July 14, 2021 - EyeClarity Podcast
Dr. Kierstin DeWitt is a Licensed Naturopathic Doctor and Registered Acupuncturist practicing community Acupuncture at a non-profit Community Acupuncture Clinic in Ann Arbor, Michigan as well as providing NADA protocol and guided meditation for addiction rehabilitation facilities.
Dr. Kierstin is also a virtual Naturopathic Consultant where she utilizes her Naturopathic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and training in mind-body medicine to empower her clients through the reconnection of the self in mind, body, and to the world around us. This allows for whole-person healing and long-lasting changes towards health.
Where to find Dr. DeWitt:
Instagram: @vibrantly.well
Website: www.vibrantlywell.com
Facebook: @vibrantlywell
Enjoy the show! If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at: www.drsamberne.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, resiliency, behaviors, important, self regulation, pathak medicine, body, health, mind, connected, awareness, patterns, starting, dewitt, gaining, self awareness, talk, acupuncture, naturopathic, life
00:05
Hello, everyone, its Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode. Hey everybody, it’s Dr. Sam and I want to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast. We have a very interesting guest today. She’s a friend of mine. I actually met her on clubhouse. And I was on her Instagram show and she’s an amazing healer. Her name is Dr. Kierstin DeWitt. She’s a licensed naturopathic doctor registered acupuncturist and she is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that’s a beautiful place. She is in a private practice. She’s got a virtual naturopathic practice that where she utilizes things like traditional Chinese medicine, natural empathy, training and Mind Body medicine. She’s also done a lot of things in the mental health world. She just hosted a health summit. And I’d like to bring her on. Dr. DeWitt, thanks for joining us and I want to start in and I want to ask you, why is it important to begin to address the mind mental emotional component to health early on?
02:00
Hmm Yes, thank you so much for having me on Dr. Sam, it’s so great to see you again and to be able to chat with you it’s always a pleasure chatting with you. Um, so I for me what I kind of discovered as I began working with people with nature Pathak medicine is that if you if we don’t address the what I call the inner self, or that mental emotional component of the self, it’s really challenging to be able to stick with something right. So often with nature, Pathak medicine, we’re, we’re counseling people on how to make those lifestyle changes that are going to help them in the long term. And that takes work, right, it takes you have to have the mindset to be able to make those changes, right, because often we’ve developed these behaviors and these patterns really early on our environment can influence those, right, there’s a lot of external factors. So we need to have that internal or intrinsic drive to want to make those changes. And so if the mind isn’t on board, right, it’s really hard to get the momentum to have the body on board as well. And so it’s really important to start with the mind to start with that inner self, so that we can connect with that part of ourselves, and have a deeper drive to want to make those changes in a deeper understanding of ourselves. So that we can, we can really see why these changes are the right changes for me, right for the person as an individual. Because I think often what we’re seeing, especially now there’s so much information, right? Everyone’s inundated with just so much information, and we don’t know what’s right for us. And so it’s really important. And I know that you speak to this too, just really tuning into kind of that inner guide, and just really better understanding ourselves and, and what you know, what is best for us. And so it takes that, that inner knowing and just really a deeper understanding of ourselves and also what got us to where we are so that we can begin to make those small shifts, so that we can get to where we’re going. So, like I mentioned, what, what I noticed is if you don’t start with that part, then that’s where we find people who you know, they’ll stick with something for maybe a week or a couple of weeks and then they find themselves right back to where they started. Right. We get stuck again.
04:41
Yeah, you know, it’s at least in your field, there’s, you know, an idea of holism or holistic health in vision care. There’s nothing discussed about the intrinsic the inner self, the mind I mean, that’s why One of the first obstacles, I have to penetrate with people to go, Well, this is an inside job. And I love what you say, health and healing from the inside out. So it brings me to my next question is how does our past? So this would be our belief systems, our attitudes, our behaviors, you know, how is that formative in the people that you treat? You know, what are you looking at? Because you’re absolutely right it, you know, we can just externalize it, take the vitamin, do the lifestyle, change the diet, but so what give us some insight into how these past imprints affect people’s health?
