So I love a devotional practice for that. I also love a devotional practice because it can create an anchor point for you. It creates a home base, it creates a baseline, like a daily temperature check.
Erin Holt [00:09:55]:
How am I doing today? How am I feeling right now in this moment? How am I doing? So you can certainly do that with an HRV watch or a little fancy gadget. You can do that with that. But you can also do this by sitting with yourself. That's kind of the name of the game of today's conversation. So when we have a home base, when we have a check in point, we can be more attuned to the subtle shifts, as one of my mentors would say, we can be more attuned to the undercurrents of the body. Like the whispers of the body, the gentle nudges of the body. We get more attuned to the clues that the body is giving us. So those whispers don't eventually become screams.
Erin Holt [00:10:43]:
And in this way, we learn to let the body lead. So when I'm talking about in this class where the science meets the sacred, let me be very clear. You are the sacred thing. It's you. You're it. So we can look to the science to learn more. We're not waiting, however, for science in white papers, in research, to catch up and acknowledge and validate our sacredness. That's not a gift that anybody can bestow upon us.
Erin Holt [00:11:14]:
That is something that we claim and we reclaim and we own for ourselves. So all of this starts by acknowledging that we all do, in fact, hold sacred wisdom in our bodies. That's the presupposition for this whole thing. That's the buy in. That's where I need to get you before the rest of the conversation can really drop in and land. But our bodies are ancient, right? This we can all acknowledge. Yes, totally. Our bodies are more ancient than modern science.
Erin Holt [00:11:46]:
Our understanding of health and healing has changed over the years. But the body hasn't. The body is the same. The body is ancient. The body is sacred, and the body holds within it ancient, sacred wisdom. Our bodies know the way, and our bodies can leave us or lead us, is what I should say. Not leave us is what we're trying not to do. And so when I think of intuitive medicine, that's what I think intuitive medicine really honors, is intuition.
Erin Holt [00:12:24]:
It's an inner knowing. It's a deep and sacred connection with ourselves. And we respect that connection. We honor that connection. We're devoted to that. We're devoted to that connection, and we prioritize it. But I don't want this conversation to go into the territory where we have to pick one over the other, because I want to acknowledge and appreciate and validate and have so much gratitude for modern medicine. My family went through something really hard last month, and modern medicine literally saved my cousin's like, don't say it, Aaron.
Erin Holt [00:13:08]:
You're not going to be able to say it without crying. It's so new and it's so tender. Modern medicine saved my little cousin's life. So what we're not doing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I'm just so sick and tired of health being like, pick your lane, choose your path. It is one or the other. You're either in or you're out. You're for us or you're against us.
Erin Holt [00:13:33]:
What's it going to be? That just creates so much internal friction. Healing is to become whole. And how can we become whole if we're always fragmented and pulled apart and having to choose one over the other? It gets to be all of it. I'm speaking from lived experience and also professional experience. It gets to be all of it. It doesn't have to be an either or situation. So that's why I'm calling this where the science meets the sacred, because I want to put them both on the same playing field, modern advancements and ancient knowing. I want there to be a place for our intuition and our inner experience to be acknowledged in healthcare.
Erin Holt [00:14:18]:
And right now, there's really, really not. Years ago, this was on Instagram where all good things happen. I had a med student say to me, I'm sorry, because I was talking about my health history, my lived experience, all that. And a med student said, I am so sorry that happened to you, but anecdotal evidence isn't evidence. And I just thought, jeez, what a way to continue to rip women away from their power. What a way to teach people that our experience, it's not valid, it doesn't matter, it's not real. It doesn't really count. That just happened to you, but it doesn't really count.
Erin Holt [00:15:03]:
What a way to show women that we shouldn't trust ourselves. We shouldn't trust our bodies. And our experience is actually not to be trusted because it's not real. What a way to erase the sacredness out of healing. And what a way to perpetuate the silencing of the sacred feminine. We have essentially our point of view. Woman's point of view has essentially been written right out of history. It's like literally his story.
