Holistic nutrition & Wellness
Make informed and intentional life choices that nourish your nervous system and your mind
Integrative Trauma Recovery
We’re not a collection of isolated parts: a mind here, trauma there with indigestion or a mood now and again. While there’s value in taking a deep dive into one area, our bodies are designed to move, live and experience as a whole. It’s very difficult to move beyond trauma, chronic pain or deep loss without this perspective. Otherwise, wellness becomes a journey of bits and pieces and leaves us vulnerable to sporadic fads.
As an integrative therapist and complex trauma specialist, I work with primarily depressed and anxious emotional states from a mind/body perspective that draws from relational therapeutic practices such as sensorimotor psychotherapy, as well as mindfulness and somatic approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Meditation and Internal Family Systems.
Integrative trauma recovery reflects a mind-body approach to healing that includes counseling, yoga, EMDR, meditation, medication and nutrition. All of you matters.
Though I am not a dietician, in our work together, we focus on your development of skills and strategies that you can use in your everyday life to support your nervous system and increase your capacity and capability to make informed life choices that continue to soothe your mind and align with your spiritual practices, values and purpose.
Remember, we are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual by design. Recovery teaches us how to recognize and respond to the wisdom of our body intent on bringing us into alignment.
Nutrition and Complex Trauma
True to clinical social work perspective that treats clients in the context of their wider ecosystem, the work that we do that supports your nervous system and regulation includes understanding of environmental factors that impact your well-being as well as nutritional deficits and benefits that allow healing context for the mind-body work that we do.
While nutrition might not reflect the conventional understanding of trauma work, including nutrition as part of recovery makes sense to anyone suffering from the complex layers of trauma, attachment wounds, addiction and/or neurodivergence.
Trauma rarely affects only memories or interactions. It also impacts sufferers on a systemic level across multiple domains.
Nutrition is often overlooked which is startling when one considers its crucial role in supporting our nervous system. In our work, we won’t be looking at “nutrition” as simply food. We will also explore the impact of stress and environmental factors that impact gastrointestinal health and things such as environmental toxins. This may play out in the daily routines that we establish to address anxiety and mood which might explore cleaning, cooking and cultural behaviors. For instance, many autistics, trauma survivors and ADHDers live with clutter. This can result from energy deficits, learned behaviors, internalized beliefs or grief.
Indeed, many neurodivergent folk who also experience trauma can attest to the impact of our gut-brain axis on our immune system as well as emotional eating patterns.
Common Health Issues Impacted by Chronic Stress
- Inflammation.
- Diabetes.
- Obesity.
- Insomnia.
- Sleep Apnea.
- Addiction.
- Elevated Blood Pressure.
Working With the Body to Ease Into Balance
Recognizing and Honoring the Body’s Corrective Measures
Integrative work is valuable on a number of levels one of which is validation. Way too often, we see clients who are misdiagnosed or treated as though they symptoms are “all in their head.” This can lead to years of frustration, illness or worse. This also requires integrated healing-where different providers coordinate care to align with symptoms, side-effects and promoting “wholeness” instead of side glimpses and “band aid” solutions.
Systemic Conditions. The clinical history of fibromyalgia is one such tale that illustrates the significance of a mind/body approach to healing particularly when it comes to understanding women’s bodies. Originally termed fibrositis, this condition, was commonly dismissed as a somatization disorder that symptomized a regressive way of manifesting distress. We now know that it is common in those with complex trauma histories and diagnostic criteria includes muscle stiffness, fatigue and sleep disruption. It also has a complex association with inflammation. Because it is difficult to treat, understanding the dietary impacts related to sugar dysregulation and insulin resistance can suggest preventative and other measures that might provide relief. This is significant when we factor in the fact that in the region of 80% of those with chronic pain also have PTSD.
SAD Diet. The Standard American Diet typically refers to a diet consisting largely of processed foods, saturated and trans fats, high levels of sugar and sodium as well as relatively low intake of vegetables, whole grains and fruits. It’s a diet that tends to be relatively inexpensive, fast and accessible. It’s considered unhealthy as it’s associated with increased risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer.
When explored in a wider context, the SAD or Western diet touches on many issues including systemic versus individual responsibility, policy and power, and the interplay between race, history and economics that play into access and affordability.
Building Biological Resilience. How does nutrition fit into all of this? A time honored approach to healing trauma is recognizing and reducing or even eliminating stressors. Exercise, sleep and nutrition are key ways that support psychological resilience to balance out glucose metabolism, enhance mitochondria and stabilize blood pressure. As we age, our bodies can struggle to maintain balance if we don’t supplement or change our diet.
you can’t think your way into wholeness. We are heads connected to bodies. when our mind is in distress, our bodies and physical well being is also at issue.