05:48
Yeah, so just like I was mentioning, you know, a lot of our behaviors are derived from our environment, the world around us, our upbringing, our culture, just all of these things that, you know, we were surrounded with, and kind of learned how to be based on the world around us as we grew up. And so we start to develop these behaviors and these patterns. For instance, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of different cultural traditions. And so maybe you have birthday cake on your birthday, right? That’s just kind of what you do, you have a screening of birthday cake, or maybe in your household every night, before you went to bed, you had an ice cream, or maybe you watch TV, you know, with your family, or there’s just these different things that each family or home or culture has kind of embedded in. And so they become what we do. And if we don’t take a moment to kind of step back and ask, Is this what is best serving me? Or is this what is best for my body? Right, then we can kind of go down, we can continue on with these behaviors and patterns, without really, you know, taking a second thought about it. And that’s where we can get into a little bit of trouble, right? Because there’s, there’s a difference between intentionally choosing, you know, to have a treat, right? It’s it’s summer, it’s warm out, a lot of people are getting ice cream, which is great, right? But it’s important to also just ask yourself, am I choosing this? Or is it a pattern? Is it something that has already been chosen for me, right, by my culture, by my family, by, by, I’m on and on and on, right? And so there’s just so many things that we just don’t even recognize that we do. Just because it’s a habit at this point in our life,
07:51
becomes so unconscious, that we, you know, we don’t even know that we have another option. And that’s why people like us, you know, when they do have a symptom, and we’re able to get to the cause of it. And we can start identifying, you know, what, what are some things you can do to change? I know, one of the, the things you’ve written has to do with what are the steps, you know, what, what are the steps to make healthier choices? So from your perspective, what would you say?
08:25
Yeah, so I think the biggest part and one of the things that one of the reasons why I love nature, Pathak medicine, we do a really thorough and take and I’m sure your practice is very similar. We take a lot of time with our clients and our patients at the beginning, because we really want to understand, you know, how did someone get to where they are? Right? What happens in their life? And what? Sorry, and what to get off on it to join us today. Um, so So what happened, you know, in this person’s life that kind of led them to where they are. And that helps to tell us where there’s room for change. And so the first piece, is that reflection, right, gaining more awareness about yourself. And you know, if you’re working with someone or allowing them to gain more awareness about you, so then we can start gathering information. And we can from there we can know, okay, where do we need a little bit more information. So we might have someone maybe track their food or track their time, right? I think something that we overlook is how we spend our time and our energy. So often, they we don’t have time, what we may really mean is we don’t have the energy to do something. And so how are we spending our energy and so we might have someone track again, just gaining a little bit more awareness. into how someone is feeling throughout the day, right? If someone wants to work on migraines, we’ll Okay, when are you starting to feel them? Because for some people, maybe it’s when they come home, maybe their environment isn’t what they want it to, to be right. But we wouldn’t know that unless we start to really gather some of that information. So the first step is is the awareness piece, it’s gathering information, gaining more awareness. And then the second piece is, is really to do with and I know that you talked about this as well is self regulation and, and really learning how to create a gap between the habit or the pattern or the behavior and a choice, right, you want to be able to, to make the choice. And so that concept first gaining the self awareness, and then second, is gaining a little more self regulation, so that we can begin to pause before we start to before we make the same choice that kind of got us to where we currently are, right. And so so the pause, and that self regulation is, is the next step. And then from there, resiliency is is really, what kind of brings it full circle, in my opinion, because there’s always going to be roadblocks, there’s always going to be obstacles, there’s always going to be you know, life is a bit unpredictable, right? little uncertain. And so we never really know like, what life might throw our way. And so resiliency is saying, okay, but despite this, I still have the ability to choose, right? And so it’s it’s really practicing and honing in on listening to ourselves knowing when to take a break, or, you know, when it when you know, maybe I’m not in this space to continue with this change, I need to pause and then I come back to it, right. So resiliency is, is really honing into that inner knowing that inner guide a little bit more so that we can we can know when do I need to rest? When do I need to pause? When do I need to power on? Right? So it goes awareness. empowerment, and then resiliency is is that cycle of how we start to really make lasting change?