Erin Holt [00:15:35]:
We don't have to get into like a big history lesson, but I am more than welcome or more than happy to share books about this. If this is something of interest to you, the silencing of the sacred feminine, I'm happy to share books in the Facebook group with all of you. But the point is, when your viewpoint is erased or invalidated, you learn to silence your own internal point of view. And when we do that, as many of us have, we lose trust with ourselves. And when we can't trust ourselves, we have no choice but to reach out to external authorities and external data points. We have no choice. Where else are we going to get that information? If we're being told the information can't possibly come inside, from inside, we have to go outside. And I personally, I love a functional root cause approach.
Erin Holt [00:16:34]:
I love the fact that it's catching on. Seven years ago, nobody knew what a functional anything was. And now everybody's like a functional practitioner. It's great, right? What I don't love is how tethered people in this space can be to the science or the data or the evidence. And that's why I say when we're talking about evidence based stuff, you also get to be the evidence. Your experience gets to be evidence that shouldn't be silenced, that shouldn't be invalidated. But also, you have to claim that for yourself, too. Because the questions that I'm getting, more so than ever, it's like, how many exact grams of protein do I need? Should I intermittently fast or not? Can I eat beans? During which part of my cycle should I eat carbs? And if you've worked with me in any capacity or you've done any of my programs, you're currently doing my programs, you'll know that my advice is usually, well, try it and see how you do try it.
Erin Holt [00:17:35]:
See how you feel. For those of you going through the carb compatibility project right now, you'll notice that it is a clear four week framework to follow. But I'm also leading you back to yourself. That is by design. That is by design. Because people, again, now more than ever, it's like, I've got my CGM, I've got my step tracker, I've got my HRV ring, I've got my ovulation tracker. I'm taking my temps, I've got my food sensitivity list, did my food sensitivity testing, and I still don't know what's right for me. All this data, and I still don't know what's right for me.
Erin Holt [00:18:12]:
This is a problem in just continuing to collect more and more external data points, read more books, follow more Instagram accounts, do more lab testing, buy more gadgets. That is not going to solve the problem. And I love, to be clear, I love all these gadgets and gizmos. I love them. I have a lot of them myself. So I'm not saying that they're wrong, but I am saying that if you do not also build the capacity to come home to yourself while you're using these gadgets and gizmos and collecting all of this data, if you don't build the capacity to run all of this information through yourself, you will most likely continue to flounder around, lost in a sea of data points. That's where a lot of people are right now. The game changer for me in how I taught how I practiced, how I built out programs, how I structured my services, how I interfaced with clients, how I mentored other practitioners.
Erin Holt [00:19:19]:
The game changer for me was years ago. I was in a Facebook group. Some of you might have heard this story already, and it was like some type of nutrition challenge. There was hundreds, if not thousands of people in the group, huge group. And there was a woman, probably in her mid fifty? S, and she typed into the group, am I allowed to put a teaspoon of cream in my coffee in the morning? And I thought to myself, my God, with all the information and education we have available to ourselves, we still have not taught women how to self source their own answers, how to leverage their own inner authority, and how to permit themselves. We are collectively more comfortable with asking a group of strangers on the Internet what to do with our bodies than we are with trusting ourselves to know what to do with our bodies. Where's the lie in that statement? From what I can see from my POV, more information and collecting more external data points has not changed that fact, unless we have specifically and intentionally created an environment for us to learn how to do so. So in case you haven't done that, welcome.
Erin Holt [00:20:47]:
You're in the right spot. This is the environment. This is the intentional container. It's why I built the collective legitimately, so we can keep having these conversations over and over and over and over again until it clicks, until it clicks in, until it lands. I didn't just put all of this together to be, like, a place to hold all of my courses. The courses are incredible. They change bodies. They change lives.
Erin Holt [00:21:10]:
Many of you here are a testament of that fact. But I wanted to create a movement. I wanted to be in community with people doing this together, a place where we can dialogue about this and keep the conversation going in the chat. You guys absolutely, like, connect with each other, too. I'll go and read the comments. But this is a group. Your experience matters here. I'm not just saying that.