Multiple Pathways to Healing
How do you experience "aliveness?"
Identifying and Supporting Restorative Practices
We can think of our identity and health in many ways, but we’re comprised of systems, hormones and rhythms.
“Being in touch with yourself” required more than thinking.
It’s connecting to these different aspects of “aliveness.” If we are always in our heads, it’s hard to know what the body is doing, what that means and how to respond.
We often discuss trauma in terms of how it affects our member and experience of the present.
Trauma also disrupts the flow of various body systems, hormones and rhythm.
From this perspective, healing is more than managing symptoms or taking medicine. It’s about nourishing ourselves on the deepest level in routines that keep this consistent and balanced.
When we approach healing only from the head, we can easily drift into formulaic approaches that tend to operate on the surface without regard for the lifespan or even the well-being of future generations.
Putting It All Together
Restoring Trust for a Healthy Relationship
Many of the symptoms reported by clients are not only a result of over reliance on never ending mind chatter that disregards the body’s wisdom, but they don’t even get to the root of many other issues resulting from a neglected body.
Instead of trying to tackle the myriad off issues that arise from living from the neck up, we get more “bang for our buck” focusing on noticing and then responding to the body.
More specifically, in recognizing that all relationships require intimate understanding of the ultimate relationship which is with yourself. Much of “modern life” particularly in Western regions have acclimated to lives that are disrespectful and have disregard towards the body. We neglect it, abuse it and often live existences that have no awareness of body limits.
Trauma, attachment wounds and sensory conditions also play their part in keeping us out of our bodies.
Here’s the good news. The body is very forgiving and has a much better tolerance than we display. It will often respond to small and slow gestures. It will learn to trust you again.
A lifestyle built on routines that foster movement, awareness of where we are and what we put into our bodies can help us recognize the signs that direct us towards healthier choices.
Chronic Stress, CPTSD and Health
Adversity, trauma and disconnection disrupt the basic flow of body systems designed to keep us healthy and imbalance.
When you scroll for hours on social media saying to yourself that it “helps you sleep,” are you really avoiding the “intrusiveness” of thoughts and emotions you kept at bay through work and other busyness? Are you pushing away the boredom with the abrupt halt of adrenaline/dopamine that you rely on to get you motivated?
Part of our brain that is mainly active only at night is dedicated to flushing toxic waste. It can heal traumatic brain injury. That’s part of the cost of scrolling on IG.
The blue light disrupts our sleep/wake biological cycle that relies on natural light to kick the body into restorative mode and keep us alert during the day. That’s the real price of some funny reels or our addiction to “thrilling” and scary news to help us feel alive.
Our fatigue that keeps us from cleaning and puts us in clutter mode can increase our exposure to mold from decaying food and build up in grout in our showers in poorly ventilated bathrooms.
Poor diets with excessive processed foods don’t restore the nutrients we lost just through aging. By 40 years of age, our nitric oxide that affects our circadian rhythm is down 50%. No wonder we have trouble sleeping.
Multiple Systems of Moving Parts
Benefits of integrative therapy
Integrative therapy for trauma combines holistic and complementary treatments to address the physical and psychological effects of trauma.
How we move our body, what we put inside and our interaction with our environments all play a part of our health. We are dynamic and comprised of many elements that were designed to flow and operate in synch. Our convention of identifying symptoms is just that. They don’t exist in isolated and static states in our body. An aching back or a headache can be many things and impacted by your mood, thoughts, beliefs and posture.
Trauma Based Holistic Care
Addressing the mental, emotional, and physical effects of trauma.
- Empowering, personalized and respectful. We focus on an individual’s unique needs and goals, and listen to the body. Sometimes, it’s not the narrative you’ve been telling yourself over and over.
- Trauma Sensitive. We may not be able to recall events with our memories, but the body holds all of our experiences. It is designed around preserving actual safety and survival.
- Culture. Not all elements of culture are healthy. Many are adapted around trauma. But having an awareness of history and events can make us open to reclaiming healthy practices and understanding nutrition trauma and other disruptive habits and lifestyles we have adapted as convenient, useful or necessary.
Areas of Treatment Focus
- Mind and emotion
- Self-compassion
- Purpose and meaning
- Relationships and social well-being
- Affect regulation
- Routine building
- Gentle starts
Autism & ADHD
Recognizing and responding to:
- Our attitudes and emotions regarding change & transitions
- Energy depletion
- Expectations of Self and Others
- Trauma
- Diverse ways of processing information Underlying narratives, often subconscious