12:29
Yeah, you know, you bring up some really good points. I know that. In my practice, I counsel families and some of the kids have developmental delays. And we have something called the daily plan of organization where the parents and the children get together and they come up with a schedule, because there’s that structure that that helps them. Number one, stay on task. And number two, that’s self awareness that you talk about. And then the resiliency piece. I remember one of my teachers used to say, you know, it’s great to be disoriented, and then you have to work to reorient, and that neurological flexibility is so important in developing that resiliency. And in today’s healthcare climate. I think we’re being asked to do that, you know, through our immune health, our digestive health, reducing inflammation, you know, all the things that you talk about, but what I want to get to the to the root of it, and I know you talk about this a lot. By the way, we’re here with Dr. Kirsten de, which is a naturopathic physician, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncturist and she’s based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. So we’re coming down towards the end and I want to make sure I get this question for you. How does health of the mind impact the body and the body impact the mind?
14:02
Mm hmm. Yeah, so this is probably my biggest you know, something that I really try to get people to understand this is why I love acupuncture and this is why I mind body medicine This is why I love nature Pathak medicine, because they’re, you know, they’re holistic systems and, and the vibe is it’s all connected, right? So it’s in that one thing is going to impact a mother right? learning more about the gut brain access about the heart brain access about the heart gut access, right? But it’s because they’re all connected. That’s just how you know our nervous system. If you look at our nervous system, it innervates the whole body right from our head to our toes to our organs. And so, when you when you just take a look at that alone, it really there is no question of how interconnected Everything really is. So it’s so important to be able to look at the body as a whole, and to see how deeply connected they are. Right. So, just yesterday, so I work at I also do the nada protocol, which is an irregular acupuncture protocol for addiction and, and trauma. And so I was just doing a little, a little meditation with a group the other day that I work on this with and, and what I have them do is just bring to mind, you know, things that they’re wanting to let go, right and to the moment and noticing, just by having those thoughts how your body feels, right, because we have a physiological change, right, maybe our heart rate starts to increase our part, our palms start to sweat, we have this physiological change just to these thoughts, right, or memories, or whatever, you know, whatever it may be. And so for them to be able to recognize, wow, when I when I think about this thing, I this is how my body feels, that’s a big shift in awareness, just to be able to start you guys, right? how, you know, and then to be able to shift that to Okay, now, what are things that you want to bring into your life? Right? Hmm, think about those things like what are what are just read those things. And then notice, like how your body feels when just thinking about those things? Right? Again, gaining that self awareness of, if I’m inundating myself with these negative thoughts, or these negative behaviors or patterns, how, how is my body feeling with that? Right? What am I putting on my body in that way? Or, and so with that, we start to see, you know, maybe someone comes in and they have constipation. And, and, and they, you know, they run the gamut of tasks, and they don’t find anything structural. Right. So, so that’s when we need to start thinking about, okay, well, you know, how, how are How are their thoughts? Right? Right, maybe they’re holding on to something. And so that’s when we can really start to notice just how impactful our mind is to our body. And we know that it goes both ways. So acupuncture, we talk about like, stagnation of the blood or CSUs of the blood or stagnation of the chi. And so, so, traditional Chinese medicine or any kind of has this understanding of how, how the body and the mind are connected, you see that like in the five element theory, each organ is connected with a different emotion. And it’s, it’s not quite as translated into western medicine, though, and, but we know, right, but now we’re starting to recognize, okay, we know that the gut microbiome, right can have changes in our mood and it can it can impact the health of our brain and, and of our mind, and so we’re starting to understand how deeply connected the body to the mind and they’re one in the same because it’s all connected, just is
18:34
that’s all connected. I know that you do virtual naturopathic consultations, how can people get in touch with you What what are the best avenues?
18:49
Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram. Now my I’m kind of shifting like I was mentioning to you earlier simplifying down right simplify the amplify and so now you can find me at vibrantly dot well on Instagram or you can find me on my website vibrantly, wild calm. And so that’s where you book, I do a free 15 minute consultation where we can kind of talk about, you know, what might be the right path for you before before getting started, but I just I love working with people in any capacity that I can. And so helping people virtually I’ll just allows me to help more people.
19:37
Right. So I will put your contact information on the podcast notes. And I want to thank you so much for spending some time with us today. And I wish you the best of luck and we’ll we’ll see you down the road sometime.
19:53
All right. Thank you so much. Always great talking to you, Sam. Thank you
20:04
Thank you for listening. I hope you learn something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. see you here next time.
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