Erin Holt [00:21:34]:
They're not just words, whip.
Erin Holt [00:21:44]:
You know that I'm a huge fan of changing our thoughts, changing our mind, changing our brain in order to change our health and our life. But what if I told you that.
Erin Holt [00:21:51]:
There was a way to help yourself.
Erin Holt [00:21:52]:
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Erin Holt [00:22:25]:
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Erin Holt [00:22:27]:
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Erin Holt [00:23:46]:
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Erin Holt [00:24:02]:
One. So I would like just to take a brief moment, just like a little. A little check in. I want you to think about a time in your life where you had a clear yes. Like a super clear yes. And I want you to think about what that experience was like for you. So I'll give an example. I guess this is, like, a pretty big example.
Erin Holt [00:24:29]:
It doesn't have to be this major, but I remember when my husband asked me to marry him. We had only been together, like nine months or less, so I had no idea this was happening. Was shocked. We hiked up to the Mount Shakura, which is in New Hampshire, the state I live in, and he popped the question. I was floored again, not expecting it, but it was so just like, automatic, like, no question, yes. And I just felt like, expanded, filled out, like, my energy filled out the entire field around me. I felt it here in every well, that was my yes. That's what my yes feels like.
Erin Holt [00:25:10]:
It feels big. It feels expansive. So you don't have to use, like, a huge life changing event. It could be like, I knew last night I needed to eat a cheeseburger because this. It could be something basic, but I want you to really think about a clear yes. What did it feel like? What was your experience? How did you know that that was a yes? And if you arrive at an answer, if you know, you can pop that into the chat and then same deal. Was there a time where you're like, absolutely not. I just know this is a no.
Erin Holt [00:25:42]:
I just know this is a no for me. How did you know? Can you articulate that? Can you articulate the experience that you had that you knew it was a no? So again, post in the chat, for some people, it feels like a tightening, like a constricting, like, ooh, I feel it in my belly. Some people have to show me with their body what it feels like. I hired a marketing team, so instead of doing 76 jobs, I only have to do 75. So I hired a marketing team, and they're amazing. I love them so much. Bradley is his name, and I love him. I love him.
Erin Holt [00:26:16]:
He's so kind and gentle and just the best. And he pitched this idea to me on Friday, and it was a brilliant idea. And my mind was like, that's a great idea. But my body gave me the clear cut sign, and my sign is, I feel like I'm being pulled back. I feel like there's a vacuum behind me, sucking me back, and I immediately feel tired, like I want to take a nap. So I was like, bradley, this is a great idea. I love it. My body doesn't love it, though.
Erin Holt [00:26:41]:
So I have to say no. I have to decline. I feel tired, and I feel like I'm moving backwards. That's my no. So the more we tune in, anybody with me? Because I haven't seen anything in the chat. So is anybody with me in terms of, like, ooh, my inner compass. Okay, now I'm starting to see them. I think they were hidden swelling in my heart for a yes, no tightening in my stomach.
Erin Holt [00:27:03]:
Okay, so kind of a lot of overlap in our experiences. Warm, tingly surge for yes, tightening of the heart space for no. Freeing and open, expansive for yes, no. Feel in my gut feels tight. So, like, kind of, like, a lot of repetition here. A lot of overlap, a lot of themes. Could not breathe for a no. Yeah, it's like everything feels tight.
Erin Holt [00:27:34]:
So the more we tune in, the whole purpose of the. Whoops, sorry. The whole purpose of this is to say the more we tune in, the more we start to discern the difference between our sacred yes and our sacred no. And that's why I say a devotional practice can give us a baseline. Because it's kind of hard to know when we're off of our baseline if we don't know what our baseline is. And this is how we start to use our body as a compass. The body is an entry point for so much. Part of the way back to the sacred is to reclaim our bodies.
Erin Holt [00:28:11]:
To be like, oh yeah, my body does actually know it is sending messages. The issue with that, one of the chief issues with that is our modern world is antibody. And I cannot credit myself with that statement. That was a statement. I heard it and it went directly into the notes app in my phone because I was like, that's a barn. That's. That is a big one. That's one of my mentors, Vialata Plushakova, said that that was like a room spinner of a statement.
Erin Holt [00:28:45]:
Our modern world is anti body. So we used to be fed and nourished and supported by our environment, nature, circadian rhythms, cycles, soil, food, and now we are depleted by it. Environmental toxins, we have depleted soil. The overuse of herbicides and pesticides impact our gut, they impact our mitochondria, it impacts our immune system. We're inside way more than we're outside. We're getting exposed to artificial light way more than natural light. We're disconnected. We're out of sync.
Erin Holt [00:29:21]:
This is a quote from Gabor mate, which I quote him all the time because he's brilliant, one of the most brilliant minds in our lifetime. He says much of what passes for normal in our society is neither normal nor healthy. To meet modern society criteria for normality is in many ways to conform to requirements that are profoundly abnormal in regard to our nature given needs, which is to say unhealthy and harmful on the physiological, mental and even spiritual levels. If we could begin to see much of illness itself, not as a cruel twist of fate or some nefarious mystery, but rather as an expected and therefore normal consequence of abnormal, unnatural circumstances, it would have revolutionary implications for how we approach everything health related. In summary, he is saying we are living completely abnormally and therefore we're getting sick, which is a very normal response to living abnormally. We are nature, and part of reclaiming our sacredness is to acknowledge that part of getting back in sync with that is through our bodies. This is why my work is predicated on talking about carbs in protein, in fat. Make your body feel good, give your body the inputs that it needs to thrive.
Erin Holt [00:30:55]:
But we also have to feed ourselves on a deeper level, too. We have to soil deep, fix the soil, like mitochondria deep, remove the toxins, but also soul deep, like that deep. It all has to come online together for us to really dig ourselves out of this, holt that we've gotten ourselves into. All of this is true, and many of you know that. Many of you have already boughtten into that. But when we attempt to rectify this, it can get thwarted. And there are four primary ways that I am seeing right now, over and over again, of ways that we attempt to heal the body, we attempt to reclaim that sacredness, but then it gets, like, kind of thwarted. We get thrown off our path.
Erin Holt [00:31:57]:
So I would love to hear from you as I pick our way through these four things, if any of them land with you, if you've experienced any of them, 1234 or all of the above, because we can do all of the whats, but we also really have to understand the whys, too. So some of this is the why why change is so hard. The first one is the whole not evidenced based thing. I'm a little tired of hearing about it. As somebody who built an entire career on picking apart the science and explaining the science to people in a way that they could understand, I'm like, we have perhaps gone too far, too far in that direction, but we have, like, I'm just going to make sure everybody is muted. I could just hear myself in an echo. We have what I refer to as the misinformation vigilantes. There's, like, people who have built their entire careers on trying to tear other people down by being like, they're not evidence based.
Erin Holt [00:32:59]:
They're not evidence based. I don't know if you guys have been privy to any of this on TikTok or Instagram. It's a whole thing. There was a TikTok influencer. She's an RD, and she was, like, tearing apart a medical doctor for not being evidence based because she was talking about moon cycles. And I was like, is this the burning? Like, what is, like, we can talk about moon cycles. It's fine. It's okay.
Erin Holt [00:33:29]:
And I shared on Instagram. There was an article that Nicole Jardim shared just today. Now we have a white paper to back up that our moon cycles influence our female cycles. Great. Now the science says it, so we can all accept it as truth, but there's, like this science zeitgeist that kind of says, well, these ancient, sacred, oftentimes indigenous practices are not evidence based. Therefore they're incorrect, therefore they're wrong, therefore they're not to be trusted. This is like the dogma of science, and it's really why I think we have to bridge the gap. So have any of you been like, oh, I'm interested in this thing.
Erin Holt [00:34:12]:
But then I saw somebody say, well, it's not evidence based, so I shouldn't do it. There's, like, fear around it or judgment around it. And now I'm not totally, totally sure. That's one thing I'm seeing. I think that's smaller part, but I'm definitely seeing it, and I want to speak into it. Number two, diet culture. And again, I kind of cut my teeth on being pretty anti diet culture. As somebody who's struggled with eating disorders for 13 years, I had a lot to say about diet culture, a lot.
Erin Holt [00:34:46]:
But what I am seeing now is that we are labeling every attempt to better our health as diet culture. So people are kind of trapped in this. Well, gee, I thought I was doing something to support myself, and now I feel like what I was doing is wrong. But the body is actually how we access the divine feminine, which the sacred feminine, our intuition. So I want to speak into this a little bit. I've talked about divine feminine, divine masculine a lot. They're just essentially archetypes that we all have within us. It really doesn't have to do with sex or gender.
Erin Holt [00:35:32]:
They're just archetypes. And there are certain traits of the divine feminine like intuition, nurturing, healing, expression, wisdom, patience, emotions. There are traits of the divine masculine, logic, reason, action, firmness, survival, strength, rationality. We tend to prioritize divine masculine traits in our society. We tend to put them on a pedestal, and we tend to kind of look down on and not have much reverence for aspects of the divine feminine. That's kind of part of silencing and writing out the sacred feminine. But what we have to understand. And there is a huge reclaiming and revival of the sacred feminine right now.
Erin Holt [00:36:13]:
Absolutely. But it's not like which one is better, which one comes first, which one's on top. It's not one or the other. It's another situation of, and both. The way that I see it, to really be in our feminine, allowing receptivity, magnetism, intuition, self trust, even manifestation. In order for us to be there, we require safety, we require structure. We need a container that can hold us and allow us to feel safe. And that is the divine masculine.
Erin Holt [00:36:47]:
Whenever I build out a nutrition framework, you can think about it like this. Like the CCP, for an example. Easy example. So I always create a framework, a structure for you to follow. A container. Because if I was just like, try out a bunch of different carbs and some fat and just like, do your best, you'd be like, help, right? There has to be a container to operate within. That's the divine masculine. But we have to have freedom and flexibility within the container to access our own inner knowing, our own intuition, to allow our own bodies to guide us.
Erin Holt [00:37:23]:
That's the divine feminine. Okay, so is this like, are you picking up what I'm putting down? We need kind of like a mix of both. But I think historically, when it comes to nutrition and health, most of us are kind of used to the first part of that equation. Following a set of rules. Like, I think of the word discipline, right? Which means a prescribed conduct, a very specific pattern of behavior. We need to obey rules, and if we don't, there might be consequences to our disobedience, right? That really is diet, culture. It's like all structure, all rules. There's no place for grace or intuition.
Erin Holt [00:38:06]:
But what I think we need is a bit of a reframe, where we move from, like, a disciplined, hardcore approach to more of a devotional approach. But we still need to have an approach. We don't want to just throw out the structure altogether. So I'm curious how that shift feels in your body. It feels good to me when I feel like the difference of discipline versus devotion, I'm like that. I can get my energy behind. And I recognize that some attempts to support our bodies can look really similar to dieting. Right? From the outside looking in, it can appear similar.
Erin Holt [00:38:46]:
But I really think that the difference is the internal driver. If you have a discipline driver, we are eating a certain way because there's a set of rules that I have to follow. There's a right way to do things, there's a wrong way to do things. And I ned to eat this way, to look a certain way, to feel acceptable and to be loved, right? That is a disciplined dieting driver. A devotional driver might be different. It might say, like, hey, my body is here to be the vessel for my soul. My body's here to allow me to be the highest, fullest expression of who I came here to be. The optimal function of my body helps me amplify everything else I'm here to do.
Erin Holt [00:39:25]:
I can tell you I felt really crappy for a really long time. It's better. Feeling good is better. Feeling good is better. I'm just going to say it. It is. I can just do more. I get more accomplished.
Erin Holt [00:39:36]:
I can be my fullest expression of myself. So therefore, I'm devoted to my body, I'm devoted to my health. And I don't think that there's anything wrong or messed up about having a devotional practice to our bodies. Because like I said earlier, the body is the entry point for so much. So much so that's kind of where I'm coming from. Here in the collective, we have to meet ourselves at the level of the body. We do have to caretake our body. We can't bypass the body because the body is part of your life and it will be forever.
Erin Holt [00:40:12]:
And I want you to think about, and I'm going to share journal prompts with you, too. So all of the things I'm like, hey, think about this. They will be written down and you will get them. For those of you who like to journal and write through things, if you viewed your body as sacred right now, in this moment, pretend it was true, even if it doesn't feel true. How would you choose to feed yourself? If you closed your eyes and you're like, okay, my body is sacred, I'm going to tap into the energy of that statement. How would you choose to feed yourself? How would you choose to move your body? What time would you go to bed? What would you make time for that you're not currently doing? What would you choose to say yes to? What would you decide to say no to? What would your relationships be like? Would they be the same as they are right now? What would actually make you feel sacred? What would actually make you feel sacred? There's a lot of work that we do, a lot of attention on inner child healing. And I love that for us. I do.
Erin Holt [00:41:25]:
I love that for my inner child. So important. But I don't think there's enough emphasis on thinking about our future self and caretaking our future self. Sometimes that she gets lost in the shuffle. And sometimes what I do is I ask myself, am I making a decision in the present moment, right now? Right now? Am I making a decision right now that is going to support my future self or create a mess that my future self will have to clean up? Sometimes, if I don't know what to do, I will ask myself that question. Then the answer becomes pretty clear. And I also want to speak into this. Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves.
Erin Holt [00:42:10]:
If we're in a moment of being very underresourced, the most compassionate thing we can do for ourselves is like, I'm going to make this decision because it's the path of least resistance right now. I realize I'm going to create a shit storm of a mess to deal with later on down the road, but the most compassionate thing I can do is make this decision right now, this short term decision. I had to do that in December and I gave myself a lot of grace and I did in fact have to clean up the mess this month. But I was more resourced this month than I was last month. So it was okay. Okay, so that's number two. Any attempt to reclaim your relationship with your body does not need to be labeled as disordered or like disciplined diet culture. It doesn't have to be whip.
Erin Holt [00:42:57]:
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Erin Holt [00:43:40]:
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Erin Holt [00:44:10]:
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Erin Holt [00:44:58]:
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Erin Holt [00:45:18]:
Number three. The people in your life. I'm going to take a dramatic pause for that one, because this is something that is really challenging to admit or to even to talk about. When you start to make positive changes in your life, it can be really disruptive for other people. And most of the time it's not because other people in your life don't want what's good for you, but they do want you to stay safe. And usually safety is sameness. They want to keep you exactly where you are because that feels safe to them. Sometimes you feeling fully alive, radiating energy out like life force unlocked, all systems up and running.
Erin Holt [00:46:11]:
Prioritizing yourself, prioritizing taking care of yourself, prioritizing your relationship with yourself, having great boundaries, exuding happiness, maybe even feeling beautiful. Sometimes that can rub up against other people's perception of what a good woman should be. In so much of our internal subconscious, sometimes even conscious instinct, our drive is to just stay a part of the group at all costs. Because back in the olden days, being outcasted from the group meant death. So we have this baked into our dna. It's real. It's real. If you feel like if I get ousted from the group, I'm going to die, that is a real feeling in your body.
Erin Holt [00:47:00]:
That is a strong driver, right? So we have to really acknowledge the whys and be compassionate with ourselves about that. If we have anybody in our life that is sending us messages that us being fully alive, lit up, taking care of ourselves, prioritizing ourself is a problem for them. We will oftentimes kind of choose the path of least resistance and just kind of continue to co dysregulate with that. I was working with a client a couple of years ago, and she's, like, doing the work. We were working together for a few months. She had all the lab testing, she was on the supplements, she was changing her diet, she was feeling good, and she was going on a vacation with her mom and her sister. And she's like, I'm really nervous because my sister makes comments to me. They make comments about the way I eat, they make comments about my supplements, and I think it's just easier to just not.
Erin Holt [00:47:52]:
So I'm like, you're going to take the six months of hard work you just put in and completely discontinue it because your sister might make a bitchy comment about the fact that you're taking care of yourself, right? But that's the internal instinct and drive. Well, I don't want to lose my sister's love, so I'm just going to bail on me. And I'm curious if anybody here has experienced that. I see a couple of comments in the chat here. Have you ever gone into healing your body, making an attempt to heal your body, whether that was changing your diet or something else, and people made comments, or maybe you felt like you were sticking out too much, or maybe you felt like you were rocking the boat too much, or maybe being too seen and you didn't really quite have the tools to navigate that, and so you got scared and you reverted back to your old habits. This is one of the primary reasons why people can lose a bunch of weight and then regain it right back. Sure, there's, like, a lot of biological things happening also, but this is a big one. It doesn't feel safe to be seen.
Erin Holt [00:48:54]:
It doesn't feel safe to be that witnessed. It doesn't feel safe. So we're going to revert back to safety. So I'm curious. You don't have to share, like, a full story, but just, like, been there, been there. We have this huge clash between two essential needs. Okay, so you guys are feeling this attachment and authenticity. So attachment is a drive for closeness to others.
Erin Holt [00:49:23]:
It's belonging. It's being part of the group. Authenticity is being true to ourself. It is. I am the authority on me. I am the author of my own authority. It's inner authority. Right? When these two needs are butted up against each other, most of us will choose attachment over authenticity.
Erin Holt [00:49:56]:
But it can be a really costly choice, because when you cannot honor your sacred. No, the body usually finds a way to do it for you. Right? And this is why I say the body is the entry point for so much. When we get sick or we have symptoms, we tend to view it as like punishment or even like a failure. Like, my body's failing me or I'm failing. When in reality it's usually just a request from the body. Hey, you didn't choose. You.
Erin Holt [00:50:26]:
You bailed on yourself again. So I'm going to show up for you. This is how we're going to do it. This is how we're going to get down. I know that part of the way that I got healthy is like, I just acknowledge I'm not here to live a half baked life, just to keep the peace and keep other people happy. That's not why I came to the planet, not like a half baked existence. I refuse that for myself. And so I had to look at relationships and really understand, like, look, if my happiness and my success and my vibrancy is a trigger for you, then this is no longer a safe relationship for me because I will always have to dull myself down, turn down the volume on my own life force, like, hold back my exuberance in order to remain in relationship with you.
Erin Holt [00:51:14]:
Like, no, thank you, I can't do that. I can't continue to abandon myself to keep you happy. I can't do it. And I have this quote written down in some of my notes and I don't know who to attribute it to, but I think it's gabor, mate. A healthy sense of self does not preclude caring for. So, like, I feel like we all need this tattooed on our forearm or something. Because you can still care for others while caring for yourself. That is on the table.
Erin Holt [00:51:47]:
That's a real thing. We can take care of us and caretake other people. We don't have to abandon ourselves or, excuse me, abandon others to caretake us. I have a motto that when I take care of me, everybody wins. When I take care of me, everybody wins. So I'm not trying to scare you guys off and say, like, in order to get healthy, you're going to have to blow up your whole life, crush all your relationships, say goodbye to everybody. Life as you know it is over. Right? But you might have to look at some of the relationships or programs or constructs that are in place that are telling you to say exactly as you are right now.
Erin Holt [00:52:21]:
Because getting healthy does usually require you to change something, right? And when all else fails, this community is here for each other. We're all navigating this together, I always say as a joke, but not really. We're all baked into the same casserole. Much of our programming is really similar. So you're not alone in this, you navigating this. We're all kind of doing the same thing. I think of it as self healing because we're never making other people responsible for our own healing. It's self healing, but we do it within community.
Erin Holt [00:52:56]:
So that's number three is other people. Number four, this is a big one. So we're just going to kind of scratch the surface of it today. But number four is, I talked about this in the beginning. In order to affect change, we have to take in the information and actually bring it into our bodies. But that can be really hard if our bodies have in the past felt like a hard, scary or unsafe place for us to inhabit. Our bodies hold a lot of pain. And so if you've never had permission or opportunity to meet that pain or the rage or the disappointment or the despair or the grief, then all of this might feel like really scary talk.
Erin Holt [00:53:44]:
Like be in my body. My body is sacred. It's a sacred vessel. What? No, I've been trying to get out my whole life. I've been trying to separate myself from my body my whole life. So sometimes this is part of the work, oftentimes this is part of the work. We have to reclaim our relationship to our bodies after being separate for a very long time. Sometimes this connection goes offline as early as toddlerhood, like young.
Erin Holt [00:54:12]:
And so we have to work our way back, and that can take time. I want to take just a brief moment of reflection. If you had to describe your body in one to two words, what would those words be? So let's post some in the chat, you had to describe your body or your relationship to your body. I don't know if I said that part. Your relationship to your body.
Erin Holt [00:54:42]:
In one.
Erin Holt [00:54:42]:
To two words, what would those be? I have to remind myself that me and my body are the same. Yeah, Hillary, yeah, that's a really healing thought for me too. Okay. Contentious in progress, constant work in progress. Okay. Always want something else. Sigh so another good question is, I don't trust my body. New best friend.
Erin Holt [00:55:19]:
Okay, Hillary, coming in with positivity. I like it. What would you rather those words be like if in a year from now, if all goes well, in a year from now, if I asked you that very same question, to describe your relationship to your body in one to two words, what would those words be? My body is a great communicator with me. Sounds like somebody has been practicing doing some devotional practices to listen to the body. I love that. Sacred Leslie says, love my body. Grateful for it. The best container for the life I live.
Erin Holt [00:55:57]:
Connected. I love and appreciate it. I think we have to save this chat. There's a way to do that. We have to save this chat because it's a good one. These are good mockups. Okay, so you guys, this is deep work, right? This is deep work. And in order for us to heal, sometimes we have to heal.
Erin Holt [00:56:15]:
Our resistance to being well, that's a little bit jarring, that's a little confrontational, that statement like resistance to being well, I just want to be well. I just want to heal. I want to feel good, right? But there can be a lot of this stuff kind of going on behind the scenes that we're not even aware of. And all of this stuff is also the process of healing, understanding why parts of you or aspects of you don't feel safe getting well. We have to look at that too. We need to look at the conditioning that tells us, like, if I get well, something bad could potentially happen in body intentions breakthrough, which you all have access to. We talk about this concept of secondary gain or secondary benefit. So that's a really good program to go into and start to unpack this stuff.
Erin Holt [00:57:08]:
And I will tell you, it's not a set it and forget it. I am always going into secondary gains if I really want something, and I'm doing everything in my power to get that thing. I'm actually putting in the work, the aligned action, if you will, and I'm still not receiving. There might be part of my subconscious that's telling me it's not actually safe to have that. So I might be receiving some benefit from not actually bringing that thing forth. So it's a huge concept. I could teach a whole class on it. But body intentions, breakthrough, I actually do talk about that.
Erin Holt [00:57:39]:
So I would go into that. But we have to address any reasons that we're afraid of getting well. So this will go into your journal prompts. But what are you afraid might happen if you become the most healthy, vibrant, fully alive, fully well, fully expressed in your power version of yourself? Actually, we're going to do a little practice right now, just like a little mini practice. We're going to move into an exercise that to look at this, I'll give you some journal prompts and then we're going to do like a full process that daily devotional practice, like energy journey.
Erin Holt [00:58:28]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the functional Nutrition podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.
